Israeli pager attacks on Lebanon are not a James Bond thriller

I once saw a James Bond movie. It featured actor Daniel Craig in the title role steering a car through a tunnel at high speed while heavily dodging oncoming traffic. His driver’s window shatters, blocking the view to his left, but he still deftly manages to spin the vehicle around in relative safety. As unfamiliar as I am with the laws of physics, I’m pretty sure Bond’s elaborate maneuvers violate them. It’s simply not real life. Two stars.

James Bond was powerfully brought to mind by The News™ this week as the world’s media tried to process Israel’s pager attack on alleged Hezbollah members in southern Lebanon. The breathtaking reporting that followed the attack called it sophisticated, complex, daring and carefully planned. It was, declared The Sydney Morning Heraldan “absolute spy novel” – and in case you were wondering which spy, it was Bond and no, I’m not going to do the bit.

If you ever needed proof of how derivative and unoriginal the media can be, look no further than the comparisons of Israel’s pager attack to the fictional British spy. “Israel’s unprecedented James Bond-style attack on Hezbollah sends a message to Iran,” the Australian cooed. In Great Britain The sun was even more glowing, going “Israel’s James Bond-style attack on Hezbollah has left them like headless chickens.” Even The Daily Shownot exactly known for his great admiration for the state of Israel, called the country’s actions “James Bond shit.” Elsewhere The Washington Post labeled it a “masterpiece” like “something out of a bizarre James Bond movie,” while FOX repeated the comparison to “the Jewish state’s alleged James Bond-style hacking attack,” as did NPR, The Chicago Tribune and CBC.

You can almost see it, can’t you? Journalists, editors and pundits around the world are hunched over their keyboards, standing upright in front of their microphones, chuckling quietly to themselves because they haven’t just come up with the most clever little equation? Wait until the world hears this.

I suppose this is the time when I should issue the following disclaimer: I am a Lebanese Australian. I was born in Lebanon and have family there, mainly in the north. They’re safe for now, but the country is the size of Sydney and who knows what James Bond, that devious guy, has in store. As we’ve seen, pagers were just the beginning.

Normally I don’t feel the need to issue disclaimers about my cultural heritage, but I have to tell you that being Lebanese has really been boring me lately. I don’t know if it’s the mutilated remains of people, or the images of laughing children that have since been blown to smithereens, or the ever-present fear that those I know and love now sit in their homes with borrowed loans. time. I don’t know exactly what it is, but I’ve become increasingly humorless. And this, you must know dear reader, makes me a biased journalist, because there is indeed one side that I simply cannot see: the funny side.

There’s a little bit of mirth in the James Bond compassions, isn’t there? An almost imperceptible fist pump in the air. It’s the same feeling you might get watching a James Bond movie and seeing the hero’s sophisticated, complex, daring, carefully planned maneuvers as he whirls and turns his vehicle to safety while the villain charges off a cliff . In any case, it is fair and impressive.

But James Bond is simply not real life. In real life, the Israeli pager attacks killed two children and were likely a violation of international law, a possible war crime, and/or a form of terrorism that paved the way for airstrikes that subsequently killed more than 500 Lebanese perished in one day. This makes this the country’s highest daily death toll in recent history. Tens of thousands of people are now internally displaced and the region is on the brink of war.

This is real life and in some ways makes the media’s James Bond comparisons somewhat appropriate, because the Western press doesn’t know – and probably doesn’t care – what the real life of the Lebanese people is like. The media does not live and breathe it, they are not influenced by it. In this story about heroes and villains, the people are the extras in the background, who are lucky enough to be able to have a dialogue every now and then. But what can I say, I’m biased. I can’t see the full picture because I’m too close to the story. I dare suggest that you can’t see the full picture because you’re not close enough.

How should the media report on the Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Gaza? Let us know your thoughts by writing to [email protected]. To be considered for publication, you must include your full name. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.