"Video Made the Terrorist Star"

By Noah Pollak at National Review Online:

.... As a means of physically damaging Israel, Hezbollah’s military capabilities are almost laughable. But as a means to demoralize, isolate, and promote the ridicule of Israel, Katyushas and mortars aimed at civilian populations are the perfect weapon: Sufficiently ineffective to exculpate Israel’s legions of scrutinizers from apprehension about Israeli deaths, they invite a predictable military response from Israel that Hezbollah can use to cause maximum political and media damage to the Jewish state. Hezbollah does not waste valuable media capital by launching its rockets from rural hillsides; it launches them from crowded neighborhoods, apartment buildings, and schools, while its operatives aggressively promote the civilian-casualties deception to credulous Western journalists, fully confident that scenes of death and destruction will make westerners recoil from what is allegedly being done in their names....

In other words, Hezbollah does not have a military strategy; it has a media strategy that so far has been chillingly effective. In Lebanon, most civilian casualties are not the product of Israeli overzealousness — they are the most vital, important, and intentional victories in Hezbollah’s campaign. We are witnessing what is perhaps the most successful manipulation of civilian deaths by a terrorist organization to date, and while the reality of the situation is apparent to some observers, most members of the media are either oblivious to their own culpability in spreading propaganda for Hezbollah, or simply don’t mind doing so....

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sat. 08/05/06 08:35:51 AM
Categorized as More Than Readworthy.