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NEW STUDY UNDERSCORES PRO-ISRAEL BIAS IN US MEDIA
A new study of American television coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict released at a Cap_itol Hill public forum sponsored by the Council for the National Interest on Monday, May 9th, underscores the lopsided media bias in favor of Israel.
NEW STUDY UNDERSCORES PRO-ISRAEL BIAS IN US MEDIA
Date: May 12, 2005
A new study of American television coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict released at a Cap_itol Hill public forum sponsored by the Council for the National Interest on Monday, May 9th, underscores the lopsided media bias in favor of Israel.
The new study analyzed two years of coverage on ABC, CBS, and NBC evening news programs, as well as general coverage provided by the Associated Press. Using the figures of 28 Israeli children and 131 Palestinian children who died in the course of the first year of the intifada (September 2000-September 2001), Weir showed that the major American media over-reported Israeli deaths and substantially under-reported Palestinian deaths. ABC's World News Tonight, for example, reported the death of Israeli children 14 times more often than Palestinian children. In this way, the public, Ms. Weir said, was given the impression that many more Israeli children died during the first year of the Palestinian uprising than Palestinian, when the numbers showed that four and half times as many Palestinian children died of gunshot wounds or in the line of fire than Israeli children died in gunfights or suicide bombings.
Nor was the coverage atypical. Reviewing the figures for 2004, Weir found that 8 Israeli children and 179 Palestinian children died during that year. The media (ABC, NBC, CBS) reported 83% of Israeli children's deaths and 8% of Palestinian children's deaths. That is, an Israeli death was 9.9 times more likely to be reported than a Palestinian death.
The study is a follow-up to a similar report released two weeks ago on The New York Times, which found the Times reported Israeli deaths at rates up to seven to ten times greater than Palestinian fatalities.
These findings are actually exaggerated in the newspapers in smaller American cities and outside the major metropolitan areas that rely almost wholly on the newswire services, such as the Associated Press and the New York Times Newswire Service. The tendency in these papers is to reduce the copy from the major wire services to fit the space left over from advertising. Consequently the reports of Palestinian deaths, often at the end of news articles, are frequently cut.
Weir, who is executive director of If Americans Knew, said that these reports should serve as a wake-up call to the American public. ?By looking at this coverage statistically, choosing clear, objective categories, we have found an extremely useful, non-subjective tool for measuring the accuracy of media coverage on this extremely important issue. Our findings are highly disturbing. Full and fair reporting on the Israel-Palestine conflict and the ongoing peace process is absolutely necessary if the United States is to act as an honest broker."
She added, "Americans give $10 million a day to Israel, and we have a right to know what's happening in that part of the world. Democracy only works if people are informed and know how to act."
The studies are produced by If Americans Knew, a California nonprofit media watchdog organization. Its study of the Times has generated considerable controversy, with New York Times Public Editor Dan Okrent?s column in the paper on May 1 referring readers to the organization?s website, http://www.ifamericansknew.org, to look into the matter for themselves.
Ambassador Edward Peck, former chief of mission to Iraq, introduced Ms. Weir, the 11th in the series of public hearings on the Middle East sponsored by the Council for the National Interest in the last year.
Date: May 12, 2005
A new study of American television coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict released at a Cap_itol Hill public forum sponsored by the Council for the National Interest on Monday, May 9th, underscores the lopsided media bias in favor of Israel.
The new study analyzed two years of coverage on ABC, CBS, and NBC evening news programs, as well as general coverage provided by the Associated Press. Using the figures of 28 Israeli children and 131 Palestinian children who died in the course of the first year of the intifada (September 2000-September 2001), Weir showed that the major American media over-reported Israeli deaths and substantially under-reported Palestinian deaths. ABC's World News Tonight, for example, reported the death of Israeli children 14 times more often than Palestinian children. In this way, the public, Ms. Weir said, was given the impression that many more Israeli children died during the first year of the Palestinian uprising than Palestinian, when the numbers showed that four and half times as many Palestinian children died of gunshot wounds or in the line of fire than Israeli children died in gunfights or suicide bombings.
Nor was the coverage atypical. Reviewing the figures for 2004, Weir found that 8 Israeli children and 179 Palestinian children died during that year. The media (ABC, NBC, CBS) reported 83% of Israeli children's deaths and 8% of Palestinian children's deaths. That is, an Israeli death was 9.9 times more likely to be reported than a Palestinian death.
The study is a follow-up to a similar report released two weeks ago on The New York Times, which found the Times reported Israeli deaths at rates up to seven to ten times greater than Palestinian fatalities.
These findings are actually exaggerated in the newspapers in smaller American cities and outside the major metropolitan areas that rely almost wholly on the newswire services, such as the Associated Press and the New York Times Newswire Service. The tendency in these papers is to reduce the copy from the major wire services to fit the space left over from advertising. Consequently the reports of Palestinian deaths, often at the end of news articles, are frequently cut.
Weir, who is executive director of If Americans Knew, said that these reports should serve as a wake-up call to the American public. ?By looking at this coverage statistically, choosing clear, objective categories, we have found an extremely useful, non-subjective tool for measuring the accuracy of media coverage on this extremely important issue. Our findings are highly disturbing. Full and fair reporting on the Israel-Palestine conflict and the ongoing peace process is absolutely necessary if the United States is to act as an honest broker."
She added, "Americans give $10 million a day to Israel, and we have a right to know what's happening in that part of the world. Democracy only works if people are informed and know how to act."
The studies are produced by If Americans Knew, a California nonprofit media watchdog organization. Its study of the Times has generated considerable controversy, with New York Times Public Editor Dan Okrent?s column in the paper on May 1 referring readers to the organization?s website, http://www.ifamericansknew.org, to look into the matter for themselves.
Ambassador Edward Peck, former chief of mission to Iraq, introduced Ms. Weir, the 11th in the series of public hearings on the Middle East sponsored by the Council for the National Interest in the last year.
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http://www.ifamericansknew.org/media/net-report.html
The idea "the media should be impartial" sounds attractive only until you consider the question of who gets to decide what is the impartial truth. The argument for a free press is just like the argument for democracy, a terrible arrangement except by comparison with the alternatives. Stop for a moment and consider what WE are doing right here. We are expressing OUR visions of truth and these are not in accord with the majority opinion. Should WE be shut down because we are not expressing "impartial" truth? We do not have on IMC a "balanced" presentation?
The study being reported is of importance to to those partisan to the anti-Zionist side not because it represents a "wrong" but tells them what needs to be done if they are to get THEIR version of truth out there. They need to obtain media outlets willing to present their truth.
But these reasons dont really explain the bias since the proIsrael bias extends well beyond outlets owned by proIsrael moguls or pressued by proIsrael boycotters (as was the case with the LA Times). The larger reasons for the bias relates to race, class and culture. Israel is essentailly a white Eruopean country with a standard of living that allows a significant portion of the population to live a typical middle-class lifestyle. Reporters feel more comfortable in Israel, with peopel like themselves, than in poor Palestinian refugee camps where the reporters stand out, dont full understand the cultural differences and acces to all the normal "comforts of home" are not as easilly available. Plus a report about the plight of a Palestinian familly takes more work to put together for a broadcast to Europe or the US than would a broadcast about the plight of an Israeli familly; the cultural and class differences result i more aspects of the story being unknown to a typical viewing audience and thus more background is needed. Its also easier to find a good story in Israel than among Palestinians since the environmengt is safer, the people tend to speak English and people with stories have more access to ways to contact reporters than would poorer famillies without easy access to computers or even the knowledge of who to contact and how to write a press release.
The problem with the race/class bias resulting in biased coverage is that it cant easilly be fixed. The media can cover more issues relating to one side in a conflict without doing much work but they would have to do a lot more work to put things in context and present a realistic portrait of Palestinian life. Without that background many complaints by Palestinians broadcast to richer audiences will get a "let them eat cake" (or perhaps "if your under curfew why not just order takeout") response with little understanding of the limitations most Palestinians face in the daily lives due to poverty mixed with military occupation.
http://www.rememberthesechildren.org/index.html
Right on! Television especially -- shoot that fucking thing before it eats your brain right out of your skull, and don't ever look at another one again! I've gone without for like 12 years. For the first five I was wretching back up all the shit it had loaded into my head all my life. Then suddenly I started seeing society, politics, etc. much more clearly. U.S. television is a deadly intellectual poison.
As for media corruption, its present extreme is NOT new. There seems to be a strong feeling that media are more corrupt now than ever before, but I can demonstrate that U.S. news coverage has always been an obscene travesty. The perception itself is the interesting part. Two things occur to me:
1) Americans have a very serious historical memory problem. They're not encouraged to understand REAL history in the first place (just canned myths), they don't reflect on it enough, and most don't seem to think about it at all. This leads to the ILLUSION that many problems are "new and unprecedented," when in fact they're timeless.
2) What IS new is that lots of people are waking up to the enormity of the media corruption problem. This is actually very hopeful.
Also Re: PRO-ISRAEL BIAS IN US MEDIA
I agree with the reasons given by "thoughts," but I think there's another even larger one: the global empire agenda of U.S. billionaires. There is only one real reason for Israel's existence: pounding a stake into the heart of the pan-Arab nationalism movement and in this way preventing the emergence of a new rival on the world stage. Right away, a pan-Arab state would have decisive control of the most critical resource on earth, thus would be an immediate imperial player. Western megalomaniacs can NOT allow this to happen, and Israel is the frontal wedge of their strategy to kill it. Meanwhile, U.S. media are in their hip pockets, as is this government, so both grovel in fealty to Holy Israel (defend and promote its legitimacy no matter what, etc). These are also the real reasons behind the billions we keep pouring into its economy and military. It's not even mainly the zionists who are behind all this, but the billionaires. Zionist Jews make up between 0.1 and 0.2% of world population; c'mon, compared to the northern European mafia that's dominated the planet for 400 years now, how much can they possibly control? Their political organizations have so much clout here because they're ALLOWED TO! Their work dovetails perfectly with the agenda of the ultra-wealthy who truly run things behind the bullshit facade called "democracy."
Zionist Jews are the ones defending Israel most fanatically, granted, and I think they're extremely dangerous, but they're really just dupes and accessories. Israel is NOT in the Jewish interest. If they think it is, that's because they've lost their minds to a political cult.
IF you count left-wing American "ZIonist" Jews (Jews that support Israel existing as a country but not as a country that violates rights or favors one ethnic group overanother) and the left-wing in Israel (who are more critical of religion in Israeli politics than almost anyone else since they have to live in Israel) I think you would find that "Zionist Jews" are more critical about Israel's actions than your traditional Christian American media. Murdoch could be called a Zionist I guess but his support for Israel is such that its not obvious that he would have supported the founding of Israel or have been openly antiSemitic when such beliefs wouldnt have served his own economic agenda.
There are groups that prey on real fears of antiSemitism to rally people against Palestinians and such groups do result in a lot of the proIsrael and antiPalestinian stuff one sees online but outside of discussion forums there are not many of such people compared to Evangelicals who support Israel for religious reasons, racists who support Israel out of hatred for Arabs and Muslims, neocons who support Israel for geopolitical reasons, and reactionaries who support Israel due to simplistic views about good and evil and the war on terrorism.
of Child Soldiers
by JPOST.COM STAFF • Sunday, Jul. 24, 2005 at 12:14 PM
Security forces foil Tel Aviv suicide bombing
Security forces foiled a suicide bombing attack in Tel Aviv on Friday night, details released for publication on Saturday night revealed.
In a joint Shin Bet-police operation near Kibbutz Nir-Am, forces arrested Jihad Shehade, 16, from the Jebalya refugee camp in northern Gaza, with a 5-kg. explosive belt in his possession, Army Radio reported.
In his interrogation, Shehade revealed that he had planned to detonate the belt at a crowded location in Tel Aviv. The charge he carried was detonated by IDF sappers in a controlled explosion.
On Saturday morning, security forces arrested in Jaffa another Palestinian from Gaza on suspicion of assisting Shehade infiltrate Israel.
Please with us ONE SINGLE MAINSTREAM STORY that does this. Don't try laying any shit on me from Z-magazine. I mean CBS, Fox, CNN, NYT, Time, etc. etc.
Please share with us ONE SINGLE MAINSTREAM STORY that does this. Don't try laying any shit on me from Z-magazine. I mean CBS, Fox, CNN, NYT, Time, etc. etc.
The rest of the world is a bit anti-israel.
Who cares?
There are far more important issues on every single continent.
There are more homeless people in the bay area than in teh entire west bank.
There's worse violence on a daily basis in Chicago + Detroit + Gary, Indiana than in the entire West bank even during intifada.
This isn't to put the israel-palestinians stuff aside, but it's friggin insane that it's always a top story like this.
at this link
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/media/net-report.html
assistance given to Israel and Palestinians.
It is telling that despite horrific crimes against humanity there is not a single UN Resolution condemning attacks on Jewish civilians. At the same time, the most ludicrous of anti-Israel resolutions pass with a huge majority. Its because of the dominance of Arab and Moslem members of the UN and their oil bribed allies.
