Almost immediately after Hamas’s October 7 attacks, observers ascribed their scope and success to an Israeli intelligence failure. But how did it actually happen? https://t.co/Df85BOsrMf
— Modern War Institute (@WarInstitute) November 3, 2023
Day: November 12, 2023
How Israel’s Feared Security Services Failed to Stop Hamas’s Attack
Hamas’s infiltration into Israel was made possible by a series of security failures on the part of both Israeli intelligence agencies and the military.
The four officials said the success of the attack, based… https://t.co/QXUH2rWa7P pic.twitter.com/LSUnybwDpl
— Frankie™️🦅 (@B7frankH) October 11, 2023
#039atrocious039 #killing #Jason #Corbett #beauty #queen #FBI #agent #bludgeoned #Irish #fatheroftwo #death #baseball #bat #areresentenced #years #prison
In August 2015, businessman Jason Corbett was found bludgeoned to death in the bedroom of his North Carolina home.
The father-of-two – who was 39 and originally from Ireland – had been beaten with a baseball bat and concrete brick, sustaining so many injuries that a coroner was unable to count them all.
Shortly afterwards, Jason’s second wife Molly Martens, 40, and her father Thomas, 73, who is a former FBI agent, were arrested and later found guilty of second degree murder.
Both the father and daughter claimed they acted in self-defence – but the second degree murder charge meant the jury concluded Jason was killed out of malice. They were both sentenced with 20-25 years in prison.
But in 2020, an appeals court overturned the judge’s decision to block Jason’s children’s original statements from being read.
Pictured: Molly Martens with husband Jason Corbett before his death in August 2015. She faced a retrial after pleading no contest to voluntary manslaughter
Last month, the father and daughter entered plea deals to voluntary manslaughter: Corbett pleaded no contest and Martens pleaded guilty to the charge.
Following their pleas, Davidson Superior Court Judge David Hall sentenced Molly Corbett and Thomas Martens to spend between 51 and 74 months in prison, news outlets reported.
Each will serve only seven months behind bars, thanks to good behaviour sentencing reduction earned during the 44 months they’ve already served, their attorneys said. Each had previously been sentenced to serve from 20 to 25 years.
Here FEMAIL takes a look back over the twists and turns of the gruesome case that has gripped the US and Ireland for the past eight years.
In 2006, Jason lost his first wife Margaret Fitzpatrick Corbett following an asthma attack. The couple had been living in Limerick, Ireland and shared children Jack and Sarah.
During the recent trial, Margaret’s family disputed any suggestion that Jason could have been involved in her death – describing him as a ‘warm and caring person who loved Mags more than anything else in his life.’
Two years later, Jason hired then 24-year-old Molly Martens, who was a former beauty queen from Tennessee, to be the children’s nanny and the pair quickly fell in love.
Speaking to CBS News’ 48 Hours in 2019, Jason’s sister Jocelyn said the family ‘began to see glimpses of the old Jason coming back’ when he became involved with Molly. She added: ‘He wasn’t so sad all the time.’
According to the Irish Times, Molly was welcomed into the family by the children she once looked after – and was even lovingly referred to as their ‘mom’.
Pictured: Former nanny Molly Martens during her first trial in Lexington, North Carolina in 2017
Jason Corbett seen with his first wife Margaret on their wedding day. The mother-of-two died in 2007 and was believed to have suffered a fatal asthma attack
In an interview with ABC’s 20/20 in 2017, Molly – who was awaiting trial at the time -said: ‘It was wonderful for me. It gave me a sense of responsibility and it filled a void I had that made me feel like I was worth something.’
One month before their June 2011 wedding, the family moved into a four-bedroom home in the picturesque suburb of Winston-Salem in North Carolina.
Molly added: ‘Jason loved the United States and he thought the opportunities for the children were significantly better.’
However, the couple’s relationship soon began to deteriorate and Molly’s brother Connor told CBS that he noticed more ‘verbal altercations’ between his sister and Jason.
At the time, Molly says the pair were in conflict over whether Jason was going to let her legally adopt Sarah and Jack – making her their mother in the eyes of the law.
