AAARGH
1 -- Alison Wier, Reporting from Gaza
2-- Eduardo Cohen, What Americans need to Know but
probably won't be told to Understand Palestinian Rage
3 -- Brian Whitaker, Israel wins war of words. On
the dangers of sloppy journalism
I don't want to be overly dramatic, but I was sort of shot at
yesterday.
I say "sort of" because I don't think the Israeli soldiers
in their tower were trying to hit me, or the people with me...
if that had been their purpose I have no doubt that they would
have. There is massive evidence here that their aim is quite good.
I think they were simply asserting their power. And I think they
were trying to intimidate me, as a foreigner, into leaving the
area.
There were no "clashes." There was no stone-throwing.
Everything was quiet. I was being shown around Khan Yonis, a bullet-riddled
refugee camp in southern Gaza filled with ragged barefoot kids
and angry, resigned, perplexed parents. "Why are they doing
this to us?" people kept saying to me... "Why they do
this Palestine people? They say we guns. Where guns? Why America
help Israel? Why America not help Palestinians?"
Houses were riddled -- and I mean riddled -- with bullets. There
were 2-foot wide holes in roofs where mortars had come through.
People showed me around their homes -- for the most part they
had moved into areas away from the outside, where, they hoped,
they would be safe -- huddled on mattresses on the floor. They
showed me around one house right at the periphery of the camp.
It had lovely, bullet-riddled archways inside, the remains of
a tiled kitchen. When the children saw I was curious about the
bullets, they gathered them for me by handfuls - smashed, distorted
pieces of metal that tear through walls and people. Ill try to
bring some back. I wonder if Israel will let me bring my souvenirs
of their country.
They opened a door a few inches for me -- they were afraid to
do more, they know what happens if you do -- and I could see a
guard tower a feew hundred meters away. Even I was afraid -- usually
so easily brave, armed with my middle-class American feeling of
invulnerability -- I've read too many reports of injuries in just
such situations... seen too many pictures of people with bandages
over eyes that had been shot out. Earlier in the day I saw a picture
of four boys probably about 7-12 sitting on chairs in a waiting
room somewhere, looking at the camera with no expression on their
faces, and each with a large piece of gauze where one of their
eyes should be. They were the lucky kids -- these were only rubber
bullets, and they hadn't gone on into the brain...
Did I say no expression? Perhaps the expression is beyond describing...
of being old far beyond their small bodies.
So when I looked out at the guard tower where soldiers with sniper
scopes and binoculars were no doubt watching us, I, too, was nervous.
We continued to wander around the camp -- groups of smiling children
coming up, saying salaam, hello, giggling. The streets were Gaza
sand --the ocean is probably only half a mile away... but these
children never get to swim in it. There are soldiers inbetween.
Instead they play in the dirt.
I needed batteries for my camera, so we went to a tiny store.
The owner gave us small glasses of strong coffee, and would take
no money for the batteries.
Intense, frustrated, he pointed out what his life had become.
He showed the inevitable bullet holes in his store, the larger
hole where a missile had entered a store-room -- destroying what
looked like 50 five-gallon jugs of oil. He showed me his house
next door -- full of bullet holes, and told me about his children
who luckily had remained uninjured, if trauma and subjugation
don't count as injuries. He told me that all he wanted was peace,
to live his life. Again, he asked why Israel was doing this, why
America was doing this.
What could I answer? All I could try to do was explain that Americans
don't know that this is going on -- that their newspapers and
television don't tell them. And so Americans think it is a complicated
issue, and that it doesn't involve them.
Amazingly, I don't find people hostile toward me, as an American,
even though they so clearly know America's role in their suffering.
By the way, "suffering" is a word they use often in
trying to tell me what their lives are like. They always smile
at me, shake my hand. When they hear I am from America, they virtually
always say, "Welcome."
We wandered over to another house, on the other side of town.
I saw a family home no longer livable -- bullet holes everywhere,
large hole in the roof -- another once-lovely home, and probably
loved home, with an interior garden and children's toys, and bullets
scattered on the floor.
It was when we went outside of this home that the gunshots occurred.
We were behind a wall, and so it didn't feel scary. Of course,
feelings lie -- I had seen numerous holes through such walls.
They showed us another way out. At the time, I didn't take the
gunshots personally. Once again, a middle-class American, I didn't
think anyone was firing near me on purpose -- I thought it was
just an accident, a coincidence.
But as I've thought about it further, I think I was wrong. Why
then? there? In that particular part of town?
