Category: Fact Check

Decimated communities. Burned-out buildings. Survivors mourning loved ones killed amid smoke and debris. These are the all-too-real scenes of Israel and Gaza.

But in the days since Hamas militants launched an Oct. 7 attack on Israel, the deadliest in years, online misinformation has distorted the facts around the conflict.

Outdated and fictional images and videos are being characterized as if they are from Israel and Gaza.

As if the real toll was not enough: At least 2,200 people in Israel and Gaza have been killed in the attacks, The Associated Press reported Oct. 11. The death toll includes at least 22 Americans and over a dozen more unaccounted for.

Politicians have clouded the information environment with unproven claims that U.S. taxpayer money and a recent deal with Iran funded the massacre.

Here are the viral misleading claims about the conflict that PolitiFact has fact-checked so far.

Out-of-context images from past events

Several videos that predate the attacks in Israel and Gaza have been taken out of context and shared as if they depicted recent events.

One video claimed to show Iranian lawmakers chanting “death to America” after Hamas’ attack. But this video is from 2020 after a U.S. airstrike killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

Different footage purportedly showed Palestinians paragliding into Israel to kill civilians. Although legitimate news reports did describe armed paragliders launching from Gaza, this video was filmed in Egypt before the attack.

Another post claimed to show Hamas militants “dressing up as Jewish soldiers.” In reality, it was a behind-the-scenes clip from a 2022 Palestinian short film.

Videos of a 2021 pro-Palestinian rally in Chicago and what appears to be rapid rocket fire from 2020 also were shared as if these events happened recently.

Video game footage shared as real

Fictional video game footage is being shared as a real depiction of the conflict in Israel and Gaza, echoing a similar trend we’ve documented in Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Numerous social media posts have mislabeled footage from the video game Arma 3 as coming from Israel and Gaza.

Arma 3 is a combat simulation game released in 2013. Users can customize it to create new terrains, weapons, aircrafts and scenarios. These creations, also called “mods,” can be shared with other gamers. More than 20,000 mods are available for download, said Czech game development studio Bohemia Interactive, which made Arma 3.

“This means that players of Arma 3 can recreate and simulate any historic, present or future conflict in great detail (thanks to its advanced game engine). This unique freedom of the Arma 3 platform comes with a downside: videos taken from Arma 3, especially when the game is modified, are quite capable of spreading fake news,” the game’s developers said in a statement addressing the misleading use of Arma 3 footage.

Claims about U.S. aid to Israel

A viral document across social media platforms claimed to show President Joe Biden authorizing $8 billion in military aid to Israel. But the memo was altered.

The original memo, published July 25 on the White House website, announced it had authorized up to $400 million to aid Ukraine.

The U.S. is sending multiple military ships and aircraft closer to Israel and will supply the Israel Defense Forces with munitions. But additional U.S. aid requires approval from Congress.

Claims about Iran, the U.S. and funding for Hamas’ attack and Israel’s response

Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, were quick to blame Biden for Hamas’ attack, claiming that a recent hostage-release agreement gave Iran access to $6 billion that it used to fund Hamas’ attack.

Although Iran has long supported Hamas, neither Israel nor the White House have said that there’s a direct link between Iran and Hamas’ attack.

In August, the U.S. announced an agreement with Iran to free five U.S. citizens detained in Iran in exchange for the release of five Iranians imprisoned in the U.S.

The agreement also allowed Iran access to $6 billion of its own funds that had been frozen in South Korean banks. The money comes from Iranian oil revenue and has been frozen since 2019, when Trump banned Iranian oil exports and imposed sanctions on Iran’s banking sector. (The $6 billion is not, as Trump falsely suggested, American taxpayer money.)

U.S. officials said Iran has not accessed the funds. Also, the deal limited how Iran could use the money; it can be used only to pay for humanitarian items, such as medicine and food. Experts say the unfrozen money for Iran might indirectly benefit Hamas in time.

Additionally, Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., claimed the Biden administration “wanted Israel to stand down after the attack” by Hamas. But that’s Mostly False.

