A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth gets a chance to put its pants on
1st June 2010
And that’s all you really need to know about the Middle East.
It’s easy to get your side of the story out first if (1) you already know you’re going to start a fight and (2) you are willing to lie about what happened. As ever, the Palestinian side met both of these criteria last night. The Israelis, by contrast, did not know in advance that they would be assaulted, though they probably should have placed a higher probability on this outcome than they did.
More importantly, the Israelis did not want to present an account of the battle until they could verify all of the details. This is understandable — the government stands to be crucified by the MSM and the international community if it gets any detail wrong. Hamas, the PA, and their supporters face no such risk.