And this would fit the pattern I've heard about lately. A few
days ago when the UN team investigating human rights violations
was here in Gaza they were shot at. The Canadian Ambassador was
shot at. A young American documentary filmmaker I met this morning,
James, had been in Khan Yunis a few days ago, and had been shot
at. He showed me footage of the Isaelis shooting at him: He is
letting the camera roll as he walks on a dirt road following 5-6
small boys. None are throwing rocks. It is quiet. There is a tank
at the end of the road -- this is nothing unusual. They continue
walking. Suddenly there are gunshots, the camera tilts. No one
is injured. But the Army has made its point. Except it didn't
work. He went back today.
I asked him if he had a time-frame for making his documentary.
He said until he ran out of money or got shot, whichever came
first. It wasn't much of a joke.
Have you heard about the American stringer for AP who was shot
a few months ago? -- a young woman, her name is in another notebook
(I'm at an Internet Cafe in Gaza City with the slowest computers
on earth) -- but I think she was about 26. Mark, a 30-year-old
freelance English photographer I've just met, knew her, and told
me about it. The Israelis shot her in the pelvis, destroying her
spleen and uterus. They say it was an accident. She says they
knew quite clearly that she was a journalist. Israel is apparently
investigating how this could have happened. Was this reported
in the press? Will we hear the results of the investigation? Wouldn't
you think this would have been headlines? Shouldn't it have been?
If she had been shot by Palestinians don't you think it would
have been?
Another man today told me about working with a Fox film crew,
when suddenly they were being shot at by the Israelis. They finally,
barely managed to escape, and they filmed it all. But Fox never
aired it. He told me the problem with the US coverage wasn't the
crews, it was management back in the States. I believe him.
Some people in the refugee camp told me about a new gas bomb the
israelis shot last weekend at them. They said it had black smoke,
and a "good" smell. At least 40 people are still hospitalized
from it -- I'm going to pin the number down tomorrow -- apparently
there are people in several hospitals, so the true number could
be considerably higher.
From the refugee camp we
I went to Al Amal Hospital, to meet the doctor and see the patients.
I saw a 22-year-old man in the ICU. He was moaning and had IVs
in both arms. He said it felt like knives in his intestines. Sometimes
he had trouble breathing. His mother and aunt were hovering over
him. His little sister was sitting next to him. I went to another
ward, and saw six more. I met a father who was obviously distraught
-- two of his sons were in the hospital. I saw two men have seisures
while I was there -- convulsing.
They all said the same thing. They had just been going about their
lives when suddenly "bombs" came into their houses.
Some had been outside, and had gone in to rescue people because
they thought the house was on fire. But they said there was no
flame, just black smoke, and a good smell. In most cases nothing
happened immediately, but after 10 to 15 minutes they collapsed...
some became unconscious.
Israel is, as usual, denying that there was anything unusual about
this gas. As usual, they are lying.
Apparently, this also explains a lot of the bias in the US press.
The reporters in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv get their numbers and
"facts" from military spokesmen. Information from Israeli
sources is printed, information from Palestinian sources isn't.
You see, an Israeli is one of us. A relative, a friend's relative,
a colleague's relative. We hear distorted versions of what is
going on from these friends, and colleagues, and we think they
know what they're talking about. And that they're not biased.
Because they sound so reasonable and confident and knowledgeable.
They say just enough about what is wrong about Israel, about the
"two-sides" to seem neutral. This is bs.
The problem is when you know the truth, it is far too much to
describe, far too cruel... far too diametrically opposite what
we used to think and what everyone still thinks to express. It
is hard not to sound fanatic, over-wrought, biased. The lie is
too big, the repression too complete, the Palestinians' lives
too horrible to write about reasonably. I find it difficult to
write anything -- rare for me -- because there is so so so much.
You have to retrieve and redefine the very words out of the newspeak
that Israel has created of "closures" and "bypass
roads" and "security."
So I think maybe I should try to take on just one topic at a time
-- and for now, this new gas... Today I was going to visit the
Ministry of Health for more information, and then back to the
Khan Younis hospitals with Mark to take photos. But he didn't
show up at the scheduled time. Probably something just came up.
But over here you always worry...
Tomorrow I'll go.
As I said, there is so so so much to try to describe. Who will
ever believe all this? Israel couldn't possibly be this cruel,
this arrogant. Who will believe it? They must have a good reason...
There are two sides here, of course... just the way there was
in South Africa's apartheid period...