Scott, a Republican presidential candidate, said he was referring to a now-deleted post by the State Department’s Palestinian Affairs outpost in Jerusalem that condemned the Hamas attacks while urging “all sides to refrain from violence and retaliatory attacks.”

But this framing clashed with U.S. policy and subsequent comments from Biden that clarified U.S. support for Israel and its right to retaliate, which came in before Scott’s swipe. 

RELATED: Read all of our Israel coverage

Construction on approximately 20 miles of border barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border will begin soon in Texas, the Biden administration announced Oct. 5.

It’s a notable departure from a key promise Biden made as a 2020 presidential candidate, when he criticized former President Donald Trump’s policies and dismissed a border wall as expensive and ineffective. 

“There will not be another foot of wall constructed in my administration,” he said in an Aug. 5, 2020, interview.

In our #nabjnahj2020 interview, @JoeBiden promised that ‘not another foot of wall would be constructed” on the border. Watch our exchange: pic.twitter.com/rM9OgsYicU

— Lulu NYT (@lourdesgnavarro) August 5, 2020

Following the announcement this month, Biden said his administration’s hands are tied; he said it must use funds Congress appropriated in 2019 to build barriers along the U.S. southern border. 

Biden, his communications team and his Homeland Security secretary defended the decision to resume construction. 

“I was told that I had no choice,” Biden told reporters Oct. 6. “That if Congress passes legislation to build something — whether it’s an aircraft carrier, a wall, or provide for a tax cut — I can’t say, ‘I don’t like it. I’m not going to do it,’ if this hadn’t been vetoed, if it’s the law.” 

That has not insulated him from criticism from fellow Democrats — nor does it mesh with the explanation from the Department of Homeland Security. 

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the construction is in response to an uptick in the number of immigrants trying to illegally cross into the U.S. through the Rio Grande Valley.

“There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States,” Mayorkas said in an Oct. 5 notice about waiving laws to expedite the border wall construction.

At PolitiFact we have a Flip-O-Meter to measure politicians’ consistency on issues. The rating is not making a value judgment about a politician who changes positions on an issue. 

We evaluated Biden’s stance throughout the years on building additional border barriers along the southern border. The evidence shows his change in position is a Full Flop, our definition for a complete change.

What Biden said in the 2020 presidential campaign

Biden vowed in campaign materials to stop border wall construction. 

“Building a wall from sea-to-shining-sea is not a serious policy solution — it’s a waste of money, and it diverts critical resources away from the real threats,” his campaign website read.

In his immigration plan, Biden promised to end a national emergency that Trump had declared in 2019; the emergency allowed Trump to access Defense Department funding for southwest border fencing. 

Biden’s plan said, “Building a wall does nothing to address security challenges while costing taxpayers billions of dollars.”

In 2023, Biden continues to say a border wall is ineffective. But he says he has no choice.

Biden’s actions to stop border wall construction 

On his first day in office, Jan. 20, 2021, Biden fulfilled his promise to end Trump’s national emergency, filing a proclamation to terminate it and pause all border wall construction. 

“It shall be the policy of my Administration that no more American taxpayer dollars be diverted to construct a border wall,” Biden said. “I am also directing a careful review of all resources appropriated or redirected to construct a southern border wall.” He directed his cabinet to redirect funding and repurpose existing contracts. 

In June 2021, the White House published a fact sheet about its plans to:

• Cancel all border wall construction projects that used Defense Department funding;

• End expansions of the border wall “as permitted by law;” 

• Address “safety and environmental issues resulting from border wall construction under the previous Administration.”

The Defense Department returned around $2 billion to 66 military projects that had been paused to fund border wall construction, according to the fact sheet. 

The White House noted that “although most of the funds used for the border wall were diverted from other purposes, Congress provided DHS with some funding for border barrier projects,” and the Department of Homeland Security “is legally required to use the funds consistent with their appropriated purpose.”

Wall construction linked to congressional spending

The congressional funding referenced by the White House was secured by Trump in 2019 — nearly $1.4 billion to build border barrier systems along the southwest border. 

