Israel wins war but is badly wounded by media coverage

Haifa, Israel – On Monday afternoon, August 4, day 27 of the latest war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces confirmed to FoxNews.com that it has carried out 4,712 air strikes on strategic targets in the Gaza Strip. According to Hamas figures there have been around 1,800 fatalities in the enclave, “mostly women and children.” Israel, mainly due to its Iron Dome missile defense system, has sustained 66 casualties, only three being civilian. You do the math. If, as its most vociferous opponents charge, Israel is committing war crimes in its bombardment of Gaza, a bombardment that comes in response to more than 10,000 rockets fired indiscriminately into Israel over recent years – and more than 3,300 in the last 27 days alone -- how come the death toll in Gaza averages less than 1 person for close to each three targeted Israeli strikes into what is, by common consent, one of the most heavily populated urban areas on the globe?

 There has been scant questioning by the international media and by governments around the world of the figures on the dead given by Hamas. There has been very little attention paid to whether or not Hamas’ assertion that most of the dead are women and children is correct. Does that smack of random bombing? Does it reflect a lack of morality? Or does it reflect, as Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan has stated time and again during this and previous Israel-Gaza conflicts, that “Israel is the one country in the Western world today that is standing up for its morality and for its values against the onslaught of international jihad.”

 There has been scant questioning by the international media and by governments around the world of the figures on the dead given by Hamas. There has been very little attention paid to whether or not Hamas’ assertion that most of the dead are women and children is correct. Previous conflicts involving Hamas have shown them to be more than a little economical with the truth where figures are concerned. Hamas’ policy of embedding itself in heavily populated areas, its firing missiles from or close to schools, hospitals, and mosques, appears to be cynically designed to draw maximum casualties. The 4,712 Israeli airstrikes that have reportedly decimated Hamas' terror infrastructure, had they been carried out by any other force, would likely have caused the death of many tens if not hundreds of thousands of people. In Syria and Iraq thousands of innocents are dying every week, mostly out of the view of the international media. Muslims killed at the hands of other Muslims, or Muslims killing Christians, executed by Qatari and Saudi Arabian-sponsored jihadists for refusing to convert to Islam.

 The international outcry, relative to that on the Hamas-Israel conflict, is minimal. “Don’t think for a second please that Hamas cares for the children’s blood,” Mossab Hassan Yousef, son of Hamas founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef, explained in a Fox News television interview a few days ago. “They want the children of Gaza to die. This is what gives them Arab and Islamic world sympathy, and this is what will condemn Israel internationally. This is their game and they’re happy about it.”

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/08/05/gaza-strip-conflict-israel-wins-war-but-is-badly-wounded-by-media-coverage/