Your Putin is censoring everything inside your huge country. Your country feeds extremist countries with weapons and technology for mass destruction. Soon there will be a day when your own muslims will commit Martyrdom like Chechens. How do you dare to critique Israel that has been surrounded by some many enemies who ruin this world. "Peacefull activists" were hired terrorists with known connections to extreme terror groups. They had no identity documents and carried cash in their pockets. They were ready to commit martyrdom to kill a jew.

The vast majority of people still belive what their media services providers (TV, Radio, Newspaper, Internet) tell them. Therefore, by careful control of the media, individuals / a government can largely influence or even control public opinion. It is almost common knowledge that a story, even a fictional one, repeated often enough, and widely enough can be eventually be viewed as being 'true' - after all if it wasn't true why would the media still report it / quote it? Therefore those who can manipulate / control public opinion can use this 'support' to influence government policy (no government will want to risk going too far away from strong public opinion on an issue / policy). Masters of media control and manipulation (which the Israelis have become) can, have, and do, use these skills to control / manage public opinion well beyond their own borders. This is something Israel / pro-Israel groups do very well indeed in the USA (and one or two other countries) where pro-Israeli individuals and groups have considerable control over media companies. By controlling the 'public opinion' in foreign states a government can gain / maintain support for policies / actions that would otherwise be widely critisised or even condemmed. A wise man will only form an opinion after gathering and sifting information gained from a wide variety of sources - over a period of time. Opinions formed from a 'snapshot' of time and from information from one or two sources are both unwise and potentially dangerous.

Does it really matter what the Israeli public openion is when the whole World saw Israeli comandos rading the Flotilla in the international waters and killing 19 humanitarian activists. If the Israeli government is able to committ terorist act at high seas it is only logical to expact to cansor their media to manipulate with the public openion.

# JIM - You could also have mentioned the danger of those who create and spread stories beginning to actually believe thier own creations. # VIKING - The opinion of the Israeli public is very important indeed. Fortunatley for us all there are still enough sensible, level headed, and intellegent people in Israel who do not share some of the more extreme views that appear to be held by thier government. The strength of these peoples opinion acts as a sort of brake on the government. I can only guess what could happen if these people had their opinions changed through media missinformation / selective reporting / old fashioned propoganda.