Palestinians receive more aid per capita than any other group in the world. They have their very own UN agency UNRWA to supply their needs. They also receive aid from Japan, the Eu and the Arab states. Aid-wise, residents of the West Bank and Gaza have hardly been neglected until now. They receive about $300 per person, making them, per capita, the world's greatest beneficiaries of foreign aid. Strangely, their efforts to destroy Israel have not inspired efforts to crush this hideous ambition but rather to subsidize it. Money being fungible, foreign aid effectively funds the Palestinian Arabs' propaganda machine, their arsenal, their army, and their suicide bombers. Consider that after Oslo, USAID tackled the housing problem in Gaza by building 192 apartments at a cost of $35,000-$42,000 each, in a place where per capita income was around $1,200 a year. Guess who got the apartments: politically well-connected families, some of whom occupied multiple units without paying. What's more, wasted money can often beget additional wasted money. For instance, after the EU built a beautiful hospital in Gaza, the EU auditor's report noted, "The cost of maintaining and using this hospital will be well over the financial means of this country." So the hospital stayed shut. But meanwhile, the P.A. had to pay to truck in sewage to the empty facility to prevent a breakdown of its otherwise idle waste-processing equipment.When Jimmy Carter brokered a peace deal between Israel and Egypt, he promised that both Israel and Egypt receive substantial aid from the US. Israel returned the Sinai to Egypt, more territory that it retained. This web site apparently either doesn’t know that or has chosen to mislead its readership and to conceal that fact.
Israeli holds Palestinians who have committed crimes rather than“political prisoners”. On the other hand, the Palestinians simply shoot any Israelis who happen to come into custody.
Israeli law, derivative of applicable British and Turkish law authorizes home demolitions. Rather than demolish homes, Palestinians slaughter civilians in discos and pizzerias.
The respective unemployment rates changed when the Palestinians decided to trash their economy by starting the current war. Before that they employment rates were much better.
Palestinians and other Arabs stole as much Jewish land as they could in 1948, much of it was only returned by force in 1967 land. Palestinians aren’t taking Israeli land at the moment, but its not for lack of trying.
Finally, this site is replete with poor history of the Middle East and of the conflict. Its rather obvious that the author’s understanding of history began with Oslo.
Let me write slowly since I can tell that you don't read too fast. Alison Weir's website is a commercial endeavor. We have discussed the skewed statistics for Palestinian "child" deaths which don't take into account the fact that the majority of the Palestinian "child" deaths were in fact the deaths of older male teenage combatants. I presume that you are aware of the Genenva Convention on the use of child soldiers yet I have never heard a response to this. So we have an easy example of the miseleading use of statistics.
As an ntellectual exercise, as you read the newspaper, look for these sorts of subtle clues. When someone blows up civilians in London, are they called terrorists but when someone blows up civilians in Israel are they called "millitants"? When the 19 year old Israeli kid went off and opened fire was he called a "terrorist"? When an Arab opend fire into a car with a pregnant woman and her four children was he called a "gunman"? Were you asked to understand the motivations, poverty, opression and desparation that drove the 19 year old Israeli kid? Was his mother interviewed? How many interviews with the mothers of Arab suicide bombers have we all read, putting a sympathetic edge on terror? Are articles written in a passive voice i.e."Bomb explodes in..." as if it were an act of nature and no terrorists were involved? Do you know the name Rachel Corrie but have never heard of Marla Bennett?
However, the most important part of this commercial web site is;
“We depend on donations to fill the critical need of informing Americans on Israel/Palestine.
It will take all of us donating everything we can to overcome the information blockade on this subject.
Also, without even discussing the alledged character of the children dead---a death is a death is a death--you, by implying that they were 'child soldiers', insinuate that that makes their deaths any more excusable. The bottom line is, while you try to change the subject, that the reporting--per this comprehensive research endeavor---is skewed with a pro-israel bias!!!!! HA-Looooooo????
Then, one of your other misleading/propaganda quotes: "Palestinians and other Arabs stole as much Jewish land as they could in 1948, much of it was only returned by force in 1967 land. Palestinians aren’t taking Israeli land at the moment, but its not for lack of trying."
Wait a second, are you talking about stealing land? LMFAO!
Right now, Israel, while touting it's phony attempt at peace w/ Gaza, is continuing to confiscate land for its' apartheid wall.
Also, just the fact that you hat Weir so much, while ignoring the multitude of studies that show the pro-israel bias in the media, tells me that Weir is onto something... she obviously hits a nerve...
Telling.
Also, most websites--ask for donations.
Actually, Coca-Cola is involved in human rights violations and the assassinations of trade unionists in Colombia, so I would reccommend that you don't 'buy Coca-Cola' as this zionist recommended. Colombia is the 3rd largest recipient of military aid from the US (right behind Egypt and Israel, who is, of course #1)
You don't have to answer that....
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/media/
Great media analysis
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/media/
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/media/
An April 24 column by New York Times ombudsman Daniel Okrent referred to the organization "If Americans Knew," an advocacy group which accuses the Times of systematically disregarding Palestinian fatalities while over-emphasizing Israeli deaths.
Headed by Alison Weir, If Americans Knew is characterized by harsh anti-Israeli charges. Weir and her organization have parroted discredited claims that Israel attacks Palestinians with "mysterious poison gas," called Israel an "apartheid nation," described Palestinian terrorism as a "legitimate right and ... moral duty" and even referred to the founding of Israel as the start of a "holocaust."
This, along with the fact that Weir describes the partisan al-Jazeera and the virulently anti-Israel Washington Report on Middle East Affairs as some of "the best online sources" on the Middle East and Israel, raises serious doubts about the ability of her organization to credibly comment on American media coverage of the Israeli-Arab conflict.
The validity of these doubts are confirmed by the group's highly questionable study of New York Times Mideast coverage.
The 2005 study claims "the Times reported Israeli deaths at rates up to seven to ten times greater than Palestinian deaths," and that this discrepancy is "based on the ethnicity of the person killed." It further purports that "Times reporting regularly gave readers the impression that equal numbers of people on both sides were being killed – or that more Israelis were being killed," and that "the majority of Palestinian deaths ... are never reported by the Times at all."
The bulk of the study is based only on the headline and first paragraph – often just one sentence – of New York Times news reports, and completely ignores the remaining text of the articles. In other words, most of the news reports condemned by the study are not even read.
Frequent Mention of Casualty Breakdown
Only by ignoring most of the news coverage in this way can Weir reach her conclusions. Take, for example, the declaration that "Times reporting regularly gave readers the impression that equal numbers of people on both sides were being killed." This claim is quickly disproved with a glance at the newspaper's full coverage, since Times stories frequently cite casualty figures.
During the first year of violence (one of Weir's "study periods"), Times readers were told:
At least 20 Palestinians and 10 Israelis have died in a cycle of violence that has barely abated since the cease-fire took effect on June 13. Since the Palestinian uprising began last September, at least 479 Palestinians, 124 Israelis and 13 Israeli Arabs have been killed. ("Israeli Tanks Shell Palestinian Police Posts in Response to Attacks", 7/12/01)
The death toll in this conflict is nearing 700. Though figures are somewhat imprecise, the count is put at about 525 Palestinians, 155 Israeli Jews and 14 Israeli Arabs, whose casualties came almost entirely in the intifada's earliest days. ("Israelis and Palestinians Prepare for a Long Struggle," 8/17/01)
At least 580 Palestinians and 167 Israelis have been killed since a Palestinian uprising began a year ago. ("More Violence, and Western Peace Efforts, in the Middle East," 9/18/01)
And so on.
Clearly, the Times does not mislead readers about the number of fatalities sustained by both sides. If anything, it would be more accurate to say that such casualty breakdowns downplay Israeli deaths – readers are informed that more Palestinians than Israelis have died, but are not told that most of the Israeli victims were non-combatants targeted by Palestinians, whereas Palestinian fatalities were overwhelmingly combatants or Palestinians killed by other Palestinians
Most Palestinian Deaths are Reported
Weir also falsely states that most Palestinian deaths "are never reported by the Times at all," again basing this contention only on the headline and first sentence or two of news stories.
In fact, Weir's own numbers belie this claim. In the one month sub-study where If Americans Knew did actually examine news stories from start to finish, the group found the Times reported 82 percent of Palestinians killed. That is, Weir's statistics show that most Palestinian deaths are in fact reported in the newspaper.
Study Miscounts by Counting Repetitions
Weir further manipulates the data by treating an attack mentioned more than once as more than one death. So when the Times mentioned the killing of a 3-year-old Israeli in front of his kindergarten both on a front page blurb and in a full story on page six, Weir counts this as the Times reporting on two deaths. And when the killing is mentioned twice in the following days' stories about Israel's reaction to the slaying, Weir then claims that the Times reported on "400 percent" of Israeli children's deaths in this period of time.
Since Palestinian violence is often the immediate cause of Israeli counter-actions, the Times often reports the slaying of Israelis, and then mentions the attack again in a story about Israel's reaction to the killing. For example, the opening paragraph of a Jan. 15, 2005 story stated:
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered Friday that all government officials cut ties with the Palestinian Authority and that the Gaza Strip be sealed until Palestinian leaders moved to curb terrorism. He issued the order a day after Palestinian militants killed six Israelis at a checkpoint on the Gaza border.
Since the previous day's report broke news of this attack on the checkpoint, the attack was cited twice by the Times. Weir's study, then, misleadingly counts these two news stories, each referring to the killing of six Israelis, as having reported on the death of twelve Israelis.
Conflating Variables
Another example of amateurism of Weir's study is its unsubstantiated presumption that any "discrepancy" is "based on the ethnicity of the person killed."
Even if Weir's numbers are correct – an unlikely proposition since the study uses unreliable figures from B'tselem – her presumption is untenable.
For example, using Weir's flawed methods, one could say the Times reported 515 percent of Israeli Arabs fatalities in the first weeks of violence. (13 Israeli Arabs were killed early after the outbreak of violence, but the deaths were often reiterated by the newspaper.) Yet it would be irresponsible to claim that this high percentage was based on the casualties' Arab ethnicity. A competent study would have to consider conflating variables.
The Israeli Arab fatalities might have been mentioned more frequently because the deaths were a rare example of Israeli citizens being killed by Israeli forces; or because they occurred in the first weeks of violence, when casualties were still a relatively new phenomenon. (Jay Thomas Aubin, one of the very first Americans to die during the Iraq war, shows up in 345 articles when searching an online database of news reports. By contrast, Adam G. Mooney, who lost his life in the middle of the war, is mentioned only 74 times.)
Likewise, even if, as Weir alleges, specific Israeli deaths were repeated more often than Palestinian deaths in news stories, this most likely would not be a function of the "ethnicity" of those killed, but rather because it is more noteworthy when civilians are targeted for death (as is the case with most Israeli fatalities). Israelis murdered in grisly suicide bombings will likely garner more notice than Palestinians killed while attacking a soldier.
(Another example of foolishly ignoring conflating variables would be to assume that U.S. serviceman Pat Tillman, mentioned in 15 New York Times articles since his death, is cited so frequently because of his Scots-Irish heritage. A much more feasible explanation is that the repetitions are because he was a well known N.F.L. football player.)
History of Distortion
Weir's pseudoscientific study and absurd conclusions are not so surprising in light of her history of distortion.
For example, she claims that "Israel has a record of attacking its neighbors - mounting massive invasions of surrounding territory in 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1982."
In 1982, 1967 and 1956, Israel invaded its neighbors only after repeated cross border killings, threats and acts of war aimed at the country from those neighbors. Weir, like most propagandists, neglects to mention this context. On her Web site, she even refers to the 1967 war as a "Pearl Harbor-like surprise attack on Egypt," ignoring the fact that Egypt expelled UN peacekeepers, massed its troops on its border with Israel, threatened to destroy the country, and, in an act of war, illegally blockaded the Israeli port of Eilat. Blockading Eilat by blockading the Gulf of Aqaba, an international waterway, was, under international law, a casus belli. In other words, even before the first shot was fired in 1967, Egypt had started the war.
But even more preposterous is Weir's assertion that Israel "attacked" and "invaded" surrounding countries in 1948. During the 1948 War of Independence, it was Israel that was illegally attacked and invaded by its neighbors, which sought to destroy the nascent Jewish state. This attack by the Arab countries and the Palestinians was a violation of United Nations Resolution 181 (the Partition Resolution) and the UN Charter. Israel managed to fight off the attackers, but did not "invade" the attacking countries.
Other falsehoods by Weir and If Americans Knew include: the claim that Israeli soldiers "regularly targeted children"; that Israelis mistaken identity attack on the U.S.S. Liberty was deliberate; that "in 1948, Israel declared its 'independence' on 78% of Palestine" (when in fact the country declared independence only over the land allotted to it by the United Nations – about 10 percent of historic Palestine or 55 percent of Palestine without TransJordan); that there are "Jewish-only roads" in the West Bank; and many other prevarications.
The Times' Middle East coverage is far from perfect, but even farther from the false reality painted by Weir.