Biden called on Congress in 2021 and 2023 to cancel its 2019 appropriation. He said in 2021 he would seek no additional funding for border wall construction.

“Unless and until Congress acts on the request, the Administration will continue to use the funds responsibly for their appropriated purpose, as required by law,” the June 2021 fact sheet read.

In December 2021, DHS said it would begin repair projects along the southern border such as closing barrier gaps, stabilizing eroding areas and cleaning work sites. At the time, DHS again asked Congress to reappropriate the 2019 funding. Social media claims in spring 2022 said Biden was resuming work on the border wall, but we rated those False because it was repair work, not construction. 

The 2019 appropriation ends at the end of fiscal year 2024, which began Oct. 1. The administration would violate the Budget and Impoundment Control Act if it failed to use the funding, said Gabe Murphy, a policy analyst with Taxpayers for Common Sense.

The administration “is legally required to use the funding and it must be for the purpose Congress intended,” Murphy said.

In a June 2021 legal decision, the Government Accountability Office said Biden’s initial pause on border wall construction did not violate the law. 

However, Murphy said any further delays “would pretty clearly be intentional disregard for following the appropriations statute as Congress drafted and the president signed.”

In a June 2023 press release, DHS authorized U.S. Customs and Border Protection to begin building around 20 miles of 18-foot border barriers in the Rio Grande Valley Sector, a southeast Texas area spanning more than 34,000 square miles, “as mandated by” the 2019 appropriations bill. Besides building physical barriers, DHS said it would add detection technology, lighting and access roads.

DHS said it has $190 million remaining from the nearly $1.4 billion appropriated, and continued calling for Congress to “cancel or reappropriate remaining border barrier funding.”

Despite his other comments about a border wall deterring migrants, Mayorkas, the Homeland Security secretary, also said the announcement to resume construction did not signal a position change. 

“There is no new Administration policy with respect to border walls. From day one, this Administration has made clear that a border wall is not the answer. That remains our position and our position has never wavered,” Mayorkas said Oct. 5.  

Our ruling

As a presidential candidate, Biden said, “There will not be another foot of wall constructed in my administration.” 

On Oct. 5, his administration said construction on the wall will resume after Biden failed to persuade Congress to repurpose appropriated funding. Biden says his hands are tied, and experts agree that the administration must follow the rule of law.

But the 2019 congressional appropriation was already in place when Biden made his 2020 promise not to build any more border wall. He made the vow knowing the limitations that existed. And his statement about the wall was unequivocal.

These actions and statements are a complete change in position. We rate it a Full Flop.

RELATED: How we determine Flip-O-Meter ratings

Is the end near for U.S. automakers? Former President Donald Trump recently told an audience of nonunion autoworkers near Detroit that electric cars are poised to doom their industry.

“Under Biden’s mandate, the entire car industry will be packed up and shipped to China,” Trump said during a Sept. 27 speech at an auto parts factory in Clinton Township, Michigan.

Two days later, speaking to a convention of California Republicans, Trump sounded a similar warning.

“California has imposed the most ridiculous car regulations anywhere in the world, with mandates to move to all electric cars,” he said. “You (will) lose all your jobs, because they’re all going to be made in China and other countries.”

We contacted the Trump campaign for comment, but didn’t hear back.

Because Trump’s statement was a prediction, we can’t fact-check it. However, the underlying facts weaken Trump’s comment at the Michigan plant. 

Although the traditional U.S. auto sector faces challenges from the industry’s shift to electric vehicles, including from China, there is no “Biden mandate” for electric vehicles to fully supplant gasoline-powered vehicles. Biden has offered significant aid to the U.S. auto sector to keep it competitive in the new EV marketplace.

The U.S. auto industry’s challenges in the EV era are real

American automakers were late to join the electric car push and now lag some overseas competitors, including China, said Chris Harto, a senior policy analyst for Consumer Reports who tracks the car industry. 

U.S. companies such as Tesla and Rivian — two nonunion automakers that began as EV companies — have made strides in the expanding EV sector. (Tesla was the top EV seller in the U.S. in 2022.) But even they face supply chain challenges. 

