The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Wednesday, September 24, 2025

Readings: From Reporters Without Borders, a piece called “Gazawood,” on the “deadly accusations against Gaza journalists.” “On 11 August 2025, just a few hours after the killing of Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al‑Sharif in a targeted strike on a tent sheltering a group of journalists near the Al‑Shifa Hospital in western Gaza, a chilling image was posted on the Telegram channel of Or Fialkov, who has been presented by some Israeli media as a researcher and expert in war and terrorism — even though it appears he has no diploma or academic qualifications in the field, and the company under his name offers digital marketing services. He recently published a photo of two Gazan journalists, Mohnad Qashta and Mohamed al‑Sharif, with a target photoshopped over their faces alongside a call for murder: “Here are other ‘journalists’ the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) must eliminate in Gaza.” When contacted by RSF, Or Fialkov said that he stands by his demand “for the elimination of terrorists,” but denies issuing an “incitement to murder.”  He justifies his claims by alleging that Mohnad Qashta himself stated his brother was a Hamas terrorist. He also believes that Mohamed al‑Sharif — the uncle of Anas al‑Sharif, killed on 11 August and accused of terrorism by Or Falkov— was replacing his nephew “within Hamas and on the air of Al Jazeera.” Or Fialkov cited the website Media Watch Legal to back up these unsubstantiated claims, yet the site does not mention these two journalists. The launch of Media Watch Legal was announced on 2 September by Amichai Chikli, the Minister for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism — the very day after a mass communications operation to support Gaza’s journalists coordinated by RSF and the global civic movement Avaaz. Media Watch Legal’s stated aim is to flag “fake journalists.” It is one of several examples of the Israeli authorities’ sustained investment in the media sphere. A recent investigation by Israel‑based independent outlets +972 Magazine and Local Call also revealed the existence of a secret military intelligence unit, dubbed a “legitimation cell,” tasked with finding purported links between Gaza journalists and Hamas. […] More absurd still, Media Watch Legal claimed in a now‑deleted post that Moustafa Thuraya, a journalist who worked with the French press agency Agence France‑Presse (AFP), was not a real journalist based on the sole evidence that his Facebook account shares “three mutual friends with three individuals identified as affiliated with Hamas,” noting he had no direct Facebook connections with Hamas members. In January 2024, Moustafa Thuraya was killed in a targeted Israeli strike alongside Hamza al‑Dahdouh from Al Jazeera. The Israeli army claimed that they “belonged to terrorist groups,” without providing sufficient evidence. The spokesperson for Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to the RSF request for comment. […] Another common accusation against Gaza’s journalists is that they stage their depictions of daily life in the blockaded enclave, closed off since October 2023. Gaza’s journalists are regularly suspected of fabricating their images and videos, a smear campaign grouped under the labels “Gazawood” or “Pallywood” (a portmanteau of “Palestine” and “Hollywood”), a reference to the famous California cinema scene. The label is amplified by several influential pro‑Israeli accounts on social media, including one account on the platform X openly named “Gazawood” that counts over 90,000 followers. The Israeli fact‑checking NGO Fake Reporter identified the individuals behind the account as a former Israeli general, an Israeli author of young adult books and the US historian Richard Landes — the very person who coined the term “Pallywood.” The report analysed over 700 posts of Gazawood content and found that only 5.75 per cent were accurate.”

What happens when American Jews discover that they have been duped, that they have constructed an allegiance to Israel on the basis of irrational guilt, of vengeful fantasies, above all, above all, based on the most naive delusions about the moral identity of this state? Because this state has no moral identity. It has forfeited its moral identity, if ever it had any to begin with. By relentlessly institutionalizing the Holocaust it has even forfeited its claim to the Holocaust! The state of Israel has drawn the last of its moral credit out of the bank of the dead six million-this is what they have done by breaking the hands of Arab children on the orders of their illustrious minister of defense.

–From Philip Roth’s Operation Shylock (1999).

The Cartoon and Live Briefing Archive.