Pictured: Retired FBI agent Thomas Martens
Pictured: the four-bedroom house in North Carolina where Jason was killed by his wife and father-in-law in 2015
In the lead-up to his death, Jocelyn said her brother had started talking about moving back to Ireland and was clearly unhappy. Meanwhile, Molly claims her husband became increasingly ‘controlling’ and ‘paranoid’ she would cheat on him.
The year before Jason’s death, it is believed that his relationship with his father-in-law had worsened and Thomas reportedly encouraged Molly to divorce him.
On 2 August 2015, Jason was bludgeoned to death in his bedroom by Molly and her father Thomas – who claims he only intervened because his son-in-law was strangling his daughter.
Molly claims she was woken up in the middle of the night by Jason’s daughter Sarah – who had had a nightmare.
The children’s step-mother says Jack and Sarah would whisper at the bedroom door to get Molly’s attention as they knew they weren’t supposed to wake up Jason.
After getting Sarah back to sleep in her room, Molly claims she returned to bed and accidentally disturbed Jason – who was furious that she had ‘coddled’ the eight-year-old.
Pictured: Jack and Sarah Corbett before their father’s death in August 2015. The children are now living in Ireland with family
Pictured: Thomas seen dancing with daughter Molly on her wedding day to Jason in 2011, shortly after the family relocated to the US
Downstairs, Molly’s father – who had made an impromptu overnight visit with wife Sharon – said he heard ‘thumping’ and instantly felt something ‘wasn’t right’.
Molly claims Jason wanted to make her be quiet so he covered her mouth and started choking her.
‘At some point, when he stopped, I screamed, and he started again, and the next thing I remember is my dad standing in the doorway,’ she told ABC.
Thomas claims he walked into the couple’s bedroom to find Jason with Molly in a chokehold. He says his son-in-law told him he was going to kill Molly as he dragged her towards their bathroom.
Jack and Sarah Corbett seen being comforted by their aunt Tracey Lynch at their father’s funeral in 2015
At this point, Thomas claims he hit Jason in the back of the head with a metal baseball bat – but then alleges the Irish father was strong enough to grab it off of him.
The pair claim a struggle ensued as Molly feared Jason would then hit Thomas with the bat.
She added: ‘I’m trying’ to hit him with the bat, and hit him with this end of the bat, and hit him with my elbow, and hit him with my fist, or anything else… but I’m going to hang onto that bat.
‘And he goes down, and I’ve got the bat… and I back off.’
In his 911 call, Thomas tells emergency services: ‘My son-in-law got in a fight with my daughter, I intervened and he’s in bad shape. We need help.’
When asked for specifics, Thomas added: ‘He’s bleeding all over and I may have killed him.’
Molly claims her husband was strangling her and yelling ‘I’m going to kill you’ when her father intervened.
During the 2017 ABC interview, Thomas said: ‘I’m going to do everything that I have to do to save her life. And if I die trying, well… she’s my daughter. I’m not going to live with not trying. I’ll tell you that.’
Jason Corbett’s children Jack and Sarah recanted the original statements they gave to the police after returning to Ireland
In February 2016, the father and daughter went on trial at Davidson Superior Court.
Greg Brown, the attorney representing the state of North Carolina in the case, said the crime was especially ‘heinous, atrocious and cruel’.
Both applied for bail, which was not opposed, and was granted on the condition that $200,000 was lodged with the court for each defendant, that they surrender their passports and agree to cease all contact with Mr Corbett’s immediate family, specifically his children Jack and Sarah.
Jason’s autopsy showed he died from blunt force trauma to his head. The description of the ‘means of death’ is a ‘ball bat and landscaping stone’.
During the trial, forensic experts argued that the physical evidence – including blood splatter patterns – proved that Jason sustained severe head injuries while on his bedroom floor.
Molly Martens seen being led away in handcuffs as she is escorted to a prison van in Davidson County Court during her 2015 trial
The prosecution also disputed Thomas and Molly’s timeline as paramedics arrived on the scene to find Jason’s body cold to the touch
The prosecution also disputed Thomas and Molly’s timeline as paramedics arrived on the scene to find Jason’s body cold to the touch.
