Assigning blame

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These days it seems that any militia can, with a few dozen followers and some homemade missiles with a range of 10 or 20 kilometres, drag the entire region into war. Likewise, any small country with a satellite channel may just manage to deceive millions of viewers. As a result, Egypt has come under a media assault of incredible dimensions, a campaign of deception worthy of Nazi or communist propagandists.

This is how it works. Send a reporter into the street with a camera and people gather around him immediately. One of them would be more eager than the others to express extreme views, and voila! The station would edit the report to present that extreme view as one coming from the mainstream.

The death of civilians in Gaza, young and old, men and women, is horrible. And Israel's unfettered brutality is to be condemned in the strongest of terms. But a share of the responsibility should be laid at the doorstep of some Palestinians. Those who refused to renew the calming-down period, who continued to fire rockets, and who ignored every warning of the impending carnage must be assigned some blame.

Many in this region believe in pursuing the conflict with Israel through peaceful means, and they are just as patriotic as others. So don't give credence to the warmongers alone, especially when they prove to be so woefully unable to protect their own people.

In the past few weeks, Israel has reoccupied Gaza and deployed troops on its outskirts, making it even more claustrophobic than before. The loss of life and property is as immense as it was unneeded. Meanwhile, those who made the decision to fight have gone underground. What exactly was their point?

The media needs to address this question. It makes no sense to keep sensationalising the issue. Showing the scenes of death and gore doesn't exactly help. And airing shots of women wailing and wondering when the Arabs would come to the rescue is not going to get us anywhere.

Strangely enough, no one is thinking of calling into account the ones who made the wrong decision and who kept firing rockets. Ironically, those who challenged Israel to war failed to set ambushes for advancing Israeli tanks, or even detonate roadside bombs. As it turned out, they were better in provoking Israel than in preparing for the fight. And they deserve to be held accountable for that. Hamas pushed Gaza into a needless confrontation, but forgot to prepare for the subsequent battle. Its leaders cannot claim, as Hassan Nasrallah did two years ago, that Israel's ferocity was unexpected.

Leaders are supposed to protect their people. Those who lead their people into slaughter must be held responsible. Somehow, however, Egypt is getting much of the blame while those who triggered the current confrontation enjoy the safety of palaces and hotels that are far from Gaza. Such men are unfit to rule, because they don't seem to care for the fate of their own people. As for Israel's crimes, what happened is just another ignominious addition to its long record of disgrace.