A German TV news show segment on YouTube is racing around the blogosphere. Why? Because it is absolute proof that Hezbullah manipulates the media for their benefit.

Watch it, and be horrified, as you see “Green Helmet Guy” direct the taking of pictures of the victims of Qana.

The mainstream media insist they are far too savvy to fall for crude manipulation like this. And yet, proof keeps coming up that that is exactly what is happening: The media are falling utterly for all of the images coming out of Lebanon, and their critical thinking abilities aren’t even in gear. Lame excuses are offered for serious breaches of editorial oversight.

When even the pictures of bodies being taken out of the rubble are turned into propaganda victories for Hezbullah, you have to wonder—how many pieces of rocket launchers and other evidence were removed from the sites of such bombings?

This is standard operating procedure in the jihadi manuals. That is not rhetoric. We have their manuals on record, and there are whole sections that discuss the manipulation of the media. And our media plays along, always.

A few days ago, the world press accused Israel of killing a child while going after terrorists. Surprise—the palestinians lied.

Also Thursday, doctors said that a 5-year-old Palestinian girl initially believed to have been killed by an Israeli military strike Wednesday apparently died after sustaining head injuries during a fall from a swing. The girl suffered a fractured skull and there were no signs of shrapnel, said Kazim Abu Libda, a doctor at Gaza’s Shifa Hospital.

Yasser Arafat learned his lesson well, and taught it to his successors. He learned it at the feet of the Russians, who also had a field day manipulating world opinion against America and her allies whenever the choice was between them and the Soviet Union.

And they have the advantage in the fact that the average person does not like to engage critical thinking. Skepticism is not incumbent on intelligence. Some of the smartest people I know are absolutely unable to see beyond the surface of a situation that does not fit their worldview. One of my closest friends falls for virtually all of the lies the palestinians have uttered, and when the truth contradicts her worldview, she simply shunts aside the facts for something that fits more closely to how she thinks the situation should be.

If I were to show her this video, no doubt her response would be, “So? Israel still killed civilians.”

Yes, she did. By accident. The bombs that dropped on that building in Qana were meant for Hezbullah rocket launchers that are threatening the civilian population of Israel. Israeli civilians are dying, too, and yet there is no outrage from the UN. I have been waiting daily to hear Kofi Annan express his profound sorrow at the deaths of innocent civilians in Israel. He has finally broken his silence—to condemn civilian deaths in Gaza.

The message is clear. Jewish lives have never counted for much in the history of the world, except to Jews. Israeli lives—even Israeli Arab lives, apparently—don’t muster a whit of sympathy from the world. Part of it is due to the losses in the propaganda war. Part of it is due to the hatred of Jews the world cannot seem to abandon.

But the effects would be lessened, I think, if the media did their jobs more thoroughly, and stopped playing into the enemy’s hands by publishing their propaganda so readily, and so uncritically.

The Jihadis don’t distinguish between combatants and civilians. They have threatened journalists in Lebanon on more than one occasion. I don’t think they’d hesitate to kill reporters, and if they did, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they then put the body in a site hit by Israeli shelling. And get Green Helmet Guy to direct the video.

This war has many fronts, and the propaganda front is not the least of them.

The Jihadis are winning.

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