I have a question for you: if someone punches you and you hit that person back, are you expanding the fight or responding/retaliating to someone who attacked you?
If you answered that this was a response/retaliation, we are in agreement.
Now, someone tell the headline writers at the Wall Street Journal. Because here is the headline they concocted for Michael R. Gordon, Lara Seligman and Carrie Keller-Lynn’s article, which reports on Israel’s retaliation for Iran’s attack earlier this month – and the first paragraph of the article as well:
Israel Strikes Back at Iran, Further Expanding the War in the Middle East
Israel struck back at Iran early Saturday, delivering a much-threatened response to this month’s 180-missile attack and further expanding the hostilities that have spiraled out of the war in Gaza.
Did Israel strike back? Yes. Was it a response to what Iran did? Yes. Did it “expand” the hostilities? Absolutely not.
Iran is dedicated, loudly and clearly, to the extinction of Israel. Its acts of war against Israel are, in Iran’s leaders’ own words, intended to pursue that goal.
How, then, is Israel expanding the war by retaliating? How do you expand a war of annihilation being openly waged against you? The war is already expanded to the nth degree.
The fact that Israel is retaliating, and that the retaliation is more successful than the act of war against, it is not an expansion. It is a reaction and a defense.
But there you have it, in writing, from the Wall Street Journal (and, you can bet, other media as well). Israel, that terrible aggressor, is the one making things worse. Not Iran. Not Iran’s proxies – hamas in Gaza, hezbollah in Lebanon and the houthis in Yemen. No, it’s Israel.
And you can count on the United Nations to condemn Israel for the unconscionable act of defending itself.
Oh, by the way — Donald Trump’s reaction to Israel’s expected response before it took place? “Do what you have to do”. And Trump, if elected, will certainly reinstate the sanctions against Iran that Biden/Harris removed, cutting off as much of its revenue as possible – just as he did when he took office in 2017.
By contrast, what do you think President Kamala Harris will do? Admonish Israel for its “expansion” and demand that it makes peace with people who have told Israel and everyone else, in so many words, that they will not make peace?
If you care about Israel at all, that is definitely worth thinking about when you cast your vote.
