The Real War Criminals

The crime scene in Bat Ayin

Earlier this week, the Israeli army was cleared of accusations of war crimes during its attack on Gaza in late December and January, with an investigation concluding that the claims made were "purposely exaggerated".

As the media continues to lap up such anti-Israel smears, far less attention was paid to Thursday's attack on two innocent young Israelis - one killed, one injured - by an axe-wielding jihadist.

Although the killer was not a Hamas operative, a spokesman for the Islamic jihadist group issued a terse statement:

"This attack was committed in the framework of the resistance," Ayman Taha, a spokesperson for the group said. "This is a reaction to the continuing occupation and the continued building of settlements."

"This is a natural reaction," he said, "especially against the backdrop of Israeli attacks. We are a people occupied, and it is our right to defend ourselves and to act in every way and with every means at our disposal in order to defend ourselves."

Now, can you imagine what sort of coverage this would have gotten in the media had the alleged "war crimes" of the Israeli military been proven true, and then an Israeli government official had come out and said that the crimes were a "perfectly natural" reaction to the hundreds of rockets that had been fired at towns and villages in southern Israel from Gaza over the previous few months, even while a truce was supposed to be in effect?

Exactly.

The outrageous lies spewed about Israeli actions in Gaza, and the media's lemming-like acceptance of this propaganda - as well as the real war crimes committed and endorsed by Palestinian jihadists - demonstrate the immense challenges Israel faces when it comes to winning the war in the Middle East, when even its own are determined to oversee its destruction by any means possible, no matter how craven and desperate.