Israel: CNN Buried the Lede in Its Own Story on ‘Dumb Bombs’

A spokesman for the Israeli government said Friday that CNN had “buried the lede” in its own story about Israel using “dumb bombs” in Gaza, noting in the 20th paragraph that Israel was using technology that made those bombs into guided munitions.

Reporters asked Israel to respond to the CNN story, which alleged that “[n]early half of the air-to-ground munitions that Israel has used in Gaza in its war with Hamas since October 7 have been unguided, otherwise known as ‘dumb bombs.'”

The story was seen by Israel’s critics as a refutation of Israel’s claim to avoid targeting civilians, and some pointed to it as evidence for President Joe Biden’s (still) unsubstantiated claim that Israel has been engaged in “indiscriminate bombing” in Gaza.

At Thursday’s White House press briefing, a reporter — one among many who have used the briefings to push anti-Israel views — asked national security aide John Kirby whether the CNN report supported the president’s criticism of Israel. (Kirby declined to answer).

But as Israeli spokesman Eylon Levy pointed out on Friday, CNN refuted its own main argument — far down the page:

But the US also provides Israel with systems that can transform those dumb bombs into “smart” ones, including the Joint Direct Attack Munitions guidance system and the Spice Family Gliding Bomb Assemblies. The US has provided approximately 3,000 JDAMS to Israel since October 7, CNN previously reported, and told Congress last month that it planned to transfer $320 million worth of the Spice Family kits.

The article also said that Israel was able to use bombing techniques that made unguided bombs similar in accuracy to guided ones.

Levy reiterated that Israel does everything it can to minimize the risk of casualties to Palestinian civilians in Gaza — among whom Hamas hides.

Update: The lead reporter on the CNN story is Natasha Bertrand, a reporter whose reputation has been severely damaged by inaccurate reporting on supposed “Russia collusion,” and who was the reporter who published a story in 2020 that 51 national security experts had declared Hunter Biden’s laptop to be Russian disinformation, a claim also turned out to be false.

A report by ABC News found that Israel is using “a historically high level of precision weapons usage in urban warfare” against Hamas.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.