Finally a wee bit of pushback from a CNN anchor

Golodryga interviews Hellyer

It’s not clear why CNN keeps going to Hellyer for interviews given that he rarely answers the questions he’s asked and consistently blames Israel for everything, but maybe that’s why. After four interviews with CNN anchors who either agreed with him or did not have the knowledge or spine to disagree, finally Bianna Golodryga gave him a bit of pushback.

CNN 270924 19:28

Golodryga: Let’s bring in HA Hellyer a Middle East scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who joins us from Athens.

Imagine introducing him with his real name, Hisham and his title of Shaykh, rather than make him sound like an impartial Western scholar (as if there are lots of those).

So a lot we can’t confirm but we can confirm that the target of this strike was Hassan Nasrallah the leader of Hizbullah, that tells you what about what direction we've seen escalate over the course of the last few weeks, rapidly beginning in October 8th when Hezbollah began launching rockets into Israel?

A somewhat confused question, but at least with a mention that this all began with Hizbullah launching rockets the day after Hamas’ attack. But, Bianna, if you expected an answer, forget it. Hisham’s MO is: ‘I’m here to make a propaganda dump, and no matter what you ask, I’ll dump my stuff.’

Hellyer: And thank you for having me on your program. So Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel was at the UN as he began his speech, scores of delegations just walked out. I'm not sure there's been such a vigorous isolation of any country in many decades, quite frankly.

Israel the rogue country. He especially likes to use “frankly” when he’s dumping his load. (So far, never used it to describe Hamas or Hizbullah bluntly.)

And I think that that isolation is set to continue and deepen. the the images that we're seeing from Beirut right now are frankly horrifying. 2000 LB bunker Buster bombs in a residential area which flattened 6 entire buildings in Beirut. Beirut, the city where more than 100,000 people have fled the South of Lebanon from Israeli strikes to what they thought was going to be safety in Beirut. And now we see this.

Not the pictures of people all over the Arab world celebrating the death of Nasrallah, in Lebanon (Beirut!), among Sunni Lebanese in Tripoli, in Idlib, in Northern Syria, in Iran… Nah, why confuse the West when their progressive elites are mourning Nasrallah.

Also, let’s show the picture of six buildings, largely evacuated beforehand, in the area of Beirut that Hizbullah has annexed and in which no one not affiliated with Hizbullah lives. No Lebanese refugee from the south, where Hizbullah had made them targets, took refuge in that neighborhood.

I, I don't think that this represents anything like a de-escalation that the Biden administration was calling for, like the French government was calling for, like frankly, most of the international community at this point. And it's deeply concerning to see the spiraling situation go on any further. But unfortunately, without a change of direction from the Israeli government, I suspect we're going to see more of this and probably more devastation. 

It’s the same old song. France and the US are on board with my program - hold the Israelis back out of fear of regional war. They’re the problem. There’s no room in my universe for preventing Hizbullah from doing what they’ve done for the last year. (We actually want that normalized.)

Maybe CNN should interview Lee Smith, for a change. Or Walter Russel Meade, or Melanie Philips, just so your audiences can hear the other side of what “the whole world” thinks (and, frankly, they’re considerably less “partisan” than Shaykh Hellyer). Their main concern is the strength of democracies around the world. This stands in sharp contrast with Hellyer, who wants to use Western governments to hold back the only people fighting the Jihadis, and whose savage face, revealed on October 7, he wishes to obscure.

Golodryga: one could also argue there has been no change in direction from Hezbollah over the course of the last year. As we noted, they began launching this unprompted on October 8th, launching rockets into Israel. Israel says that they've been trying to go down the diplomatic path with the aid from the United States, and it's envoy to deescalate. Israel says that that hasn't been successful and thus we've seen the ratcheting up of fighting over the course of the last two weeks. Israel saying it's escalating to deescalate. To avoid another ground invasion, what is your response to the fact that Hezbollah itself has not been de escalating over the last year?

Good question. Not to Hisham’s liking of course.

A’: So I think we need to frame this a little bit more accurately.

No, we can’t have the Israeli point of view here. That wouldn’t be accurate.

When it comes to Israel's acts of the past year, you've seen 10s of thousands of civilians being killed in Gaza, which is the impetus behind Hizbullah’s…

He’s about to launch into his ‘if only Israel would accept a ceasefire in Gaza I’m sure Hizbullah would stop firing their rockets. But, lo and behold, Bianna interrupts:

Golodryga’: right but October 8th, the IDF was not in Gaza yet.

Precisely.

Hellyer: I'm sorry, I'm sorry if you allow me to continue [and not address your point]. Of course, Hezbullah is a militant group, they can speak for themselves. I certainly wouldn't be interested in defending Hezbollah, particularly after what they've done in many instances around the region.

Although, part of my job is to make them look reasonable when it comes to Israel. As to your pertinent interruption with a reminder of how Hizbullah started rocketing on the 8th, long before Israel went into Gaza (which contradicts my narrative of their bombing Israel to get them to stop bombing Gaza) - I’m not going to address it. It’s Israel’s fault and she must stand down.

