When a government guns down dozens of members of an oppressed group engaging in civil disobedience, it’s natural to feel any number of emotions: shock, sorrow, anger.

But if you felt any of these at the sight of Israel’s brutal repression of Palestinian protesters last week, the mainstream press has a message for you: don’t worry about it.

The Washington Post editorial board labelled the protest — which saw Palestinians try to cross the border fence between Gaza and Israel before being met with tear gas and bullets, both real and rubber — a new type of “war,” one in which Hamas deployed “nominal civilians” to carry out civil disobedience “in the calculation that many would be killed.” The endgame, according to the editorial, was “moral and political defeat for Israel.”