Exactly what Hezbolla wants. They've maneuvered Israel into a no-win situation: Bleed the Israel on the ground in South Lebanon until they withdraw, or force the IDF to use increasingly draconian tactics, thus givin Hezbollah a propaganda victory. Diabolically clever.
All of this PC crap will be the death of the West undoubtedly.
Indeed we are talking about propaganda warfare here. But there is a Catch-22 for Hezbolla as well. Up until 1967 tiny, vastly outnumbered Israel was considered the underdog. Since that time, Israel had been ranked as a Western nation and the "less sophisticated, less connected Arabs" have been the underdog against "colonial" Israel. The minute Hezbolla threatens actually to win, Israel will again become the underdog.Let that happen, and the double standard will fall away and Hezbolla will be "vicious murderers of civilians who ignore the Geneva Conventions" - in PR positioning as well as in fact.
Journalism is negative and superficial. How could journalism be anything else, when every day it has to scare people into not walking past the newsstand without picking up the paper?
Journalism is arrogant. You would be too, if you had the power to "comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable" - and the power to decide who is "afflicted" and who is "comfortable." If people lusted after a kind word from you, and dreaded "bad PR" which you could at a whim withhold or bestow. If you could claim to be "objective" and nobody laughed.
Journalism is unrepresentative. Journalism ignores what happens every day, only wanting to talk about things that are unusual.
So there is the situation. On the one hand you are in a physical, life and death struggle with a vicious, treacherous, implacable enemy. OTOH, winning the propaganda battle is essential to you - and the PR battlefield is dominated by arrogant, essentially frivilous people who don't care whether you live or die, as long as you put on a good show. It's a little like being a gladiator in the Coliseum - and having to impress Nero in order to live another day.
Why Broadcast Journalism is
Unnecessary and IllegitimateThe wisest and most cautious of us all frequently gives credit to stories which he himself is afterwards both ashamed and astonished that he could possibly think of believing . . . It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity, and they very seldom teach it enough. Theory of Moral Sentiments - Adam Smith
you got it. It is a no clear win for Israel. The only way I see how to do it is get spotters on the in side or level the area.
If Israel kills a lot of the Hezz through draconian tactics and still hold ground in southern Leb then I would trade that for a Hezz propaganda victory.
Yeah, they seem to have Israel between a rock and a hard place.
Israel needs to disregard the opinions of people who hate them anyway, and go after Hezbollah's bunkers with something that will suck up all the air in the vicinity of the explosion and kill every last living thing.
First, they need to warn the Lebanese civilians to get outta town, because it's gonna blow up. Notify the UN of that intent, and give them 24 hours to leave.
Notify the UN that any "civilians" left after that will be presumed to be working in sympathy of Hezbollah, or that they are being held against their will as "human shields". Under the rules of war, that makes any "collateral damage" Hezbollah's karma.
Then use a fuel-air device like a DaisyCutter or MOAB to incinerate the town completely off the face of the earth, killing every Hezbollah in every bunker in the area.
I guarantee you, it will NOT be ANY kind of victory for Hezbollah, propaganda or otherwise.
If Israel demonstrates that kind of resolve, it will win them the grudging respect of many in the middle east, and it will discourage further aggression against them by people who have, in the past, mistaken Israel's inherent sense of humanity for weakness.