I also visited two tiny encampments of women and children living
in tents on the dirt. They were people who used to have homes
in Khan Younis, but the Israelis decided to make a road through
them -- for "security?" to divide the people? to terrorize
them? just because they wanted to? who ever knows? an absolute
conqueror doesn't have to explain -- so they bulldozed their homes
and their date palms and orange groves. This is already far too
long -- I won't go into the details of how they bulldozed them,
how the people fled...
And the people are living in the dirt, and show me a bent-up aluminum
wash pan that they retrieved from where their homes had been --
everything else, they said, was "under the land" Again,
they asked me why america was helping Israel do this to them.
Why did Bill Clinton do this? Would George Bush still do this?
They're on a first-name basis with our presidents. And we don't
even know about them. One old, newly poor woman knew all the international
news -- she had been given a radio and listens to BBC, French
broadcasts, German broadcasts, etc. She hears the Israeli statements.
The US government positions... She's living in rags in the dirt
now. Four months ago she and her husband had two homes -- they
had just built another one for their son, who had been married
just two months when his new home was bulldozed.
But you'll be glad to know the international community isn't ignoring
these people. The Palestinians have been pleading for an international
team for months to come over to protect them from the Israelis
-- but the US keeps blocking this. Why??? Why??? How could this
be even imagined to threaten Israel's "security"???
But you'll be happy to know that the international community isn't
ignoring them -- it contributed the fly-covered, floor-less tents
that the people are living in. Meanwhile, how much aid did we
give to Israel today? Eight million was it? Sixteen million? And
tomorrow we'll give it to them again, and the next day, and the
next day, and the next day...
They gave me tea, as we sat surrounded by dirt, and told me to
tell America to stop doing this to them. I'll try. Maybe you could
try too.
Avril 2001
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As the Persian Gulf War was raging I had what I felt to be the
particular honor, as an American Jew, of being sponsored by the
San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination
Committee on a fact finding mission to investigate Israeli human
rights abuses carried out against Palestinians under emergency
measures declared during the war. I had been reporting on US policy
in the Middle East for more than ten years on KPFA and other California
radio stations and I had been documenting and lecturing on anti-Arab
racism in American popular culture and the news media.
After the delegation's week of fact-finding was completed, I decided
to spend more time on my own to dig deeper into what Israeli occupation
meant for Palestinians In the next two weeks my travels would
take me from the sandy back roads, sweet smelling orange groves
and fetid poverty ridden slums of Gaza to meetings with Palestinian
and Jewish activists in Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. And from
the stifling heat of Jericho, where I interviewed Saeb Erikat
under house arrest, to some of the West Bank's most remote hills
where the isolated rural villages were controlled by the Islamic
political organization known as Hamas.
Coming back and talking with most Americans about what I had seen
and learned there made me feel as if I had entered an episode
of the Twilight Zone -- an episode in which the main character
can see a dangerous and foreboding presence that no one else can
see. The protagonist points it out to them but as soon as they
look, it has disappeared. They cannot see it. And pretty soon
the increasingly desperate and frustrated character even begins
to doubt his or her own sanity.
But such was the gulf between what I had seen and experienced
and what the American public perceived through the lens of the
American news media. I couldn't help but conclude that the American
public wasn't even getting a fraction of the information it needed
to comprehensively understand and intelligently monitor it's own
government's policies in the Middle East. Now, almost ten years
later, little has changed and the gulf in perception is just as
wide.
Perhaps that is understandable. The American news media are probably
the most pro-Israeli in the world. Even the Israeli news media
are more critical of the Israeli government than American journalists
are. Perhaps this isn't surprising since the US is Israel's main
benefactor and Israel receives more US aid than any other country
in the world. But it is still disturbing to see how uncritically
US news coverage seems to follow US foreign policy and how much
the American news media protect Israel.
If one never leaves the United States or reads the foreign news
media, it is easy to be unaware of this incredible gulf between
how the US media perceive and report on the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict and how it is viewed in much of the rest of the world.
Even the next most pro-Israeli press, that of Great Britain, shows
sharp contrasts with American reporting on Israel and the Occupied
Territories.
In American coverage of the recent Camp David meetings the American
press obediently followed the Israeli and US government spin that
while Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak made courageous concessions
for peace, Palestinian unwillingness to compromise caused the
meeting to fail.
Never mind that Barak's 'courageous concessions' consisted of
allowing the Palestinians to have joint administrative responsibility
over a couple of remote Arab neighborhoods of Arab East Jerusalem
- pathetic crumbs tossed on the floor which Arafat was expected
to gratefully pick up.
I had to read the British press to find out that, according to
documents leaked from Camp David, Arafat reportedly made so many
major concessions that they could endanger the possibility of
a creating a viable Palestinian state.
