Imagine: sharp New York politicians are bragging about their role in the tunnel scam that Israel is putting forward to try and distract the world from a massacre. A New York delegation to Israel toured the tunnels today, in “solidarity” with Israelis. The picture above was taken at a tunnel opening near the Gaza border, they say.

That’s Governor Andrew Cuomo above, in the white shirt; he tweeted the photo. On the left in the blazer is Mort Zuckerman, publisher of the Daily News. Sheldon Silver, Jeffrey Klein, and Dean Skelos, millstones of the NY legislature, flank the gov.

Oh and wearing a suit, that’s Shimon Peres, the retired Israeli president, suckering the US worthies in the sand.

These are New Yorkers who wouldn’t fall for three-card monte on 14th Street, grinning as they’re being manipulated for international propaganda. Here’s a photo of them seeing a tunnel dismantled. Here they are with chief army spokesperson Lt. Col. Peter Lerner.

Newsday quotes Cuomo at the tunnels on “the enemy”:

“Truly amazing, how extensive and how sophisticated a network they built virtually undetected,” Cuomo said after emerging. “You see those tunnels and you are reminded of how aggressive and tenacious the enemy is. There are miles and miles of tunnels. These are concrete reinforced . . . The tunnels are an entirely new development and a frightening one.”

Here are two central truths:

–Despite the propaganda, not one single Israeli civilian, kindergartner or otherwise, was attacked by Hamas fighters emerging from tunnels, even as 400 Palestinian children have been slaughtered by Israeli forces, and hundreds of women and other civilians. –The tunnel openings are nowhere near where Israeli civilians live.

Below is a photograph of Palestinian civilians, boys on the beach, who were killed by Israel on July 16, along with nearly 2000 others in the recent onslaught. Cuomo and Zuckerman did not even reach out to Palestinians on the whirlwind trip.