Hamas employs psychological warfare; Reuters impressed with artistic approach

In a ploy to pressure Israel on a prisoner exchange for kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit, Hamas released an animated video depicting Gilad's father, Noam, wandering the streets with an audio track of his son's voice in the background.  The video ends with Shalit's family receiving a flag-draped coffin.

Reuters correspondent Nidal al-Mughrabi reports on the animated video -- representing yet another violation, by Hamas, of the Geneva Conventions -- with characteristic cynicism for Israel and characteristic esteem for Hamas:

Wielding art instead of arms, Hamas issued an animated video on Sunday aimed at pressuring Israel into trading hundreds of jailed Palestinians for Gilad Shalit, a soldier held captive in Gaza for almost four years... It marked a departure from Hamas's habitually fiery denunciations of the Jewish state.

But the production of animated propaganda ("cartoons") to incite and humiliate is nothing new for Hamas:



Al-Mughrabi also misrepresents the historical record:

After hinting that the soldier had been killed in Israel's Gaza offensive, Hamas released a first video of him as a goodwill gesture in October.

In fact, Hamas provided the earlier video not as a "goodwill gesture", but in exchange for the release by Israel of twenty Palestinian prisoners who had been jailed for crimes like attempted murder.