Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) delivered a speech on the Senate floor decrying whitewashed depictions of Hezbollah and defending the attacks last week against the terror group through booby-trapped beepers and exploding walkie-talkies.
“Israel’s operations against the Iran-backed terrorists surrounding it have also succeeded in exposing some of the most malignant and persistent biases of Western media against the Jewish state of Israel,” the Senate minority leader said on Sept. 19.
He pointed to various media outlets’ use of casualty figures provided by Hamas in the Gaza Strip; The New York Times’ eagerness to attribute rocket strikes to Israel; and NPR’s description of Hezbollah as a “Lebanese militant and political group.”
After arguing that these stories played a role “in the groundswell of anti-Israel and antisemitic hate across the West,” he called Hezbollah “arguably the world’s most dangerous terrorist group.”
Iran’s role in empowering Hezbollah also came in for condemnation.
“Hezbollah is funded, trained and equipped by Iran,” McConnell said. “And with Iran’s help, Hezbollah has conducted terror attacks around the world—from bombings in Argentina and Greece to backing the ghoulish Assad regime in the Syrian civil war.”
He noted that it may be worth mentioning that “perhaps the most carefully targeted series of simultaneous attacks against terrorist operatives in human history comes in response to this all-consuming campaign, which has turned Lebanon into the staging area for war on Israel’s existence,” he said.
Concluding with a reference to the proposal from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to “introduce joint resolutions of disapproving of U.S. security assistance to Israel,” McConnell stated that “such a signal would only empower and embolden terrorists like Hamas and Hezbollah.”