According to a British newspaper, The Independent, Palestinian
concessions at Camp David included the right of Israel to maintain
a permanent military presence in the Jordan Valley, the presence
of Israeli early warning stations on Palestinian territory, Israeli
permission to fly over Palestinian air space, the right of Israel
to use its army on Palestinian land if it fears a danger to the
State of Israel, Palestinian agreement not to have an army, and
permanent Israeli sovereignty over existing Jewish settlements
- settlements which effectively cut off Jerusalem from the rest
of the West Bank and which, including the giant Jewish settlement
of Ma'aleh Adumim, effectively cut the West Bank into two pieces
separated by Israeli territory.
There are other important facts that I regularly see mentioned
in newspapers from other countries that are rarely mentioned,
if at all, in American newspapers and broadcasts.
In the British and European press, readers are often reminded
that the very existence of Jewish settlements in the West Bank
and Gaza is a clear violation of international law, specifically
the Fourth Geneva Convention, and that the continued occupation
of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem are in violation of
UN Security Council Resolutions.
Readers of British papers are also reminded regularly that what
the Americans often characterize as an 'inflexible' and 'radical'
Palestinian demand for full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the
West bank, including East Jerusalem, is exactly what is called
for in United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 which, according
to the Oslo Agreement, signed by Israel, is exactly the framework
on which final resolution is supposed to be based.
Reporting on Camp David, American reporters obediently quoted
Israeli Prime Minister Barak's statements questioning whether
Palestinians are negotiating 'in good faith' but failed to report
ongoing Israeli actions in Gaza and the West Bank that raise serious
questions about Israel's 'good faith': continuing demolitions
of Palestinian homes; confiscation of Palestinian water; expansion
and construction of Jewish settlements in occupied territory;
denial of building permits to Palestinian homeowners; and construction
of Jewish 'security roads' which cut 1/4 mile swaths through Palestinian
land.
Not only have American reporters left out crucial information
necessary to a comprehensive understanding of the conflict and
the peace process, but for far to long they have demonstrated
a mindlessly uncritical acceptance of even the most absurd Israeli
arguments against making peace. Foremost of these is the oft used
Israeli argument that Palestinian authorities must guarantee an
end to terrorist attacks as a prerequisite to any Israeli agreements.
It has always been a laughable argument, except to American journalists.
If the United States government could not prevent the bombings
at Oklahoma City and the World Trade Towers and the Israeli government
could not prevent the assassination of its own prime minister,
how can Yaser Arafat possibly guarantee the end of terrorist acts
by Palestinian elements outside of his control?
There are other serious lapses in American coverage which make
it difficult for Americans to understand, on an emotional level,
the Palestinians' anger and frustration that are now boiling over
in the streets of the Occupied Territories and even within Israel
itself.
Recent violence has been attributed to Palestinian anger about
the visit by Ariel Sharon, accompanied by 1,000 police and hundreds
of supporters, to the sacred Islamic "Noble Sanctuary' where
the Al-Aksa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock are located. Although
Ariel Sharon was described as a right-wing opposition leader hated
by Arabs, Americans were offered little insight into exactly why
he is so despised by Arabs.
What Americans are generally not told, but what Palestinians cannot
forget, is that Ariel Sharon was held responsible, even by the
Israeli Knesset, for the massacre of from 1,000 to 2,000 unarmed
Palestinian men, women and children in the Palestinian refugee
camps of Sabra and Chatila in Lebanon. During the Israeli invasion
of Lebanon, which General Ariel Sharon directed, Israeli troops
surrounded the two refugee camps and allowed in Palestinian-hating
Lebanese Phalangists who then spent two days raping, brutalizing
and hacking to death hundreds of unarmed Palestinian civilians
while the Israeli Army stood guard.
Not only did American news media fail to include this critically
important information, but many actually gave Sharon, who went
to the site to demonstrate Israeli sovereignty, the opportunity
to explain that he went there "with a message of Peace."
It is difficult for Americans to even imagine the frustration
of Palestinians who see Jews arrive from the United States to
act out Jewish James Bond fantasies in the Occupied Territories,
sporting yarmulkes and 9mm submachine guns -- weapons they would
never be allowed to possess or walk around with in the streets
of American cities -- at the ready to draw Palestinian blood.
American Jews, who left behind in the United States more economic
opportunity and religious freedom than most people in the world
can even imagine, and whose parents, grandparents and great, great
great grandparents never set foot in Israel, are allowed to invoke
the Jewish "right of return" and claim land that Palestinian
families have been living on and working for centuries. And all
this while many Palestinians still carry the keys from the homes
they lost in the 1948 war, and to which they have little or no
hope of ever returning.
