Summer Lee’s reckless spreading of Hamas misinformation has real consequences
Salena Zito
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PITTSBURGH — Late yesterday afternoon, Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA), the Democrat who represents the city of Pittsburgh and parts of Westmoreland County, posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that there was ‘”no moral ambiguity” in bombing a hospital, calling the strike “reprehensible.”
Her post was amplifying an Al Jazeera English breaking news story that stated it was an Israeli air strike that hit the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in the Gaza Strip. It was a post with real consequences that failed to show the restraint news organizations and elected officials should show until a story was confirmed.
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Despite many of her followers pleading with her to double-check the story and even responding that she would do so, Lee left the post up for nearly 20 hours, claiming Israelis were responsible for the strike, even after evidence began to emerge that it was Islamic Jihad who had misfired and not Israel.
Evidence also shows that the hit was in the parking lot, not the hospital itself, making the initial posting one of the more significant media mistakes in modern history.
Her reckless decision was a damning move and took nearly a day for her to walk back, saying in another post that “we all have a responsibility to work to share factual information and have the humility to correct when we learn more” yet still failing to remove the original misleading post.
President Joe Biden affirmed evidence that Israel was not behind the Gaza hospital bombing in an announcement that followed senior officials telling NBC News that the United States had an independent assessment that a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket had misfired and hit the Gaza hospital.
Rep. Rashid Tlaib (D-MN), who posted on X that “Israel just bombed the Baptist Hospital killing 500 Palestinians (doctors, children patients) just like that,” refused to answer reporter’s questions today when they asked her why she too had not taken her post after the president’s confirmation.
In the minutes after the bombing, when news outlets went with the propaganda rather than waiting for confirmation, it was soon repeated, echoed, and spread by journalists and leftist elected officials like Lee and Tlaib, causing irreversible damage.
Protests, often violent, began almost immediately across the Middle East after Hamas claimed Israel bombed the hospital beginning along the West Bank as thousands of young people took to the streets starting fires and hurling objects at police, then spilled over into Tunisia, Jordan, Iran, Lebanon, and Libya.
Stateside, a protest that began on the National Mall made its way to the Cannon Office Building across the street from the Capitol and swiftly and loudly occupied the Cannon Rotunda.
It is important to note that demonstrations are not permitted in congressional buildings, per the U.S. Capitol Police.
Pennsylvania Republican businessman Dave McCormick, who is running for the Senate seat held by Democrat Bob Casey Jr., tweeted in response to Lee’s post that “Summer Lee is entitled to her own opinions, but not her own facts. Even Biden has clarified Israel did not bomb the Gazan hospital—evidence indicates it was Islamic Jihad’s explosives.”
Given the rising antisemitism around the globe, the type of misinformation Lee inferred has real consequences, and we see it in real time across the world and at the Capitol.
That she represents a district that saw Jews massacred at the Tree of Life Synagogue five years ago by a man who spewed antisemitic posts on a right-wing social media platform before killing 11 members during the Shabbat morning services in 2018, the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in the U.S., should make her even more responsible about how she spreads disinformation.