\n<\/p>\n
To any reasonable<\/span> person, a ceasefire is exactly what it sounds like: It is the total cessation of military attacks to end a war. But to the mainstream American media outlets covering the U.S.\u2013Israel war with Iran, what constitutes a \u201cceasefire\u201d is a rhetorical exercise.<\/p>\n Today, Iran launched missiles at the international airport in Kuwait. As the New York Times reported<\/a>: \u201cThe barrage was one of the biggest attacks on a Gulf nation since the U.S.-Iran cease-fire took effect in April.\u201d ABC News\u2019s live update coverage ran with the breaking news headline \u201cIran targets US forces, Kuwait airport amid ceasefire.\u201d Over at CNN<\/a>, the headline was \u201cKuwait\u2019s airport attacked as fresh Iran-US strikes strain ceasefire.\u201d<\/p>\n Of course, Iran\u2019s latest campaign didn\u2019t come out of nowhere: It comes two days after the U.S. announced that it had bombed radar and drone sites<\/a> in the country, and one day after Israel<\/a> bombarded south Lebanon with airstrikes and artillery yet again, reportedly killing at least four people across two towns.<\/p>\n All that bombing, and all of its attendant death and suffering, sure doesn\u2019t feel like a \u201cceasefire\u201d in any real sense. Still, the Times, along with other national news outlets, continues to spin the fantasy that the ceasefire is intact \u2014 only now it\u2019s increasingly \u201cfragile<\/a>\u201d or \u201ctested<\/a>.\u201d The paper of record has gone so far as to say that it \u201changs in balance<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In a piece of news analysis in the Times<\/a> last week \u2014 on the heels of the U.S. bombing Iran for the second time in three days \u2014 the paper made the case that \u201ca truce isn\u2019t necessarily doomed if the missiles are still flying.\u201d It also argued that while a ceasefire might sound like an end to the bombing, the geopolitical definition hinges on whether both sides agree that a \u201cceasefire\u201d remains in effect.<\/p>\n If government officials call it a ceasefire, who is The New York Times to question it?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n If government officials call it a ceasefire, who is the New York Times to question it?<\/p>\n For many months, another ceasefire in name only<\/a> has been touted in Gaza. What that\u2019s looked like in practice is Israel relentlessly bombing the Palestinians on a near-daily basis. Al Jazeera reported<\/a> that since the \u201cceasefire\u201d in Gaza was announced in October 2025, Israel has killed at least 922 people and injured 2,786. <\/p>\n To the people of Gaza<\/a> and of south Lebanon<\/a>, there is no ceasefire. Continuing to carry water for the idea that we\u2019re no longer at war, or that there\u2019s been any meaningful progress made to end this war, is to provide cover for the U.S. and Israel, the countries that launched this war of aggression and continue to execute it. It also provides President Donald Trump with the political cover he so desperately desires as he realizes that he\u2019s powerless to end the deeply unpopular war<\/a> he started with Israel, and that no number of testy phone calls<\/a> will move the needle if our ally won\u2019t agree to a true ceasefire.<\/p>\n The mainstream media is perfectly comfortable spinning the fiction that we\u2019re currently in a gray zone somewhere between war and peace because the stakes are an abstraction. To them, blindly supporting American imperialism and Israeli aggression are baked-in ideological assumptions, not matters of life or death. It\u2019s no coincidence that the New York Times<\/a> has done more than any other media organization<\/a> to massage the language<\/a> around Israel, Gaza, and Iran to an extreme degree<\/a>.<\/p>\n But words like \u201cceasefire\u201d matter a great deal, which is why it\u2019s critically important<\/a> for the media to call out acts of war<\/a> for exactly what they are<\/a>. In this way, the brutal fact of war is black and white: Your country is either killing people with the bombs it\u2019s dropping, or it\u2019s not. Failing to acknowledge that reality is worse than dishonest \u2014 it is to irrevocably deprive those paying the highest price of their humanity.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n