Data from the International Energy Agency, a Paris-based intergovernmental organization, shows China produces about three-quarters of all lithium-ion batteries. The U.S., by contrast, has just 7% of battery production capacity.

China also holds 70% and 85%, respectively, of production capacity for two key electric-vehicle battery parts: cathodes and anodes.

“(China) had the strategic vision to look ahead and see the future potential of EVs and made important investments while the rest of the automotive industry was asleep at the wheel,” Harto said. 

The Inflation Reduction Act, signed by Biden in August 2022, offers tax incentives for U.S. production of lithium-ion batteries and for the supply chain to produce them.

The U.S. also signed a memorandum of understanding in early 2023 to help build an electric vehicle battery supply chain in Congo and Zambia, countries with rich supplies of cobalt and other key minerals. This would keep these materials from being exported to China for processing, as happens now.

This should help, Harto said. “The build-out of the supply chains needed for future EV production volumes are just beginning, and … (the Biden) administration’s policies are targeted at ensuring as much of that supply chain gets built domestically or within friendly nations.”

However, establishing a supply chain that’s genuinely competitive with China’s could take years, Tu Le, the managing director of Sino Auto Insights, a business consulting company that specializes in transportation, told German news outlet Deutsche Welle.

There is no “Biden mandate”

Despite the U.S. sector’s challenges, Trump is wrong to say there is a “Biden mandate” to replace gasoline-powered cars with EVs.

The Biden administration has set a goal — not a mandate — to have electric vehicles comprise half of all new vehicle sales by 2030.

Separately, California has instituted an escalating scale for the percentage of new zero-emission cars and light trucks that must be sold on car lots  — 35% by 2026, 68% by 2030 and 100% by 2035. But this wasn’t something Biden did, and California’s action does not ban existing gasoline-powered cars. 

Also, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed new emissions standards to cut 10 billion tons of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that scientists say drives climate change. The EPA projects that because of the standards, EVs could account for 67% of new light-duty vehicle sales and 46% of new medium-duty vehicle sales by 2032.

Sam Fiorani, an analyst with consulting company AutoForecast Solutions, said the EPA’s policies focus on emissions and are agnostic about technologies. So, although these policies would likely boost electrified vehicles, they wouldn’t ban gasoline-fueled powertrains. 

Biden has advanced policies to help U.S. automakers shift to EVs

The Inflation Reduction Act, a Biden policy agenda cornerstone, included tax credits up to $7,500 to encourage people to buy EVs. Another key Biden agenda item, the bipartisan infrastructure law, includes $7.5 billion in EV charging investments; $7 billion for EV battery components, critical minerals and materials; and $10 billion for other “clean transportation” initiatives.

In August, the Energy Department announced a $15.5 billion loan and funding package to help existing car manufacturing plants retool for electric vehicles. And in June, the Energy Department said it would lend $9.2 billion to Ford Motor Co. and a supply partner to build three electric vehicle battery factories in Kentucky and Tennessee.

“If the (Biden) administration does not incentivize an electric transition, it means the U.S. will cede EV leadership to China,” said Tod Rutherford, a professor in Syracuse University’s Geography and the Environment Department and a car industry specialist. “The Europeans are very alarmed by this and especially the German manufacturers are scrambling to catch up. In other words, there is not only an environmental issue here but an economic one.”

Amid these incentives and assistance packages, U.S. automakers have reiterated their desire to move toward EVs.

A 2021 Reuters analysis showed carmakers planned to spend an estimated $515 billion over five to 10 years to develop and build new battery-powered vehicles. That’s up from $300 billion three years earlier. Reuters found that U.S. automakers General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. expected to spend nearly $60 billion on EVs through 2025.

Stellantis, Chrysler’s parent company, said it will invest $35.5 billion on EVs and their technologies through 2025, NBC News reported. And an analysis of press releases, company earnings reports and public resources by electric-car market tracker Atlas Public Policy showed an estimated $210 billion is expected to be invested in U.S. electric-car making by 2030. 

