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Comment by jMyles | Hacker News Reader

As best I can tell, the Iranian regime and Sharif both said that they ceasefire included a cease to strikes on Lebanon, Netanyahu explicitly said that it did not, and the Trump admin, Lebanon, and Hezbollah have not yet commented either way.

Links to Pakistan and Israel statements here: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/8/us-iran-ceasefire-de...

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Iran is ATM saying it closed the Strait again, implied that it will wait until Israel stand down at least.

Even if USA insist on Israel-Hezbollah (and so Lebanon) be kept apart from any deal to end their war in Iran, it would still mean a terrible strategic and diplomatic disaster between USA and Israel, because Israel Gov' will be left with two terrible scenarios:

1) Trump Admin' will concede to Iran they'd be leaving the region and leaving Israel to defend itself alone, because the Hormuz being open for business and the Gulf states being spared would be enough; or

2) USA will have to resume hostilities, meaning domestically Trump will have to explain the US Military is obliged to continue the war effort for as long as Israel want.

IMHO don't see how Israel-US can politically survive those two scenarios.

> IMHO don't see how Israel-US can politically survive those two scenarios.

Is that such a bad thing?

Israel is a nuclear-armed state. The world is in effect asking them to commit suicide. That's why we have been involved for the last 50 years--by siding with them we keep those bombs in their silos. Most of the Muslim world has come to the realization that coexistence is the right answer, but the Islamists have not. They'll keep pushing until they go up in a mushroom cloud.

Lest you blame the Jews we see the same sort of thing happening with India/Pakistan--fortunately the Islamists do not control the Pakistani bombs, but they keep trying to egg on war with India--a war that could only end with the nuclear destruction of Pakistan. And the Islamists have enough power that Pakistan can't just go after them without causing a civil war. That's why the mess in Afghanistan--Pakistan was exporting the problem. And now it's turning on them--now that the Islamists have a country they control they're looking to take Pakistan.

Probably for the actual innocent people who live in Israel , yes

Maybe Iran will avoid Palestinian parts.

Israel is a modern day Nazi Germany. I wouldn't call anyone there over the age of 18 "innocent".

I think that's unfair. There are some people with sane politics there, although it's definitely a small minority. For example: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/taylor-swift-fan-account-twi...

Trump and Leavitt have both said that Lebanon is not part of the ceasefire

Iran gets a vote, and ceasefires need belligerents' unanimity, by definition.

Lebanon has also said that the ceasefire doesn't apply to Hezbollah, since they insist that both them and Israel are at war with Hezbollah, not with each other. The only parties that say it does are Hezbollah and Pakistan.

Also, I really wouldn't suggest using aljazeera.

I've found Al Jazeera's (English) coverage of the region to be informative. YMMV.

Honestly, it’s a good counter to get both sides of the coin. At the moment you’ll find BBC, CNN, NYT et al on one end and Al Jazeera on the other. I also look at DW for a more balanced approach. Don’t consume from one camp!

Al Jazeera is a private news organization mostly funded by the state of Qatar.

It is not "the other side of the coin". Qatar is very much on the US side, and opposite to Iran.

Their reporting is fine, and I typically find it more informative than the US news sources. But let's not pretend you are getting the Iranian side of the deal here.

Particularly, my favorite news sources for the war is, oddly enough, FT

Yeah, I'm really just looking for less Americanized coverage from the region. Al Jazeera is fine, I'm glad to hear any other recommendations for sources. (thanks for FT)

Just be aware that DW is literally government propaganda. If you want news from a German perspective, it's great; however its purpose is explicitly to give the German governments POV.

Fair call on CNN and DW, but the NYT has always been at least somewhat aligned with Al Jazeera, and the BBC switches around with whatever the current government is.

> NYT has always been at least somewhat aligned with Al Jazeera

Hard disagree: the NYT adopts a weird passive voice that goes against its house style, along with headlines with no subject when it comes to events in Gaza[1]. Al Jazeera consistently names the doers of the verbs.

1. Once you're aware of it, it becomes impossible not to notice. It is the Wilhelm scream of news coverage.

This is such an important point, and I wish it were more widely spoken about. As a daily NYT reader, I noticed a profound shift in the early days of the current admin. I might be off on the timing, curious to know what other daily NYT readers have to say. It's an incredibly effective technique given the relative subtlety, and in my experience it seems to exhaust the mental resources of the critical reader.

You're very very off on the timing: the first year of the genocide (and the majority of the official casualties) was under the previous administration. The bias on Gaza was observed across the board from the start (and arguably for the last 70 years).

NYT is also frequently silent on certain news stories that paints U.S. in a bad light that I consider noteworthy enough. Whenever I encounter a story I want to know more about I check all the mainstream reporting; Reuters and CNN would have it most of the time (even if not in a neutral tone) but NYT often doesn’t cover it at all or bury it in a sentence or two in a related, milder story. Not gonna name specific instances but you can pay attention from now on and you’ll see a pattern after a while.

Out of curiosity, which news sources do you recommend/advocate for covering the middle east?

Al Jazeera is effectively a terrorist mouthpiece. They lost their independence long ago.

Perhaps informative as a study of institutional bias and government interference.

No? Sources? It's possible that Qatar's government has some editorial control over the Arabic content, but my understanding is that the English operations are separate.

It's the same company, English operations can't be separate.

https://factually.co/fact-checks/media/should-i-trust-al-jaz...

https://apnews.com/article/b39b94d6847f4ee6acafd6ad2da7e963

Those don't really add to your argument. The Kashmir issue sounds like a mistake that Al Jazeera tried to address. The Factually analysis indicates that Al Jazeera is generally reliable for news, with caution advised for coverage of highly-political events and editorials, which I think is typical of any media organization.

> Also, I really wouldn't suggest using aljazeera.

Yeah, I agree - I have the same objections to ajazeera that I have to RT, CNN, Fox News, NYT, etc. - they are each overwhelming pressure from controlling corporations and states that they can't shine light where it needs to be shone.

But in this case, I was really only pasting them for links to the statements by Pakistan and Iran, which I do trust them to link / quote faithfully. It wasn't meant as an endorsement of their editorial or news-gathering quality.

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