Publius' Forum

-By Warner Todd Huston

The New York Times has done it again. In their latest soft selling of the terror organization, Hezbullah, The Times is revealing the kinder, gentler side of the outlaw group to help us all better understand how wonderful they really are. Even the title almost seems nice...

"Holding a Gun, Hezbollah Lends a Hand", it read.

But wait! Apparently The New York Times thought even that title was too harsh. They later changed the name of the piece to "Charity Wins Deep Loyalty for Hezbollah". Best to get that nasty "gun" word out of there, I suppose. Why, we can't expect people in America to come to love Hezbullah like the TImes does if people think they are somehow connected to guns after all!

(If you want to see this amusing transformation, Google the original title and one of the top hits under the old title will take you to the newly titled piece)

Along with a nicer title than they started with, the piece details all the wonderful things that Hezbullah does so selflessly for the Lebanese people. From paying for groceries, to paying for health care ... why those nice Hezbullah fellers even helped a shop owner negotiate downward his electric bill that those greedy Syrians were trying to get him to pay.

"TYRE, Lebanon, Aug. 5 — Hezbollah paid for his wife’s Caesarean section. It brought olive oil, sugar and nuts when he lost his job and even covered the cost of an operation on his broken nose.

Like many poor Shiites across southern Lebanon, Ahmed Awali, 41, a security guard at an apartment building in this southern city, has received charity from Hezbollah for years. He says he is not a member. He does not even know the names of those who helped him."

They are a veritable army of Robin hoods, for sure.

"They cover medical bills, offer health insurance, pay school fees and make seed money available for small businesses. They are invisible but omnipresent, providing essential services that the Lebanese government through years of war was incapable of offering."

The Times then goes on to try and link their presence straight to a faith in Islam itself and warns Israel that it cannot win against them.

"Their presence in southern Lebanon is so widespread that any Israeli military advance will do little to extricate the group, which is as much a part of society as its Shiite faith."

In fact, little mention is made of the terrorism that Hezbullah is responsible for in the piece. Only one mention is made about attacks on Israel and that mention does not mention Hezbullah as being responsible for it.

"On Wednesday, a mass funeral was canceled. Authorities cited the security situation. Minutes later, the sound of rockets being launched swooshed from an area near where the burial was to have been held."

Just some mysterious rockets that suddenly sprang from the ground like a budding flower in Spring Time, I suppose.

Worse, the Times furthers the fiction that Hezbullah's "social works" are separate and unconnected to the terrorism wing of the organization.

"Now, Hezbollah’s military branch is separate from its social works, but in its early days it began together, organizing water delivery for people in Dahiya, the Shiite area in south Beirut, the scene of some of some of the most complete destruction in this war."

How absurd. There are no "separate" parts of Hezbullah. They are part and parcel an organization, funded by Syria and Iran, created solely for the purpose of killing Jews and has been on the USA's list of terrorist organizations for decades. These "social woks" are merely propaganda meant to further that aim. They are not mere charity meant to help fellow citizens.

The Times support of Hezbullah amounts to a support for terrorism and no American institution should offer such support. But, The Times sure makes a great propaganda arm of Hezbullah. Makes you wonder if they are "separate" from the terrorism wing of Hezbullah themselves?