‘Don’t mess with the Jews’: Israeli anchor blows up Lebanese building on TV

You’ve seen anchors act like they were hit by blizzards in studios. You’ve seen reporters present mock defence drills as real. And you’ve also seen journalists report with ethics from the frontlines, braving extreme weather and riots.

But it would be difficult to beat the infamy of prominent Israeli anchor Dany Cushmaro, who was seen blowing up a building in Lebanon in a 26-minute report for Channel 12.

“Don’t mess with the Jews,” he says, after pressing a button on a detonator handed over to him by an Israeli soldier, targeting a building in the southern Lebanese village of Ayta ash Shab, according to Haaretz. 

Israel’s war on Lebanon has killed over 2,500 people in the country since last October, with at least 12 Lebanese journalists killed in the past year, according to the Samir Kassir Foundation's SKeyes Center for Media and Cultural Freedom, Middle East Eye reported.

Etan Nechin, Haaretz New York correspondent, called Cushmaro’s report as “sickening” and said it came at a time when Palestinian and Lebanese journalists were facing an unprecedented attack.

Ofer Cassif, an MP from the left-wing Hadash party, pointed out the irony. “He then moved back to the studio to report on Hamas terrorists disguised as journalists”.

In a piece headlined “Israel’s most beloved TV journalist blew up a building in Lebanon. Israelis didn’t blink”, Haaretz deputy editor-in-chief Maya Lecker wrote, “Cushmaro is not alone, of course. The Israeli media is full of propagandists who consider themselves to be liberal, critical journalists. As the Israeli government cracks down on media outlets such as Al Jazeera and the Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Mayadeen, Israeli journalists cheer from the sidelines, leading the outcry against ‘foreign propaganda.’”

“When an officer eulogises a fallen Israeli soldier by telling a story of how he burned down a house in Gaza ‘just for fun,’ Israeli journalists collectively and independently decide not to report on it. When Israel puts targets on the backs of Palestinian journalists covering the Gaza war, claiming they are Hamas collaborators, Israeli journalists don’t ask for proof. They ask for the button, and the explosives.”

Watch our exclusive mini-series on Israel’s Gaza offensive here.

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