This commentary by Michael Coren is from today's National Post.

*****
Imperfect, but no bully

By Michael Coren

So we had it again. The world putting on its selfrighteous coat so that it could hide its naked hypocrisy. Israel bad, violent and strong; Palestinians good, peaceful and weak. Instant demonstrations outside Israeli embassies and consulates when hundreds were killed in response to years of Hamas terror, yet not even a handful of protestors outside offices belonging to Sudan, Syria or Iran, where hundreds of thousands have been slaughtered.

Of course the innocent died in the past 13 days, but in the pursuit of the guilty. As opposed to Hamas and its campaign to mass murder only the innocent. Ask why both Egypt and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank did so little to counter Israel's actions, and may have given tacit or even active approval to the campaign. Because unlike Marxist Mary in Toronto and Jew-hating Jack in Montreal, they know the reality of the situation.

Israel left Gaza and prayed that peace would be established. Hamas launched its missiles into Israeli schools, homes and hospitals within hours. Supporters of the Palestinians argued that few Israelis were being killed so there shouldn't be complaints. Finally Israel responded. One of the reasons it took so long is that it was gathering intelligence so as to harm as few civilians as possible.
So why the lack of balance and the lies in the media? Any journalist who has worked in Israel and its neighbours in the past 20 years knows certain things that are seldom reported. Take, for example, the endearing hotel habits of the PLO. Reporters would stay at a grand venue just outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. When they came to pay their bill they would be told that they had been guests of free Palestine, but they would be given a receipt in case they might want to claim something on their expense account.

It doesn't help matters that Western journalists refer to Israeli soldiers as "Shlomo." It means Solomon but is spoken with an attempt at derisory generalization rather than admiration for wisdom. Yet in some ways the Israelis deserve it: They are dreadful at the propaganda game. Israeli officials keep journalists away from their dead and dying, while Arab officials tend to lead them by the hand to the killing fields.

Never was this more acute than with the case of Samir Kuntar, the Hezbollah "militant" on top of Hassan Nasrallah's "must free" list of Israeli prisoners. In 1979, he and his gang broke into the home of the Haran family in northern Israel. They took Danny Haran and his four-year-old son Anat to the beach and bashed the boy's brains out on the rocks while his father watched. They then shot the man to death. Smadar Haran, the mother, hid in a loft with the couple's two-year-old daughter. Holding her mouth over terrified Yael's mouth in an attempt to save her, Smadar smothered her daughter to death.
No photos were given to the press and this incident is never mentioned when prisoner exchange deals are discussed. Kuntar is now a celebrated guest of the Lebanese government and revered throughout Gaza. This will not be explained as we are told by journalists based in the Middle East that Israel refuses to compromise. Remember that hardly any of these journalists have apologized for describing the battle of Jenin in 2002 as "an unprecedented Israeli massacre." It was widely implied, even stated, that there were several hundreds if not thousands of dead Palestinian civilians.

It was soon revealed that only 56 Palestinians had been killed, most of them heavily armed. Israel had lost 23 soldiers, mainly because they had cleared the town house by house in an attempt to save innocent Palestinian lives.

Something similar is occurring in Gaza. It is staggering how quickly dead Hamas soldiers and policemen are stripped of their uniforms and transformed into social workers and poets. Detailed analyses of European media in the first seven days of the current conflict have shown that Israeli spokespeople were given a fraction of time compared to Palestinian representatives. And in countries such as Spain and Britain, the contempt for the Israeli position was almost palpable. I saw the cynicism of the Arab combatants and the fellow travelling credulity of Western reporters first-hand during the Hezbollah war in 2006, when the same bodies would appear again and again in different photos.

The nuances of journalistic language say a great deal. Reporters referred last week to "Americanmade" helicopters and F16s. Actually, the modifications made to these machines by the Israelis are enormous, but surely their place of origin is irrelevant. It is yet another way of making Israel appear the bully.

Which it isn't. It's an imperfect and besieged nation that was recreated as a Jewish homeland because the very countries now condemning it for its self-defence refused for 1,500 years to treat Jews as human beings. Just six months ago, I stood yards from where Israel is now trying to smash the Hamas military machine and asked an Israeli doctor who had been forcibly removed from Gaza by her own government if she was bitter. "No, no, no," she replied. "Not bitter, only resigned. Resigned to the fact that the fashion of turning on the Jews and judging them with a unique unfairness seems to come around every generation or so." The doctor then walked away to attend the funeral of a young mother killed by a Hamas terror attack. No journalists bothered to turn up.

Michael Coren appears every weeknight on the Michael Coren Show, 8 p.m., on CTS. www.michaelcoren.com