Biden shrugged off staff advice against 'beheaded Israeli babies' lie
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The Washington Post has reported that several White House advisors urged the President to "cut a line about Hamas beheading babies because those reports were unverified."
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President Joe Biden speaks to reporters in Massachusetts on November 26, 2023. (AP)
US President Joe Biden allegedly defied staff advice to avoid spreading unconfirmed accusations that Hamas beheaded babies on October 7 during Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
The Washington Post reported that several White House advisors urged the President to "cut a line about Hamas beheading babies because those reports were unverified."
The White House clarified that Biden and other American officials have neither witnessed nor independently confirmed that Palestinian Resistance fighters beheaded Israeli children, hours after Biden blindly adopted the false Israeli claims that were widely circulated by Western media in an attempt to defame and demonize the Resistance.
The Washington Post detailed "to some degree" disagreements within the White House over the handling of the war on Gaza between Biden's top longstanding advisors and a variety of younger workers.
According to the story, while Biden prepared his huge pro-"Israel" speech on October 10, Vice President Kamala Harris requested that he include a sentence condemning Islamophobia in the speech, according to two White House sources.
The sources say Biden took the suggestion but rejected others like cutting a line about the beheading of babies by Hamas since they were not yet verified.
The next day, Biden met with five prominent Muslim Americans who criticized him for his insensitivity to the people who were dying in Gaza, and according to sources, Biden appeared to be shaken by their criticism, stating at the time that he was "disappointed" in himself, vowing he would "do better".
Read more: Poll points, clout Biden's main concern in opposite narratives on Gaza
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Who is behind the fabricated claim of 'beheaded babies'?
It is noteworthy that the false claims about Palestinian Resistance fighters allegedly killing and beheading babies were made by an Israeli occupation reserve soldier named David Ben Zion, who The Grayzone news website earlier identified as an extremist settler leader who had previously incited riots by calling for the Palestinian town of Huwara to be "wiped out".
Elsewhere, The Grayzone report mentioned that Ben Zion had repeatedly called for war crimes and the "deportation of the [Palestinian] masses," characterizing in 2016 the Palestinian people as enemies with a "barbaric DNA."
FAKE NEWS: DEAD BABY PROPAGANDA BY THE MEDIA AND SHAPIRO
— Sulaiman Ahmed (@ShaykhSulaiman) October 12, 2023
The story about the 40 beheaded babies has been thoroughly debunked. The Israelis are now engaged in damage control.
They stated that they couldn't release footage of the beheaded baby due to respect, yet they released… pic.twitter.com/6Zymun0ltU
An international condemnation ensued after the Israeli Foreign Ministry claimed that Palestinian Resistance fighters from the Gaza Strip had killed "40 babies" and beheaded some of them during an attack on the illegal "Kfar Azza" kibbutz on the border with Gaza as part of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood that the Resistance launched against the Israeli occupation.
Although the Israeli occupation military spokesperson denied information regarding "Hamas beheading babies," the unverified claims reached top-level leadership, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's spokesperson and US President Joe Biden marginally alluding to the reports of babies and toddlers' "heads decapitated".
In the same context, some reporters who initially supported the Israeli allegations began reporting on their own observations that showed otherwise.
Oren Ziv, an Israeli reporter who was present during the Israeli occupation military's official tour in "Kfar Azza", posted on X that "during the tour, we didn’t see any evidence of this, and the army spokesperson or commanders also didn’t mention any such incidents."
Similarly, a correspondent of The Independent, Bel Trew, disowned the narrative in a post on X.
"I just wanted to clarify that I did not tweet 40 babies had been beheaded. I tweeted that foreign media had been told women and children had been decapitated but we had not been shown bodies - which was my response to reports which had gone viral about the 40 babies. I realized the way my tweet was written was too short to explain the full context, so I deleted it. My headline of my story references that toddlers were killed."
I just wanted to clarify that I did not tweet 40 babies had been beheaded. I tweeted that foreign media had been told women and children had been decapitated but we had not been shown bodies - which was my response to reports which had gone viral about the 40 babies. I realised… pic.twitter.com/RMYBSJ8BhL
— Bel Trew (@Beltrew) October 11, 2023
