This is an interesting piece about how the Western media distorts the news coming out of Gaza to the disadvantage of the Israelis. Meir-Levi points out that journalists seem quick to report civilian casualties resulting from Israeli military operations but rarely explain how those casualties came about or why the operations were necessary in the first place.
It seems that the recent casualties in Rafah resulted from Palestinian gunmen using women and children as human shields. The operation that led to the fight was necessitated by the need to interdict the smuggling of ground to air missiles capable of knocking airliners out of the sky as they landed at Ben-Gurion airport. Evidently none of this made it in to Western news accounts of the fighting.
A similar report of the tactic of shooting from behind civilians, which seems to be ubiquitous in the Arab world, is related by a Marine in Iraq. The Marine was part of the convoy which Thomas Hammill was taken from in an ambush. His account is worth reading for several reasons, not the least of which is his reaction to being shot by children. It's a considerably different portrait of the American soldier than the one the left often paints. To read it go here and scroll down to Wedding Party 2. The Marine's story begins about halfway to the end, but you might want to read the whole analysis of the wedding party attack in western Iraq while you're there. The Belmont Club is an outstanding source of analysis of what is going on in that tragic country.