Following their father’s death, Jack and Sarah were interviewed by officers who upheld Molly’s claims that Jason ‘physically and verbally hurt’ their step-mother.
Eight-year-old Sarah said at the time: ‘He would scream at my mom every day, or sometimes twice a day. He would fight with her. One time I saw him step on her foot. He called her bad names.’
In a separate interview, Jack said: ‘He would physically and verbally hurt my mom. She would cry and try to plug her ears. Sometimes she would just curl herself up in a ball. It made me very sad and angry.’
Pictured: Sarah Corbett Lynch seen outside the North Carolina courthouse as she attends her stepmother’s retrial
The children both also recalled being coached by Molly’s mother Sharon to call her and use the code-words ‘peacock’ and ‘galaxy’ if their father turned violent. However, Sarah said she never actually had to put the plan into action – and simply practised a lot.
However, following their return to Ireland, Jack and Sarah recanted their statements – a move which Molly and Thomas’ legal team have claimed was influenced by Jason’s family.
As a result, the judge deemed Sarah and Jack Corbett’s initial statements inadmissible and they were not presented to the jury in 2015.
After finding the father and daughter guilty, juror Miriam Figueroa said they did not believe the choking incident took place as Molly never had any reported injuries from the hospital at the time.
‘The evidence to me did not suggest that the story that was fabricated ever occurred,’ she said. ‘There was no doubt in my mind that I made and my fellow jurors made the right choice.’
‘Once you hit a certain point and you do not stop, manslaughter or self-defence goes off the table. Once that point was matched where you could have stopped then and there, once the person was no longer an aggressor, if that were the case, and you continue, it’s no longer self-defence.’
Figueroa claimed the duo allowed some time to pass before contacting 911, suggesting that, if they were victim in the event, the call would have been their top priority.
Molly Martens appeared in high spirits as she arrived for the retrial at Davidson County Courthouse on 30 October 2023
‘I think at some point dad came to help out and cover it up. There was blood on the pillow and on the comforter. That may have been the first blow, and then it progressed from that point where he got out of bed and she might have struck him more than one time in bed,’ Figueroa speculated.
Nancy Perez – who was another juror – said she struggled with Molly and Thomas’ self-defence argument due to the graphic photos from the crime scene.
The juror said she threw up in the courtroom after being shown a photo of Jason Corbett’s body.
After the guilty verdict was read in court, Molly Corbett said: ‘I’m really sorry to my mom, he should have just killed me’ according to ABC News.
Molly and Tom were three years into their 25-year sentence when an appeals court reviewed their case.
In 2020, an appeal court supported Molly and Thomas’ appeal – citing that not all of the evidence, including Sarah and Jack’s initial statements and Molly’s secret recording, was presented to the jury.
Earlier this year, Molly Martens pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter while Thomas pleaded guilty to the same charge.
As such, their second-degree murder charges were dropped. Although voluntary manslaughter carries a maximum sentence of 25 years, this is only if there are multiple aggravating factors.
During the retrial, jurors heard an audio clip Molly had recorded in February 2015 where Jason yelled at his wife for not preparing a meal that he wanted to eat with Jack and Sarah.
Instead, Molly had fed the children early and taken them to play in the snow before Jason returned home from work.
Jason is heard saying: ‘I’m talking to you! Is this how you treat… you just ignore me? I said I’d like to have dinner with my family. I’m talking to you. I shouldn’t have to say it over and over.’
Judge David Hall addresses Molly Corbett, left, as she pleads no contest to voluntary manslaughter during a hearing
The short clip ends with Sarah screaming at Molly and Jason to try and put an end to the argument.
In a pre-trial interview with ABC from 2017, Molly said she had consulted a solicitor who had told her to record any altercations which she could use as evidence in divorce proceedings.
District Attorney Alan Martin told the court this month: ‘You have now heard one singular, secretive recording when there were other recordings made and not submitted.’
During the sentencing hearing, Molly Martens’ attorney Douglas Kingsbery argued that Jack and Sarah’s 2021 recantations contained language similar to several interviews his aunt has given.
