As Hezbollah launched a series of rocket attacks upon Israel, the media attempted to paint Israel as the aggressor: “Media Ignore Anti-Israel Rocket Attack, Focus on Israel’s Military Response,” by Chaim Lax, Honest Reporting, February 15, 2024:
While the sub-header for the second article [at Sky News] did mention that Israel was responding to an earlier attack, it also used different language for each country’s casualties, claiming that Lebanese were “killed” by Israel’s strikes while an Israeli had passively “died.”
The female IDF soldier was “killed” by a Hezbollah rocket just as much as Hezbollah operatives and Lebanese civilians were “killed” by Israeli artillery and airstrikes. Sky News’ choice of verbs — that anonymous IDF soldier who “died” seemingly without human agency — is telling.
Several video reports also left out vital information, portraying Israel as the aggressor in the region.
For example, France 24 titled its report “Fears of escalation as Israel strikes hit southern Lebanon.”
Since it was Hezbollah that attacked first, France 24’s title should have read “Fears of escalation as Hamas strikes northern Israel.”
Similarly, 9 News Australia’s video report was titled “Israel launches wave of air strikes in Lebanon as tensions escalate.”
The title for AFP’s clip of a State Department briefing on the clashes over Israel’s northern border not only failed to mention the initial anti-Israel rocket attack, but the barrage was also entirely missing from the video’s accompanying text.
In its video clip of a State Department briefing about the situation on Israel’s northern border, Agence France-Presse (AFP) never mentioned the initial rocket attack by Hezbollah, leaving viewers with the impression that Israel was launching attacks on Lebanon for no reason.
These headlines, which left out all mention of Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel that prompted responses by the IDF, are not the only problem. So are the skewed contents of so many of the media’s reports about the exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and the IDF.
For some news outlets, it was not the headline that was the issue as much as the content of the report itself.
For example, The Guardian‘s coverage (under the headline “Seven civilians killed in Israeli strikes on south Lebanon”) mentioned both the rocket attack from Lebanon and Israel’s strikes in Lebanon. However, it failed to inform its readers as to which occurred first, leaving them with the impression that both Israel and Hezbollah are equally to blame for tensions and violence along the border.
Why did The Guardian not make clear who had attacked first? It wasn’t hard to ascertain. Was the paper’s infamous anti-Israel animus leading it to deliberately leave the impression that the IDF and Hezbollah launched attacks on one another simultaneously, so that both could be blamed equally?
In its report, news agency UPI described Israel’s targeted air strikes as a “barrage of rockets” while the indiscriminate fire directed against Israel from Lebanon was described as an “attack” and a “strike.”
Perhaps the most egregious report was filed by The Times of London, which reported in two paragraphs on Israel’s strikes in Lebanon but not a single word about the earlier barrage against Israel or the fact that an Israeli soldier had been killed in that attack….
In the Times report, there is no mention of any prior attack by Hezbollah. Those reading its account would know only that the IDF had struck Lebanon, seemingly without provocation. Israel is thus depicted as an aggressive little Sparta, flailing out at innocent Lebanese as it is now doing to all those “innocent civilians” being killed by the tens of thousands —- according to Hamas — in Gaza.
The headlines of so many of these reports refer to Israeli attacks on Lebanon, but without supplying the indispensable context — that is, the Hezbollah attacks that prompted Israel’s response. It is the same in the reports themselves, many of which never mention Hezbollah’s attacks at all, but focus exclusively on what then appears to be wanton aggression by Israel. Those that do mention Hezbollah attacks describe them as in response to Israeli attacks, when in every case, it is Hezbollah that has struck first and the IDF that responds. Groups such as Honest Reporting hold the media’s feet to the fire, exposing their anti-Israel bias and insisting on corrections. Sometimes they elicit an apologetic response, but more often the media refuse to recognize their animus. There is nothing to be done but to keep holding up their reporting on Israel and the Palestinians for examination and criticism. Little by little, as the Muslim tide engulfs their own countries, they may acknowledge the error of their ways.
dumbledoresarmy says
The whole of the mohammedan – and the world media – approach, after the awful atrocities carried out on October 7th 2023, has been the classic tactic also used by domestic abusers: DARVO – Deny/ Accuse/ Reverse Victim and Offender.
It really puzzles me that otherwise quite sensible people who are well aware of this tactic on the ‘micro’ level, and are not fooled by it there, due to increasing awareness of domestic abuse and how offenders react when the abuse is exposed or challenged, appear completely incapable of recognising the pattern on the ‘macro’ level; incapable of seeing that it is one of the Ummah’s main ways of confusing its victims and intended victims. Or even worse: they themselves reverse the victim and offender, framing ISRAEL as the abuser and the ‘poor palestinians’ (whine, simper, saccharine smile, eyes lifted unto heaven with pious appeal) as the abused!!