As anyone knowledgeable about the Israel-Palestinian conflict knows, the Western press often presents a distorted picture of events, and has been known to misrepresent the truth wildly. But, according to a recent open letter bearing the signatures of numerous journalists—including such influential figures as the Pulitzer Prize-winner Nikole Hannah-Jones—the news media should be doing more to shape its reporting into a “narrative” that demonizes Israel. Noah Rothman writes:

The almost total lack of curiosity in the press over the sequence of events that resulted in May’s eleven-day conflict is an abrogation of the press’s responsibility to its audience. But that abrogation is exactly what these reporters want. The activist journalists who signed this letter seem to believe that the credulous repetition of a simpler narrative—just another uprising against oppressive Israelis—is best practice.

This leads us to yet another ponderous assertion made by these self-described journalists: Western journalism tends “disproportionately [to] amplify Israeli narratives while suppressing Palestinian ones.” As evidence for this staggeringly blinkered claim, they cite the media’s efforts to fact-check Israeli politicians (which proves the opposite of the point they’re trying to make). . . . The very notion that the news media somehow [cannot] “accurately reflect the plight of the Palestinians” is so solipsistic that one has to wonder what reality these reporters inhabit.

But perhaps rationality has been subordinated to emotion. After all, as Vox reported, progressives in government and the press have come to view the Palestinian cause as an extension of the Black Lives Matter movement. They use BLM’s campaign against police violence as a heuristic to navigate a conflict they don’t understand and which they don’t seem to want to understand. Rather, they want it to comport with a childishly simplistic, Marxist-flavored narrative about how power dynamics explain the world.

Call that what you will, but you can’t call it reporting. What these alleged journalists want isn’t journalism. They are on a “sacred” mission to promote “contextualized truth.” Another way to say “contextualized truth” is “lie.”

If Iran succeeds in obtaining nuclear weapons, the war in Gaza, let alone the protests on college campuses, will seem like a minor complication. Jonathan Schachter fears that this danger could be much more imminent than decisionmakers in Jerusalem and Washington believe. In his view, Israel seems to be repeating the mistake that allowed it to be taken by surprise on Simchat Torah of 2023 and Yom Kippur of 1973: putting too much faith in an intelligence concept that could be wrong.

Israel and the United States apparently believe that despite Iran’s well-documented progress in developing capabilities necessary for producing and delivering nuclear weapons, as well as its extensive and ongoing record of violating its international nuclear obligations, there is no acute crisis because building a bomb would take time, would be observable, and could be stopped by force. Taken together, these assumptions and their moderating impact on Israeli and American policy form a new Iran concept reminiscent of its 1973 namesake and of the systemic failures that preceded the October 7 massacre.

Meanwhile, most of the restrictions put in place by the 2015 nuclear deal will expire by the end of next year, rendering the question of Iran’s adherence moot. And the forces that could be taking action aren’t:

The European Union regularly issues boilerplate press releases asserting its members’ “grave concern.” American decisionmakers and spokespeople have created the unmistakable impression that their reservations about the use of force are stronger than their commitment to use force to prevent an Iranian atomic bomb. At the same time, the U.S. refuses to enforce its own sanctions comprehensively: Iranian oil exports (especially to China) and foreign-currency reserves have ballooned since January 2021, when the Biden administration took office.

Israel’s response has also been sluggish and ambiguous. Despite its oft-stated policy of never allowing a nuclear Iran, Israel’s words and deeds have sent mixed messages to allies and adversaries—perhaps inadvertently reinforcing the prevailing sense in Washington and elsewhere that Iran’s nuclear efforts do not present an exigent crisis.