It's when your fundi- beliefs invade your politics that there's a problem---you can be a religious-whack job all you want--but when you start believing that you have a divine right to a land, and this goes for any religion, that's where there's a problem. Now, with that said, Israel deserves a higher standard of accountability and critism, as it claims to be 'democratic'.
Poor thing..
The Al-Dura Cover-up
The departure of CNN news executive Eason Jordan came swiftly after reports of his apparent claim at a forum in Switzerland that journalists in Iraq had been deliberately killed by American soldiers. Offering no evidence to support the charge, Jordan resigned under a hail of criticism.
In just months, CBS ousted senior executives held responsible for airing a disastrously flawed segment on President Bush's Air National Guard service. So, too, the New York Times and USA Today acted within months against serial falsifiers Jayson Blair and Jack Kelley, firing senior executives as well as the individual perpetrators, and instituting measures to guard against future infractions.
Far different has been the response of the influential France 2 Television network, in an infamous and unresolved case of gross misconduct by its journalists. Charles Enderlin, Israel-based correspondent for the network, and his Palestinian cameraman, Talal Abu-Rahma, are directly responsible for the calumny spread worldwide against Israel starting September 30, 2000 in the Muhammad al-Dura affair.
Enderlin's voice-over told France 2 viewers that they were seeing footage shot by Abu-Rahma at Gaza's Netzarim junction earlier that day. As images unfolded of 12-year-old Muhammad al-Dura cowering against his father, Enderlin stated the two are "the target of fire coming from the Israeli position. The child signals, but... there's a new burst of gunfire... The child is dead and the father is wounded."
France 2 then promptly gave the video – barely 55 seconds in length – free of charge to other media outlets. The image of the boy ostensibly shot dead by Israeli guns raced around the world. Coming as it did in the first days of the Palestinian uprising, the dramatic scenes playing continuously on television stoked the violence.
In Arab nations, al-Dura was quickly mythologized as an emblem of alleged Israeli cruelty, with streets, parks, stamps and newborns named after him. Videos recreated the event, some with calls for young people to seek "martyrdom" and paradise with al-Dura.
Not everything is known about the chaotic events at Netzarim and the circumstances of the al-Dura case, but certain things are.
First, the footage contains no evidence at all that Israeli soldiers shot al-Dura. Neither in the 55 seconds broadcast around the globe nor in the 27 remaining minutes filmed by Abu-Rahma are there any soldiers in view. It is not logistically possible that the Israeli soldiers present that day, barricaded inside a building across the intersection, could have shot the boy and his father, huddled behind a concrete barrel blocking the line of fire. As James Fallows wrote in an investigation of the case for The Atlantic Monthly (June 2003): "Whatever happened to him, he was not shot by the Israeli soldiers..."
A recent column in the French newspaper Le Figaro (January 25, 2005) reiterated this, and emphasized what others have said - that a review of the terrain where the incident occurred incriminates Palestinian, not Israeli, bullets.
Second, the footage does not contain visual evidence that al-Dura died. Though he collapses, the tape ends abruptly with the boy inert; a further frame, omitted by Enderlin from the broadcast, shows al-Dura raising his head and arm. But this is the last image.
To explain the odd, truncated footage, Enderlin repeatedly claimed he omitted the "agony of the child" - his dying - because it was unbearable to witness.
However, when several French journalists prevailed on France 2 to let them view the unreleased 27 minutes, they found no "agony of the child" - no excruciating scenes of a suffering al-Dura.
Enderlin lied, and his lie heightened the sense of a brutal act committed by Israel.
Third, numerous analysts have noted that in footage taken of the crowds at Netzarim there are clearly instances of Palestinians staging events. The French journalists who viewed the France 2 footage saw this as well, including repeated instances of Palestinians faking injuries followed by the immediate arrival of ambulances to carry away the pseudo-wounded. While no video evidence proved the al-Dura incident was staged, the prevalence of such activity at the time is relevant to any inquiry.
Enderlin has replied to criticism by retorting the case may never be resolved, but for him the "image [as he conveyed it] corresponded to the reality of the situation."
Enderlin states that in his view Israel was using excessive force against Palestinians, and clearly in his mind a journalist can distort and embellish the facts to fit his political opinions.
Four and a half years later, France 2 has yet to issue any statement correcting its reprehensible and unethical al-Dura story, or to take action against Enderlin, Abu-Rahma or others with a hand in the matter.
This should concern everyone who appreciates the enormous damage caused by reckless and ideologically-driven journalism.
Originally published in the Jerusalem Post on February 21, 2005.
Last week, the debate gained fresh momentum after a prominent French editor and an independent television producer broke ranks in the country's media circles and wrote a cautious article in the newspaper Le Figaro, expressing some doubt about the photo's authenticity.
"That image has had great influence," said Daniel Leconte, a former correspondent for France 2. "If this image does not mean what we were told, it is necessary to find the truth."
Mr. Leconte wrote the article in Figaro with Denis Jeambar, editor in chief of the newsmagazine L'Express, weeks after station executives at France 2 allowed the two men in October to see all 27 minutes of the footage shot.
But their commentary did not emerge publicly until after they had offered it to Le Monde, which rejected it, according to its new opinion page editor, Sylvain Cypel. He called the entire debate "bizarre" and said it had been propelled by a tiny French-Israeli news agency.
When the report was first broadcast, France 2 offered its exclusive footage free to the world's television networks, saying it did not want to profit from the images.
The scenes were filmed by its Palestinian cameraman, Talal Abu Rahma, who was the only one to capture images of what Mr. Enderlin characterized then as the killing of a child by gunfire from an Israeli position. Mr. Enderlin was not present during the shooting.
Esther Schapira, a German producer in Frankfurt, said she tried unsuccessfully in preparation for her 2002 documentary to see a master copy of the tape and was astonished when France 2 did not share it because European stations commonly exchange material. "If there is nothing to hide," she said of France 2's initial reluctance, "what are they afraid of?"
When critical articles started appearing in publications like The Atlantic Monthly in the United States, Mr. Enderlin wrote letters insisting: "We do not transform reality. But in view of the fact that some parts of the scene are unbearable, France 2 was obliged to cut a few seconds from the scene." (Ed - Yeah Right!)
In many ways, Mr. Enderlin argues, the video has become a cultural prism, with viewers seeing what they want to see. "It's a campaign," he said, "because the video was used as a symbol by the Palestinians as a propaganda tool."
Richard Landes, a Boston University professor specializing in medieval cultures, studied full footage from other Western news outlets that day, including the pictures of the boy.
"We could argue about every frame," he said. But after watching the scenes involving Muhammad al-Dura three times, he concluded that it had probably been faked, along with footage on the same tape of separate street clashes and ambulance rescues.
"I came to the realization that Palestinian cameramen, especially when there are no Westerners around, engage in the systematic staging of action scenes," he said, calling the footage Pallywood cinema.
More on this is available at this HR communique. It includes a link to an important article by James Fallows, published in The Atlantic, which investigates the incident in-depth and concludes that "it now appears that the boy cannot have died in the way reported by most of the world's media and fervently believed throughout the Islamic world."
And not just in this study, but in more---see the links referenced. On the site.
YAWN...
but they also like to vigorously suck the teat of american taxpayer funds to further their APARTHEID in g-spot's 'no-gentiles-allowed' holyland.
slurpy also thinks he impresses people with his cries of "anti-semite**," "Holocaust denier**," etc, etc, etc, etc.
YAAWWN.
**Copyright: Holocaust Industries, Holocaust Museums, Inc., Spielberg Extravaganzas Inc, Israel Propaganda Project, New York Times Armchair Zionists for Peace, etc.
PS: 'Tikkun' (Hebrew for 'Dissent') + 'Commentary' = Dysentery...........Woody Allen.
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/media/
Journalist's biased claims go unchallenged
Meet Alison Weir, self-proclaimed journalist, savior of the Palestinian people and anti-Semite extraordinaire. Around 100 people had the unfortunate pleasure of hearing Weir speak on the night of Nov. 11 in Harris Hall. But this was no ordinary lecture.
Weir brought shame to the journalist's trade that night as she regaled her sorrowful journey through "Palestine," witnessing the racist treatment and brutal occupation of the innocent, loving Palestinians by the Israel Defense Force. This high-tech presentation was accompanied by a slide show of photos Weir collected during her one month in Gaza and the West Bank-pictures of children on respirators, broken homes and caring families.
The speech went further than just calling for an end of Israeli occupation or cutting off foreign aid to Israel. (For the record, she did suggest both.) Weir began with a brief overview of Zionism from the late 19th century until the creation of the State of Israel. Her presentation was filled with lie after lie, distortion after distortion, and propaganda after propaganda.
Zionism, Weir claimed, was a movement founded by Jews who wanted to live in Palestine and forcibly remove the inhabitants of the land. False!
The true origin begins with a French journalist named Theodore Herzl. He had been covering the Dreyfus Affair, in which Alfred Dreyfus, a French military officer, was framed, tried and convicted of treason because he was Jewish. Herzl understood that anti-Semitism in the world would never dissipate and the Jewish people needed a homeland-a refuge for any Jew fleeing persecution and oppression.
Also, the Jewish National Fund provided the money which legally bought every piece of swamp land that the "evil Zionists" developed in Palestine.
What Weir refers to as the Arab Uprising of 1929, most legitimate historians call the Hebron Massacre of 1929. On a Sabbath day in August, 67 Jewish seminary students and families were murdered in cold blood while they learned their holy texts and recited the Sabbath prayers. If that is an uprising that "caused deaths on both sides," than the Jews and the Nazis worked together during the Holocaust in some grand conspiracy.
According to Weir, during World War II there was a secret "Zionist-Nazi" co-conspiracy to relocate the Jews of Europe to Palestine in an effort to flood the country with an enormous Jewish population. Words cannot describe such a dehumanizing, bigoted and ignorant statement.
The Jewish Agency tried its best to evacuate as many Jews from Nazi Germany in order to save them from Gestapo beatings, ghetto liquidations, death camp gas chambers and SS firing squads. Between 1933 and 1939, when Adolph Hitler closed the borders, 350,000 Jews were evacuated to the United States and Palestine. To even suggest such a conspiracy shows a complete disregard for the millions slaughtered by Hitler, as well as a clear anti-Semitic agenda. Perhaps it would interest Ms. Weir to know that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was very close friends with Hitler and visited him several times throughout the war.
Weir suddenly decided to cut short the history lesson "for lack of time" and skip ahead to the current Israeli barbarism in "Palestine." However, she neglected many important facts because of this shortcut. The audience deserved to learn that in 1947 the United Nations ratified a partition plan for Palestine-establishing a Jewish state, an Arab state and Jerusalem as an international city. She also forgot to mention that Israel accepted that plan, the Arabs did not and five Arab countries attacked Israel moments after David Ben-Gurion (who of course was one of the conspiracy masterminds, according to Weir) declared independence.
The other issue that Weir entirely skirted was how the Palestinian refugee problem came about. Could it be that when anti-Israel Arabs refused to live as citizens under an Israeli flag and returned to their respective homelands, the Arab countries barred them from entering and instead forced them into refugee camps?
Does she realize that the Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank existed from 1949-1967, before Israel won the territory in battle during the Six Day War?
It's fascinating to note that the living conditions in East Jerusalem actually improved with Israeli rule-when the IDF entered the city in 1967 they found sewage in the streets and disease everywhere.
Apparently these facts do not enter into the non-biased journalism that Weir practices.
But even if none of that seems false or misleading, what Weir said next cannot be rationalized or excused. She claimed that in the Apartheid State of Israel today there are military checkpoints that sometimes deny Palestinians permission to pass. According to her "personal accounts," the Israeli soldiers have flashlights at night that point at you and motion you in different directions-these she referred to as "death points" because some Palestinians don't receive the right flashlight motion and are killed. The parallel that she is drawing is evil, blatantly false and a major affront to anyone who was victimized by the Holocaust.
In the death camps, the Nazi guards would motion people into two lines, one line of women, children and the elderly and the other line of strong, working-age men. The first line would go through one gate leading to the concentration camp and the other line would go through a second gate leading to extermination. IDF checkpoints that ensure that no terrorist can pass from the West Bank to Israel to mass-murder innocent civilians is in no way analogous to the atrocities of the Holocaust. Only a sick, perverted mind would make such a connection. A mind like Weir's.
It's not journalism to spend a month with Palestinian "victims" of Israeli brutality and not spend a month with the parents of the teenagers who were blown up at a Tel Aviv disco. It's not journalism to attend the funeral of a member of Islamic Jihad (of which she showed pictures and then referred to the black masks worn by the terrorists as ritualistic) and not grieve with the children of a 39-year-old mother ambushed and killed on a highway when coming home from work.
Medill sent out an e-mail on its listserv to all students encouraging them to attend the event because Weir was labeled a journalist. For such a highly esteemed school of journalism to encourage students to attend the lecture of a poor journalist and high-quality bigot calls into question the values and principles it instills in its students.
