A controversial Japanese journalist is under fire after denying Hamas atrocities, including the rape of Israeli women on October 7th, and spreading of conspiracy theories.
By David Rosenberg, World Israel News
A Japanese journalist is under fire after she denied Hamas terrorists raped Israeli women and committed other atrocities during the October 7th invasion of Israel, and after she spread conspiracy theories accusing Israel of using unconventional weapons to commit genocide in the Gaza Strip.
Miki Otaka, a news reporter and anchor on Japan’s conservative Channel Sakura, sparked controversy with a series of social media posts and a podcast appearance in late May in which she claimed Israel fabricated the October 7th massacres and atrocities committed by Gaza terrorists in southwest Israel.
In the Japanese-language podcast, Otaka also accused Israel of spreading radioactive material in Gaza to “eliminate” the local population.
“October 7th was a fabrication,” Otaka said. “Israel uses depleted uranium bombs to eliminate Gaza in the future. The land in Gaza is already contaminated with radioactive soil. In fact, there are already cases of children inhaling smoke from depleted uranium bombs and suffering from pneumonia, radioactive contamination, and cancer.”
“Israel has a vision for Gaza, as a first step, and then it wants to settle Jews there. A UN report says the radiation will remain there for 450 years,” Otaka continued.
The 55-year-old Tokyo-born journalist went on to falsely claim that Gazans are denied drinking water. Israel currently supplies the coastal enclave with water, including during the ongoing conflict.
“There is no drinking water in Gaza. The only way is to drink seawater, and of course, this water is not healthy. Israel has imposed a total blockade on Gaza. The Palestinian ambassador said the main reason for the attack on Rafah is to lock all Palestinians in, so they will never leave the ghetto. If all supplies, food, medicine, and water brought there are cut off, these people will die.”
“There were videos and photos of the atrocities committed by Hamas. However, a report came out saying these were actually fabrications,” Otaka claimed.
“I’m not saying all of them, but… the biggest justification for retaliation against Hamas is that Hamas beheaded 40 babies; even Biden said that. And mass rape of women by Hamas. I also met with the Palestinian ambassador, and the ambassador told me: ‘How could they afford to do that when they entered Israel, risking their lives?’ Meaning they were in a high-alert combat situation in enemy territory, so they probably didn’t even think about raping women.”
In response to her claims, the Simon Wiesenthal Center filed a protest with the Japanese government, calling on Tokyo to condemn Otaka’s comments.
SWC Associate Dean and Director of Global Social Action Agenda Rabbi Abraham Cooper penned a letter to Japan’s ambassador to the United States, Shigeo Yamada, urging him to denounce Otaka’s claims.
“Ambassador Yamada, we all know the power of social media to influence people and in the case of Ms. Otaka, there are those who would take this journalist’s screeds as fact since she is influential enough to regularly write for a publication that carries articles written by members of the Japanese Diet.”
Rabbi Cooper also noted that “she has ‘liked’ a pernicious and lurid online posting that alleges that there was a nursery in Auschwitz and links Holocaust denial to the denial of Oct 7th.”