Now U.S. Knows How Israel Feels

In an insightful article in the Jerusalem Post, Barry Rubin asks how it feels to Americans to be treated the way Israel has become used to being treated by the international press. He also observes that the real war is going better than the war of words. He profferred these examples:

American forces risk their lives and make completing their mission more difficult in order to limit civilian casualties, but are portrayed internationally as brutal and bloodthirsty.

US motives and methods are slandered and misrepresented.

Honest and regrettable mistakes, for example when wayward bombs do hit civilians, are portrayed as deliberate crimes.

Hatred of you is deliberately promoted, even though this attitude is undeserved.

At the same time, the adversary's misdeeds are downplayed or go completely unreported.

Other countries propose peace plans that ignore your interests and seek to steal away your battlefield gains.

You are told to give up because total victory is not achieved in a relatively short time, and it is demanded that you compromise and make concessions to those who have shown a systematic failure to live up to their past commitments.

This war has only just started. Only a week in, and we are expected to be finishing up and leaving already. We are blamed for a SAM landing in a residential district of Baghdad, and accused of War Crimes for bombing a Syrian bus that contains Palestinian fighters trying to get in on the action in Iraq.

It will be OK. War is hell. It will all come out in the wash. Do unto others, and do it fast. What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.