I have great news tonight: Gaza is exciting the world's sympathy.
Consider the picture above. We never could have imagined such a thing just weeks ago. Consider the heartrending headline and lead of an AP story prominent on Yahoo's main page tonight:
"Gazans Unsure Where to Flee Violence"
In four days of Israeli airstrikes, Rasha Khaldeh has already fled twice.
Note that the AP byline reflects the global village we live in: Diaa Hadid and Ibrahim Barzak. Today on CNN, Rick Sanchez, a Cuban-American, seemed shocked by the Gaza footage.
"The Israelis have to answer for this… it's tough to watch… as people all over the world look at these pictures… [it's] civilians essentially cowering and running for their lives." Mark Regev, a spokesman for the Israeli gov't, responded with the bland smug newspeak that we've come to expect from Israelis, the same tone you'll see here at Israel's "citizen news conference" today, conducted via twitter–
[Israel] Israel does not target civilians the way Hamas does. We mourn every casualty, Palestinian and Israeli.
Do they really mourn every casualty? Please. That's a lie. Seeing this story feelingly, as Gloucester says in Lear, I get a strong feeling from Sanchez and AP and everything else: Israel looks awful. You can't kill nearly 400 Palestinians in two days and smile like a Cheshire cat. Steve Walt said earlier today that the MSM is not seeing thru it, and he's right, it's not– in America. But pictures don't lie, and globalism seems at last to be overcoming the strength of the U.S. Israel lobby. Israel is just getting clobbered on the p.r. I'm telling you, the jig is up.