What's the matter with the Northwestern community these days? Pat Buchanan gets a candlelight vigil protest and a rabid anti-Semite like Alison Weir gets free publicity from the school.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
An April 24 column by New York Times ombudsman Daniel Okrent referred to the organization "If Americans Knew," an advocacy group which accuses the Times of systematically disregarding Palestinian fatalities while over-emphasizing Israeli deaths.
Headed by Alison Weir, If Americans Knew is characterized by harsh anti-Israeli charges. Weir and her organization have parroted discredited claims that Israel attacks Palestinians with "mysterious poison gas," called Israel an "apartheid nation," described Palestinian terrorism as a "legitimate right and ... moral duty" and even referred to the founding of Israel as the start of a "holocaust."
This, along with the fact that Weir describes the partisan al-Jazeera and the virulently anti-Israel Washington Report on Middle East Affairs as some of "the best online sources" on the Middle East and Israel, raises serious doubts about the ability of her organization to credibly comment on American media coverage of the Israeli-Arab conflict.
The validity of these doubts are confirmed by the group's highly questionable study of New York Times Mideast coverage.
The 2005 study claims "the Times reported Israeli deaths at rates up to seven to ten times greater than Palestinian deaths," and that this discrepancy is "based on the ethnicity of the person killed." It further purports that "Times reporting regularly gave readers the impression that equal numbers of people on both sides were being killed – or that more Israelis were being killed," and that "the majority of Palestinian deaths ... are never reported by the Times at all."
The bulk of the study is based only on the headline and first paragraph – often just one sentence – of New York Times news reports, and completely ignores the remaining text of the articles. In other words, most of the news reports condemned by the study are not even read.
Frequent Mention of Casualty Breakdown
Only by ignoring most of the news coverage in this way can Weir reach her conclusions. Take, for example, the declaration that "Times reporting regularly gave readers the impression that equal numbers of people on both sides were being killed." This claim is quickly disproved with a glance at the newspaper's full coverage, since Times stories frequently cite casualty figures.
During the first year of violence (one of Weir's "study periods"), Times readers were told:
At least 20 Palestinians and 10 Israelis have died in a cycle of violence that has barely abated since the cease-fire took effect on June 13. Since the Palestinian uprising began last September, at least 479 Palestinians, 124 Israelis and 13 Israeli Arabs have been killed. ("Israeli Tanks Shell Palestinian Police Posts in Response to Attacks", 7/12/01)
The death toll in this conflict is nearing 700. Though figures are somewhat imprecise, the count is put at about 525 Palestinians, 155 Israeli Jews and 14 Israeli Arabs, whose casualties came almost entirely in the intifada's earliest days. ("Israelis and Palestinians Prepare for a Long Struggle," 8/17/01)
At least 580 Palestinians and 167 Israelis have been killed since a Palestinian uprising began a year ago. ("More Violence, and Western Peace Efforts, in the Middle East," 9/18/01)
And so on.
Clearly, the Times does not mislead readers about the number of fatalities sustained by both sides. If anything, it would be more accurate to say that such casualty breakdowns downplay Israeli deaths – readers are informed that more Palestinians than Israelis have died, but are not told that most of the Israeli victims were non-combatants targeted by Palestinians, whereas Palestinian fatalities were overwhelmingly combatants or Palestinians killed by other Palestinians
Most Palestinian Deaths are Reported
Weir also falsely states that most Palestinian deaths "are never reported by the Times at all," again basing this contention only on the headline and first sentence or two of news stories.
In fact, Weir's own numbers belie this claim. In the one month sub-study where If Americans Knew did actually examine news stories from start to finish, the group found the Times reported 82 percent of Palestinians killed. That is, Weir's statistics show that most Palestinian deaths are in fact reported in the newspaper.
Study Miscounts by Counting Repetitions
Weir further manipulates the data by treating an attack mentioned more than once as more than one death. So when the Times mentioned the killing of a 3-year-old Israeli in front of his kindergarten both on a front page blurb and in a full story on page six, Weir counts this as the Times reporting on two deaths. And when the killing is mentioned twice in the following days' stories about Israel's reaction to the slaying, Weir then claims that the Times reported on "400 percent" of Israeli children's deaths in this period of time.
Since Palestinian violence is often the immediate cause of Israeli counter-actions, the Times often reports the slaying of Israelis, and then mentions the attack again in a story about Israel's reaction to the killing. For example, the opening paragraph of a Jan. 15, 2005 story stated:
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered Friday that all government officials cut ties with the Palestinian Authority and that the Gaza Strip be sealed until Palestinian leaders moved to curb terrorism. He issued the order a day after Palestinian militants killed six Israelis at a checkpoint on the Gaza border.
Since the previous day's report broke news of this attack on the checkpoint, the attack was cited twice by the Times. Weir's study, then, misleadingly counts these two news stories, each referring to the killing of six Israelis, as having reported on the death of twelve Israelis.
Conflating Variables
Another example of amateurism of Weir's study is its unsubstantiated presumption that any "discrepancy" is "based on the ethnicity of the person killed."
Even if Weir's numbers are correct – an unlikely proposition since the study uses unreliable figures from B'tselem – her presumption is untenable.
For example, using Weir's flawed methods, one could say the Times reported 515 percent of Israeli Arabs fatalities in the first weeks of violence. (13 Israeli Arabs were killed early after the outbreak of violence, but the deaths were often reiterated by the newspaper.) Yet it would be irresponsible to claim that this high percentage was based on the casualties' Arab ethnicity. A competent study would have to consider conflating variables.
The Israeli Arab fatalities might have been mentioned more frequently because the deaths were a rare example of Israeli citizens being killed by Israeli forces; or because they occurred in the first weeks of violence, when casualties were still a relatively new phenomenon. (Jay Thomas Aubin, one of the very first Americans to die during the Iraq war, shows up in 345 articles when searching an online database of news reports. By contrast, Adam G. Mooney, who lost his life in the middle of the war, is mentioned only 74 times.)
Likewise, even if, as Weir alleges, specific Israeli deaths were repeated more often than Palestinian deaths in news stories, this most likely would not be a function of the "ethnicity" of those killed, but rather because it is more noteworthy when civilians are targeted for death (as is the case with most Israeli fatalities). Israelis murdered in grisly suicide bombings will likely garner more notice than Palestinians killed while attacking a soldier.
(Another example of foolishly ignoring conflating variables would be to assume that U.S. serviceman Pat Tillman, mentioned in 15 New York Times articles since his death, is cited so frequently because of his Scots-Irish heritage. A much more feasible explanation is that the repetitions are because he was a well known N.F.L. football player.)
History of Distortion
Weir's pseudoscientific study and absurd conclusions are not so surprising in light of her history of distortion.
For example, she claims that "Israel has a record of attacking its neighbors - mounting massive invasions of surrounding territory in 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1982."
In 1982, 1967 and 1956, Israel invaded its neighbors only after repeated cross border killings, threats and acts of war aimed at the country from those neighbors. Weir, like most propagandists, neglects to mention this context. On her Web site, she even refers to the 1967 war as a "Pearl Harbor-like surprise attack on Egypt," ignoring the fact that Egypt expelled UN peacekeepers, massed its troops on its border with Israel, threatened to destroy the country, and, in an act of war, illegally blockaded the Israeli port of Eilat. Blockading Eilat by blockading the Gulf of Aqaba, an international waterway, was, under international law, a casus belli. In other words, even before the first shot was fired in 1967, Egypt had started the war.
But even more preposterous is Weir's assertion that Israel "attacked" and "invaded" surrounding countries in 1948. During the 1948 War of Independence, it was Israel that was illegally attacked and invaded by its neighbors, which sought to destroy the nascent Jewish state. This attack by the Arab countries and the Palestinians was a violation of United Nations Resolution 181 (the Partition Resolution) and the UN Charter. Israel managed to fight off the attackers, but did not "invade" the attacking countries.
Other falsehoods by Weir and If Americans Knew include: the claim that Israeli soldiers "regularly targeted children"; that Israelis mistaken identity attack on the U.S.S. Liberty was deliberate; that "in 1948, Israel declared its 'independence' on 78% of Palestine" (when in fact the country declared independence only over the land allotted to it by the United Nations – about 10 percent of historic Palestine or 55 percent of Palestine without TransJordan); that there are "Jewish-only roads" in the West Bank; and many other prevarications.
The Times' Middle East coverage is far from perfect, but even farther from the false reality painted by Weir.
Do you know the name Rachel Corrie but have never heard of Marla Bennett?
This poorly researched website has as its main focus a page of misleading statistics. For example, although they compare the raw numbers f Israeli children versus Palestinian children killed in the current war, they fail to mention that the vast majority of the Palestinian child casualties are male teenage combatants. The real issue is the Palestinian use of child soldiers.
assistance given to Israel and Palestinians.
It is telling that despite horrific crimes against humanity there is not a single UN Resolution condemning attacks on Jewish civilians. At the same time, the most ludicrous of anti-Israel resolutions pass with a huge majority. Its because of the dominance of Arab and Moslem members of the UN and their oil bribed allies.
Palestinians receive more aid per capita than any other group in the world. They have their very own UN agency UNRWA to supply their needs. They also receive aid from Japan, the Eu and the Arab states. Aid-wise, residents of the West Bank and Gaza have hardly been neglected until now. They receive about $300 per person, making them, per capita, the world's greatest beneficiaries of foreign aid. Strangely, their efforts to destroy Israel have not inspired efforts to crush this hideous ambition but rather to subsidize it. Money being fungible, foreign aid effectively funds the Palestinian Arabs' propaganda machine, their arsenal, their army, and their suicide bombers. Consider that after Oslo, USAID tackled the housing problem in Gaza by building 192 apartments at a cost of $35,000-$42,000 each, in a place where per capita income was around $1,200 a year. Guess who got the apartments: politically well-connected families, some of whom occupied multiple units without paying. What's more, wasted money can often beget additional wasted money. For instance, after the EU built a beautiful hospital in Gaza, the EU auditor's report noted, "The cost of maintaining and using this hospital will be well over the financial means of this country." So the hospital stayed shut. But meanwhile, the P.A. had to pay to truck in sewage to the empty facility to prevent a breakdown of its otherwise idle waste-processing equipment.When Jimmy Carter brokered a peace deal between Israel and Egypt, he promised that both Israel and Egypt receive substantial aid from the US. Israel returned the Sinai to Egypt, more territory that it retained. This web site apparently either doesn’t know that or has chosen to mislead its readership and to conceal that fact.
Israeli holds Palestinians who have committed crimes rather than“political prisoners”. On the other hand, the Palestinians simply shoot any Israelis who happen to come into custody.
Israeli law, derivative of applicable British and Turkish law authorizes home demolitions. Rather than demolish homes, Palestinians slaughter civilians in discos and pizzerias.
The respective unemployment rates changed when the Palestinians decided to trash their economy by starting the current war. Before that they employment rates were much better.
Palestinians and other Arabs stole as much Jewish land as they could in 1948, much of it was only returned by force in 1967 land. Palestinians aren’t taking Israeli land at the moment, but its not for lack of trying.
Finally, this site is replete with poor history of the Middle East and of the conflict. Its rather obvious that the author’s understanding of history began with Oslo.
However, the most important part of this commercial web site is;
“We depend on donations to fill the critical need of informing Americans on Israel/Palestine.
It will take all of us donating everything we can to overcome the information blockade on this subject.
Allison Weir is a failed journalist who does this"professionally".
Unfortunately, there is no profit for her to make in peace.
All legitimate non-profits are required by law to have their financial paperwork made open to the public. When you look at an organization like the Middle East Children's alliance, and you realize that they spend a half million on salaries and compensations for their "grassroots organization"-(are there even 8 people working there?) you realize that this is big business for some. Look at http://www.charitynavigator.org- MECA gets a 1 out of 4 stars. Once again, no profit to be made promoting peace.
To all of you- be careful where you get your information from.
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/media/censored.html
Is it all wrong just because you don't like/agree with Weir's opinion?
Here's some of the other studies showing pro-Israel bias that Weir has nothing to do with:
http://www.auphr.org/oregonian.php
another:
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1086
Here's a book about it:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0745320619/qid=1126293557/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-7596679-8226429?v=glance&s=books
And here's something about Israel's propaganda efforts:
http://www.adc.org/index.php?id=1789
I'm sure you'll immediately dismiss these w/out thought, but if uyou don't, kudos to you for opening your mind....
Typical of the Israel is always right crew...
Dan Diker
*
"Television loves emotions and cares less about facts. The Palestinians don't care about losing people, and the Israelis can't fight that," said one senior international news organization representative.
*
"Arafat and his multi-layered security apparatus have muzzled local press critics via arbitrary arrests, threats, physical abuse, and the closure of media outlets," frightening most Palestinian journalists into self-censorship, according to the Independent Committee for Protection of Journalists.
*
In Arabic, the word for "news media" (i'laam) is the same word used for "public relations."
*
Foreign news agencies have become dependent on Palestinian cameramen, frequently residents of the West Bank, since Israeli cameramen are prohibited by the IDF from working in the Palestinian areas. The result is TV news pictures that focus daily on Palestinian victims.
