Media Not Impartial on Mideast

Ever since a French newsman caught the killing of 12-year-old Palestinian Mohammed al-Durrah on tape, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has found a new venue—the global media. The picture of the terrified boy crouching against his father amidst a spray of bullets made the covers of newspapers around the world. The world seemed ready to entertain the notion that the oppression of the Palestinians had reached an intolerable level. But meanwhile, the American press took steps that ensured that the truth about Palestine would remain hidden from the American people.

For those who rely on such generally first-class publications as The New York Times for their news, it would appear that Israel is under siege by the Palestinians—even though Israel occupies Palestinian land. In the language of the Times and most other American daily papers, Israeli soldiers seldom “kill” or “shoot” Palestinian protesters; instead, Palestinians—rarely described in terms of their humanity—“die” mysteriously in “clashes” and in “cross-fires.” On the other hand, Israelis are “murdered,” and the personal background of victims always detailed. Even some newspapers in Israel paint a more even-handed view of the conflict than their American counterparts.

On April 1, the Times published a feature story on “suicide martyrdom” in Islam. The article began with references to recent Palestinian suicide bombings, implying that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a religious war between Muslims and Jews. But the Palestinian uprising, or intifada, is not a conflict about religion, nor is it being orchestrated by religious leaders. It is about one group refusing to live under apartheid conditions and another group fighting to keep them there.

Yet from reading the American daily papers, one would never know that the policies of successive Israeli governments have imposed apartheid on the West Bank and Gaza. Israelis live in relative luxury in their settlements while many Palestinians live in squalor. Israelis have complete freedom of movement, which is protected by armed soldiers, while most Palestinians are imprisoned in their neighborhoods, and those who wish to travel further must risk humiliation and harassment at checkpoints. And this was the norm during peacetime; since protests and fighting erupted six months ago, the Palestinian condition has deteriorated further. But this is not what CNN sees as the heart of the story.

The American media tells us that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a war between equals. To be sure, it is a conflict in which both sides have suffered and both sides can be faulted. Yet the conflict is anything but a fair fight: One side has a vast advantage of technology and power. (To their credit, many news organizations, when listing total casualties, have stated that casualties are mostly Palestinian.)

And while most Israelis continue to live uninterrupted lives, every Palestinian's life has been altered in an irrevocable way. Almost every Palestinian knows someone who has been injured, maimed or killed in the violence. All Palestinians suffer from Israel’s policy of economic strangulation; unemployment has climbed to 48 percent since the most recent escalation of closure policies.

The height of American media recklessness came with the reporting on newly elected Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. For the most part, the American press lionized this “elder statesman” and behaved as though the Palestinians had nothing to be upset about.

Admittedly, the U.S. press sometimes referred to Sharon as a “hard-liner,” but most reporters mentioned only in passing that this is the same man who, in his tenure as Israeli Defense Minister in 1982, authorized the massacres of 2,000 unarmed men, women, and children in the Shatila and Sabra refugee camps of Lebanon. Nor does the American press often tell us that an Israeli commission found Sharon indirectly responsible for the massacres, forcing his resignation. The terms “hard-liner” and “hawk” are rather soft in this case. For people like Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam Hussein or Ariel Sharon, the term “war criminal” is more apropos.

Media accounts of the ongoing conflict also tend to distort the historical context of the dispute. Central to the depiction of negotiations, such as the recent Camp David II summit, is the notion that the two parties are trading equivalent “concessions” to reach an agreement. Both the Palestinian and Israeli delegations at last July’s summit did compromise the positions they entered with—a must of any productive negotiation process.

But the basis for all Arab-Israeli peace negotiations in the last three decades has been U.N. Security Resolution 242, passed after the Six Day War, in which Israel won and occupied several pieces of territory from its neighbors, including East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank, as well as Gaza Strip. Against these gains, Resolution 242 bases its conclusions on the “inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war.” In other words, might does not make right. Resolution 242 calls unequivocally for the “withdrawal of Israeli forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict.” Not incidentally, Security Council decisions are binding on all member countries.

Mainstream media sources in the U.S. described the dynamic of Camp David II as a frustrating time for Bill Clinton and especially Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who made “wide-ranging concessions” only to see the “intransigent” Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat decline a deal at the eleventh hour (because, by most accounts, Palestinians would receive only limited sovereignty over East Jerusalem). Undeniably, East Jerusalem carries great religious and symbolic significance to both sides. But Barak’s “concessions” only meant inching closer to Israel’s obligations under Resolution 242 after 34 years of the (illegal) status quo. Arafat’s “intransigence” amounts to insisting upon the letter of international law—a position that is stubborn, perhaps, but legitimate, and it should be presented as such.

It is not unreasonable to ask that our media present fairer news reports. We do not ask the American media to favor the Palestinians because they are oppressed. We simply ask that the American media hold the Israelis to the same standards as they hold Palestinians, and that they better consider the context of events. The New York Times should stop painting Sharon as a wise old sage and instead acknowledge his vicious past. CNN should stop portraying the Palestinians as insatiable children who do not appreciate Israel’s concessions, when the Palestinians are not even granted their most fundamental, U.N.-guaranteed human rights.

Let the American people hear and see the facts of the case as they are, before they are euphemized and distorted. The American media has failed in its duty to uphold integrity and honesty in its coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We simply ask that this journalistic ethic be restored.

Sameer Doshi ’02 is an environmental science and public policy concentrator in Lowell House. He is a member of the Society of Arab Students.