Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.
No.
An Israeli Defense Forces officer acknowledged at a Feb. 18 Chabad of Madison speech that Israeli soldiers have killed babies, but immediately added it was unintentional and “horrible.”
An Instagram video clip of former Chabad of Madison Israel fellow Oz Bin Nun’s speech, which garnered more than 706,000 views, misconstrued his comments by omitting important context.
“Everyone seeing our soldiers now in Gaza fighting can’t say words like genocide or baby killers. We do, however, and it’s important to say, kill babies,” Bin Nun says in the original video.
A longer clip shows he continued, “This is horrible. It’s awful. We never did this on purpose. Never ever. But it’s happening and it’s horrible.”
The video caption and reposts from Students for Justice in Palestine UW also inaccurately stated that University of Wisconsin-Madison hosted the speaker. Chabad of Madison is independent of UW-Madison.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Editor’s note: This story corrects an earlier version that misquoted Oz Bin Nun’s statement. He said “can’t say words,” not “can.” Also, the speech took place on Feb. 18.
Sources
Students for Justice in Palestine – UW-Madison: Students for Justice in Palestine – UW Madison
Full speech clip – Chabad of Madison: Full speech clip – Chabad of Madison
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
