How the Media, As So Often, Misstates What Israel Does

In the early hours of Sunday, August 25, Israel initiated a preemptive strike to neutralize an imminent and large-scale drone and rocket attack by Hezbollah.

Israeli Air Force jets targeted multiple sites within Lebanese territory — locations from where the Iranian-backed terrorist group had prepared to launch 6,000 rockets. Hezbollah’s intended targets included 11 military bases and civilian areas such as the cities of Tel Aviv, Acre, and Safed.

More on the IDF’s attack, and how it was reported in the mainstream media, can be found here: “The Missing Word That Changes Everything: Media Distort IDF’s Preemptive Strike on Hezbollah,” by Rachel O’Donoghue, HonestReporting, August 25, 2024:

…Starting around 5:30 am, Hezbollah boasted that it had launched approximately 320 rockets at northern Israel, targeting areas such as Safed and Acre, along with 11 military bases that had largely been untouched by the Lebanese terror group until now.

The IDF reported that Hezbollah’s attack was significantly less severe than the group claimed, attributing the reduced impact to Israel’s successful preemptive strike.

Shortly after Hezbollah carried out what it called “the first phase” of its response to the Israeli operation that killed its second-in-command, Fouad Shukr, the group announced that leader Hassan Nasrallah would address the “Zionist claims” of a preemptive strike in a forthcoming speech.

In short, Hezbollah admitted it had planned a large-scale attack on Israel, which Israel acted to prevent.

One Word Changes Everything

The coverage from several leading news organizations of Sunday’s escalation exemplified how omitting a single crucial detail can distort the entire narrative.

The New York Times ran an early headline stating: “Israel strikes Hezbollah in Lebanon, which fires rockets at Israel.” The missing word? Preemptively. Israel preemptively struck launching sites being prepared for an imminent attack just hours later.

The headline’s implication was undoubtedly deliberate—NYT presented a skewed image of an aggressive Israel, seemingly provoking a broader regional conflict by needlessly attacking Hezbollah.

The Times’ title implies some skepticism: it does not say that Israel “struck Hezbollah in a pre-emptive strike,” but only that it claimed to have done so — “Israel strikes Hezbollah…casting attacks as pre-emptive.” That suggests that “we at the Times are not prepared to accept Israel’s characterization of its attacks as pre-emptive.”

This narrative was echoed by the Los Angeles Times and CBS News, with the former downplaying Hezbollah’s drone and rocket strikes, while the latter went as far as to suggest Israel might have both ignited a wider conflict and hindered ceasefire negotiations.

What was de-emphasized, or left out entirely, from these mainstream media accounts was this critical bit of information: Hezbollah had been preparing to launch 6,000 rockets at Tel Aviv and other sites in central Israel at 5 a.m. on August 25. The IDF launched a preemptive strike to take out the rockets before they were due to be launched. It is the information about the size, targets, and timing of the planned Hezbollah attacks that these accounts leave out, leaving readers with the impression that Israel’s strike was out of the blue.

Hezbollah was preparing to launch thousands of rockets & drones at Tel Aviv and central Israel. The IDF launched a preemptive strike to take out the launchers.

And this is the best headline @latimes could come up with. ?https://t.co/tmSKwOod2R pic.twitter.com/mEBmD2hC3S

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) August 25, 2024

This headline suggests that the IDF launched a massive attack on Hezbollah for no particular reason; Hezbollah then fired rockets back at Israel. Where was the essential word “pre-emptive”? To wit, the headline ought to have read “Israel launches pre-emptive airstrikes in Lebanon…”

NPR, meanwhile, suggests that Israel is the aggressor, for there is no mention of Hezbollah’s preparing to launch 6,000 rockets, an attack that was foiled only because of Israel’s pre-emptive strike. And it includes in its headline an irrelevant reference to the “ceasefire talks.”

Israel, painted in much of the media as the aggressor that attacked Hezbollah out of the blue, was in fact only defending itself against a massive attack planned by Hezbollah. It learned of Hezbollah’s plans to launch a massive wave of 6,000 rocket attacks against 11 military bases, and cities including Tel Aviv, Acre, and Safed. The attack was due to be launched at 5 a.m. on August 25. The IDF had been preparing for months its pre-emption of such an attack, which it carried out just in the hour before Hezbollah had planned to let loose its rockets.

It was a spectacular undertaking. Hezbollah has of course claimed to have “succeeded” with its own attack. In fact, its 200-300 still intact rockets did not manage to hit any of the IDF’s bases and caused only minor damage to some homes in northern Israel. One Israeli died —a sailor who was struck from shrapnel from an interception of an incoming rocket by Iron Dome. Some success.

The IDF took to heart the Talmudic injunction that “if someone is coming to kill you, rise up and kill him first.” And that’s what Israel did in the early morning of August 25.