AG Report 10.3.2024
On Nasrallah’s Demise and the Media’s Shameful Coverup
After Israel eliminated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, much of the media’s attention turned to concerns over potential escalation and included criticism of Israel. This reaction mirrors the misunderstandings of Middle Eastern dynamics that occurred when Israel targeted Haniyeh in Tehran.
Contrary to concerns, these actions significantly weakened a terrorist organization that threatened regional security, thereby increasing the chances of lasting stability in Lebanon. Moreover, they sent a clear warning to Tehran, Hezbollah’s backer, that they could be next unless they seek to de-escalate.
Those who thought 10/7 was about Palestinians will remain confused about what’s happening in the region. They won’t understand that this was always a war between the Islamic Republic and Israel, only the former is terrified of a direct confrontation and thus prefers to fight via proxies. Nasrallah was the leader and key to their most successful and powerful proxy, which went from having the reputation of the most powerful terrorist militia in the world to being decimated by Israel in a manner of a few weeks.
The coverage also largely overlooked Nasrallah’s numerous crimes and the celebrations that his death triggered throughout the region. It’s important to remember that most of Nasrallah’s victims were not Israelis or Americans, but rather fellow Arabs. To their credit, The Free Press has several articles recounting the stories of Hezbollah’s victims and those who oppose the organization in Lebanon. Other major outlets instead decided to whitewash his crimes.
When former Republican Sen. James Inhofe passed away, the Associated Press highlighted his skepticism of human-caused climate change in the headline, pejoratively calling him a “hawk.” When Nasrallah’s death was reported, the AP’s headline described him as “charismatic and shrewd.” The words mirror past media coverage in which other terrorist figures were described euphemistically. Former ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, for example, was once called an “austere religious scholar” by The Washington Post.
The coverage of Nasrallah largely ignored that he was a terror leader responsible for widespread suffering in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Israel. In fact, the article itself left out Hezbollah’s entire history of terrorism and referred to their mass starvation and murder of civilians in Syria as them having “taken part in the conflict.” NPR also published an obituary that omitted almost all of Nasrallah’s crimes. The Post described him as a “father figure, a moral compass and a political guide.” This goes beyond shameful, it’s actual propaganda on behalf of a mass murderer. It’s incredibly disrespectful to the families of the hundreds of thousands of victims of Hezbollah’s terrorism.
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