I sensed some of the frustration and anger that Palestinians feel
when I spoke with a typical Palestinian farmer in the West Bank
whose well of precious water, which he needed to irrigate his
crops, had been confiscated by Israeli authorities so a nearby
Jewish settlement could fill its swimming pools and water its
green lawns.
I sensed some of what Palestinians felt when I interviewed more
than a half dozen Palestinians whose homes had been dynamited
or bulldozed by Israeli tractors because a teenage member of the
family had tossed a rock at an Israeli troop carrier or because
they tried to build an extra room without the building permit
they knew Israeli officials would never provide.
It is almost ten years later and, again, the influx of settlers,
the expansion of Jewish settlements, the building of Jewish roads,
the demolition of Palestinian homes and the confiscation of Palestinian
water all continue.
The factor of racism.
American papers and American news networks offer Americans little
opportunity to understand how much racism remains as one of the
greatest obstacles to peace.
I experienced some of the frustration that Palestinians must be
feeling when I interviewed numerous Jewish-American settlers in
the West Bank during the Persian Gulf War. Many of those I spoke
with were from New York and, talking about Arabs, spouted some
of the most hateful, racist diatribes that I had ever heard. I
was reminded of the racism against Black Americans that I witnessed
growing up in the American South.
The images, often broadcast on American networks, of Palestinians
chanting 'death to the Jews' have given many Americans the impression
that Arab hatred of Jews may be the greatest obstacle to peace.
But that could be a wrong and dangerously misleading conclusion.
In spite of those chants, my experiences in Gaza and the West
Bank gave me some interesting insights into how deep those feelings
go in at least some Palestinians who would be described here as
fanatic or extremist.
Clearly there are virulently racist elements within the greater
Palestinian community... but I found a real difference between
Israeli racism against Arabs, based on a feeling of racial superiority,
and Palestinian hatred of Jews which is an understandable Palestinian
response to the policies of the Jewish government of Israel and
a continuing Jewish occupation.
It is comparable to the difference between the hatred of Black
Americans by Southern white racists during the Civil Rights Movement
in the United States and the hatred many Black Americans felt
towards whites as the result of the racist oppression they experienced.
It is an important difference.
Making no secret of my Jewishness, I traveled unarmed, without
any police or military escort, and accompanied only by a sole
translator, into remote mountain and desert areas in Gaza and
the West Bank controlled by the militant Muslim organization called
Hamas and where Israeli authorities told me I would probably be
killed.
I still remember the amazement of Palestinians there when they
learned that I was a Jew investigating human rights abuses by
the Israeli military and I was moved by how quickly I was invited
into their homes to share tea with them. And I will never forget
the tears of appreciation streaming down the cheeks of so many
Palestinians who were so genuinely happy to meet a Jew who simply
saw them as human beings and as equals and who was willing to
acknowledge their suffering and listen to their side of the conflict.
The only Jews they had ever seen in their villages were soldiers
there to assert Israeli control.
Far away from any Israeli protection, in the heart of areas controlled
by Hamas, I felt no danger whatsoever. It was difficult to return
to Tel Aviv and talk to Jews who would never allow an Arab to
set foot in their homes, except perhaps to clean them, and who
would explain to me with no doubt in their minds that it was impossible
to reason with Arabs because they didn't share the same faculties
of thought and reason that "civilized human beings"
possess. I left with the sharp impression that anti-Arab racism
in Israeli society was the much greater obstacle to peace. And
the evidence indicates that, ten years later, it hasn't changed.
I was introduced to Israeli racism before I even left the grounds
of Ben Gurion Airport outside Tel Aviv. Outside the entrance in
an area where travelers wait for collective taxis which usually
whisk them away to Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, a Jewish Israeli asked
me where I was headed. "Jerusalem" I told him. "Where
are you going to stay?", he asked. I told him that I planned
to stay at the YMCA Hotel. "Oh, the one next to the King
David Hotel?" he asked, assuming that I would be staying
at the YMCA in Jewish West Jerusalem. "No," I responded,
"I'm staying at the YMCA in East Jerusalem." His face
immediately twisted into a look of profound confusion and puzzlement.
"I don't think its going to be very clean'" he warned.