The defence also argued that it would have been challenging to ‘coach’ the children for their first interview within 24 hours of their father’s murder – with them later offering to recant their statements after months in their aunt’s care.
In his statement, Jack claimed that he never saw his father hit Molly but he did remember them having verbal arguments.
The teenager also claims his stepmother told him that he would never see her again if she did not tell social workers that her father assaulted her.
As a result of this claim, the court then delved into the death of Jack and Sarah’s mother Margaret Corbett.
Although Margaret was said to have died of asthma in 2007, Dr George Nichols – a Kentucky-based retired chief medical examiner – said he couldn’t rule out the possibility of it being a homicide.
Referencing her two-pace autopsy, the expert said: ‘This woman died in the family car on the way to the hospital. She was not resuscitatable. No cause of death was established at all.’
Dr Nichols was critical of the post-mortem and said there was a ‘whole bunch of stuff missing’ from the autopsy.
According to the expert, Margaret was not found to have had inflamed lungs – which is normally present in this kind of case.
When asked if Margaret’s death could have been a homicide, the expert said: ‘It is possible but nowhere close to probable.’
However, Dr Nicols did assert that Margaret definitely did not die of a asthma attack.
Following this update, Jason and Margaret’s friend Lynn Shanahan – who is also Sarah’s godmother – said : ‘If I knew what gas lighting was when Molly moved to Ireland I would have seen how she manipulated Jason to get what she wanted.
‘I’d have seen how she used Jason’s grief against him, and his desire to do everything for his children.’
Molly’s attorneys argued that Jason’s second wife had begun to fear that she may meet the same fate as Margaret.
Shortly after Jason’s death, Molly gave a statement to police alleging that her husband would force her to have sex by placing his hand over her mouth and nose until she passed out.
Thomas Martens’ attorney Jay Vannoy told the court that the retired FBI agent ‘accepts responsibility that his actions were excessive’.
He said: ‘We don’t deny that he hit multiple times. The question at sentencing is why?’
The defence argues that Thomas’ cognition was impaired as he was so distressed seeing his daughter allegedly being attacked.
In their closing statements, the prosecution claimed that Molly Martens ‘bashed Jason’s skull’ after learning that he wanted to take the children back to Ireland.
Prosecutor Alan Martin told the court that the stepmother was aware ‘the endgame was coming’ and jumped at the opportunity of having her father present in the house on the night of Jason’s death.
He claimed: ‘Adoption was her desire’.
Meanwhile, Dr Scott Hampton – the director of Ending the Violence – said that the extent of Jason’s injuries were a ‘measure of how terrified Molly and Tom were’.
This statement resulted in gasps among Jason’s family, which led to Judge Hall threatening to have disruptive members of the public thrown out of the courtroom.
Dr Hampton added: ‘If you don’t get to adopt the kids you can’t leave. That’s how he kept her trapped. Everyone can agree Molly is all about the kids, she applied for the job, and she was all about the kids.’
As such, Dr Hampton said killing Jason would not have helped Molly – as the children returned to live in Ireland with his family because she had no legal rights to them.
Corbett and her father were sentenced on Wednesday to a minimum of four years and a maximum of six years – and received credit for the three years and eight months they already served. The pair was also ordered to not contact Corbett’s family.
Updated [hour]:[minute] [AMPM] [timezone], [monthFull] [day], [year]
NEW YORK (AP) — FBI agents quietly seized phones and an iPad from New York City Mayor Eric Adams early this week as part of an investigation into political fundraising during his 2021 campaign, his attorney disclosed Friday.
The seizures happened as Adams was leaving a public event in Manhattan, according to a statement from the mayor’s attorney, Boyd Johnson.
“On Monday night, the FBI approached the mayor after an event. The Mayor immediately complied with the FBI’s request and provided them with electronic devices,” Johnson said. “The mayor has not been accused of any wrongdoing and continues to cooperate with the investigation.”
The seizure of the devices, first reported by The New York Times, came four days after federal agents searched the Brooklyn home of Adams’ top campaign fundraiser, Brianna Suggs. That search prompted the mayor to cancel a planned trip to meet with White House officials in Washington and instead return to New York.
