About those little girls signing bombs . . .

Would you believe they thought they were auditioning for American Idol?

I didn't think so. Yet, it seems that's just what some people want us to believe.

Apparently, reports like mine about images of little Israeli girls signing shells have made their way across the internet with great success. So much so that Zionists are tripping over themselves trying to 'explain' their otherwise apparent and grisly perversions.

One piece in the Columbia Journalism Review (of all places) describes them as "sweet-faced little Israeli girls drawing with markers [with] their hair in pigtails" -- Awww! How cute! -- but then admits they were signing shells that subsequently killed hundreds of innocent civilians in southern Lebanon.

The author then forgives the photographer who he says "would [have been] out of his mind not to capture this shot" - a unique view of Israelis for a world used to "pictures of young Palestinian children wearing fake suicide bomb belts." The fact that the belts are fake, while the shells are live, seems to have evaded his analytical radar.

"Images of war," he insists, present "a problem of representation."

"They are usually emotionally charged, bloody, wrenching, and almost always presented with no real context. What are we looking at? The man screaming in grief or pain. The dead child amidst the rubble. The father throwing his body over the lifeless corpse of his son. What we receive in these moments is more than just news; it's a jolt of emotion, be it anger, despair, or frustration."

In short, they accurately represent the horrors of war.

But, according to him, no one can be trusted to interpret facts for themselves. The Zionist lens must always be used.

To look at the way the photos of the little girls have been used by bloggers is to understand how this enigmatic image . . . has become emblematic for many people opposed to the Israeli assault. For those pathologically inclined to hate Israel no matter what, it is a confirmation of all the worst fantasies they have about Jewish society.

But, if it were merely nut-jobs who walked away with this impression, he would NOT be spending his Ivy-league time explaining their heartless brutality.

Most of the Web sites expounding this view have interpreted the photos as Israeli children sending a message to Lebanese children, and have even placed them next to shots of dead Lebanese children, sometimes with a caption such as, "Dear Lebanese/Palestinian/Arab/Muslim/Christians -- Kids, Die with love. Yours, Israeli Kids."

"But reality is always more complicated (and infinitely more interesting) than propaganda," he insists and "[l]uckily, Israeli blogger Lisa Goldman" has stepped up to the plate.

Nevermind that she is a staunch Zionist and didn't speak to the photographer because he "wouldn't talk on the record" (no doubt in fear for his life). She got her account instead from a Israeli reporter "who was at the scene" and is eager to spout the official Israeli version.

According to him, the blogger explains:

[The girls] had just spent the last five days underground in a bomb shelter and this was the first time they had come up for some air. A new army unit had arrived in town, attracting a lot of media attention, and the children and their parents gathered around the missiles. It was the parents who wrote a few messages, [then] "the photographers gathered around. Twelve of them. Do you know how many that is? It's a lot. And they were all simultaneously leaning in with their long camera lenses, clicking the shutter over and over.

Oh, MERCY! Those poor children! They imagined they would become famous - and they did.

The parents handed the markers to the kids and they drew little Israeli flags on the shells. Photographers look for striking images, and what is more striking than pretty, innocent little girls contrasted with the ugliness of war? The camera shutters clicked away, and I guess those kids must have felt like stars, especially since the diversion came after they'd been alternately bored and terrified as they waited out the shelling in their bomb shelters."

Is it just me? How can a person be alternately bored and terrified?

But, nevermind, they say, don't dwell on facts and details. You must look beyond common sense to see the Zionist perspective.

"[P]erhaps the parents were not wise when they encouraged their children to doodle on the tank shells. They were letting off a little steam after being cooped up -- afraid, angry and isolated -- for days. Sometimes people do silly things when they are under emotional stress. Especially when they fail to understand how their childish, empty gesture might be interpreted."

And how it HAS been interpreted by hundreds of thousands across the world - as a glaring and damning indictment of the extent of Israeli brutality and indifference to human life, in all its uncensored glory.

Nevetheless, the folks at Columbia Journalism Review want to remind us "that television news and photojournalism manipulate our thoughts and emotions." Oh? We didn't notice.

We don't necessarily think that's a willful manipulation, nor are we suggesting suppressing certain strong images. What we would suggest, however, is that editors think not just about the emotional response certain photographs can elicit, but also about whether in any given case they have supplied readers with the information they need to really understand what it is they are seeing.

In short, we must process our information through the all-knowing Zionist lens.