How the Israeli Press Reported Qana

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

JERUSALEM — The conflict in Lebanon is a battle for the very survival of Israel, according to many Israeli newspapers, which have urged the government on accordingly, despite the civilian death toll in Lebanon.

On the front pages of the country’s two big-selling dailies yesterday, editorials raged at international condemnation of Israel for the attack on Qana and warned of the dangers if such condemnation leads to a halt in the fighting.

“If Israel fails in this war, it will be impossible to continue to live in the Middle East,” the country’s top seller, Yediot Achronot, wrote on its cover.

The front page of the mass circulation Ma’ariv suggested a speech for Prime Minister Olmert to deliver to the world: “What is it about us, the Jews, the few and persecuted, that arouses all these instincts of cosmic justice in you?” it read. “We are not hesitating, apologizing, or relenting.

“I serve as a mouth today for 6 million bombed Israeli citizens, who serve as a mouth for 6 million annihilated Jews, who were burnt to dust by savages in Europe … And you, just as you did not take the matter seriously at the time, you are ignoring it now.”

Taking an apocalyptic tone, the speech said the fight would spread: “Today, they are rising against us. Tomorrow, they will rise against you. You are already familiar with the murderous taste of this terrorism.You have already tasted it. You will yet taste it.”

Other articles reacting to the Qana bombing were headlined “Regret, but no cease fire” in the left-leaning Ha’aretz and “Sorry, but …” in Ma’ariv.

News of Israel’s two-day suspension of its air campaign, later abandoned, broke just as Israeli papers went to press, giving them little time to comment on it. But as the day wore on, the Israeli press focused on the implications of the widening ground offensive taking place in southern Lebanon.

Even so, the coverage was not all grim calls for more military action. Some commentators said Israel should ask for “forgiveness.”

“Usually it is difficult for us, as Israelis, to ask for forgiveness,” Yediot Achronot said in a second editorial. “This character trait is perceived by other peoples as a kind of Jewish arrogance and conceit, a display of indifference towards the fate of non-Jews, a position of constant victimhood. There is no room for this in the face of dozens of bodies. Let us simply be human beings, utterly human: Let us weep.”


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