There is a "MidEast Propaganda War" as well as a battle of rockets and bombs, and PR is performing as it should: principals debating in the open.

“Netanyahu”
Netanyahu

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is leading the battle for "share of mind" for Israel, appearing on four U.S. Sunday July 27 TV news shows in addition to earlier media stops.

He said that Israel cannot tolerate incessant rocket attacks by Hamas and must insure the safety of it citizens. Israel is doing everything it can to avoid civilian casualties but that Hamas militants hide among civilians and are responsible for those deaths, he added.

"We're telling the civilians to leave, Hamas is telling them to stay," he said. "Why is it telling them to stay? Because it wants to pile up their own dead bodies. They not only want to kill our people, they want to sacrifice their own people."

Palestine's Ashrawi Charges Spin

Palestinian legislator Hanan Ashrawi, appearing on "Fox News Sunday," said Israel is not only conducting "state terrorism" with "unbridled military power" that has killed more than 1,000, but is "adding insult to injury" by accusing the Palestinians of killing themselves. The "victims are being blamed," she said. Palestinians are being treated as though they are a "subhuman species," she added.

Netanyahu, appearing on Fox News Sunday, NBC's "Meet the Press," CBS's "Face the Nation" and CNN, said each Palestinian civilian's death costs Israel in its fight for world opinion but that security trumps PR considerations.

An AP story by Philip Elliott was headlined, "Netanyahu: Israel can lose on PR but not security."

“Ashrawi”
Ashrawi

Palestinians are saying that the images of wounded and dead children and other civilians, of large swaths of Gaza being destroyed, will impact public opinion more than words. The images are being spread on social media as well as traditional media.

Media Under Fire for Bias

Media covering the battle are under close examination for possible bias towards either side.

MSNBC contributor Rula Jebreal touched off a storm of criticism when she said on the July 21 edition of "Ronan Farrow Daily" that U.S. media is "disgustingly biased" against the Palestinians.

Eli Lake, national security correspondent for The Daily Beast and Newsweek, said "Israel has experienced terrible press." He dismissed claims by Jebreal that Israel has a powerful lobby in the U.S. and stressed the "cultural affinity" of the two countries.

He noted that Jebreal was able to express her views on national TV.

Obama Phones Netanyahu

President Obama, in a phone call yesterday to Netanyahu, said the U.S. is concerned about the death totals (1,030 Palestinians and 40 soldiers at that point) but that Israel has a right to defend itself. He condemned the rocket attacks that have killed Israelis but pushed for an immediate cease-fire, the AP reported.

Netanyahu said Israel is not targeting civilians. Israel is showing "little willingness to ease its military actions against the Islamic militant group Hamas," said the AP.

Both sides accuse each other of violating numerous cease-fire agreements.

A major goal of Israel is closing tunnels in Gaza that can be used to hide rockets and can serve as entrance points into Israel for Hamas militants.

Ashrawl, according to Wikipedia, was a leader of the first Intifada against Israel and was the spokesperson for the Palestinian Delegation to the Middle East peace process. She has been elected numerous times to the Palestinian Legislative Council. She has B.A. and master's degrees in literature from the American University of Beirut and a Ph.D. in Medieval and Comparative Literature from the University of Virginia.

Israel Losing PR War: Baltimore Sun

David Zurawik, Baltimore Sun columnist, wrote July 25 that words "can no longer compete with the images of Palestinian suffering in driving the dominant narrative."

"Israel is losing the public relations war over its action in Gaza in a way I cannot remember seeing in any of its recent military actions," he wrote. "And part of that is due to the suffering of Palestinian civilians being depicted with unprecedented sensitivity and prominence—at least, in American media."

Huffington Post senior media reporter Michael Calderone wrote there were only a couple of Western journalists in Gaza during the 2008 invasion by Israel but "Now, there are dozens covering every air strike in real time through social media, complete with graphic images of Palestinian civilians, and even children, being killed an injured."

"So there's a disconnect between Israeli officials' repeated claims on TV about fighting terrorism and extensive footage we're seeing of Israel bombing schools, shelters and hospitals in Gaza," he wrote.

New York Times media reporter David Carr wrote today that social media is delivering horrific scenes of war "in the crucible of real time, without pause for reflection."

Netanyahu and other Israel officials have countered that such facilities are being used to store rockets and other weapons and are legitimate military targets.

Yale law Prof. Paul Kahn has written that both the Israelis and Palestinians are busting international law which since World War II has focused on protecting civilians in military actions.

Palestinian supporters say the puny, primitive, inaccurate rockets being sent to Israel have little value militarily and do not constitute "terror." It is Israel that is terrorizing the citizens of Gaza, they say.

Observer Piece Raps NYT

Jerold Auerbach, author and Professor Emeritus of History at Wellesley College, wrote in the July 23 New York Observer that the New York Times had provided "weeks of shallow, facile oral equivalency" in covering the story of Israel vs. Hamas. He said it is "a story with only one side. And Israel is always wrong."

"An unrelenting three-week Hamas missile assault against the Jewish state has recently been punctuated by tunnel invasions of Israeli territory, provoking a fierce Israeli air and ground response," he wrote. "But the Times has relentlessly pursued a story line of moral equivalency that equates Israeli retaliation with Hamas provocation."

He faulted coverage of the "likely Hamas murderers of three hitchhiking Israeli teenagers" by NYT Jerusalem bureau chief Jodi Rudoren which "raised questions about the asymmetry of the Israeli Palestinian conflict."

"Rudoren was oblivious to the asymmetrical bias in her own reporting," said Auerbach. "On June 30, she wrote that Paletinians "see the act of attending yeshiva in a West Bank settlement as a provocation."

"It was Palestinian suffering, not the horrific murder of innocent Jews, that offended her moral sensibility—and compromised her journalistic objectivity," Auerbach wrote.

He also provides several other examples of what he feels are NYT's bias against Israel. The paper wants to hold the Israeli government accountable for its actions, he says, "But who will hold Hamas accountable for its actions, from kidnapping to murder to indiscriminate shelling of Israeli cities and towns?"