The word pre-emptive implies self-defense.
Israel is “preemptively attacking” the entire region.
israel was bombing Lebanon and Gaza far before October 7 where history magically starts.
Furthermore israel assasinated a Hezbollah top leader in Beirut. That was an escalating attack. Lebanon is defending itself right now.
You expect a military force to sit tight, not move, not shoot, while they know the enemy is about to attack?
Because, the enemy “is defending itself”?
I’d love to hear that rally speech with which you would motivate your soldiers to just eat incoming rockets without using the tools they have to prevent being attacked.
“Casting attacks as” implies they are reporting on what the IDF is claiming though, and doesn’t confer additional editorial meaning beyond that. Of those four it’s the only one with a semblance of journalistic integrity.
Far too many people only skim the headline and maybe the first paragraph of the article and then assume they don’t need to know anything more.
To include the perspective of Israel in a headline purporting to be neutral is instilling a bias in the mind of such readers no matter how many quotation marks and “Israel says” they use and they KNOW IT for a fact.
When it comes to Israel, the NYT has about as much neutrality and journalistic integrity as they do wrt cops: almost none.
It’s true that it’s biased in favor of Israel, but I’d say a biased headline isn’t as bad as a misleading one which isn’t as bad as a lie.
You’re blaming them for malice in what should be fairly attributed to the stupidity and laziness of the general population, though. If you seriously think they should be writing their headlines with the idea of summarizing the Lebanon/Israel situation in one sentence, you’re either an absolutely incredible writier, not their target audience or a straw man made up to illustrate my disagreement with your point.
Including a reference to the statements made by israel in the headline of an article about what israel has said is not unreasonable, regardless of your personal opinion about how that might reflect their bias. It stands that the NYT, of all those headlines, is the only one that doesn’t openly bias themselves towards israel by directly quoting the IDF, and even reflects reasonable skepticism on the statements made by the IDF. If you don’t understand that, it’s not really their fault.
I’m not sure if you’ve genuinely misunderstood me, or if you are commenting to pick a fight. Assuming good faith: Casting is not a vague term, although you are correct that it does not imply they are quoting the IDF (who they are not quoting here. Yes, you can use the same words as someone you’re referring to without quoting them). It’s meaning is quite explicit in this context. That people may not understand is more the fault of the dire state of literacy in this country than it is of the person who wrote this fairly reasonable headline. I would prefer the headline be more critical, but it disappointingly isnt. That is my issue with it.