He had almost certainly never been to the YMCA on Nablus Street
but he had assumed it would be dirty simply because it was located
in Arab East Jerusalem. That was just the first and mildest of
many exposures to Israeli racism towards Arabs. Traveling through
Israel I witnessed a deep, widespread and racist contempt for
Arabs that I now see as possibly the most serious, but seldom
mentioned, obstacle to finding a just and lasting peace.
Judging by statements by the Shas party's most prominent religious
leader, not much has improved. Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual
leader of Shas, an ultra-Orthodox party which is the third largest
party in the Israeli Knesset, recently described Palestinians
as "snakes" whom God "regrets creating." Until
just recently Shas had formed a major part of Prime Minister Ehud
Barak's governing coalition.
The anti-Arab racism that exists in Israel is not without its
counterpart in the United States.
During that 1991 trip I visited the sacred Islamic site that includes
the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. Just a few months
before, in October of 1990, 19 unarmed Palestinian civilians had
been shot to death by Israeli police. I interviewed eye witnesses
and photographed bullet holes left in the side of the mosque by
Israeli gunfire. Victims even included Red Crescent ambulance
staff attempting to provide medical assistance to the wounded.
In Great Britain, the conservative weekly news magazine, The
Economist, used the term 'massacre' to describe the slaughter.
They called it a massacre on their front page, in their editorial,
and in the headline of their news story. The New York Times
didn't report a massacre but described an outbreak of violence
about which there were "confusing" and "contradictory"
accounts.
But one of the most reprehensible displays of anti-Arab racism
was provided by Time Magazine which characterized the massacre
of 19 unarmed Palestinians with a headline which read "Saddam's
Lucky Break." This indefensible murder of Arab civilians
was described as a "propaganda victory" for Saddam Hussein
and even implied that he had more responsibility for the killings
than the Israeli police who had pulled the triggers.
There is a slightly more subtle version of anti-Arab racism that
continues to permeate our news coverage of the Middle East and
the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to this day.
It is characterized in Judy Woodruff's words on CNN talking about
the recent violence in Israel and the Occupied Territories in
which more than 76 Palestinians have now been killed by Israeli
police and soldiers: "The uprising that has shut down much
of Northern Israel is blamed for as many as 50 or more deaths."
According to CNN then, it is the uprising, not the decisions of
the Israeli security forces to shoot at Palestinians with steel-jacketed
bullets and anti-tank rockets that is responsible for more than
50 dead Palestinians.
This racism is reflected in the Sacramento Bee headline "Riots
Escalate in West Bank" with a smaller tagline mentioning
"12 dead, hundreds hurt". It is present in the SF Examiner
headline: "Death Toll Reaches 29 in Mideast Clashes."
In none of these samples is it made clear how people died and
who did the killing. Now we know, at the time of this writing,
that more than 76 Palestinians have been killed. We should all
know, deep in our hearts, that if 29 or 55 or 76 Israelis had
been killed by Palestinians, the headlines would be screaming
at us from the headlines of almost every newspaper '29 Israelis
Killed by Palestinians' or 'Arabs Kill 76 Israelis'. The headlines
would certainly not read 'Death Toll Reaches 29' or '76 Israelis
Die in Mideast Violence' - headlines that fail to attribute any
direct responsibility for the killing. A SF Chronicle story
carried a headline which read, 'Palestinian Riots Spread Into
Israel.' Three paragraphs into that story we are informed that
12 Palestinians have been killed. In a particularly egregious
example, another Sacramento Bee headline reads, "Palestinian
gunmen fire on Israelis" over a story that tells us that
twelve more Palestinians have been killed."
This is something that happens repeatedly in the American press
and implicitly attaches one value to the lives of Israeli's and
a lesser value to the lives of Arabs. Israelis are "killed"
but Palestinians "die." I am not alone in noticing these
disturbing disparities that work to camouflage Israeli responsibility.
Award winning British journalist Robert Fisk wrote in The Independent
that when he reads that Palestinians have died in "crossfire"
it almost always means that "the Israelis have killed an
innocent person." So when he read on the Associated Press
wire that 12-year-old Mohammed al-Durah was killed in Gaza when
he was "caught in the crossfire", Fisk writes, "I
knew at once who had killed him."
"Sure enough" Fisk confirms, "reporters investigating
the killing said the boy was shot by Israeli troops." "So
was his father -- who survived -- and so was the ambulance driver
who was killed trying to rescue the boy."
This failure of American editors and reporters to clearly attribute
responsibility for the killing of Palestinian victims is just
one of many ways in which the American press continuously devalues
the lives of Arabs. This almost constant devaluation of Arab lives
is reinforced by a popular culture that has made it safe to openly
make the most racist statements about Arabs without fear of castigation
or even condemnation.
