Hezbollah is a terrorist entity.
It is designated as a terrorist entity by Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, the U.A.E. and many other countries. Its members are called terrorists because they meet the literal definition of that word: they use violence against civilians to achieve their political goal.
Which, according to their 1985 Charter, is a “struggle (that) will end only when this entity (Israel) is obliterated. We recognize no treaty with it, no ceasefire, and no peace agreements.”
Hezbollah has fired thousands of rockets into Israel since Oct. 7, 2023. Their near-daily barrages have forced 60,000 civilians from their homes in Israel’s North. In July, one of their rockets slammed into a soccer field near the Golan Heights and killed 12 children. The children were not Jews. They were Israeli-Arabs.
So, Hezbollah is a terror group. They kill civilians. For most of the past year, their rocket attacks on Israel have been routinely ignored or downplayed by the Western media.
This week, Hezbollah was back in the news because of the exploding pagers story. Mid-afternoon on Tuesday, thousands of handheld pagers used by Hezbollah exploded, simultaneously. Hundreds of terrorists were wounded, only a handful were killed. The next day, some Hezbollah walkie-talkies exploded, too.
Israel almost certainly concocted the pager and walkie-talkie operations, but they’re not saying so publicly. Notwithstanding that, the explosions have captivated the world, this week, because they read like something out of a James Bond movie.
The Western media and some Western nations, however, have reacted to the pagers operation like it was Nazi Germany stormtroopers invading Poland. They have regarded it as a declaration of war — even though Hezbollah has been in a perpetual state of war with Israel since 1985 (see Charter, above).
Canada’s witless, clueless, Hezbollah-and-Hamas-coddling Minister of Global Affairs, Melanie Joly, this week said she would block any arms shipments going to Israel. Even ones originating in the United States. Meanwhile, she instructed Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations to abstain — and not oppose — a General Assembly vote calling Israel’s war against Hamas “unlawful.”
The United Nations erstwhile human rights chief, who condemns Israel for a living, is Volker Türk. Türk said the pager operation struck “the fear and terror unleashed (that) is profound.” Because, you know, the Jews.
The Western media were just as bad. “Israel declares a new phase of war,” the headline on a CTV news story — not editorial — read. CBC found an expert to say that Israel had violated “international law.” The Toronto Star thought it was important to quote Hamas — another listed terrorist entity — who naturally condemned the attack on “our brothers in Hezbollah.”
And so on, and so on. Some Western media reacted to the pagers story in the way that they always do: unfairly and inaccurately.
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Take, for example, the way in which many media describe Hezbollah and Hamas.
The BBC has called terrorists “activists.” Associated Press: “Assailants” and “underground.” Washington Post: “Assassins.” CNN: “Attackers.” Los Angeles Times: “Captors.” Orlando Sentinel: “Combatants.” Philadelphia Inquirer: “Commandos.” Orange County Register: “Dissidents.” New York Times: “Fighters.” The Guardian: “Freedom Fighters.” The Sunday Times: “Fugitives.” The Christian Science Monitor: “Guerillas.”
Newsweek: “Insurgents” and “radicals.” USA Today: “Martyrs.” Time: “Militants.” Chicago Tribune: “Nationalists.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “Perpetrators.” Fox News: “Protesters.” Seattle Times: “Rebels.” San Diego Union-Tribune: “Resistance fighters.” Publishers Weekly: “Revolutionaries.” Newsday: “Vigilantes.” The New Yorker: “Warriors.”
We could go on, but there is not enough room. Suffice to say that, when terror groups commit acts of terror on Western soil, the media get the nomenclature right. Not when the target is Jews, however.
So, to cite just one example: in one month, March 2001, CNN reported on two different bomb attacks — one by an Irish Republican group, another by a Palestinian. The latter was called a “militant” when he set off a bomb in a taxi. The former were called “a terror group” for detonating a bomb outside the BBC’s main office in London. Get it? Same news organization, same month; two bombs, two attempts to kill. Yet very different words get used.
And that — as in the pagers story, as in just about every other story that emanates from the Middle East, going back decades — is the problem: Israel always, always gets held to a different standard.
Meanwhile, the terrorists get away with murder.
Figuratively, and literally.