I enjoyed Howard Jacobson’s piece in today’s Observer on one specific form of it that’s found a new prevalence

This is a bad article that conflates wanting Israel to kill less children with antisemitism.

Here we were again, the same merciless infanticides inscribed in the imaginations of medieval Christians. Only this time, instead of operating on the midnight streets of Lincoln and Norwich, they target Palestinian schools, the paediatric wards of hospitals, the tiny fragile bodies of children themselves. Even when there are other explanations for the devastation, no one really believes them. Reporters whose reports are proved wrong see no reason to apologise. No amendment of their calumnies. What is there to apologise for? It could have been true.

The difference is that Israel has bombed schools and hospitals, this conflation of the proven actions of Israel with medieval pogroms is frankly vile. Would have been nice if he could’ve provided an example of the ‘reporters proven wrong’, because in context he seems to be implying that Israel’s targeting of schools and hospitals is the thing that’s been proven wrong, which would be weird given that Israel itself will tell you it’s targeting schools.

Ask how Israel is able to target innocent children with such deadly accuracy and no one can tell you. Ask why they would want to target innocent children and make themselves despised among the nations of the Earth and no one can tell you that either.

I’ve yet to see any journalist claim that Israel is deliberately targeting children.

Only compare reporting from Gaza with reporting from Ukraine. Bombs have fallen there, too, but how often is the burial of Ukrainian children the lead story?

Because Russia has killed less children, 2,000 according to UNICEF compared to the 12,000 that have been killed in Gaza despite the Ukraine war starting in 2022. I don’t think this is because Russia a more moral actor, but Israel clearly isn’t trying to avoid child casualties.