The White House estimates that carmakers have invested $85 billion in manufacturing  electric vehicles, batteries and chargers in the United States during Biden’s administration.

In all, Trump’s assertion that the car industry will be leaving the United States is “substanceless,” said Jeremy J. Michalek, a Carnegie Mellon University engineering and public policy professor who directs the school’s Vehicle Electrification Group.

Powertrain system production will shift from gasoline engines toward electric motors and batteries, he said. But most other materials and components needed to make a car won’t and may be supplied by a variety of nations. 

“There are likely to be complex effects of this shift, but all automobiles are already produced with a mix of systems and components produced across a global supply chain, so this really isn’t new,” he said. 

 

It’s a salacious claim worthy of a subplot in a fictional tv show: A head of state touches down in India on a cocaine-filled airplane.

But social media posts sharing this allegation about Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau failed to tell the whole story of where this allegation came from and why it lacks credibility.

“Busted: Trudeau’s plane filled with cocaine, psychedelic drugs!? Diplomat outs scumbag Canadian PM,” read a Sept. 27 Facebook post.  The caption of another Facebook post that day said there were “reports of cocaine found” on Trudeau’s plane.   

These posts were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.) 

Trudeau flew to India in September to attend the G20 summit. But we found no evidence to support the claim he did so on a plane filled with cocaine. There were no announcements of government investigations and Trudeau’s office dismissed the claim in a statement.

“This (is) absolutely false and a troubling example of how disinformation can make its way into media reporting,” Trudeau’s team said, according to the Toronto Sun.

The claim got its start when India’s former ambassador to Sudan, Deepak Vohra, appeared on the Indian TV show Zee News Sept. 21. Vohra told journalist Deepak Chaurasia that there was a “credible rumor” that Trudeau’s plane was “full of cocaine” when he arrived in New Delhi for the G20 summit.

“When Justin Trudeau came to India for the G20 this month, his plane was full of cocaine. He did not come out of his room for two days,” Vohra said, offering no evidence to support the claim.

NewsMobile, an Indian fact-checking site and signatory of the International Fact-Checking Network, reported that senior Indian government officials said the claim was false. 

Vohra’s description of the plane came amid high-profile tension between Canada and India. On Sept. 18, Trudeau accused India of being involved in June’s fatal shooting of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Canadian citizen, on Canadian soil, The New York Times reported. Officials in India called the allegation “absurd.” 

Canada expelled a senior Indian diplomat, sparking a retaliatory move from India, which expelled a senior Canadian diplomat. India also issued travel warnings and stopped issuing visas for Canadians, according to The Independent.

The Toronto Star newspaper reported that Trudeau has been the target of disinformation since he claimed India was involved in the killing, and the newspaper specifically cited the cocaine story as an example.

With no evidence to back this claim, we rate the statement that Trudeau’s plane was filled with cocaine when he landed in India for the G20 summit False.

 

When Democrat Rebecca Cooke, a small-business owner and nonprofit founder, entered the race against first-term Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden of western Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District she led with a sharp attack:

“Derrick Van Orden is one of the only members of Congress who participated in the deadly January 6th insurrection,” Cooke said Sept. 1 on X, formerly known as Twitter. “He now serves in the building he tried to burn down.”

By now, the Jan. 6, 2021, mob action is familiar — thousands of President Donald Trump’s supporters rallied and then hundreds forced their way into the Capitol building in an unsuccessful attempt to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory in the November 2020 presidential election. 

According to the Justice Department, as of Sept. 5, 2023, some 1,146 defendants have been charged in nearly all 50 states and the District of Columbia. In all, 623 federal defendants have had their cases adjudicated and received sentences for their criminal activity on Jan. 6, the Justice Department says. Of those, 378 have been sentenced to periods of incarceration.

Van Orden is not among them.

So, what’s the basis for Cooke’s claim? And how much validity is there to it?

Let’s take a look.

Cooke team responds 

When asked for backup for the claim, Cooke spokesperson Charly Norton said in an email to PolitiFact Wisconsin the tweet is based on a television appearance by Van Orden in which he acknowledged “that he participated in the January 6th insurrection, was photographed on Capitol grounds during the Jan. 6th insurrection, and publicly disclosed using campaign funds to attend the January 6th insurrection.”  