In a statement on Friday, Adams, a former police captain, said he had “nothing to hide.”
“As a former member of law enforcement, I expect all members of my staff to follow the law and fully cooperate with any sort of investigation — and I will continue to do exactly that,” he said.
The revelation of the seizure is the clearest evidence yet that federal investigators are interested in Adams, who has previously kept an arms-length distance from ethics scandals that have dogged several of his associates.
Adams, a Democrat, said nothing publicly about his phones being seized when he met with reporters on Wednesday and insisted he wasn’t aware of any wrongdoing by members of his campaign team. He said he would be “shocked” if anyone on his campaign acted inappropriately.
But in his statement Friday, Adams’ attorney said they had “discovered that an individual had recently acted improperly.” His campaign spokesperson declined to identify the person involved or say what they did wrong.
“After learning of the federal investigation, it was discovered that an individual had recently acted improperly. In the spirit of transparency and cooperation, this behavior was immediately and proactively reported to investigators,” Johnson said, offering no further details.
Representatives for the U.S. attorney in Manhattan and the FBI both declined to comment.
The focus of the investigation hasn’t been publicly disclosed by prosecutors, but a search warrant obtained by The New York Times indicated authorities are examining whether the Adams campaign conspired with the Turkish government to receive donations from foreign sources, funneled through straw donors.
The warrant also requested information about Adams’ use of New York City’s matching funds program, which provides candidates with an eightfold match of a city resident’s first donations.
Over the summer, Manhattan prosecutors brought charges against six people who allegedly sought to manipulate the fundraising program to funnel tens of thousands of dollars to Adams’ 2021 mayoral campaign. Adams has not been charged in that case.
A campaign spokesperson said the FBI has since returned some, but not all, of Adams’ devices.
Photos show Adams spoke Monday evening at an autism awareness event at New York University. The following day, his spokesperson announced that Adams would not travel to Puerto Rico for an annual conference widely attended by New York’s political players.
At his news conference Wednesday, Adams told reporters his absence at the conference was the result of New York’s “serious fiscal crisis,” adding that it wouldn’t be appropriate “to have on a flowery shirt lying on a beach drinking a margarita.” He was previously scheduled to receive a humanitarian award at the conference, according to a flyer of the event.
The Democrat also reiterated earlier statements that he had no personal knowledge of any improper fundraising, and didn’t believe he had anything to personally fear from the investigation. He praised Suggs, 25, as a “brilliant young lady” who “followed the rules.”
Suggs has declined comment through a spokesperson.
At the time, the mayor’s chief City Hall lawyer had confirmed that the administration was communicating with federal prosecutors, but declined to discuss what that entailed.
Adams, 63, was elected mayor two years ago and has been in office since January 2022. He went into politics after a 22-year police career, serving as a state senator and in the largely ceremonial position of Brooklyn borough president before running for mayor.
A political centrist, Adams rode a tough-on-crime message to victory in the 2021 Democratic mayoral primary before defeating Republican Curtis Sliwa in the general election.
In September, Adams’ top building-safety official, Eric Ulrich, was charged with taking $150,000 in bribes and improper gifts from associates and repaying them with favors that included access to top officials, including Adams, and help doing business with the city.
___
Associated Press writers Michael R. Sisak and Karen Matthews contributed to this report.
DW News published this video item, entitled “Leaders at Islamic-Arab summit demand end to Israeli military operations in Gaza | DW News” – below is their description.
World leaders at the Islamic-Arab summit have called for an immediate end to Israeli military operations in Gaza, rejecting Israel’s justification of its actions as self-defense.
The Islamic-Arab summit, hosted by Saudi Arabia, has urged the International Criminal Court to investigate “war crimes” it accuses Israel of committing in the Palestinian territories. The leaders have called for an end to the siege of Gaza and a halt to arms exports to Israel. But the leaders didn’t approve collective economic and political measures against Israel.
DW News YouTube Channel
Got a comment? Leave your thoughts in the comments section, below. Please note comments are moderated before publication.
DW News is a global English-language news and information channel from German public international broadcaster Deutsche Welle, established in summer 2015.
