Jack Engelhard (A7)
So far, Israel’s Operation Breaking Dawn is not getting the media’s full attention here in the United States.
This is changing, for the worse, as we write.
The IDF’s initiative is to silence the guns of August from Gaza’s Islamic Jihad, which has been firing rockets into Israel from the Hamas-controlled enclave.
A check of America’s leading news sources finds the coverage to be mostly “below the fold” …for the time being.
Everything will change once the terrorists release photos of “dead Palestinian babies,” most likely killed, as in the past, from their own terrorist machinery.
Already, late breaking, such news is over the wires…misfired missiles of theirs, and the deadly results, being blamed on Israel, by the terrorists.
The cameras are being rushed to the scene to photo “innocent Palestinians” weeping over their dead.
Staging such images, for Western consumption, and for Front Page New York Times, has been a popular device toward winning the PR wars.
So often their aim is to win the hearts and minds of the American people, and to stir up their “streets.” Taking note, synagogues in and around New York City are on heightened alert, often doubling up on security.
Meanwhile, The New York Times has only this to say for a headline: “Israel and Gaza Militants Exchange Fire.”
Language that straightforward is a win for Israel. But it’s early…and within hours, expect blazing headlines from the media faulting Israel.
The networks, which always look first to the Times, had conformed with the same cool message initially.
But that’s going to change.
Islamic Jihad and their gangs have been designated by the US as a terrorist organization. So, it would be farfetched for anyone to take their side automatically.
Supposedly they are at odds with Hamas, which rules their territory (since 2007) But they are a single family upon a shared murderous intent against Israel.
In any case, mainstream media in the United States is generally parochial. There is always the weather, Jan 6, and Donald Trump.
World-events are covered reluctantly.
The Brittany Griner story has topped the news cycle for more than a week. She’s the US basketball player who was sentenced to nine years imprisonment for smuggling drugs into Russia. Efforts are underway to manage a prisoner exchange and the business of “bring Brittany home” has been covered obsessively.
Apparently, the Russians don’t share the same warmth for gays as we do. Nor do they view her favorably even as she complains about hearing the US national anthem at sporting events. No points for that, either.
China is also big news, but that too is local, due to Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, stirring up that faraway hornet’s nest. But with dire consequences back home.
Therefore, events in the Middle East will have to wait their turn.
Operation Breaking Dawn is expected to last 10 days. During that time, or after that time, who knows?
That is, will the US media give Israel a fair shot?
If so, that would be news.
Accordingly so on realizing that virtually all newsrooms are controlled by Democrats, and being mindful that the Party has within it elements hostile to Israel.
So as of this writing, we have not yet heard from the Squad. Once they speak up…AOC. Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, prepare for a different story from the press.
New York-based bestselling American novelist Jack Engelhard writes regularly for Arutz Sheva.
He wrote the worldwide book-to-movie bestseller “Indecent Proposal,” the authoritative newsroom epic, “The Bathsheba Deadline,” followed by his coming-of-age classics, “The Girls of Cincinnati,” and, the Holocaust-to-Montreal memoir, “Escape from Mount Moriah.” For that and his 1960s epic “The Days of the Bitter End,” contemporaries have hailed him “The last Hemingway, a writer without peer, and the conscience of us all.” Website: www.jackengelhard.com