Since the outbreak of Palestinian violence in September 2000, Palestinian leaders have succeeded in using the international news media to mobilize world opinion in favor of the Palestinian narrative, depicting the Palestinian "David" defending his homeland against the Israeli "Goliath." Televised images of Palestinian suffering portray a human drama that wins the news media war. As a senior source associated with an international news organization said recently, "Television loves emotions and cares less about facts. The Palestinians don't care about losing people, and the Israelis can't fight that."1
Playing by Palestinian Authority Rules
Most foreign correspondents, and particularly local Palestinian stringers who report from the West Bank and Gaza for Jerusalem-based foreign news bureaus, operate under an unspoken but firm set of rules. They avoid reporting stories involving widespread human rights abuses, high-level corruption and financial mismanagement, and violence between Palestinian groups that could prove embarrassing to Arafat and senior Palestinian officials.2
According to a 2001 report by the Independent Committee for Protection of Journalists, "In the nearly seven years since the Palestinian National Authority assumed control over parts of the West Bank and Gaza, Chairman Yasser Arafat and his multi-layered security apparatus have muzzled local press critics via arbitrary arrests, threats, physical abuse, and the closure of media outlets. Over the years the Arafat regime has managed to frighten most Palestinian journalists into self-censorship."3
The Palestinian Authority does not maintain an official press center similar to Israel's Government Press Office. However, the Ramallah-based Palestine Media Center (PMC) is described as "an independent official institution established and directed by Yasser Abed Rabbo, Minister of Culture and Information of the Palestinian National Authority."4 The PMC is heavily funded by the European Union; it may not be a coincidence, therefore, that European news organizations have largely avoided reporting stories that are critical of the Palestinian Authority.5
According to an Arab-Israeli journalist who assists Jerusalem-based foreign media outlets, Abed Rabbo views media relations as an extension of the Palestinian cause.6 The PA information minister made this idea clear to an official Foreign Press Association (FPA) delegation that met with him in September 2001 to protest Palestinian Authority threats against foreign and Palestinian free-lance photographers who took pictures of Palestinian street celebrations following the September 11th attacks on the U.S. Abed Rabbo reportedly told the senior FPA representatives in no uncertain terms, "Palestinian national interests would come before freedom of the press."7
A former Arab and Palestinian affairs reporter for Israel Television noted that Palestinians have not yet developed an appreciation for a free news media. In Arabic, the word for "news media" (i'laam) is the same word that is frequently used for "public relations."8
Palestinian "Fixers": The Short Route to Palestinian Leaders
Most foreign journalists are not fluent in either Arabic or Hebrew, rendering them dependent on a network of local Palestinian "fixers," mostly young, educated Palestinians who speak Arabic, Hebrew, and English. Palestinian fixers, who until recently have been fully accredited by Israel's Government Press Office, know their way around Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, arrange interviews with Palestinian officials, and introduce journalists to their own circle of local acquaintances. As a rule, working with a good fixer translates into getting interviews with top Palestinian leaders and moving safely around the territories. An Arabic-speaking Israeli journalist who avoids using fixers noted that most fixers trumpet the PLO narrative and terminology of the conflict, which frequently collides with established historical facts and international law. Moreover, Palestinian security forces watch carefully what is said by local residents to both foreign and local journalists.9
According to senior foreign news sources based in Jerusalem, the vast majority of Palestinian fixers - often close friends of Palestinian employees of Jerusalem-based foreign news agencies - are ideologically motivated by the Palestinian cause, and actively encourage journalists to report exclusively on the "evils" of the Israeli occupation, rather than on the lack of democratic freedoms or human rights abuses in the West Bank and Gaza.10
Arafat's "Management" of Foreign Press Interviews
Numerous foreign reporters have learned that interviews with the PA chairman are not open invitations to ask tough questions. On March 29, 2002, Arafat hung up on CNN's Christianne Amanpour during a telephone interview from his besieged Mukata compound after Amanpour asked the PA leader repeatedly whether "he was able to rein in the violence."11
In another instance, in 1999, a reporter from the German newspaper Der Spiegel asked Arafat about widespread reports of corruption in the Palestinian Authority. Upon hearing the question, Arafat reportedly accused the reporter of being a member of the Israeli security services and promptly had him removed. The German reporter's fixer, a former Palestinian diplomat who had been based in Germany, convinced his foreign client to write Arafat a letter of apology, but Arafat refused to allow the reporter to return.12
On January 6, 2003, Seif al-Din Shahin, a senior Gaza correspondent for Qatar's Al Jazeera News Agency, was arrested by Arafat's Palestinian General Intelligence on charges of "inflicting damage to the interests and reputation of the Palestinian people and their struggle," for reporting that the Al Aksa Brigades, part of the PLO's military wing, had claimed responsibility for the double suicide bombing in Tel Aviv the night before.13
Reliance on Palestinian Cameramen
Palestinian camera operators, frequently residents of the West Bank, today film the vast majority of foreign TV news coverage in the territories.14 Foreign news agencies have become dependent on Palestinians, since Israeli camera people are prohibited by the IDF from working in the Palestinian areas. Palestinian camera operators are also far less expensive than their Israeli or foreign news colleagues.
The result is that TV news pictures, broadcast internationally from the territories, focus daily on Palestinian dead and wounded, massive demonstrations and funerals, close-ups of local hospital and morgue victims, homes of mourning Palestinian families, and destroyed Palestinian buildings and fields. Missing is a measure of balance that might show images of the Palestinian-initiated violence, including shootings, bombings, and rocket attacks on Israeli troops and civilians, that prompt Israeli military responses.
Perhaps the best example of the pitfalls of reliance on Palestinian cameramen was the filming of the death of young Muhammad al-Dura by Palestinian cameraman Talal Abu Rahama working for France 2 television. While al-Dura, apparently killed in the crossfire between Israeli troops and Palestinian police, became a symbol of the intifada and was used as a blood libel against Israel, the photographer later denied claiming that the IDF killed the boy.15
Following several formal investigations, the raw footage of the shooting revealed that Palestinian photographers were part of the event and submitted edited footage to foreign networks. Another German inquiry went even further by concluding that Palestinians staged the killing with the cooperation of some foreign journalists and the United Nations.16
Palestinian Intimidation of Foreign News Reporters
The lynching of two Israeli reservists inside a Palestinian police station in October 2000 would change the rules of Western news reporting on Palestinian violence. Nasser Atta, a Palestinian producer with ABC, recalled on Ted Koppel's "Nightline" how his cameraman was beaten and his crew prevented from filming the grisly lynchings.17
According to first-hand reports, Palestinian security forces also surrounded a Polish TV crew who were beaten and relieved of their tapes.18 A foreign correspondent noted that in "post-Ramallah where all good will was lost, he would be a lot more sensitive about going places in the territories."19 A day after the Ramallah lynchings, an Italian journalist, who had suffered a separate beating by a rioting Arab mob in Jaffa, penned a letter in English to Palestinian officials promising never to violate journalistic ethics by transmitting film to an embassy or government.20
Following the September 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States, an AP photographer's life was threatened by Palestinian officials for taking photographs of widespread Palestinian street celebrations. Arafat's Cabinet Secretary, Ahmed Abdel Rahman, reportedly said, "The Palestinian Authority cannot guarantee the life of the cameraman if the footage was broadcast."21 Despite a strongly-worded protest by the Foreign Press Association to the Palestinian Authority, some foreign journalists made peace with the fact that intimidation is a price of reporting the conflict.22
Palestinian Hospitality Versus Uncooperative Israeli Officials
Palestinian leaders have become well respected among the foreign press corps for welcoming foreign journalists as honored guests during meetings and interviews. Palestinian leaders also go to great lengths to make themselves available to correspondents even at inconvenient times. For example, PA official Saeb Erekat sent his personal chauffeured limousine to pick up a Danish reporter and film crew at an IDF checkpoint for an interview.23
In contrast, some leading foreign journalists have long complained about a general lack of cooperation by Israeli government officials towards the foreign press.24 The Prime Minister's Office and IDF officials have been known to take several hours or more before issuing responses to breaking news in the territories, due in part to requirements of the military censor. Israeli authorities are also often reluctant to provide informative material to foreign news correspondents, even following terror attacks.25
Foreign Media Coordination with the PA
Danny Seaman, Director of Israel's Government Press Office, has charged that Palestinian employees of several major international news agencies, including the Associated Press and Reuters, regularly coordinate their news coverage with Palestinian officials. According to the GPO, Marwan Barghouti, leader of Fatah in the West Bank and now imprisoned in Israel, issued early warnings to the foreign networks about impending Palestinian shooting attacks on Gilo, so that the film crews could capture Israeli return fire on neighboring Beit Jalla.26 Although Seaman's charges were rejected by Dan Perry, chairman of the Foreign Press Association, Seaman has refused to renew press credentials for many Palestinian journalists and producers. Avigdor Yitzhaki, director general of the Prime Minister's Office, and Seaman's boss, commented: "Do you think that everywhere else, anyone can receive press credentials? I haven't seen any Iraqi journalists covering the President of the United States."27
* * *
Notes
1. Interview with a senior international network news official, December 8, 2002.
2. Bassem Eid, Palestinian human rights activist, November 17, 2002. Palestinian opposition to discussing intra-Palestinian strife with the foreign press was also reported by a bureau chief of a major American daily newspaper at a meeting in Jerusalem on November 26, 2002.
3. Judy Balint, "Palestinian Harassment of Journalists," Worldnetdaily.com and Emunah magazine, February 25, 2001, http://www.jerusalemdiaries.com/doc/20. Frequent instances of self-censorship by Palestinian journalists were also confirmed in a meeting with a deputy bureau chief of a leading Jerusalem-based news agency, November 17, 2002.
4. From the PMC website, http://www.palestine-pmc.com/about.asp.
5. Bassem Eid, Palestinian human rights activist, November 17, 2002.
6. According to a prominent "fixer" from eastern Jerusalem, who also reports on Arab affairs for a major Israeli newspaper, November 29, 2002.
7. Interview with a deputy bureau chief of a leading Jerusalem-based international news agency, November 17, 2002.
8. Moshe Cohen, former Arab affairs reporter, Israel Channel One News, November 14, 2002.
9. Moshe Cohen, November 17, 2002.
10. According to a well-known Palestinian "fixer" who works with leading European TV networks, November 29, 2002. Palestinian human rights activist Bassem Eid also confirmed this point on November 17, 2002.
11. http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/03/29/arafat.cnna/.
12. Bassem Eid, November 17, 2002. For other instances of Palestinian intimidation of the press, see Freedom House 2000 report, http://www.freedomhouse.org/pfs2000/reports.html#ispa, and the 2000 Amnesty International Annual Report, http://web.amnesty.org/web/ar2001.nsf/webmenafr?OpenView, "Palestinian Authority: Silencing Dissent" (AI Index: MDE 21/016/2000).
13. See Honest Reporting.com, http://honestreporting.com/articles/critiques/Tel_Aviv_Fallout.asp.
14. According to a senior source at a Jerusalem-based international news organization, November 17, 2002.
15. "Who Killed Muhammad Al Dura? Blood Libel - Model 2000," Jerusalem Viewpoints, No. 482, July 15, 2002, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
16. Ibid.
17. Judy Balint, "Palestinian Harassment of Journalists," Worldnetdaily.com, February 25, 2001.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid.
21. "AP protests threats to freelance cameraman who filmed Palestinian rally," September 12, 2001, http://arabterrorism.tripod.com/terrorism3.html.
22. Judy Balint, "Palestinian Harassment of Journalists."
23. According to Moshe Maoz, an Israeli free-lance cameraman who works with Danish Television, December 8, 2002.
24. Jay Bushinsky, former chairman, Foreign Press Association, in remarks made at the Ariel Media Conference, March 3, 2002.
25. Working Paper, "Israel in the New International Environment: The Media and Legal Arenas; The Balance of Israel's National Security," Herzliya Conference, December 2002.
26."Why Israel's Image Suffers," interview with Government Press Office Director Danny Seaman, Kol Hair, October 13, 2002.
27. Aviva Lori, "The Seaman Code," Ha'aretz, December 27, 2002.
Dan Diker
*
International news organizations covering the Arab-Israeli conflict frequently refer to international agreements and resolutions in ways that are prejudiced against Israel's legal rights and claims.
*
Frequent references to Israel's legal obligation to withdraw to the pre-1967 borders are inconsistent with UN Security Council Resolution 242 and the Oslo Accords.
*
Neither the Oslo Declaration of Principles of September 1993 nor the Oslo II Interim Agreement of 1995 require either Palestinians or Israelis to refrain from the construction of settlements, neighborhoods, houses, roads, or any other similar building projects.
*
References in the news media to "occupied Arab East Jerusalem" reflect an underlying assumption that eastern Jerusalem has always been an Arab city like Damascus or Baghdad, ignoring the fact that Jerusalem has had an overwhelmingly Jewish majority as far back as the mid-nineteenth century.
*
Despite UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's announcement on 25 July 2000 that Israel had fully implemented UN Resolution 425 when it unilaterally withdrew from southern Lebanon, news organizations have continued to refer to the Shaaba Farms, located on Israel's side of the border with Lebanon, as "disputed."