Recent from DW News:
The International Criminal Court is an intergovernmental organization and international tribunal that sits in The Hague, Netherlands. The ICC is the first and only permanent international court with jurisdiction to prosecute individuals for the international crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. It is intended to complement existing national judicial systems and it may therefore exercise its jurisdiction only when national courts are unwilling or unable to prosecute criminals.
2 Recent Items: International Criminal Court
Israel, a Middle Eastern country on the Mediterranean Sea, is regarded by Jews, Christians and Muslims as the biblical Holy Land. Its most sacred sites are in Jerusalem. Within its Old City, the Temple Mount complex includes the Dome of the Rock shrine, the historic Western Wall, Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Israel’s financial hub, Tel Aviv, is known for its Bauhaus architecture and beaches.
2 Recent Items: Israel
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, is a country in Western Asia constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula.
Saudi Arabia also has one of the world’s youngest populations, with approximately 50 percent of its population of 34.2 million being under 25 years old.
2 Recent Items: Saudi Arabia
/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/6IHC2LTTX5LRXIYZWFB42KOGNY.jpg)
AMSTERDAM/LONDON, Oct 18 (Reuters) – As the Israel-Hamas war rages, regulators and analysts say a wave of online disinformation risks further inflaming passions and escalating the conflict in an electronic fog of war.
An explosion at a Gaza hospital that killed hundreds of Palestinians on Tuesday is the latest focus of the surge of activity as supporters of both sides in the battle between Israel and Hamas try to bolster their own side’s narrative and cast doubts on the other’s.
U.S. President Joe Biden referred to the challenge of verifying information during the conflict in remarks about the hospital blast on a visit to Israel on Wednesday, saying responsibility for the incident appeared to lie with Israel’s adversaries.
“But there’s a lot of people out there not sure, so we’ve got a lot — we’ve got to overcome a lot of things,” Biden said.
Reuters fact-checking unit has identified numerous cases of social media posts using fake images and information about the Israel-Hamas conflict, and others in which confusion rather than deliberate disinformation appears to have heightened tensions.
These include:
* An X account under the name Farida Khan claiming to be an Al Jazeera journalist in Gaza posted a message saying they had a video of a “Hamas missile landing in the hospital” in Tuesday’s incident. Al Jazeera subsequently alerted social media users that the account had no ties to the news service. Al Jazeera told Reuters it does not employ a person with the name Farida Khan. The account was later removed.
* A video of Russian President Vladimir Putin speaking about Ukraine last year was shared this month with fabricated subtitles warning the U.S. not to interfere in the Israel-Hamas conflict.
* Amid genuine images showing dead bodies of those killed by Hamas on Oct. 7, a 2015 video of the lynching of a 16-year-old girl in Guatemala has been misrepresented online as showing a young Israeli woman being burnt by a “Palestinian mob”.
* After receiving online criticism about blue and white flags used in her act, the pop singer Pink posted a tweet saying: “I am getting many threats because people mistakenly believe I am flying Israeli flags in my show. I am not.
“I have been using Poi flags since the beginning of this tour. These were used many, many years ago by the Māori people in New Zealand.”
REAL-WORLD CONSEQUENCES
Heightened tensions can have real-world consequences beyond the Israeli towns and kibbutzes where 1,400 Israelis were killed by Hamas gunmen on Oct. 7, and in Gaza, where more than 3,000 Palestinians have been killed so far by Israel’s retaliatory bombardment.
France has been put on its highest security alert after a teacher was killed in an Islamist attack and bomb alerts forced the evacuation of the Louvre museum. Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said the attack bore a link to events in the Middle East.
In Illinois a landlord was charged with hate crimes, accused of stabbing a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy to death and wounding his mother, who were his tenants. The sheriff’s office said they were “targeted by the suspect due to them being Muslim and the on-going Middle Eastern conflict involving Hamas and the Israelis”.
Jewish schools in London closed over the weekend after a Jewish charity that provides security recorded an increase of 400% in antisemitic incidents since the attacks when compared to the same period last year.
In modern conflicts, across the globe as well as in the Middle East, warring sides have long used television – and more recently the internet – to win the war for hearts and minds as well as the war on the ground, often mixing truth with fiction.
