Free Republic

Every war and its aftermath is fought on two fronts. One front is where human life is destroyed by shot and shell, but the battlefield is not always where the winners and losers are determined. The other front belongs to reporters, photographers and pundits, who wage war with words and images. Through observation, selection and interpretation, the will of the people is wrought. Julius Caesar knew exactly what he was doing when, returning to Rome triumphant, with great fanfare made the great gesture of turning down the crown. Mark Anthony, his talented public-relations flack, supervised the spin. All roads led...

Many people, so polls say, think that Israel is a danger to world peace and often go so far as to conclude that the state ought not to exist. Some of these, in Europe especially, are classic anti-Semites who cannot live with the novelty of Jews responsible for a country of their own. But there is more to it than that. In the first decades of its existence, Israel was widely admired as the national refuge which Jews deserved and an egalitarian society as well. The Six-Day War of 1967 was the turning point. The Soviet Union and its clients,...