International news organizations covering the Arab-Israeli conflict frequently refer to the international agreements and resolutions that were intended to resolve outstanding issues between the parties. Unfortunately, however, they frequently do this in ways that are prejudiced against Israel's legal rights and claims. In many cases, correspondents misreport or even overlook the expressed intent of the drafters of these resolutions. For example, Israel's civilian and military presence in the disputed West Bank and Gaza Strip and its administration of a united Jerusalem and the northern Mt. Dov [Shaaba Farms] region complies with international laws and resolutions, yet some leading international news organizations have referred to these areas as "illegally occupied lands or colonies."1
The basic story line reported by many Middle East-based news correspondents is the Palestinian struggle to "liberate their homeland" from "illegal Israeli occupation." The emotionally charged Palestinian liberation story is, for many reporters, more compelling than the dry, factual context of history, especially existing international laws and resolutions that support Israel's narrative.
Media and Legal "Lenses" on the Disputed Territories
On 16 February 2003, the BBC's Dateline London program featured a live, televised debate on the planned U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. The program's host, journalist Nick Gowing, and distinguished guests including British Foreign Minister Jack Straw, top German and French officials, and former White House Press Secretary James Rubin, all agreed that "the conflict between Palestine and Israel" would have to be solved as part of the overall peace prescription for the region.2 This premature reference to "Palestine" places Palestinian claims to the disputed West Bank and Gaza Strip - over which Israel also has longstanding claims - on an equal diplomatic and legal footing with the claims of the State of Israel. In other words, it assigns a legal status to the Palestinian claims that, in point of fact, they do not have. There is no "State of Palestine" at present and there was no Palestinian state controlling the West Bank and the Gaza Strip prior to 1967. But reference to "Palestine" has become so commonplace in recent years that even U.S. President George W. Bush has used the term in his speeches. According to Alan Baker, Legal Advisor to Israel's Foreign Ministry, use of the language "Palestine" contravenes the carefully crafted language in the Oslo Accords and UN Security Council Resolution 242.3
The BBC program is not an isolated instance. Journalists often err regarding essential facts of international law when reporting on Israel's presence in the disputed West Bank and Gaza Strip. New York Times correspondent Steven Weisman reported recently on Israel's obligation to pull out of "occupied" territories according to the U.S. "roadmap." Weisman writes: "Use of the word 'occupied' is considered significant because it implies, at least for some, a full withdrawal by Israel from Palestinian territories it has occupied since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war."4
An Associated Press article similarly asserted that: "Security Council resolutions 242 and 338 call on Israel to withdraw from all territory captured in the Arab-Israeli wars of 1967 and 1973."5
These frequent references to Israel's legal obligation to withdraw to the pre-1967 borders are inconsistent with UN Security Council Resolution 242 and the Oslo Accords. UN Security Council Resolution 242 of 22 November 1967, which was the basis of the 1992 Madrid peace conference and the 1993 Oslo accords, require Israel to withdraw from "territories" to "secure and recognized borders," not from "the territories" or "all the territories" captured in the Six-Day War.6
Lord Caradon, former British Ambassador to the UN and a drafter of Resolution 242, told the Beirut Daily Star on 12 June 1974: "It would have been wrong to demand that Israel return to its positions of 4 June 1967 because those positions were undesirable and artificial. After all, they were just the places the soldiers of each side happened to be the day the fighting stopped in 1948. They were just armistice lines. That's why we didn't demand that the Israelis return to them and I think we were right not to."7
Israel's former UN Ambassador Dore Gold also noted: "this deliberate language was the result of months of painstaking deliberations." Gold adds: "Since the Soviets tried to add the language of full withdrawal but failed, there is no ambiguity in the meaning of the withdrawal clause, which was unanimously adopted by the Security Council."8
In November 2002, a senior Reuters television producer participating in a media panel discussing news coverage of the Middle East conflict insisted that Reuters was "careful to maintain objective coverage of the Palestinian territories." This author asked whether the foreign news producer meant "Palestinian territories" that were ceded to the Palestinian Authority as part of the Oslo accords. The Reuters executive responded that she meant "all of the West Bank and Gaza."9
This pointed exchange illustrates another common reporting error on the conflict. Arafat's PLO was not mentioned in Resolution 242 and had no legal status under that resolution.10 In fact, the drafters of the resolution did not consider creating a second Arab state west of the Jordan River. They therefore used the carefully chosen term "refugee problem" to refer both to extant Arab (Palestinian) and Jewish refugee claims stemming from the 1948 war and the additional Arab refugee problem created by the 1967 war. Moreover, references to the entire West Bank and Gaza as "Palestinian" territories also contradict the Oslo agreement's Declaration of Principles of September 1993 and the Oslo II Interim Agreement of 1995. Neither agreement requires either Palestinians or Israelis to refrain from the construction of settlements, neighborhoods, houses, roads, or any other similar building projects pending a peacefully negotiated final agreement between the parties.11
All Israeli governments since 1967 have held that Israeli settlements are legal according to the 1907 Hague Convention that permits the administering authority to utilize public land and to enjoy its "usufruct" ("fruits").12 Moreover, Israeli governments have consistently argued that the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, especially Article 49 which deals with population transfer, has no legal applicability to the West Bank and Gaza, where there was no recognized sovereign power before the entry of Israeli forces on 5 June 1967.
The problem of inaccurate reporting of the correct legal context of the conflict raised the ire of New York Times senior editor Joseph Lelyfeld, who issued the following castigation of Times' employees soon after the outbreak of the armed conflict in September 2000: "Three times in recent months we've had to run corrections on the actual provisions of UN Resolution 242, providing great cheer and sustenance to those readers who are convinced we are opinionated and not well informed on Middle East issues."13
"Occupied Arab East Jerusalem"
International news reporting on Jerusalem during the ongoing conflict has centered on Arab and Palestinian claims regarding the "Judaization" of Israel's unified capital, whose eastern half, captured from Jordan in the defensive Six-Day War of 1967, is referred to by much of the international community, including the news media, as "occupied Arab East Jerusalem."14 Indeed, the underlying assumption in this reporting is that, historically speaking, eastern Jerusalem has always been an Arab city like Damascus or Baghdad. This ignores the fact that Jerusalem has had an overwhelmingly Jewish majority as far back as the mid-nineteenth century, well before the arrival of the British.
A recently released comprehensive study of urban planning and demographic growth in Jerusalem by international human rights attorney Justus Reid Weiner reveals a picture of the city that is substantially different from the Jerusalem perceived by the media and public. Between 1967 and 2000, Jerusalem's Arab population increased from 26.6 percent to 31.7 percent of the city's total populace, while the city's Jewish population decreased accordingly.15 Arab housing starts also heavily outpaced Jewish building during the same period due in part to "the direct sponsorship of illegal construction by the Palestinian Authority."16
An October 2002 report by the BBC on its Internet website quoted the reaction of 14 Arab and Muslim news media organizations that were "enraged" over the U.S. Congress's most recent vote to confirm a 1995 congressional decision to recognize united Jerusalem as Israel's capital. One of the quoted sources, Lebanese state television, asserted that such a move would succeed in "'Judaizing' the city's character and falsifying its true identity."17 The report failed to mention that the U.S. congressional decision was based in part on Israel's Supreme Court decision of 1967 empowering the Eshkol government to administer a unified Jerusalem, and in part on UN Security Council Resolution 242, that did not mention Jerusalem as part of "lands" from which Israel had been requested to withdraw. Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Arthur Goldberg was one of the drafter's of the resolution and he asserted that: "Resolution 242 in no way refers to Jerusalem, and this omission was deliberate....Jerusalem was a discrete matter, and not linked to the West Bank."18
In fact, news reporting on the conflict over Jerusalem almost uniformly neglects Israel's legal and historical claims to its capital city. According to Israel's former UN Ambassador Dore Gold: "Israel's legal position in Jerusalem originates in the Palestine Mandate by which the League of Nations, the sole source of international legitimacy prior to the United Nations, recognized 'the historic connection of the Jewish people with Palestine' and called for 'the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish People.'"19 The Mandate did not treat Jerusalem differently from the rest of Palestine. Despite the fact that the United Nations, the successor to the League of Nations, proposed that Jerusalem be divided as part of a corpus separatum, in General Assembly Resolution 181 of November 1947, the Arab armies' invasion of the fledgling Jewish state in May 1948 rendered UN Resolution 181 a "dead letter."20
Israel's legal claims to a united capital city are also grounded in its being the victor in a war of self-defense against its Jordanian neighbor who, according to the United Nations, violated international law in 1967 by launching a war of "aggression" against the Jewish state, including the bombardment of Jerusalem. Major international legal experts such as former U.S. State Department Legal Advisor Steven Schwebel, who also headed the International Court of Justice at The Hague, further support Israel's position. In 1970, three years after the UN passed Security Council Resolution 242, Schwebel argued that "Israel has better title in the territory that was Palestine, including the whole of Jerusalem (emphasis mine - D.D.), than Jordan and Egypt."21
In 1996, Israel decided to open up the Hasmonean archeological tunnel near the ancient Temple Mount in Jerusalem's Old City, and one year later the government decided to approve existing plans to build the Har Homa neighborhood in southeastern Jerusalem. Palestinian spokesmen and a compliant international media vilified these moves as violations of the Oslo accords.22 However, Daniel Taub, General Law Director of Israel's Foreign Ministry and part of the Oslo negotiation team, asserted the legality of Israel's position. "Neither [Oslo's] Declaration of Principles, nor the interim agreement place any strictures on Israel concerning Jerusalem. All questions concerning Jerusalem were left to the permanent status negotiations, which have yet to be held." Taub added that even if the above agreements did apply to Jerusalem, developing archeological sites does not violate the agreements.23
The "Disputed" Shaaba Farms
Following Israel's unilateral withdrawal from southern Lebanon to the international "Blue Line" in May 2000, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan announced on 25 July 2000 that Israel fully implemented its part of UN Resolution 425. Despite Israel's compliance with international law, news organizations have frequently referred to the Shaaba Farms, located on Israel's side of the border with Lebanon, as "disputed."24 One news report said in mid- 2002, "Hizballah yesterday engaged Israeli troops in the disputed Shaaba Farms near the Golan Heights, where the Israeli, Lebanese, and Israeli borders converge."25 Anyone familiar with the actions of the UN Security Council on the issue of southern Lebanon cannot define the Shaaba Farms as disputed between Israel and Lebanon, since the UN formally acknowledged that Israel had fully withdrawn from Lebanese territory. The mistaken use of the term "disputed" by international news organizations to refer to Mt. Dov/Shaaba Farms undermines Israel's legal position and legitimizes continued Hizballah attacks from Lebanon as an acceptable form of "resistance."
The "Fighting" Reporters of the Foreign Media
Fiamma Nirenstein, Middle East special correspondent for Italy's La Stampa newspaper, characterized foreign news correspondents as fighting journalists rather than reporting journalists with respect to the armed conflict between the Palestinians and Israel.26 Many foreign reporters, today in their 40s and early 50s, actively demonstrated on European and U.S. college campuses against capitalist hegemony in America and Western imperialism in Africa and South America, and against Israel's participation in the 1982 Lebanon war.
Today, these "fighting journalists" are active moral participants in a still unfolding story of "Palestinian Davids" fighting to "liberate their homeland" from the Israeli "colonialist Goliath." One Middle East expert based in Britain emphasized that presenting Israel's legal and historical rights to European journalists would be viewed as an extremist right-wing act, as it defies the European narrative of the conflict.27
"Pack Journalism"
With over 17,000 terror attacks against Israel since September 2000 and nearly daily IDF anti-terror operations in the West Bank and Gaza, the hundreds of journalists covering the Israel-Palestinian story have little time to get up to date on background material, including the complex history of the region and international treaties and agreements. Therefore, they mostly rely on leading media brand names to set the journalistic standard for accuracy and context.
Georges Malbrunot, correspondent for France's Le Matin daily, called the BBC his "living Bible."28 La Stampa's Nirenstein also noted "the extraordinary iconoclastic informal power of the media: sporty, ironic, virtually all of one mind."29 The reporting of European correspondents displays a far greater tendency to the "herd instinct" than the reporting of their American counterparts. Europe has a far smaller media market, fewer media outlets, and fewer opportunities to express opinions differing from those of the far left European conformist trend.30
The Influence of Media on International Law
The international news media wield great influence in shaping the public's understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Paradoxically, news reporting also impacts on the international courts. True, international legal texts in the past have not cited media reports as an acceptable source of international law, like customary practice in bilateral treaties. Nevertheless, this is beginning to change.
A Swedish lawyer, who recently filed a complaint of war crimes against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for ordering last year's Defensive Shield operation in the West Bank, argued before a Swedish court that media reports of Sharon's alleged "crimes" should suffice as evidence against him. Although the prosecutor ultimately rejected the claim, TV pictures have an increasing value as admissible evidence.31 According to international human rights attorney and Canadian parliamentarian Professor Irwin Cotler, media reports can be a "constituent feature" of a complaint to the International Criminal Court at The Hague, as part of an effort to initiate a war crimes trial.32 International news organizations, therefore, bear a heavy responsibility for accurate reportage of the rights and claims of both Palestinians and Israelis, in order to ensure optimal balance in presenting this explosive and complex conflict to the public.
