THE ECHO CHAMBER: Like Porno For Pyros

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[Photo: Hatem Moussa/Associated Press via New York Times]
L.A. TIMES: Reporting from Cairo and Beirut — Face splotched in blood, eyes closed, mouth aslant, the child seems slumbering, but she is dead. The only part of her you see is her head tilting in ash and rubble above the caption, “A day of massacres in Gaza.” She is nameless, but her face, peeking from a black-and-white photograph spread like a flag of horror across the Saudi-owned Al Hayat newspaper, is unforgettable.

In the Gaza Strip, Israel maneuvers with sophisticated tanks, missiles and planes. But the Arab media possess a potent arsenal of pictures, videos and hyperventilating voice-overs that portray Palestinians as courageous victims against a bloodthirsty aggressor. War is fought on battlefields, but passions are roused by images.

Watch the Al Jazeera satellite network or skim through Islamic websites and magazines and the message is singular and clear: Muslims are united in the suffering of Palestinians, and no drop of blood, wailing mother, raised Kalashnikov, smoking ruin or pair of empty sandals beside a lifeless body goes unrecorded. It is the cinema verite of the underdog, an erratic landscape of martyrs and heroes and boys hurling white rocks at the enemy invader. MORE

NEW YORK TIMES: Israel’s conflict with Hamas and Gaza threatened to broaden on Thursday as a small number of rockets were fired into the north of Israel from Lebanon. The rockets, presumably fired by the Hezbollah militia in support of Hamas in Gaza, could presage the opening of a second front. MORE

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