Now, that’s the Cooke campaign’s take on what Van Orden has said.

Let’s go back and check the record.

According to The Washington Post, Van Orden, a retired U.S. Navy SEAL, was one of two newly elected GOP House members at the rally. 

According to Newsweek, in a Jan. 13, 2021, column in the LaCrosse Tribune, Van Orden acknowledged attending Trump’s rally that preceded the insurrection but said he left when the riot began. 

“When it became clear that a protest had become a mob, I left the area as to remain there could be construed as tacitly approving this unlawful conduct,” he wrote. “At no time did I enter the grounds, let alone the building.”

Two years later, in January 2023, Van Orden sought to reframe the issue, telling the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel he wished he had not attended the Trump rally if it would have prevented the public from believing he embraced the violence.

“I don’t regret supporting voter integrity,” Van Orden said. “But if you look in hindsight — like the volume of stuff, the way that it could be interpreted that I would support political violence — that is regretful. If that made people think that I support political violence, that is a regret because I don’t support political violence.”

Van Orden noted he tweeted that he condemned “all forms of political violence” even as the rioters were in the building. 

Van Orden’s location questioned

That said, just how close Van Orden was to the Capitol attack is in dispute. 

Although Van Orden told the La Crosse newspaper he and two friends “stood on the parapet that lines the perimeter of the grounds,” a report by The Daily Beast cited social media posts showing Van Orden in an area the news outlet characterized as being beyond police barricades. 

The Daily Beast said it had recreated the photo Van Orden posted on Facebook and determined they would have had to cross police barricades to reach that area.

It is against the law to cross police barricades to reach a restricted area.

Van Orden disputes being in a restricted area and in January the lawmaker told the Journal Sentinel the wall he was on was “450 meters” away from the Capitol and he was only “standing there” near the wall.

A footnote: The Cooke campaign also accused Van Orden of using campaign funds to travel to Washington. According to a Sept. 2, 2022, article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the six-member Federal Election Commission decided unanimously to dismiss a complaint that alleged the money was used inappropriately partly because of the “small amount” of money used for the trip — $4,022.72. 

Our ruling

Cooke claimed “Derrick Van Orden is one of the only members of Congress who participated in the deadly January 6th insurrection,” and “now serves in the building he tried to burn down.”

Van Orden acknowledged attending the Jan. 6 rally but said he left before any violence occurred, and later said he regretted being there since it would lead people to think he endorsed the violence that followed.

However, according to a media outlet, a photo posted to Facebook shows Van Orden and two friends in an area beyond police barricades set up at the Capitol that day. Van Orden says he was not behind the barricades but was “450 meters” away from the Capitol and only “standing there” near the wall.

All of that said, Cooke goes too far in making her claim, including the idea that Van Orden tried to burn the building down, which suggests there is evidence he participated in rioting.

For a statement that contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression, our rating is Mostly False.

 

A video showing several people standing around camera equipment is being presented as an example of Hamas-produced propaganda following the group’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

“These terrorists are dressing up as JEWISH soldiers to create fake videos about Israeli soldiers!” an Oct. 9 Instagram post sharing the video wrote. “Faking Propaganda!”

This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

In reality, this video was shared on TikTok in April 2022 by cinematographer Mohamad Awawdeh. Similar footage shared in June by Awawdeh on Instagram clarified in the caption that this was behind-the-scenes footage of a Palestinian short film about Ahmad Manasra, who has been imprisoned since he was 13 after an attempted murder conviction. 

The footage has been used in misinformation before. In 2022, Reuters fact-checked a similar claim that it showed Palestinians staging a fake killing by Israeli soldiers. 

We rate claims the video shows Hamas militants making propaganda False.

 

Following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack against Israel, video games and old warfare footage are being mischaracterized to claim they show recent violence in the Middle East. 

Among them is a video shared in an Oct. 9 Instagram post showing what looks like rapid rocket fire at night. 

