Global media smells blood

It is true that since onset of the military campaign in Gaza the world has been preoccupied with other matters, no less burning than Gaza from its perspective. The story of the downed Malaysian civilian airliner over Ukraine (and the Russian-American diplomatic crisis), which occurred the day the IDF began its ground incursion; the Algerian plane that crashed in Mali; and the recent Ebola virus outbreak in Africa, currently threatening to spread to other parts of the world.

It remains impossible, however, to escape from Gaza -- especially when the casualty figure has risen past the 1,000 mark and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon harshly condemned the killing of 16 civilians taking shelter in an UNRWA school in Gaza. The reports from Gaza are growing increasingly more difficult to stomach, even if they appear less on the front pages of newspapers in comparison to previous rounds of fighting. The international press is beginning to sniff out a commission of inquiry.

The New York Times, one of the world's leading newspapers, published an image from fallen soldier Cpl. Meidan Maymon Biton's funeral on its front page this week, during which a rocket siren sounded. In the picture people at the funeral are seen looking for cover. It was, however, one of the few documentations of the reality from the Israeli side. All of the cameras today are pointed at Gaza.

A photo of a wounded civilian is more powerful from the global media's perspective than a wounded soldier. In Israel this soldier is a young boy with his entire life ahead of him; from the world's view the soldier -- certainly when he is Israeli -- is seen differently.

The paper also ran a headline that could have served to help readers understand Hamas: "Arab Leaders, Viewing Hamas as Worse Than Israel, Stay Silent."

The rest of the reports were very different from that which appeared in The New York Times. Britain's The Guardian, like other British papers, is extremely critical of Israel. On Thursday, The Guardian published a large photo of a wounded and crying Palestinian girl under the headline "The world stands disgraced." Anyone encountering the paper's front page Thursday learned three things: 1) "U.N. condemns IDF attack on sleeping children as violation of international law"; 2) "Strike on crowded market in Shujaiyya during cease-fire kills 17"; and 3) "Death toll now more than 1,300 after three weeks of fighting."

How could anyone in the world remain indifferent to such a front page-

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