TV News LIES

Arbel Yehoud is achingly close to freedom, but her face is a study of shadow and terror. She is dwarfed by dozens of masked Hamas fighters — and beyond them, a heaving mob of chanting men who surround her and fill the frame. In the next, Yehoud looks up at her captors, pleading. But video suggests they’re on the edge themselves, barely able to hold back the people impeding Yehoud’s dash to safety under the terms of a ceasefire deal.

Cut to photos of her friends and family in Israel, watching the handover live — hands over their mouths, breathless. Yehoud makes it into waiting vehicles, and then to Israel. Cue the government’s images of her joyous reunion with her parents.

The visuals out of Israel and Gaza during recent hostage-for-prisoner swaps were part of a choreographed battle of optics waged in parallel to the 16-month ground war between Israel and Hamas. Each side uses the light and shadow of images to make themselves look virtuous and strong — and each other monstrous and weak. It’s propaganda. But some images also tell the truth: The chaos during Yehoud’s release in Gaza on Thursday, for example, reflected the fragility of the ceasefire deal that took effect Jan. 19.

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