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PBS & the AP Give Hezbollah the ‘Saving Private Ryan’ Treatment
Supporters of Hezbollah attend a protest organized by them against what they said was a violation of national sovereignty, near Beirut international airport, Lebanon, Feb. 15, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Emilie Madi
If PBS and the AP had been covering World War II with today’s “journalists,” they might have used a headline like: “Survivors of Strike on SS Barracks Struggle to Rebuild Lives.”
Last week, PBS repackaged an Associated Press puff piece about Hezbollah operatives — yes, members of an openly Iranian-backed terror organization — as if they were tragic war heroes nursing shrapnel wounds and broken dreams.
The result isn’t journalism; it’s moral laundering.
Somewhere in a taxpayer-funded newsroom, far from the blast craters of Kiryat Shmona or the graves of a dozen Druze children killed by Hezbollah in Majdal Shams, editors at PBS decided this was the human drama worth telling: the plight of Hezbollah terrorists whose pagers exploded last year.
Yes, pagers. The preferred communication device of drug dealers in 1993 and, apparently, Iranian-backed death squads in 2024. Israel used these pagers in an operation against a group that has spent decades murdering Jews, destabilizing Lebanon, mass-murdering and kidnapping Americans, and stockpiling enough rockets to turn Tel Aviv into Dresden.
But in PBS’ and the AP’s telling, these weren’t members of an overtly genocidal terror organization.
No, they were “survivors” — noble men recovering from injuries and wistfully recalling better days, when all they did was try to wage a “holy war” against the world’s only Jewish state, run a narco-state (within a state) dealing drugs worldwide, help Bashar al-Assad massacre hundreds of thousands in Syria, and try to spread violent jihad worldwide.
That’s why it would be equivalent to the BBC running a story in 1944, titled, “Survivors of Strike on SS Barracks Struggle to Rebuild Lives”
The technique is the same: strip away the context, humanize the aggressor, and recast the conflict as a tragic misunderstanding between two morally equivalent sides. It’s narrative taxidermy — gut the facts, preserve the skin.
We are asked to empathize with Hezbollah in precisely the way we’d never be asked to empathize with Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan, or the IRA’s Brighton bombers. In the polite salons of Western media, some extremists get obituary-length tributes, while their victims get buried twice — once in the ground, and once in the story.
This is not simply bad journalism. It’s moral inversion.
The public is entitled to news reporting that reflects who started the war, who seeks genocide, who is openly fascist, and who seeks a worldwide totalitarian caliphate, as well as who’s defending against it. What they’re getting instead is an empathy imbalance so grotesque that it could only survive in newsrooms hermetically sealed from reality.
If the next feature is “ISIS Fighter Opens Bakery, Says Cakes Help Him Heal,” don’t be surprised. In this era of moral inversion, the terrorist will get more coverage than the victims.
Micha Danzig is a current attorney, former IDF soldier & NYPD police officer. He currently writes for numerous publications on matters related to Israel, antisemitism & Jewish identity & is the immediate past President of StandWithUs in San Diego and a national board member of Herut.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.