“Second night of missiles attacks against Israel,” text over the video says. 

“Thousands of missiles are being fired by Palestinian Hamas at Israeli civilians from Gaza,” the post said. “Share this with the world — what mainstream media refuses to share.”

This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

The video has been online since 2020. 

On Feb. 28 of that year, a YouTube account shared the video and described it as showing Syria. 

Other online posts from that year show stills of the video and similarly put the action in Syria. 

What we know for sure: This isn’t a recent video of Hamas attacking Israel. 

We rate that claim False.

 

Cuts to academic departments pursued by West Virginia University President E. Gordon Gee have put him at odds with students and faculty members. Gee has responded by describing the cuts affecting a relatively small fraction of students.

“Fewer than 2% of students are impacted whatsoever by the decisions we’re making,” Gee said in an interview published Aug. 25 by The Daily Athenaeum, WVU’s student newspaper.

That’s one way to calculate the impact, but it’s not the only one.

April Kaull, WVU’s news director, told PolitiFact West Virginia that the “fewer than 2%” figure stemmed from the initial stage of the process that led to the academic cuts. 

Under the initial proposal, the provost’s office recommended that 33 undergraduate and graduate programs be discontinued. Collectively, those 33 programs had 434 majors in August, when the initial proposal was made.

Dividing the 434 majors by the total student enrollment of 24,366 produced a figure of 1.7%. That’s a little less than 2%.

After appeals, the university backed off some of those cuts. So, the current cuts would affect 316 undergraduate and graduate majors, or 1.3% of students.

However, this is a limited framing of the cuts’ impact, because it excludes double majors, minors, or students of entirely different majors taking courses in the departments on the chopping block.

“The problem students have had with this statement is reflected in (Gee’s use of the word) ‘whatsoever,’” Frankie Tack, the WVU Faculty Senate chair, told PolitiFact West Virginia. “Many students take courses in other majors and disciplines and will be affected even though their home program will not be discontinued.”

The university did not provide figures that could be used to make this alternate calculation, but it’s likely not a trivial number, especially because some of the biggest targets in the cuts — the university’s foreign language offerings — are precisely the types of courses that nonmajors might be tempted to take.

Kaull, the university spokesperson, told PolitiFact West Virginia that only primary majors were counted “because they are the only ones that generate tuition revenue for the university,” which was the aim of the budgeting exercise in question. “Neither double majors nor minors generate tuition revenue,” she said.

In remarks to the Faculty Senate on Sept. 11, Gee said, “Our university will still offer more than 300 majors, as well as study-abroad trips, cultural events, internships and community service programs that open the world to our students.”

Our ruling

Gee said that “fewer than 2% of students are impacted whatsoever by the decisions we are making.”

This number comes from a credible calculation, but it’s limited and convenient for downplaying the cuts’ reach. 

Less than 2% of West Virginia University’s students are primary majors whose departments would be affected by the cuts. However, this count excludes double majors, minors, or students taking classes in the affected departments. This is a potentially sizable population that Gee’s sweeping “whatsoever” characterization wouldn’t cover.

We rate the statement Mostly False

Former President Donald Trump has condemned Hamas’ recent attack on Israel, but some social media accounts may mislead users to believe otherwise. 

“Israel has hypnotized the world,” Trump says in a video being shared on Facebook. “May Allah awaken the people and help them to see the evil doings of Israel and the United States.”

This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

The clip is authentic. Trump said those words at an October 2019 rally  in Minneapolis. 

But his remarks are taken out of context here. He was quoting U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who, in 2012, seven years before being elected to Congress, tweeted: “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.” 

She apologized for the tweet in 2019. 

In his rally speech that year, Trump made clear he was reciting Omar’s words and not making a political statement of his own. 

“Omar wrote that Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel and the United States. How do you have such a person representing you in Minnesota?”

Trump isn’t the first lawmaker to have his remarks taken out of context. Quotes attributed to President Joe Biden, in which he appeared to use a racial slur, failed to note that he was quoting a memo. 

We rate claims that these are Trump’s own words about Israel False.