Regulators are watching. The EU’s industry chief Thierry Breton called out X, Facebook parent company Meta, TikTok and YouTube for not doing enough to curb disinformation following the attacks. Each company has said they have taken steps to address harmful content.
Since Oct. 7 the Cyber Unit at Israel’s Office of the State Attorney has begun to work to remove content on social networks that distribute content which, they say, incites violence associated with Hamas.
The Israeli prosecutor’s office said it has submitted about 4,450 requests to remove content, according to the following division, most of them to Facebook, TikTok and X, formerly known as Twitter.
Rafi Mendelsohn, a vice-president of the Israeli bot-monitoring firm Cyabra, said more than 40,000 fake accounts have pushed pro-Hamas narratives online, and thousands of them were created more than a year before the attack.
“The scale suggests there was pre-prepared content and manpower into getting it out. We haven’t seen such sophistication with a militant group,” he told Reuters.
TWO NARRATIVES
Some accounts also seem to be involved in pushing out falsehoods, targeting Palestinians and Middle East countries perceived to be pro-Palestinian.
In 2014 the spokesman for Hamas’s military wing, Abu Obaidah, posted a video acknowledging Iranian support for Hamas. In recent days that was reposted online and misrepresented as being recent, to directly implicate Tehran in the latest attack.
And while Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has been critical of Israel’s blockade of Gaza, incorrect subtitles were added to a viral video that circulated on X and Facebook in recent days warning the U.S. not to intervene and that Turkey was “ready to defend Palestine at any price”.
Marc Owen Jones, a disinformation expert and professor at Hamad bin Khalifa University in Qatar, said there was often a rise in disinformation during conflicts.
“I think Hamas are sending mixed messages. On the one hand, videos of attacks that are obviously brutal, on the other, some attempts to try and deflect that with stories about being humane. Clearly they seem directed at different audiences, but the combined effect is to muddy the waters about the truth in the conflict,” he said.
Similarly, he said, anti-Palestinian narratives included claims that Palestinians were staging injuries and deaths with “crisis actors” .
“It is also designed to muddy the waters and paint Palestinians as dishonest – while making people doubt whether the images they see of Palestinian suffering are genuine.”
By Stephanie Burnett in Amsterdam, Stephen Farrell in London and Hardik Vyas in Bangalore. Additional reporting by Abdel Fattah Sherif, Neha Mustafi, Jonathan B Mathew, Reuters Fact Check, Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza, James Mackenzie in Jerusalem and Andrew Mills in Doha, Editing by William Maclean and Angus MacSwan
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Text and video journalist, most recently in Ukraine and as bureau chief in Jerusalem. Stephen has reported from the Middle East, Iraq, South Asia, New York and UK. Previously worked at The New York Times and The Times of London. Co-author of the book ‘Hamas: The Islamic Resistance Movement’.
Jerusalem Center Fellow Izabella Tabarovsky told the JCPA War Room Zoom briefing on October 30, 2023:
For Russian Premier Vladimir Putin, the Hamas-Israel conflict is an opportunity to distract public attention from his war in Ukraine, ongoing for over a year and a half. Putin’s hypocritical condemnation of Gaza’s destruction, while he has purposely targeted civilians, levelled Ukrainian towns, and kidnapped Ukrainian children, shows that consistency is unimportant for his brand of propaganda and foreign policy. In Russia and in the USSR before it, today’s statement can easily supersede yesterday’s for political convenience. Since the October 7th Hamas massacre of Israeli civilians, Putin promptly connected with Arab states while waiting over one week to call Netanyahu. Putin did not condemn Hamas, and realizes the advantages of Arab states’ lack of concern with his war in Ukraine.
Hamas representatives frequently visit with senior officials in the Kremlin’s Foreign Policy ministry in Moscow. Hamas has claimed that Russia provides bullets for its Kalashnikov rifles. Putin has also allowed a small pro-Hamas demonstration in Moscow, while jailing those Russian citizens who dare protest the Ukraine war that may actually affect them. Russia and Putin have longstanding, decades-long relationships with Arab states and with the Palestinian Authority’s Mahmoud Abbas, who completed a doctorate in the Soviet Union.
