{"id":8904,"date":"2026-04-28T15:21:02","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T13:21:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fokusisrael.ch\/nicht-kategorisiert\/hello-srf-hezbollah-is-not-a-social-club-but-a-terrorist-organization\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T15:21:31","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T13:21:31","slug":"hello-srf-hezbollah-is-not-a-social-club-but-a-terrorist-organization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fokusisrael.ch\/en\/news-en\/hello-srf-hezbollah-is-not-a-social-club-but-a-terrorist-organization\/","title":{"rendered":"Hello SRF, Hezbollah is not a social club, but a terrorist organization"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong><u>Summary<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>A <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/reels\/DXgrawYAGJX\/\"><strong>SRF reel<\/strong><\/a><strong>  says it wants to explain &#8220;what Hezbollah is&#8221;. But instead of providing clarity about the terrorist nature of the organization, it is being glossed over. <\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Hezbollah appears in the article primarily as a religious, political and social force in Lebanon. <\/strong><strong>Its role as a terrorist organization <\/strong><strong>is<\/strong><strong> into the background<\/strong><strong>shifted to the background<\/strong><strong>.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>The fact that Hezbollah in Lebanon <\/strong><strong>has contributed significantly to the flight of Christians<\/strong><strong>is also not an issue.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>According to SRF, Israel and the Israeli army, which invaded Lebanon at the time, are to blame for the existence of Hezbollah.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>The fact that this invasion in both 1978 and 1982 was a reaction to terrorist attacks from Lebanon (and was aimed at the PLO) is deliberately concealed.  <\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>On the contrary, the SRF reel refers several times to &#8220;Israeli attacks&#8221; &#8211; instead of making it clear that Hezbollah had previously attacked Israel massively with rockets.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>The report remains true to the narrative pattern of Swiss public radio and television: Israel is an aggressive militant power.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>The fact that Israel&#8217;s opponents want to destroy the Jewish state is not worth mentioning for SRF.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p>From David Spuler<\/p>\n\n<p>It begins with pictures from Lebanon: destroyed houses, figures on damaged homes, a ceasefire. Then the question: &#8220;What exactly is Hezbollah and how big is its influence in Lebanon?&#8221; <\/p>\n\n<p>So far, so legitimate. If you want to understand the war in northern Israel and Lebanon, you have to understand Hezbollah. But this is exactly where the problem begins: SRF does not explain Hezbollah incorrectly, SRF explains it softly. The reel says: In our country, we know Hezbollah primarily as a terrorist organization that repeatedly attacks Israel and is itself attacked by Israel. But it is also a religious and political organization.      <\/p>\n\n<p>That sounds balanced, but it is not. Because this portrayal alone shifts the perspective. Hezbollah as a terrorist organization becomes the Western perception, while the political and social role of Hezbollah in Lebanon becomes a much more important reality. It is true: Hezbollah is more than just an armed group in Lebanon. It sits in parliament, runs social institutions and controls entire areas. SRF itself describes it as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.srf.ch\/news\/international\/staat-im-staat-so-wird-der-libanon-von-der-hisbollah-beherrscht\">a &#8220;state within a state&#8221;.<\/a> In the SRF reel, this fact appears to be more of an explanation than a problem. This is because the Lebanese state itself is not in a position to take over Hezbollah&#8217;s social functions.         <\/p>\n\n<p><strong>&#8220;Israel and Iran are not doing well together&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<p>The real reason for the &#8220;state within a state&#8221; reality is not explained: the superiority of the Shiite terrorist organization over the Lebanese army. And the reel also plays down why Iran has given Hezbollah such a massive military build-up in Lebanon. &#8220;Israel and Iran don&#8217;t have it good together,&#8221; is the original quote. This is the &#8211; misleading &#8211; way in which Swiss public radio and television describes the fact that the Islamist mullah regime in Tehran has declared the destruction of the Jewish state to be a matter of state. And that Hezbollah is an important means of achieving this goal.    <\/p>\n\n<p>The current escalation in Lebanon is also told &#8220;crookedly&#8221; by SRF. The report begins with Israeli attacks and Lebanese destruction. The suffering in Lebanon is real. But the context is missing: just as after the massacre on October 7, Hezbollah once again began firing massive amounts of rockets into northern Israel during the latest escalation with Iran. The Israeli counter-attack was merely a reaction to this rocket fire, which forced over half a million Israelis to spend most of their time in shelters or flee their homes for weeks.    <\/p>\n\n<p>In response to the Israeli counter-reaction, the SRF narrator says succinctly that Hezbollah cannot simply be &#8220;bombed out&#8221; of Lebanon. This is a convenient sentence because it immediately makes any harsh criticism of Hezbollah appear naive or brutal. But the real question is different: why is an Iranian-controlled militia allowed to be stronger than the Lebanese state?    <\/p>\n\n<p>Significantly, the article also fails to mention that Hezbollah itself is heavily criticized in Lebanon. President Joseph Aoun, who is currently holding peace talks with Israel, recently condemned Hezbollah with the words: &#8220;When you started the war (against Israel, editor&#8217;s note), did you first ask whether our state agreed to it?&#8221; And Peter Germanos, the former president of the Lebanese military court, wrote on X (formerly Twitter): &#8220;Hezbollah is working to abolish the Lebanese state.&#8221;   <\/p>\n\n<p><strong>For SRF, Israel is the eternal aggressor<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<p>But of course such words do not fit into the SRF framing of Israel, which always follows the same pattern: Israel bombs, Israel is the aggressor. Israel&#8217;s opponents, including terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah, are glossed over as social organizations. <\/p>\n\n<p>SRF has already faced official criticism on several occasions in its Middle East reporting. In 2025, for example, the Independent Complaints Authority for Radio and Television (UBI) concluded that SRF had violated the diversity requirement when reporting on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ubi.admin.ch\/de\/aktuell\/news\/srf-berichterstattung-ueber-proteste-an-universitaeten\">Gaza protests at universities<\/a> because important facts and background information were missing. The SRG ombudsman&#8217;s office also criticized an SRF Kids report on the Middle East conflict as inappropriate, partly because of the inadequate classification of Hamas and Hezbollah.    <\/p>\n\n<p>At the end of the &#8220;explanatory video&#8221;, the young narrator of the Hezbollah reel asks: &#8220;Do you understand now?&#8221;. Yes, we have understood: Hostility towards Israel on Swiss radio and television is as widespread as ever. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Summary From David Spuler It begins with pictures from Lebanon: destroyed houses, figures on damaged homes, a ceasefire. Then the question: &#8220;What exactly is Hezbollah and how big is its influence in Lebanon?&#8221; So far, so legitimate. If you want to understand the war in northern Israel and Lebanon, you have to understand Hezbollah. But [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8905,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_socialbar":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[823],"tags":[3577,7,387,64,8,3467,3464,3405,3578,1392,825,3410,3029,3566,3576,201,3575,2978,3172,3564,3574],"class_list":{"0":"post-8904","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-news-en","8":"tag-7-october-2023","9":"tag-gaza","10":"tag-hezbollah","11":"tag-iran","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-joseph-aoun","15":"tag-lebanon","16":"tag-media-bias-switzerland","17":"tag-media-criticism","18":"tag-middle-east-conflict","19":"tag-missile-attacks","20":"tag-mullah-regime","21":"tag-peter-germanos","23":"tag-srf","24":"tag-srg-ombudsmans-office","25":"tag-swiss-radio-and-television","26":"tag-terrorist-organization","27":"tag-ubi"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fokusisrael.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fokusisrael.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fokusisrael.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fokusisrael.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fokusisrael.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8904"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fokusisrael.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8906,"href":"https:\/\/fokusisrael.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8904\/revisions\/8906"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fokusisrael.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fokusisrael.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fokusisrael.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fokusisrael.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}