NY Times runs puff piece on Christmas in Hezbollah land; accused of humanizing terrorists

“Today, we’re celebrating the birth of Christ – and also the 40th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution,” Mohamed Mehdi Shari’tamdar, the Iranian cultural attaché, announced.

By World Israel News Staff

Titled “Christmas in Lebanon: ‘Jesus isn’t only for the Christians,'” The New York Times ran an article on Monday praising this year’s Christmas celebrations in a shopping mall in Beirut, organized by the Hezbollah terror organization, an Iranian proxy.

At the event, complete with an enormous Christmas tree and Santa Claus, “the Iranian cultural attaché stepped up to the microphone on a stage flanked by banners bearing the faces of Iran’s two foremost religious authorities: Ayatollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic, and Ayatollah Khamenei, the current supreme leader,” the Times reported.

According to the Times, “Few seasons frame the everyday give-and-take of religious coexistence quite like Christmastime in Lebanon.”

“Even Hezbollah, the Shiite political movement and militia that the United States has branded a terrorist organization, has helped ring in the season,” the report continued.

“Today, we’re celebrating the birth of Christ – and also the 40th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution,” Mohamed Mehdi Shari’tamdar, the cultural attaché, announced into the microphone, the article said.

The Blaze, a conservative American news site, blasted the Times report, saying sarcastically, “Oh, well, if they’re pro-Santa, they must be fine.”

According to The Blaze, the paper suffered backlash for publishing the report, which “many called pro-Hezbollah propaganda” and “was widely criticized as a puff piece that made the Islamist terrorist organization appear sympathetic.”

Hezbollah has been listed as a terrorist organization by the United States Department of State since 1997. Most recently, the IDF exposed and destroyed a number of cross-border Hezbollah terror tunnels running from Lebanon into Israeli territory and intended for attacking and kidnapping Israeli civilians.