Andrew Bolt: After 8000 rockets, Israel would rather fight back than die

Much of the coverage of Israel’s retaliation against the Hezbollah army — which has overrun a third of that country — is stunning in its ignorance or omissions, as journalists become curdled by our toxic victim politics.

Those bloody Israelis have just started yet another war. Or so I hear from journalists curdled by our toxic victim politics.

Much of the coverage is stunning in its ignorance – or omissions.

Exhibit A: The ABC announces “Israel unleashes heavy strikes on Lebanon.”

No, this is not an attack on Lebanon. Israel is instead firing back at the Hezbollah terrorist army that’s overrun a third of that country.

Exhibit B: Sky News UK tweets that “Hezbollah has been provoked like never before by Israel and may be tempted to unleash its firepower”.

No, it’s exactly the other way around. Israel has been provoked by Hezbollah firing 8000 missiles and rockets in just the past year, and now unleashes its firepower.

But up bobs our Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, demanding Israel stop: “Escalation is in no one’s interest.”

Really? As I said seven months ago, after speaking to leading Israeli military experts and politicians: Israel would eventually hit back at Hezbollah because it has a country to save.

This war with Hezbollah didn’t start last week. Picture: AFP

This war with Hezbollah didn’t start last week, when Israel detonated up to 5000 booby-trapped pagers which Hezbollah had issued to its fighters.

Hezbollah, funded by fascist Iran, has been attacking Israel for years – attacking Lebanese Christians, too, as it turned Beirut from the “Paris of the Middle East” to another Middle Eastern slum.

It’s built an army of up to 100,000 men, separate to the Lebanese army, and hidden an armoury of more than 120,000 missiles and rockets, all destined for Israeli targets.

Since October 7, it’s fired dozens of them almost daily into northern Israel, forcing 60,000 Israelis to flee their homes. One missile killed 12 Druze children in an Israeli playground.

But Israel’s leaders feared even worse. It knew Hezbollah also had plans to do its own October 7 on Israel, but bigger.

Was Israel meant to endure all this forever?

Hezbollah, funded by fascist Iran, has been attacking Israel for years. Picture: AFP

Wong says Israel should negotiate, as if it’s possible to make a genuine deal with Islamist terrorists who’ve vowed to wipe Israel off the map as an abomination.

Look what happened to the deal the United Nations reaffirmed in 2006 to keep southern Lebanon free of Hezbollah military and weapons up to the Litani River.

The UN even sent peacekeepers, yet that area now bristles with Hezbollah.

Not that many reporters see the con. TV reporters now groan that Israel is bombing homes of Lebanese civilians, without them notice something odd about the footage of several such attacks – footage I’ve shown on my Sky News Australia show.

There’s often the initial explosion from an Israeli missile, followed by a chain of explosions as Hezbollah missiles, rockets and bombs hidden inside go off.

Don’t these journalists wonder why Hezbollah would store explosives right next to people’s homes?

The answer is easy. Like Hamas, Hezbollah doesn’t mind Israel killing Muslim civilians. Hamas doesn’t even build bomb shelters for its people.

It’s Israel, not Hezbollah, that sends Lebanese civilians warnings on their phones to stay 1km away from Hezbollah sites. Picture: AFP

That’s because every dead civilian is terrorist propaganda to get western journalists and politicians to attack the wicked Jews.

So it’s Israel, not Hezbollah, that sends Lebanese civilians warnings on their phones to stay 1km away from Hezbollah sites. Long lines of cars now snake out of Hezbollah strongholds.

I’m sure Israel still accidentally kills civilian men, women and children, but do journalists actually check Hezbollah claims of war crimes?

America’s ABC, for instance, reports: “Lebanese journalist’s home hit by Israeli strike during news interview.” I’ve seen the footage of Fadi Boudaya being blown off his chair. Israel targeting a journalist!

What’s not reported is that Boudaya heads a Hezbollah propaganda arm. The Iranian regime’s official mouthpiece, the Islamic Republic News Agency, says his “Maraya international magazine takes steps in line with Resistance policies”.

This anti-Israel spin isn’t just ignorance. It’s also a product of the West’s cancerous culture of victimhood, where the poor are always the victim, never the authors of their misery.

Israel, being rich and Western, must of course be the villain. That it’s clever and rich enough that it kills more fighters than it loses is seen as just more proof that it’s evil.

That’s why Israel cannot even be forgiven now for defending itself from an enemy that’s fired thousands of rockets into its towns.

As if. The only time the Left really sympathised with Israel was just after millions of Jews were slaughtered. Now that Jews fight back, not so much.

But Israel isn’t into being the victim any more. It would rather fight back than die, whatever Penny Wong may say.