On the July 24 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume, Weekly Standard executive editor Fred Barnes stated that in the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict, the international media and human rights organizations are “dupes” that are “abetting the terrorists.” Barnes was responding to a question from host Brit Hume, who asked whether syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer's assessment that Hezbollah is “deliberately trying to increase civilian casualties on both sides” to weaken Israel's hand meant that “the international media and the human rights organizations” that cover civilian casualties are “in the position of endangering -- in danger of becoming dupes.” Barnes responded: “Yeah, they're abetting the terrorists in this case. Yeah, of course they're dupes.”

From the July 24 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume, featuring Barnes, Hume, Krauthammer, and Roll Call executive editor and Fox News contributor Morton M. Kondracke:

HUME: In a sense, isn't it the case, though, that Hezbollah's military weakness, and the weakness of the Lebanese government, its military, and -- one might even argue -- its people are, in effect, strengths for Hezbollah in that you are going to get a lot of collateral damage because the way they operate, the way they're embedded in the population, the way they're located, the way they hide their weapons all makes that inevitable, and that has an effect on world opinion and you do have a disproportion now between the number of Lebanese who are dying and the number of Israelis who are dying? What's the effect of that?

KONDRACKE: Well, look, the publicity, the blood factor here and on TV and the newspapers is all against the Israelis and it's -- there are journalists that were camped out in Tyre or visited Tyre, both The Washington Post and The New York Times and NPR [National Public Radio] were talking about this family that got hit in a Mercedes while they were fleeing Tyre. And, you know, and the stories were perfectly heart wrenching about a young boy who was, you know, burned over most of his body. The fact is, though, that Tyre is the place from whence comes these rockets that are hitting Haifa. So, the Israelis are trying to knock out the rocket installations, and they hit civilians in the process.

KRAUTHAMMER: What's disgraceful in the coverage in the attacks on Israel is that Israel is deliberately trying to minimize civilian casualties on both sides and Hezbollah is deliberately trying to increase civilian casualties on both sides. Terrorizing Israelis, and trying to see that as many Lebanese civilians are hit as Hezbollah hides behind them as a way to demonize Israel.

HUME: So, does that put the international media and the human rights organizations in the position of endangering -- in danger of becoming dupes?

BARNES: Yeah, they're abetting the terrorists in this case. Yeah, of course they're dupes, I mean, they're showing what they show is real, but it doesn't reflect truly what's happening there. I mean, you can show some blown-out buildings, you can show some bodies, you can tell the story about the people in this Mercedes and obviously those things happen, but there's -- the truth is somewhere else.