* * *
Notes
1. Dilip Hiro, "Land is the Issue," Guardian, 22 May 2001; http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,494505,00.html
2. "The Crisis in Iraq," BBC's Dateline London, with Nick Gowing, 16 February 2003.
3. Interview with Alan Baker, Legal Advisor to Israel's Foreign Ministry, 17 January 2003.
4. Steven Weisman, "US Joins Partners on Plan for Middle East, But Not Timing," New York Times, 21 December 2002, p. A2.
5. Jeff Helmreich, "Journalistic License, Professional Standards in the Print Media's Coverage of Israel," Jerusalem Letter #460, 15 August 2001, p. 4.
6. Dore Gold, "From Occupied Territories to Disputed Territories," Jerusalem Viewpoints #470, 16 January 2002, p. 3.
7. Beirut Daily Star, 12 June 1974, as quoted by Leonard J. Davis in Myths and Facts (Washington: Near East Report, 1989), p. 48.
8. Gold, p. 3.
9. This exchange was part of a panel on news coverage of the Israel-Palestinian conflict in Jerusalem, 17 November 2002.
10. Moshe Landau, Yehuda Blum, and Meir Rosenne, "Arafat's Web of Lies," Ha'aretz, 3 January 2001.
11. "Har Homa, Legal Aspects," Israel Foreign Ministry web site, 3 March 1997; http://www.israel-mfa.gov.il.
12. Ibid. This is also the position of Alan Baker, Legal Advisor to the Israeli Foreign Ministry and part of the Israeli team drafting the Oslo Accords, as stated to the author at a meeting on 17 January 2003.
13. Jeff Helmreich, "Journalistic License," p. 11.
14. Justus Reid Weiner, Illegal Construction in Jerusalem: A Variation on an Alarming Global Trend (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 2003), p. 7.
15. Ibid., p. 8.
16. Ibid., p. 10.
17. BBC Monitoring, "Arab Fury at Jerusalem Decision," 5 October 2002, p. 2.
18. Leonard J. Davis, Myths and Facts, p. 214.
19. Dore Gold, Jerusalem in International Diplomacy (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, May 2001), p. 23.
20. Ibid., p. 24.
21. Ibid., p. 26.
22. Alex Safian, "The Media's Tunnel Vision," Camera Backgrounder, 6 November 1996, p. 3.
23. Ibid., p. 3.
24. See Ewen MacAskill, "Threat Grows of Second Front in Lebanon," Guardian, 4 April 2002, p. 2.
25. Ibid., p. 2.
26. Interview with Fiamma Nirenstein, Special Middle East Correspondent, La Stampa, 27 January 2003.
27. Interview with Dr. Emanuele Ottolenghi, research fellow at Oxford University, 19 January 2003.
28. Judy Lash Balint, "Palestinian Harassment of Journalists," WorldNet Daily and Emunah magazines, 25 February 2001.
29. Fiamma Nirenstein, "The Journalists and the Palestinians," Commentary Magazine, January 2001.
30. Interview with Dr. Emanuele Ottolenghi, 19 January 2003.
31. Interview with Alan Baker, 13 May 2003.
32. Interview with Professor Irwin Cotler, Member of the Canadian Parliament and expert on international human rights law, 4 February 2003.
The most accurate description of Susan Nathan comes from herself: "What I do is that I live what comes out of my mouth." She is the only Jew among 25,000 Arabs in the northern Israeli town of Tamra and has taken up the cause of the Palestinians who remained inside the borders of Israel after the state was set up in 1948.
Her harshest critics could not say she has chosen a comfortable path. Friends and even some relatives have turned against her, she says, but she is standing by her controversial claim that the Palestinians in Israel are victims of apartheid-style discrimination and mistreatment.
Now she’s written a book to tell her story and make her case, The Other Side of Israel: My Journey Across the Jewish-Arab Divide (HarperCollins). The writing style is direct and simple: she wanted "Joe Bloggs on the street" to be able to read it and say, "I didn’t understand that it was like that". In person, too, Nathan is direct and to the point. As far as she is concerned, the issue itself is a simple one. Her Jewish co-religionists took the land from the Palestinians, who have been severely oppressed and treated as second-class citizens ever since.
She only came to this conclusion in her 50s, having been an ardent Zionist all her life. It took a long time for the penny to drop but there is now no self-doubt or hesitation.
Nathan says that initially she was "brainwashed and in love with the Zionist narrative". Very few non-Jewish people understood the power of Zionist propaganda.
"You are brought up to believe that you are outside of society, that you are forever persecuted, that Israel is your safe haven . . . It is like being part of a cult." The Zionist claim that Israel exists for the salvation of the Jews in case of another Holocaust was "a very cynical misuse of people’s fears and the Holocaust".
She is the daughter of a Harley Street physician. Her father, Samuel Levy, studied in South Africa and then Trinity College Dublin in the late 1920s and early 1930s. "He used to spend Friday night and all Saturday with the family of Chaim Herzog [future president of Israel, whose father was Ireland’s chief rabbi]."
The family came from the Baltic region. Fleeing anti-Semitic pogroms, they made their way to Odessa on the Black Sea. Family lore has it that they wanted to go to Hamburg but the ship was full so they had to sail for South Africa instead. "And that’s how we escaped the Holocaust."
Born in 1949, she grew up in South Africa and England. She got married, reared a family and got divorced when she was 50. Initially she was an avid supporter of the Israeli state. Having worked as a teacher and HIV/Aids therapist, Nathan decided at last to realise her lifelong Zionist dream of emigrating to Israel. "I applied under the Right of Return," she says. Under Israeli law, anyone with a Jewish grandparent can emigrate to Israel and become a citizen.
"It was a wonderful homecoming. I believed the Zionist ideology, I really believed this was ’a land without a people for a people without a land’. Palestinians were not on the map for me in any shape or form." She was offered "a very good job" teaching business English in Tel Aviv. Around the time of her arrival, the latest intifada rebellion erupted at the end of 2000. She saw "the wonderful achievements of our forces" being extolled on Israeli television.
"I really fell for that line," she says. But then she became very ill and had to be hospitalized and this brought her into close regular contact with Palestinians. She began to ask herself, "Where am I in this society, what is my role?" She became involved with a Palestinian-Jewish NGO dealing with deprived communities, and worked on a project in Tamra. "I started to understand the enormous similarities between Arab-Israeli society and black society during the apartheid years in South Africa."
But it’s not as if Israel adopts petty measures such as having separate Arab and Jewish toilets the way South Africa had separate toilets for blacks and whites. "In Israel it’s far more sophisticated than that, because it’s all heavily veiled. It’s very important for Israel to be seen to be democratic, Western, accepted by the US and Europe." But as far as she is concerned: "Israeli society in its current form really equals a half democracy, a democracy for Jews only."
Nathan’s version of Israeli history would not find favour in Zionist circles: "The major form of discrimination comes in the confiscation and appropriation of Arab land. All of the state of Israel is built on Palestinian land. Around 480 to 500 villages were totally destroyed during the battle of Israeli independence in 1948. And this discrimination and dispossession goes on and on and on.
"Israel is the only country in the world where you can be an eternal refugee, where you can be present but absent by law from your property, being deprived of the right of return to your property and your land, even though you own the deeds for that property and that land, and to be without compensation. It is appalling.
"And once I had seen the comparison with South Africa, I decided that I could no longer keep my mouth closed." Nathan decided to go and live among the Arabs in Israel and "help to activate change".
She vigorously rejects any allegation that she is an anti-Semitic or "self-hating" Jew. "One is not called anti-British if one criticizes the policies of the British government." This is "just a rather nasty political ploy".
But she knows there is a price to be paid for the stand she has taken. "Everything in life comes with a price." Taking a phrase from the late Edward Said, she says: "What I do with my life is the politics of embarrassment." Predicting there will be another intifada uprising soon, she adds: "Israel should have been the safest place in the world for Jews to be and actually . . . now, ironically, it has turned out to be the most dangerous." Nathan’s "personal dream" is that Israel will ultimately be a bi-national state."
Her sympathy for the Palestinians is largely unqualified and she sharply rebukes a member of the audience at a Dublin meeting who raises a question about the rights of gays and lesbians in the Palestinian Territories. The question is "incredibly offensive", she says, warning of the "moral superiority of the West".
"As far as I know, you’re not a Muslim, you don’t live in the Muslim world. The Arab world is perfectly capable of dealing with those issues in its own time and in its own way."
Speaking to her afterwards, I said many people would regard gay and lesbian rights as universal human rights, so why couldn’t outsiders raise them? "Because I don’t think people from other cultures should interfere."
As for suicide bombing, she says: "I don’t condone it. I don’t say it’s right. But I think we have to say, ’How does this come about? Why do we have this phenomenon?’" When I put it to her that the Irish were oppressed but didn’t use suicide bombers, she responds: "Yes, but did you have the entire army unleashed on you? Did you have jet-fighters bombing your homes? Did you have your homes demolished while you were in them? Did you have 40 years of brutal occupation and conniving to come to some sort of artificial peace process? Did you have that?"
wow, now wonder zionists are racists - it's not because they are inherently evil as i formerly believed, its because this same relentless propaganda is applied to them since birth.
the next time i read plant articles from our local nutty professor, i'll be more respectful - he actually believes what he is saying!!!!
AMAZING ISN'T IT?
And if, in the unlikely event that they happen to be telling the truth this particular time, that would in no way make them not be the racist aggressors that history has proven beyond doubt that they are.
It wouldn't even malke them not be liars. To think that it would is false logic.
See:
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/ad-hominem-tu-quoque.html
If “they do it, too” were a valid excuse, Hitler would be off the hook for killing those six million Jews, because Stalin killed six million Ukrainians.
Please don't deny facts put right before you.
But even if they are telling the truth about this particular case, so what? They are still racist aggressors. Nothing they or anyone can say about the Palestinians one way or the other changes that fact one iota. It is completely and totally irrelevant. They are trying to change the subject to divert your attention from the plain truth of the matter.
Fact: Zionists are racist aggressors. Whether or not some Palestinians may or may not have lied once has no bearing. True or false, it's still a distraction. Stay focused. Don't let these master manipulators lead your attention around by the nose.
It doesn't matter whether or not some Palestinians may or may not have lied once. It is irrelevant. Either way, the Zionists are what they are, a Jewish version of Nazis, who deserve exactly what happened to their spiritual mentors the Nazis before them.
It's time for a new Nuremberg. Try the war criminals. Then hang them. Yesterday would have been a good day to start.
Please with us ONE SINGLE MAINSTREAM STORY that does this. Don't try laying any shit on me from Z-magazine. I mean CBS, Fox, CNN, NYT, Time, etc. etc.
An israeli wrote into Indybay about a funeral procession that was bombarded with cinderblocks thrown from an apartment rooftop. The Chronicle reported it as teenagers throwing stones. The Chronicle reported, not that long ago of an "unarmed" Palestinian being murdered by a settler. When you go tto the 9th paragarapgh of the story, you realized the "unarmed" Palestinian had an axe, and was breaking into the settlers home at 3 in the morning.
Very unbiased
The question arises: is this support for Israel in spite of the media coverage, or is the relationship of the media to public opinion on the Arab-Israeli conflict more complicated than some would assume?
Clearly, there are elements of what has appeared in the media over the weeks of the crisis, which hurt Israel’s image. Some of it is in the nature of the conflict -- Israel is the party with the heavy weapons, Israel is suffering fewer casualties, the Palestinians have long been seen as victims looking for a state of their own. Some of it is deliberately orchestrated by the Palestinians and too often the media allow what is visual to explain things rather than going into analysis and motivation. Thus, we have the image of young Palestinian boys being shot at by Israeli troops, and only rarely does the reporter ask the question why the Palestinian authorities and parents are placing their children in such jeopardy.
Other times media get the basic facts wrong, leaving Israel with a much darker image than it deserves. Three examples of this, about which ADL complained to the networks, are instructive. Garrick Utley of CNN was giving a history of the Holy Sites in Jerusalem and said that until 1967, when Israel gained East Jerusalem, Jews were able to pray at the Western Wall. In fact, between 1948 and 1967, when Jordan held the Old City, Jews not only could not pray at their holy site, they could barely view it from a distance. And this reality is critical to any current understanding of who should be in charge of the Holy Places.
Secondly, CNN’s Andrea Koppel was recapitulating events leading up to the violence and said that the Palestinians, after the breakup of Camp David, turned to violence "in despair". In fact, Israel’s offer at Camp David gave the Palestinians every opportunity to realize a state on 95% of the land, overlooking mixed sovereignty in Jerusalem. Despair was hardly the issue.
