Media treats Gaza war as a sporting event

A number of TV news shows have been publishing graphics comparing Israel and Hamas during the current events. Here's an example from MSNBC a couple of days ago, but CNN has done it as well:

The implication is that this is some sort of game.

When viewers see a graphic like this, they automatically think that the comparison is a fair one. To the uninformed viewer, this is a sporting event, and Israel is "winning."

Everyone loves a winner, but not when that winner is unsportsmanlike. What could be more unsporting than to keep running up the score and humiliating your opponent?

Any gentleman on the playing field would allow the other side to score some points. Or, in this case, to kill some Jews.

The comparison is wrong for a very basic reason: Israel wants to minimize casualties on both sides, and the Gaza terror groups want to maximize them.

Sports don't work that way.

Every dead Palestinian civilian is a loss for Israel and a gain for Hamas. But that fact - which underpins the entire conflict - is nowhere to be seen in these simplified visual shortcuts. All the viewer sees, no matter what is being said by the analysts, is that Israel is a bully picking on their poor neighbors who can't defend themselves.

It's no wonder that the anti-Israel crowd loves these sorts of graphics.