The Distorted Portrayal

War is like making sausage, inherently and unavoidably an ugly enterprise. The world media is readily showing graphic images of injured or dead children to demonize Israel without any attempt to put the suffering in context. No Palestinians would have been injured if after Israel evacuated her citizens from the Gaza Strip leaving greenhouses and industry in place for the Palestinians to attempt to build their own prosperity, the Palestinians had embraced this opportunity to govern themselves in peace and prove themselves a reliable neighbor and a partner in peace. Had the Palestinians chosen this path, they would have a state today quite possibly with East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital. In the event, rather than responsible government, the Palestinians descended into internecine violence with Hamas gunmen chasing out the PA and with Hamas, nihilistic at its corps, being voted into power by the residents of Gaza. The citizens of Gaza selected this terrorist entity to run their affairs in a more or less fair plebiscite, rejecting even the phony overtures of peace of the rival Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas which holds nominal power for the Palestinians of the West Bank who left to their own devices would also favor the rejectionist position of Hamas. That state-controlled media or Al Jazeera would make Israel the bugbear is no surprise but that the so-called free press in the West would mimic this Jew-baiting lie, parrot those who advocate the eradication of Israel, is shocking. Even the scorecard is perverse, seven hundred to ten, as these numbers do not take into account that the Hamas terrorists have intentionally embedded themselves where any action to deter their rocket and mortar fire is bound to produce civilian casualties. For all the bloodshed on both sides, only the terrorists are to blame.