Fox News aired a blatantly inaccurate and misleading report on the origins of the Arab-Israeli conflict, implying that Israel’s very existence is to blame for the conflict and the old propaganda that Palestinians were left without a country of their own because Jews displaced them. Nothing was said at all about Arab rejection of the partition which would have produced a Palestinian state and the launching of a war against Israel.
Despite these troublesome areas, one should not view media coverage as solely negative. As time went on, there was greater and greater understanding of Israel’s position. Editorial opinion in major newspapers was strongly in Israel’s favor, questioning Arafat’s turn to violence and continued encouragement of violence despite Israel’s offer at the peace table.
The point is that here in the United States, as opposed to Europe where the coverage overall is far worse and which can only be described as more biased against Israel than not, the media is not the enemy. The fact is that it is the media, together with successive American Administrations, which, for decades, have helped to mold the essential and accurate view for Americans toward Israel: that it is a democratic state, an ally of the United States, committed to similar values that we have, and that it wants to exist in the Middle East alongside its neighbors in peace and security. Despite the many problematic images that have entered the homes of Americans about Israel, through the war in Lebanon, the Intifada and during the current crisis, Israel still is seen through the prism of those broader values that have been communicated to America.
What this means is that we should challenge the media when there are factual errors. We should urge that proper context be given to video images that only tell part of the story. We should insist that when interviews are done, there be a true balance between Palestinian and Israeli viewpoints. And we should offer to work with reporters and broadcasters so that they can get the fullest picture of Israel and its meaning to the Jewish people.
We need to recognize that some of the coverage we don’t like is inevitable. That there is still much about the media’s coverage of Israel which makes clear how different it is from the authoritarian, undemocratic states that surround it.
Finally, we must remember that Israel has to do what it has to do to ensure its safety in the face of dangerous foes. Golda Meir said it best: "Better a critical editorial than a praiseworthy obituary."
All the arguing is useless unless there is some endpoint that people can agree upon, so I really want to know what everyone thinks. Thanks and I look forward to some reasoned responses.
by Israel H. Asper
Dishonest reporting has made truth a casualty of the war, causing grievous damage to both Israel and the integrity of the journalistic profession.
Throughout my lifetime I have had an unshakeable commitment to two cornerstones of my personal value system: Perhaps three, if you include Canada. My first commitment is to this great nation, Canada. My second is to Israel as a symbol and teacher of excellence for all of humankind, and the media as the most honorable and steadfast advocate, defender and distributor of truth, honesty, fairness, freedom, democracy and human rights.
Tonight, with a combination of sadness, fear and anger, I must tell you that [Israel and the media] are under grievous assault. And, even more painful for me, even though at first glance those two pillars should be separate, I regret to say, they are both threatened by the same cancer and have thus become inextricably linked. This is because dishonest reporting is destroying the trust in and credibility of the media and the journalists, and the same dishonest reporting is biased against Israel, thus destroying the world's favorable disposition toward it.
[Tonight] I make the charge that much of the world media who are covering the Arab-Israeli conflict have abandoned the fundamental precepts of honest reporting. They have been taken captive by their own biases, or victimized by their own ignorance. They have adopted Palestinian propaganda as the context for their stories. Thus dishonest reporting has made truth a casualty of the war, causing grievous damage to both Israel and the integrity of the journalistic profession.
Dishonest reporting occurs in several forms. One is through the selection of terminology which promote a presumed set of facts. [Many] biased media describe the Palestinian perpetrators of clear acts of terror against Israel, merely as "militants," "resistance fighters," "gunmen," "extremists." The terms "cycle of violence," "moderate Arab states," "peace process," "occupied territories," and "illegal settlements" have also become tools and weapons used by the journalistic propagandists. The war proves there is no peace process, there are no moderate Arab states, the term "cycle of violence" is an insult to the truth, and under the Oslo agreements there is no prohibition against Israel establishing new settlements in the territory it captured from Jordan.
Some examples of profound media bias against Israel which result in this dishonest reporting, are found in the world's leading media. Some of the worst in Britain are the London Independent, the Guardian, BBC, Sky News, Reuters, Evening Standard, Britain's television network ITV and the Daily Mirror. In the U.S., the worst offenders are CNN, ABC, CBS and NBC, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the L.A. Times, and Associated Press. In Canada, although not alone, the CBC provides the most slanted and biased information, and routinely practices dishonest reporting.
The first and worst lie is what this war is all about. Dishonest reporting tells you that it's about territory, and Jerusalem, and Palestinian statehood, and alleged refugees. Honest reporting would tell you that it is a war to destroy Israel and kill or expel or subjugate all the Jews. But the media has bought and reported dishonestly and relentlessly the big lie that this war could be ended by Israeli land concessions.
The second fundamental big lie is what gave rise to the current version of the Arab war of extermination of Israel and the Jewish people -- the so-called al-Aqsa uprising or intifada. The truth is that when Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat could not get the extravagant concessions he demanded from the Clinton's Camp David meetings, he planned the uprising of terrorism as a means of intimidating the U.S. and Israel into giving into his maniacal demands.
But he needed an excuse, an appealing argument in which to clothe his new latest war. And so, in early September 2000, when Parliamentary opposition leader Ariel Sharon told both Israelis and Palestinian officials he intended to visit the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, legally part of Israel which is co-sited with the Muslim al-Aqsa mosque, they agreed and both Palestinian and Israeli security detachments accompanied him on his brief tour. This was the opportunity Arafat sought. He immediately unleashed the rioting, stone-throwing and armed attacks allegedly as a "spontaneous" uprising against Israel allegedly in response to Sharon's provocation! Then most of the world media bought the propaganda that launched the second big lie of the current warfare: "Sharon's visit provokes Palestinian rebellion." They didn't even ask the fundamental question: Is this true?
The third big lie is that the current conflict arises from Palestinian frustration over the slowness of the alleged "peace process." What utter nonsense. The central, and conveniently ignored, fact is that the current warfare is merely the latest chapter in a war against the Jewish people. That war began in earnest 85 years ago, when in 1917, Britain and the League of Nations declared, with world approval, that a Jewish state would be established in Palestine. The region's Arabs have engaged in terrorist slaughter, riots and multi-Muslim states' military invasion against the Jewish nation ever since. The only periodic lulls in this savage and often barbaric assault, specializing in seeking women, children and elderly victims, has occurred when the Arabs have been resoundingly defeated. Then, they sue for peace, issue poor-me hand-wringing pleas for international help, and use the lull in the battle to regroup, re-arm and plot their next assault.
Any reportage or commentary that is not clothed in this context is, at best, misleading, or ignorant and plain dishonest at worst. I offer a handful of examples extracted from the hundreds available:
Recently a nationally syndicated American columnist, Georgie Ann Geyer, wrote a column laced with pure fabrications, such as "Prime Minister Sharon told his cabinet recently 'don't worry about American objections to our actions, I control America.'" When challenged, she admitted that the statement originated from an October 3, 2001 press release from the pro-Hamas American group, Islamic Association for Palestine. They claimed that it had originated with an official Israeli government radio broadcast. On checking, it turned out that no such broadcast had ever occurred.
When confronted with this information, Geyer cowered ignobly behind the standard liar's shield: her sources, she whined, "were two anonymous Israeli individuals." Naturally, she refused to identify them.
As we all know, pictures can tell a story much better than words. So when 100,000 supporters of Israel marched down Manhattan's 5th Avenue to celebrate Israel's 54th birthday this May, the New York Times photograph was of a placard "end Israeli occupation." The same bias was repeated in the coverage of the huge Toronto rally in support of Israel where thousands of pro-Israel supporters marched. A few hundred anti-Israel protestors dogged the parade. But they got more media attention. The separate fact was that an innocent bystander, a Toronto Jewish doctor, was standing on the street watching the parade and called out his support for Israel, Palestinian supporter thugs beat him, and broke his shoulder. This was not reported.
A great deal of the dishonesty arises from the failure to report and the failure to opine on many factors which must be considered in judging the Middle East war. Such as: Failure to report on the depths of Arafat's corruption.
Failure to report the truth of an incident in March 2001 when a Palestinian sniper looked through the crosshairs of his scope and murdered Shalhevet Pass, a 10-month-old Jewish baby in Hebron. Associated Press' headline writers declared: "Jewish toddler dies in West Bank". AP made no mention of who perpetrated the murder, and gave no indication of the ghastly nature of the crime.
CNN has reported that 30 Palestinian women have died in labor while being held up at Israeli checkpoints. The story is a complete fabrication, generated from Palestinian spokesperson Nabil Sha'att. To this day, CNN has neither published a categorical withdrawal nor the main proven fact that not a single woman had died.
In stark relief, two incidents from last March stand out. Two separate acts of terrorism occurred on the same day -- an IRA car bombing in London, and the Palestinian suicide bombing in Netanya. On the BBC, the word "terror" was used to describe the IRA bomber, but they described the Palestinian's suicide by a far milder term "militant." BBC has admitted that it practices a double standard.
But if nothing else in this entire sad and sordid story irrefutably demonstrates the inherent media bias against Israel, it is the Jenin massacre myth on which the herd of ravenous reporters descended with vulture-like hysteria. Hysterical, hyperbolical Palestinian propagandists shrieked "Massacre --5000 innocents slaughtered". Finally, when the UN commission declared that only 54 Palestinians had died, and over half of them were armed combatants, the myth exploded. However, few media apologized or retracted the charges of "genocide," "war crimes" and "heinous Israeli atrocities."
Contrast that with a true war crime that occurred shortly after. It is an offense, under the Geneva war conventions, for armed persons to occupy any church. Yet, the whole world sat silently and did not condemn the crime that occurred when Palestinians terrorists in Bethlehem occupied the Christian Church of the Nativity, took its occupants hostage, and refused to surrender to surrounding Israeli soldiers. Rather, the so-called world community, aided by a silent media, brought huge international pressure against Israel to give up its barricade and let the alleged terrorists go. When Israel bowed to the pressure, there was no United Nations intervention, no Christian church intervention, and no condemnation of the war crimes committed by the terrorists.
Too many of the journalists are lazy, or sloppy, or stupid. Others are, plain and simple, biased, or anti-Semitic.
It is timely, then, that we ask why is this happening? The answer is plain to see. Firstly, too many of the journalists are lazy, or sloppy, or stupid. They are ignorant of the history of the subject on which they are writing. Others are, plain and simple, biased, or anti-Semitic. The result is that the biggest casualties of the Palestinian-Israeli war are truth, and the integrity of the media.
Every one of us must do what we can to correct this travesty. It is time to say "Enough!" The solution starts on the campus, in the journalism schools, then goes to the boardrooms of the media owners, and finally, and most importantly, with you, the public. We must demand that the journalism schools do a better job of teaching integrity more forcibly. Then, we must demand that our media owners invest more money in educating their journalists and media operators. On the university campuses, we must demand that the administrators of higher education re-take control of the teaching process, to ensure that hate is not taught, propaganda is not preached and that the revered term "academic freedom" is never used as a license to libel, a podium for propaganda, and an advocacy of hate. And we should withhold our financial support for those institutions that fail this obligation of educational integrity.
And you, the public, must take action against the media wrongdoers. The issue here is not the media bias against Israel. The issue is the media bias, period. If we cannot trust the media in its reporting on Israel, how can we trust it on anything else? And if we cannot trust our media, democracy and our freedom are profoundly threatened. You, the public, must be more vigilant and aggressive by your e-mails, your letters to the editor, your phone calls, your cancellation of subscriptions, your refusal to patronize advertisers. You should establish, in each of your communities, honest reporting response groups to call to account offending dishonest media. And you must become politically active to demand government policy consistent with fairness to, and support of the only beacon of democracy in a swamp of hate, and violence and terrorism, the state of Israel.
Don't think that you are powerless. Always remember, as it has been truly said, that all it takes for evil to triumph is for a few good men -- and women -- to remain silent. We are witnessing the most virulent, vitriolic and vicious explosion of anti-Semitism, rivaled only by the rise of Nazism and its anti-Semitism in Europe in the middle 1930's. Left unchecked, it will consume all freedoms, for every attack of anti-Semitism in the history of mankind has always been a forerunner to the destruction of liberty in other sectors of human endeavor, not just for Jews. Therefore, I appeal to you, do not repeat the errors of your parents and grandparents who passively and complacently witnessed Canadian government indifference to the rise of genocide in Europe during the 1930's. It is time to vigorously and vigilantly become activists.
As for me, I do not intend to be silent. I have carried on a love affair with media all my adult life, and I have also been a staunch supporter of Israel. At the same time, I am an unashamed and unrelenting Canadian patriot. I am not going to stand idly back to watch any of the democratic ideals that made Canada the envy of nations be injured, sullied or disgraced. At this time, the appropriate position for all Canadians should be to stand tall in support of honesty in reporting, as well as for the right of Israel to exist and to take whatever actions it needs to battle its savage attackers, and to demand that our media and our politicians act with honor in this quest. But, the question for you, my friends, is, what are you personally going to do about it?
This was an address to the Israel Bonds Gala Dinner, Montreal, Canada
Author Biography:
I.H. Asper is President of the Asper Foundation and Executive Chairman of CanWest Global Communications Corp.
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