The "Israel attacked and killed dozens of children" story has spread with a speed that defies rational explanation. It's as though most mainstream media "journalists" around the world were excited to learn that an Israeli attack on a Hizballah rocket launch point resulted in the deaths of 37 children. Those media vultures swung into action, painting the Israelis as evil aggressors deliberately targeting innocent men, women and children, making them sound... well, like Hizballah.

A three-story building in Qana, Lebanon was hit by an Israeli air strike in response to rocket attacks launched into Israel from the vicinity. The Associated Press depicted a man screaming, "Why are they killing us? What have we done?" as he pulled bodies from the wreckage. Reuters coverage, accompanied by graphic descriptions of the bodies, quoted another man asking, "Why have they attacked one- and two-year-old children and defenseless women?" It's difficult to remember the last time the media published such heart-rending accounts of personal grief in the aftermath of a Hizballah strike on an Israeli town. Then again, the media doesn't want to make that comparison, since people might notice that the Israelis aren't, in fact, launching random rocket attacks at innocent civilians on purpose. 

The media seems to be doing little more than publishing Hizballah propaganda thinly disguised as "news." The blog EU Referendum, for example, has documented evidence of Hizballah stage-managing coverage of the tragedy at Qana. The same man is seen "rescuing" the same victim in photograph after photograph, taken over a period of hours by several agencies, posing for the cameras with the body. CNN correspondent Nic Robertson took a guided tour conducted by a Hizballah "press officer" that was blatantly staged to "prove" that Israel was targeting civilians. Only photographic evidence that Hizballah attacks are launched from civilian areas, published in the Australian Herald Sun, weakened the mainstream media's indignation somewhat. Outrage over an Israeli airstrike that killed four UN "observers" was only slightly dampened when it was revealed that Hizballah was using the presence of UN troops as a shield from behind which they could launch attacks unmolested (or so they thought). UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan still used the Qana incident to demand an immediate cease-fire, which would prevent Israel from defending itself while leaving Hizballah free to regroup and rearm for more attacks.

Few of these "journalists" seem to have asked the questions, "what were women and children doing in that building when it collapsed, and why did it happen some seven hours after the airstrike took place?" The fact that Hizballah and other terrorists routinely use innocent civilians as human shields doesn't seem to change their foregone conclusion that the Israelis are really the bad guys. If it turns out that the building was used to hide Hizballah explosives which caused the building's collapse, Israel will still somehow be made to bear the blame.

There was no way for the Israelis to know that building contained women and children... if they were actually even there when the airstrike took place. There was no reason for any civilians to be in the town at all. Hizballah certainly knew that there were civilians present, but used the residential area as a launch zone anyway, knowing that Israel would respond. As usual, the majority of the "mainstream" media attaches no blame to terrorists whatsoever, even as the terrorists manipulate the media for their own ends.

The Israelis have been doing all that can be reasonably expected to limit civilian casualties in Lebanon as well as their own country. They regularly warn residents of southern Lebanon to leave towns targeted for airstrikes, via radio and dropped fliers, even though such warnings also tell Hizballah where the next blow will fall. No matter what they do, however, the Leftist media will continue to do all in their power to turn world opinion against them.

Israelis might as well forget about who "likes" them and do whatever it takes to remove Iran-controlled Hizballah from their northern border. After that, a multinational force -- NATO or an ad hoc coalition -- should help the Lebanese military keep the area secure from attacks. Now that the media has its meme, however, the clock is ticking on Israel's already faint international support. 

Just as most members of the media have used the crimes committed at Abu Ghraib to tear down public support for the entire liberation of Iraq, they will try to use Qana to turn support against Israel. If the Israelis bow to "world opinion" now, however, they might as well save time and drown themselves en masse in the eastern Mediterranean.

11 Aug 2006 UPDATE: More on photo fraud by a complicit media from aish.com.