Just last month Bill Maher, host of ABC's Politically Incorrect,
argued on his show that racial profiling "might be OK in
some cases" like when you're on a flight to Israel and "some
sweaty Arab" sits down next to you. Worse than the blatantly
racist insult to Arabs was the fact that no one even noticed it.
Anti-Arab racism is almost certainly a factor in continued American
disinterest concerning a US driven embargo that has, according
to UN agencies and several high ranking UN officials, caused the
deaths of over 1,000,000 Iraqi civilians and continues to cause
the deaths of 4,000 to 5,000 Arab children every month.
It is telling that a policy that is killing as many as 5,000 Arab
children each month didn't even merit a brief mention in the recent
US Presidential debate. And despite the fact that Palestinian
blood was literally flowing, as the Democratic and Republican
presidential and vice-presidential candidates debated, from wounds
inflicted by American supplied weapons including Apache attack
helicopters, that too merited nary a mention by any of the candidates
and neither of the two moderators.
A clear but unspoken racist double standard permeates US policy
in the region as well as its coverage in the US news media. We
are bombing and economically strangling the Arab nation of Iraq
for invading Kuwait and seeking to develop nuclear weapons. But
we have provided Israel with staggering and uninterrupted quantities
of economic and military aid despite its even more violent invasion
of Lebanon, its refusal to respond to countless UN security council
resolutions, and its continued building of what is already one
of the world's largest nuclear arsenals.
And it should certainly be clear by now which side of the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict the "honest brokers" of the Clinton Administration
are on. Despite the well known role of East Jerusalem as the cultural
and intellectual center of Palestine, the Clinton Administration
continues to support Israeli sovereignty over most of Arab East
Jerusalem. And in spite of a long list of major compromises by
the Palestinian negotiators, the administration blames only Palestinians
for being inflexible and pressures them for yet more concessions.
The results of America's imbalanced policy choices are now playing
out in the streets of Israel and the Occupied Territories and
the time has clearly come for an American President and his policy
advisors to realize the responsibility they share for the death
of a 12 year old boy in his fathers arms and the torrent of Palestinian
blood that is now flowing.
President Clinton needs to be pressuring Israel, not the Palestinians
to make more concessions for peace. As the larger and more powerful
of the two entities, Israel clearly has more room to bend and
it is the Palestinians, not the Israelis whose backs are truly
against the wall. He could also make continued US aid contingent
on Israeli compliance with international law and UN Security Council
resolutions. Then all that would need to be negotiated, apart
from a Palestinian right of return, would be when, not whether,
Israel will return the occupied lands seized in 1967.
Because of the major role that the United States plays in life
and death issues in the Middle East, American editors and reporters
have a special responsibility to constantly examine the fairness
of their reporting and how critically they examine information
they present to the American people. And they need to examine
the possibility of their own racism and begin treating Palestinians
and other Arabs as equal citizens whose lives carry just as much
value as Jewish Israeli lives.
Israelis need to examine their own racism and their arrogance
in using their military superiority to wring yet more concessions
from a people who are struggling to keep a mere 20% of what was
formerly Palestine. They must realize that in forcing humiliating
concessions on the Palestinians they are only planting the seeds
of continued resentment, hatred and violence.
Above all, Israelis need to realize that the creation of an economically,
politically and geographically viable Palestinian state is inextricably
linked with any prospect they might have of a peaceful and secure
future. The Israelis' apparent inability or unwillingness to recognize
this basic truth may be the greatest single obstacle to a just
and lasting peace.
April 2001
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A familiar tale from the Middle East: "Palestinians launched
three bombs overnight against the Eile Sinai settlement in the
far north of the Gaza Strip. Israeli troops responded with tank
shells, destroying a Palestinian border post and hitting two houses."
This report, which happens to have come from the BBC, is familiar
not only for the events it describes but also for the way it describes
them: the Palestinians attack and the Israelis "respond".
Military actions by the Israelis are always a "response"
to something, even when they strike first. If they haven't actually
been attacked, it's a "response" to a security threat.
"Response" is a very useful word. It provides a ready-made
reason for the Israelis' actions and neatly brushes off demands
for further explanation. It says: "Don't ask us why we did
it, ask the other side."
There's no point in blaming the Israelis for using this device;
the question is whether journalists should let it shape their
reporting of the conflict.
Portraying the conflict as a series of Palestinian actions and
Israeli responses is dangerous, for several reasons.
Firstly, it lends support to the Israeli argument that if only
the Palestinians would stop their violence everything would be
fine. That might be true for many Israelis, but not for the Palestinians.