Putin’s tame Gaza rhetoric aims to make him a moderator or negotiator between the sides, especially regarding Israeli citizens taken by Hamas as hostages. Putin has also generated events to force Americans and Israelis to talk to him, such as arresting foreign citizens on spurious claims in Russian jails as “hostages” for negotiation goals. Russia sees the Gaza war as an opportunity to reopen relations with the U.S. after losing its regional strength. Moscow’s strategy is to keep options open.
Putin and his Kremlin, masters of propaganda, also know how to diversify their messages to appeal to different audiences in the U.S. For example, calls to a ceasefire in Gaza appeal to far left social democrats and progressives who take Hamas’ side, while Republicans object to aid to Ukraine and Israel because of the costs and their isolationist foreign policy goals. Russia has attributed the Gaza crisis to American policy, in monopolizing negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians. The Russian-American relationship has been cold since the beginning of Russia’s offensive in Ukraine.
Simultaneously, Iran has been supplying Russia with drones for the Ukraine war, strengthening their anti-West partnership. Nevertheless, Russia is still calculated in balancing its relationships between Iran and Israel: Russia hasn’t condemned Israel outright, but has downgraded the relationship, while still interested in Russian-Israeli security coordination.
A factor in all of this is Russia’s significant Muslim population, which it takes into consideration regarding its Israel and Palestinian relations. The recent antisemitic riot and attempted lynch by Muslim citizens looking for Jews and Israelis in Dagestan’s main airport were likely provoked by conspiracy theories, encouraging 1,500 rioters to show up, and leading to fifty rioters being arrested. Putin plans to consult with high-level security staff regarding the incident, which looked bad for Putin, who has emphasized Russia’s role in liberating concentration camps and its fair treatment of Jews.
Dagestan also borders Muslim-majority Chechnya, run by Putin strongman Ramzan Kadyrov and his cruel militia. Chechnya has vocally stood with Hamas, calling for a ceasefire and prayers for Hamas. Kadyrov said that his troops would fight for the Palestinians and he has made frequent statements calling Israel “fascist” and claiming “genocide in Gaza.”
Since the Ukraine war, old Russian antisemitic conspiracy theories and their associated Soviet anti-Zionist propaganda have made a comeback. Lavrov and Putin, nurtured in the Soviet establishment narrative, and the Kremlin have unhesitatingly used antisemitic propaganda against Ukraine leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is Jewish, and have labelled Ukraine “Nazi.” These tactics continue Russian and Soviet historical antisemitism, including anti-Zionist propaganda, which has become ingrained in left-dominated American college campuses. The language of fascism and racism applied to Israel, as well as Holocaust inversion, were popularized in the Soviet Union and became part of its Soviet foreign policy.
This trend abruptly ceased with the fall of the USSR and the reestablishment of Israel-Russian relations, influenced by the immigration of one million former Soviet Jews to Israel. Putin saw Israel as an ally for some of his narratives, such as the Red Army’s role in fighting the Nazis, which he later also used to justify his aim to reestablish “Greater Russia,” including Ukraine. But in Russian Orthodox majority spaces, especially since the Ukraine war, xenophobic rhetoric has been ramped up once again, encouraging antisemitism and endangering Russian Jews.
In the West, Israel was criticized for not taking a stance against Russia regarding Ukraine, with Washington taking a hawkish attitude toward Russia since 2014. Israel played neutral, considered Russia’s custodianship of Syria, and was careful not to endanger the status of Russian Jews. Israel’s Netanyahu partook of a Russian commemorative victory anniversary parade for the Red Army in Moscow.
The U.S. has the luxury of distance and its size to shun Russia, while Israel must keep the relationship alive. Keeping this channel open may assist in the evacuation of Jews from Russia if the situation, hinted at in the Dagestan incident, should get worse.
In any case, Russia’s involvement in the current crisis is dubious considering that its military is being stretched by the war in Ukraine. Russia’s political usefulness is also unsure, as it waits for events to unfold to see what opportunities present themselves.