Four Washington Post reporters have bylines on the story “Hamas received weapons and training from Iran, officials say.” Two more reporters are credited with contributing to the story, whose subhead is “Iran ‘broadly complicit’ in supporting Palestinian militants, but no evidence seen of a direct role in slaughter, officials say.” The six reporters reiterate what should be the common knowledge of anyone who follows the news from the Middle East.
Here is the opening of the story:
The Palestinian militants behind the surprise weekend attack on Israel began planning the assault at least a year ago, with key support from Iranian allies who provided military training and logistical help as well as tens of millions of dollars for weapons, current and former Western and Middle Eastern intelligence officials said Monday.
While Iran’s precise role in Saturday’s violence remained unclear, the officials said, the assault reflected Tehran’s years-long ambition to surround Israel with legions of paramilitary fighters armed with increasingly sophisticated weapons systems capable of striking deep inside the Jewish state.
Hamas, the Gaza-based Palestinian militant organization that led the attack, has historically maintained a degree of independence from Tehran compared with true Iranian proxy groups such as the Lebanese-based Hezbollah. But in recent years, Hamas has benefited from massive infusions of Iranian cash as well as technical help for manufacturing rockets and drones with advanced guidance systems, in addition to training in military tactics — some of which occurred in camps outside Gaza, the officials said.
U.S. and Israeli officials said they have no firm evidence so far that Iran authorized or directly coordinated the attack that killed more than 900 Israelis and wounded thousands. But current and former intelligence officials said the assault bore hallmarks of Iranian support, and noted officials in Tehran have boasted publicly about the huge sums in military aid provided to Hamas in recent years.
Further down in the story the reporters draw on open sources: “The leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, acknowledged in an interview last year that his group received $70 million in military assistance from Iran.” Iran’s involvement with Hamas permeates the story, and yet it’s all left vaguely mysterious. A reader is left to draw his own inferences.
The Post story fails to acknowledge or respond to yesterday’s page-one Wall Street Journal story reporting “Iran Helped Plot Attack on Israel Over Several Weeks.” Putting the Journal story to one side, as the Post does, the facts set forth in the Post story lead to an obvious inference. Yet for some reason the Post’s “officials” can’t bring themselves to draw it.
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