Secondly, it builds up -- through constant repetition -- into
a misleading picture of the overall conflict. The violence is
not a series of discrete actions and reactions but a cycle (or
spiral) in which actions on both sides feed off those on the other.
Thirdly, while Israeli actions are reported as a self-justifying
"response", actions by the Palestinians are rarely allowed
either a proper context or an understandable motive.
Obviously there is a limit to what can be said in a news story
of 300-400 words, and some journalists will argue that their main
job is to report the day's events, not to explain the background.
But I am not suggesting they should turn it into a history lecture;
merely that they should at least hint at a broader picture and
acknowledge that the Palestinians might have some genuine grievances.
To do this is neither difficult nor unduly word-consuming. Some
news agency reports, for instance, routinely work into their stories
a five-word reference to the "Palestinian struggle against
Israeli occupation".
The Israeli occupation lies at the root of the conflict - and
yet, more often than not, journalists fail to remind their readers
of it.
The Guardian's electronic newspaper archive contains all
the British national dailies, plus the London Evening Standard.
A search of this reveals 1,669 stories published during the last
12 months that mentioned the West Bank.
Of these, 49 contained the phrase "occupied West Bank".
A further 513 included the word "occupied" or "occupation"
elsewhere in the text. That leaves 1,107 stories - 66% of the
total - which managed to talk about the West Bank without mentioning
one of the key facts.
Some journalists -- particularly Americans -- seem reluctant to
treat occupation as an established fact and instead treat it as
an opinion which should be attributed to someone. Last October,
for example, CCN's Jerusalem bureau chief told viewers that Palestinians
were angry at "what they regard as the Israeli occupation".
Others resort to euphemisms: the West Bank is "disputed"
or "administrated by Israel". Some adopt the practice
of Israeli officials by shortening "the Occupied Territories"
to "the Territories".
Journalists are also rather timid on the question of Jewish settlers,
usually portraying them as a target of violence but more rarely
as one of the major causes (which they plainly are). Some of the
recent stories about the killing of a 10-month-old Jewish baby,
Shalhevet Pass, in Hebron made clear that the settlers there are
a tiny and particularly fanatical bunch - though many did not.
One report described Hebron as a "divided city", when
in fact 99.8% of the inhabitants are Arabs. (Jerusalem, on the
other hand -- with two-thirds of the population Jewish and one-third
Arab -- is constantly described by Israelis as "undivided".)
Over the last 12 months, 394 stories in the archive mentioned
Jewish settlers. Of these, seven included the phrase "extremist
settler" and eight "extremist Jewish settler".
The word "extremist" did occur in 44 of the stories,
though not necessarily applied to settlers. Some stories juxtaposed
settlers characterised simply as "Jewish" with Palestinians
characterised as "extremist".
The illegality of the settlements under international law also
often escapes mention. The phrase "illegal settlement",
used in an Israeli-Palestinian context, appeared only eight times
during the last 12 months -- and three of those were in readers'
letters to the editor.
During the early stages of the intifada newspapers were accused
of "dehumanising" Palestinians by publishing numbers
but not names of those killed. This was contrasted with the wealth
of personal information, helpfully provided by the Israeli authorities,
about Jewish casualties.
The lack of Palestinian names was certainly not due to a conscious
policy on the part of journalists and, although there are sometimes
difficulties in getting the names, efforts have been made to remedy
it.
However, last week's search of the archive highlighted another
practice which has a similar effect: Jews mainly live in "communities"
but Palestinians live in "areas".
Palestinian "areas" scored 109 mentions over the last
12 months; "neighbourhoods" scored 15 and "communities"
only three (one each in the Guardian, Observer and Independent).
In the case of Jews, the positions were reversed: "communities"
scored 87, "neighbourhoods" 30 and "areas"
21.
This is clearly not intentional and it may be partly due to the
way we speak of Jewish communities in the diaspora. But the overall
pattern does suggest a perception - perhaps an unconscious one
- that Palestinians are less civilised. Another factor is that
"neighbourhood" and, to a lesser extent, "community"
are used as euphemisms for settlements. Israeli spokesmen regularly
describe the settlement at Gilo as a "neighbourhood"
of Jerusalem because it has been unilaterally annexed.
A recent report in the Times, following in the tradition
of CNN, said that "Palestinians regard" Gilo as an illegal
settlement. Indeed they do, but then so does international law.
The Guardian, Monday April 9, 2001
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4167706,00.html>
First Display on aaargh: 10 May 2001
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