'The New York Times' trying to eulogize Hassan Nasrallah is abhorrent - opinion

The Israel Air Force carried out massive strikes targeting Hezbollah’s main headquarters: a bunker underneath a residential building in the Dahiyeh suburb, on the southern outskirts of Beirut. The strikes killed Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and several other high-ranking leaders of the Hezbollah terror group and political party in Lebanon. Most of the Western world, and many in the Middle East commended or celebrated the strike, but not The New York Times. 

Nasrallah had developed a decades-long reputation for ruthlessness, especially for his role in Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad’s brutal repression and quelling of pro-democratic insurgents. The Hezbollah leader was known for his bloodthirsty terror tactics targeting American and French troops as well as Jewish Israelis and Jews overseas, marking him a wanted man by several world governments. In the last 20 years, he armed Hezbollah to the teeth, enthusiastically using civilian homes, schools, and mosques to store his rockets and missiles. 

After his death, videos surfaced online of Arab, Jewish, Druze, and Christian Middle Easterners celebrating his demise. 

However, instead of commending Israel’s strike targeting a brutal terrorist who has been wanted for decades, American publications such as The New York Times frowned upon the strike, labeling it an “escalation,” and even going as far as to eulogize Nasrallah in a bizarre obituary painting him as a revolutionary religious leader. 

In its unnerving eulogy of the terror chief, The New York Times called Nasrallah a “powerful orator, beloved by Shi’ite Muslims” and wrote that he had helped “provide social services for Lebanon.” According to the Times, Nasrallah wanted “one Palestine, with equality for Muslims, Jews, and Christians.”

This could not be farther from the truth. 

Known for hating non-Arab Middle Easterners

Nasrallah was well known for his rampant and virulent antisemitism and hatred of non-Arab Middle Easterners. He denied the horrors of the Holocaust and declared Jewish people the enemy of Allah, while enthusiastically calling for the violent destruction of the world’s only Jewish state.

He once proclaimed that if all the Jews gathered in Israel, it would save Hezbollah and Muslims the trouble of going after them worldwide. He has called Jewish people the descendants of “apes and pigs,” and vowed to destroy them in the name of Allah. 

Nasrallah did not just hate “Israeli Zionists.” He supported and approved terror attacks against Jews overseas, including the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, that killed 85 people and wounded over 300.

Under his leadership, Hezbollah carried out dozens of suicide bombings against Israelis, mostly striking civilian targets in order to maximize casualties. On his watch, Hezbollah became one of the world’s largest drug-trafficking operations and narco-terrorist groups, trafficking millions of dollars worth of amphetamines, cocaine, and marijuana to finance its terrorism. 

The New York Times’ anti-Israel bias and apparent sympathy with terror groups is disturbing but not surprising. The publication has routinely defamed and libeled the Jewish nation, lending credence to the false notion of Israel as an “apartheid state” and labeling its war against Hamas as a “genocide” against Palestinians. 

The New York Times and similar publications have been consumed by moral relativism. 

All war and military action is considered unacceptable, therefore whichever side is winning or holds more power is accused of crimes against the enemy, even if it didn’t start the war. 

In World War II, German citizens suffered casualties and displacement as a result of Allied bombing campaigns which helped defeat the Nazis, yet high casualty counts among its civilians didn’t stop Germany from being the aggressor. The New York Times certainly did not condemn the Allies for bombing Dresden. 

War is not a pleasant endeavor, but sometimes it is necessary. It is deeply unfortunate that Lebanese citizens are being caught in the crossfire with Israel, but Hezbollah has been waging a war by firing over 8,000 rockets at Northern Israel since October 8, displacing 60,000 Israelis for an entire year, and hiding weapons behind civilian human shields.

Israel is fighting a just war against enemies that seek to destroy it and terrorize its citizens. The New York Times has lost its moral compass and perspectives of good vs evil and of self-defense vs terrorism. Israel’s wars and military actions are always considered unacceptable acts of aggression regardless of their cause by vocal sections of the world population. This has been evident in a year’s worth of reporting on the Israel-Hamas war and is again evident in coverage of Israel’s war against Hezbollah.

The writer is a Tulane University student journalist and outgoing fellow at CAMERA, Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis.