Our task today is to finally make clear a couple of core realities that have somehow remained camouflaged and unrecognized in the human tragedy in Gaza and Israel.
And as a fragile cease-fire has just begun between Hamas and Israel, it is way past time for us to do this.
Let's begin with one basic reality the world's deciders must finally recognize:
Q: Who is the culprit most responsible for the horrific slaughter of hundreds of Gaza's innocent civilians - Palestinian men, women and children?
A: It is Hamas, Gaza's own duly elected governing body, which the United Nations and others have classified as a terrorist organization.
Hamas' rulers have long installed rocket launchers (also military attack tunnels and other targets) in the middle of Gaza's most densely populated residential areas. In a damnable, diabolical act, Hamas then repeatedly fired rockets from those launchers targeting Israeli population centers. Why? Hamas was deliberately goading Israel into believing it had no choice but to protect Israeli civilians by launching retaliatory airstrikes that would not just blow up those launchers but would inevitably kill massive numbers of the neighboring Palestinian civilians.
Why has Hamas done that? Because Hamas' main goal was to win a much larger war - a worldwide propaganda war in which Israel would be seen as killers of Palestinian civilians. And the world would then turn against Israel. And lo, that too has come to pass.
Q: Does Israel's military superiority guarantee its invincibility in the Middle East?
A: Not if Israel refuses to skillfully use all the weapons in its arsenal. And so far, Hamas' ragtag terrorist rulers have outsmarted, outmaneuvered and outgunned Israel on one battlefield - fighting the 21st century PR "www" wars that are fought with weaponry of the worldwide web.
Israel seems to have simply stopped trying to win the online war (and the U.N. diplomatic wars) where the world thinks it has seen the ultimate reality. Once again, Hamas was locked and loaded - and deployed its best weapon of modern-day warfare where Israel's most orthodox leaders have been bizarrely the most pigheaded. The Palestinians rocketed around the world videos showing bodies of dead Palestinian children. And Israel's response was to increase its airstrikes on launchers and attack tunnels - but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government stopped trying to show the world its visual evidence that Hamas fired waves of rockets from launchers near apartments, schools and hospitals.
Perhaps the best way to grasp the extent to which Israel has become the ultimate victim of its own pigheadedness can be found by looking at the very best in our news business - The New York Times. Wednesday's lead article on the front page was a long, detailed chronicling of the massive damage inflicted upon Gaza's civilians: " damaged 17 hospitals and clinics at least 213 Palestinians have been killed, including dozens of children. Israeli airplanes continued to pound Gaza with missiles, and Hamas and its Islamist affiliates fired rockets into Israel."
But actually, that's the reverse of how it happened: In reality, Hamas rockets were launched first. That's how Israeli military located the source and was able to retaliate.
Why has Netanyahu's government refused to show the world - at the U.N. or just online - its high-tech visual evidence that Hamas' launchers were surrounded by unwilling Palestinian human shields?
There can be no reason. Unless it is the unthinkable - that no evidence exists because it was all a lie. Otherwise, it is way past time for Israel to regain the diplo-moral high ground. Here's how: Show-and-tell us the truth.
Tribune Content Agency