Piers Morgan “a significant part of the problem of disinformation”

is week by Piers Morgan demonstrates that he is a significant part of the problem of disinformation about this conflict. Morgan should be well aware that there have been repeated stories emerging from Gaza which have subsequently been debunked only after they spread around the world. The predictable result has been the poisoning of many minds against Israel, on the basis of fabrications and blood libels. My simple entreaty was that the matter should not be prejudged, especially where fake AI generated images had been deployed to support it. Cue frenzied outrage and bile from Morgan.

Defence of fake images in pursuit of a “good story” is, of course, old ground for Morgan. He was dismissed from his role as editor of the Daily Mirror in 2004, following the publication of photographs that purportedly showed British soldiers abusing Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib. The images were later determined to be staged and not taken in Iraq. Morgan stood by their publication and refused to issue an apology on the basis there was no firm evidence that they were fake, though the newspaper did, acknowledging that it had been the victim of a “calculated and malicious hoax” and expressing deep regret for the reputational damage caused to the British Army. Morgan’s defence of his decision to publish those fake pictures stemmed from his opposition to the Iraq war in a disgraceful example of “the ends justify the means”.

Did he learn anything from that shameful incident? The way I was treated on Uncensored suggests not. At least when Morgan was in the employ of a national newspaper, he could be held accountable. But this no longer appears to be the case. He is now free to shout down his guests without consequence.

The problem doesn’t stop with Morgan. The unfair way in which Israel is presented in the Western media, and the refusal to treat Hamas’s claims with scepticism, misleads the public. It increases the threat of violence to Jews around the world, but also, crucially, props up and encourages Hamas, thereby prolonging the war and the suffering of Israelis and Palestinians alike.