Whatever ones views of the rights and wrongs, Israel’s media oper­a­tion to accom­pany its Gaza offens­ive has been an object les­son in the uses and lim­it­a­tions of War 2.0.

Talk­ing to a senior Middle East­ern dip­lo­mat yes­ter­day, and to a friend report­ing from (or stuck) in Jer­u­s­alem, there is a (very) grudging — respect is the wrong word, but it’ll have to do — for the per­ceived “suc­cess” of Israel’s Gaza media campaign.

So let’s unpick it a little. At the most fun­da­mental level, Israel bene­fits from a very simple mes­sage: whatever hap­pens in Gaza is simply the tra­gic but inev­it­able con­sequence of years of rocket attacks. Con­tinue read­ing →