But the fact of the matter is, is that the United States has been calling on the Israelis to deescalate. Over the past six, actually 6 to 12 months, the Israelis have sent messages saying, yes, we will and then they crossed that line.

Not one interview with Hellyer goes by without Israel crossing US-imposed lines with impunity.

And even in the past couple of days, as you and your viewers will know, the United States and France announced the ceasefire proposal just for Lebanon. They weren't even talking about Gaza and. And Netanyahu’s government said that they were supportive of it and then changed their minds almost in mid flight. I, I don't think that this is a two sides situation. If you're talking about the number of strikes that have gone across the border, then multitudes more have come from the Israeli side into Lebanon.

That’s funny. So why has southern Lebanon been populated for the last year but not northern Israel. No this can’t be two sides. It’s got to be Israel, the perp.

It's not comparable to the other side.

Huh? Even though they started it and continue bombing. Even though they bomb indiscriminately, forcing people to leave while Israel targets Hizbullah sites, and civilians remain?

I do think that we have to move towards de escalation here and de escalation, particularly when it comes to the use of this sort of weaponry. I mean, the the, the sort of weapons that Hezbollah has been using do not remotely even compare it to any of this, and Hezbollah is not an ally of the United States or of the West, whereas Israel is, and I think ought to be held to a certain standard.

So let’s level the playing field by degrading Israel’s weapons capacity? (Yes, precisely.) Note the double standard. Israel helped by the West must be held to a standard that Hizbullah shouldn’t be (?). But Israel is helped by the West precisely because Hizbullah refuses to be held to any standard…

Q’: So if the goal is to see the return of tens of thousands of residents [96,000], not only Israeli residents there in the north,  but Lebanese residents in the south…

Hisham interrupts (because even the mention of Israeli residents having fled the north is too much for him).

Hisham: and also Lebanese residents in the south, absolutely…

Golodryga: …if I can if I can finish, yes, Lebanese residents in the South, how how would you propose the best solution to getting there is at this point? Do you think it's the ceasefire that's being on the table being offered by the US and French right now?

It’s not clear why Golodryga gives him the very answer he wants, rather than asking an open question. It’s a characteristic of many interviewers at CNN - and elsewhere - to ask leading questions, hardly a good sign.

Hellyer: There have been diplomatic proposals offered by the Americans and the French multiple times over the past six months. Those diplomatic proposals were rebuffed by the Israelis, incidentally, very similar to what has been happening with regards to Gaza, where the ceasefire negotiations that were calling for at least even a pause in hostilities were being sabotaged by the Israeli government, as incidentally has been mentioned many times in Israeli media blaming from within the Israeli negotiation team in Benjamin Netanyahu's own office.

Let’s use the freely voiced criticism of Israeli society to blame all this on Bibi. Hamas is willing to make a deal, I’m sure of it. Never mind the kinds of demands Hamas is making for a deal.

So I do think that the the framing here is very important. We have a destroyed Gaza, we have Beirut being bombed with huge tolls for civilian casualties.

As of two days before this interview the count - from the notoriously reliable Lebanese Health Ministry which, like the Hamas ministry of Health, does not distinguish combatant from civilian deaths - was 558 including 58 women (ie 10% of the total, not anywhere near the 50% one would expect were Israel to be bombing indiscriminately. That translates into “huge tolls for civilian casualties” for Hellyer.

And I think that at this moment in time you see the international community, as you've seen in the at the UN over the past week, called for de escalation, call for a ceasefire, call for an end to this spiral.

Back to the hobby-horse. Playing up civilian casualties, international outrage, calls for immediate ceasefires, getting Israel not to deal with the problems it faces from enemies dedicated to destroying it. That’s the job of a propagandist operating for the “axis of resistance.”

Golodryga: Yeah, I believe that as you note, the framing is very important. I I don't believe Hezbollah had accepted a ceasefire yet either.

An appropriate course correction.

So as we are going to be learning more on who this exact target, well, we know who the target was, but but whether Israel was able was able to assassinate Haniya or anyone around him, we don't yet know that. We do know that the civilian death toll will likely be very high. And we are ready and they're ready. Ohh. I'm sorry. Hassan Nasralla. You're right. You're right Hassan Nasralla. Yes, yes,

A’: but but also cost of civilians in in such a target. As you well know, collateral damage shouldn't entail hundreds or thousands of people for a single target. Unfortunately, this wouldn't be the first time that we've seen huge civilian casualties for a single target at the hands of the IDF.

According to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, 11 civilians died in a bombing that targeted not only Nasrallah but the leadership of Hizbullah. It looks like civilian-combatant ratio was about 1:1! Unfortunately this won’t be the first time Hellyer (and so many others CNN seems to love to interview) will make wildly false accusations against the IDF invokikng “huge [sic] civilian casualties for a single [sic] target.”

Golodryga: Yeah, and we will likely see a significant civilian death toll from this target, again… CNN confirming that Nasrallah was the target.  H.A. Hellyer thank you for your time.

Huh?

Yes, thank you Hisham for your systematic misinformation which we at CNN apparently can’t get enough of.