The death toll from Israel’s assault on Gaza continues to climb. Nearly 30,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli airstrikes since October, two-thirds of them women and children, and almost 70,000 people have been injured. Yet this unspeakable crime has been rationalized by much of the U.S. media. Israeli scholar Ilan Pappé says that such justifications rest partly on a distorted view of the history of Palestine/Israel, including of the multiethnic society that existed in Palestine before the establishment of the state of Israel.