This war has been somewhat strange — a war whose conclusion is bearing little resemblance to its inception. The Israelis who followed the bloodstained battles in the Gaza Strip were forced to limit themselves to only one side of the conflict. The Israeli side, of course.

All the television stations displayed the same scenes, interviewed the same commanders in the field, showed the same anonymous soldiers telling the same war stories in detail and presented the viewers with identical battlefields. As if upon a coordinated signal, all the television stations were following the same old pre-arranged script.

And as if according to that same script, the Israelis were informed that the war in Gaza had wall-to-wall international support. The United States is with us, the commentators reported in the days before the ground incursion, also Europe and many Arab countries, headed by Egypt. Almost the entire world is with us in the war against radical Islam in Gaza.

For three weeks, the Israeli media described what went on in Gaza in one voice, acting like the choir of the Red Army. Military commentators spoke on all the media outlets using almost the same words and images to describe the magnificent Israeli victory and the no-less magnificent defeat of Hamas. Almost all former upper-echelon officers appeared in one or other of the media studios to contribute their far-off military experience and words of wisdom to the music of the orchestra.