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Falling for Hamas' Media Manipulation
(Washington Post) Michael Oren - Hamas' media strategy is to portray Israel's unparalleled efforts to minimize civilian casualties in Gaza as indiscriminate firing at women and children, to pervert Israel's rightful acts of self-defense into war crimes. Its goals are to isolate Israel internationally, to tie its hands from striking back at those trying to kill our citizens and to delegitimize the Jewish State. Hamas knows that it cannot destroy us militarily but believes that it might do so through the media. Media also emphasize the disparity between the number of Palestinian and Israeli deaths, as though Israel should be penalized for investing billions of dollars in civil-defense and early-warning systems and Hamas exonerated for investing in bombs rather than bomb shelters. The imbalance is also of language. "Hamas health officials said 45 had been killed and 385 wounded," the New York Times' front page reported."Three Israeli civilians have died and 63 have been injured." The subtext is clear: Israel targets Palestinians, and Israelis merely die. The writer is Israel's ambassador to the U.S.