A cartoon in Wednesday's edition of the newspaper Ma- ariv showed Israeli tanks rolling by while being encouraged by three cheerleaders -- each wearing the logo of one of Israel's three TV news channels.
The mounting Gazan death toll and international criticism have also stoked a defiant response among many Israeli commentators who are deeply aware that 1 million Israelis live within range of Gazan rockets.
On the Ynet news website, affiliated with the prominent daily newspaper Yediot Aharonot, op-ed columnist Hanoch Daum published an open letter to "protesters, Arab Israelis and citizens of the world."
His message: "Your views do not really make a difference to us right now. At this moment, when we are fighting for the well-being of southern residents, the level of support we receive from you does not matter to us too much. It is irrelevant."
There are dissenting voices as well, most prominently in the liberal Haaretz daily, where columnists Gideon Levy and Amira Hass regularly decry the Gaza assault and Israel's refusal to negotiate with Hamas after the militants won Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006.
In a Wednesday editorial titled "Lucky my parents aren't alive to see this," Hass compared Israeli public opinion to "the crowd roaring in the Coliseum."
On television, the war being viewed by Israelis is a sterile affair, at least compared with the daily images of graphic bloodshed broadcast by Arab satellite news channels. Much like their American counterparts, Israeli channels shy away from showing excessive gore. The Jerusalem Post editorial on Wednesday criticized such imagery as "voyeuristic, nearly pornographic."
Instead, Israeli coverage focuses on soldiers and their families -- an emotional issue in a tiny country with mandatory military service and thousands of reservists in combat. Television channels on Wednesday provided interviews with a mother with twin sons in the army, one lying injured in the hospital and the other still in the field in Gaza.
There was also happy news. One channel broadcast footage of a commander informing one of his soldiers that the man's wife had just given birth. The channel then cut to an interview with the beaming mother under a graphic reading, "Mazel Tov" (congratulations).
Israel's popular weekly political satire show "Wonderful Country" has even managed to mine some laughs out of the conflict. Last week, four days into the Israeli aerial campaign but before the land invasion had begun, the show presented sketches of a gung-ho military correspondent dressed like Rambo and an impersonation of Defense Minister Ehud Barak laying out his plan for how the war would proceed.
"Israelis can make jokes about tragedies five minutes after they happen," said Taub, the communications professor.
"Wonderful Country" was supposed to broadcast a new show Tuesday, but network executives decided against it. "There are certain moments and situations in which airing satire is inappropriate, and we decided to stop," said network executive Ran Telem.
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ashraf.khalil@latimes.com
