One key aspect to the Mideast struggle today is use of the media to influence public opinion. Journalistic ethics dictate that the news be reported as objectively as possible, while injecting personal opinion is a violation of the public trust.
We would like to assume that journalists are fair and impartial. But like most people, journalists have their own agenda, and this can translate into a lack of objectivity.
If truth is to prevail, we can't just "read" the newspaper. Be discerning and become part of the process. Otherwise, you're just a passive object of someone else's agenda. As Mark Twain once said, "If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed."
How can the reader discern the truth between the lines? Listed here are common methods that the media employs to subtly influences public opinion. By being aware of these methods, we can all avoid being used as a pawn in the media war.
Media reports frequently use true facts to draw erroneous conclusions.
EXAMPLE: In discussing the recent violence, many articles report that "over 100 people have been killed, the vast majority Palestinians." This is an indisputable fact, yet without qualifying these figures, the reader is led to the false conclusion that Israeli soldiers are the aggressors and have used excessive force.
[Most Palestinian civilian casualties are the result of terrorists violating the Geneva Accords by placing themselves and their weaponry amongst these innocent people. Where Israeli soldiers have violated the law, they have been prosecuted. The Palestinians do not police their own and the few 'handlers' of suicide bombers they have 'arrested' are really in 'protective custody' for a few weeks before they are released.]
As an astute observer, consider how many would be dead if Israeli forces were actually doing what they are accused of -- shooting indiscriminately into crowds with automatic weapons. If that were the case, many thousands of Palestinians would be dead.
The media has failed to publicize Israeli army instructions, where soldiers have orders not to shoot unless they are in direct danger. Israeli soldiers are told never shoot at an ambulance or at women. Unless the Palestinians begin shooting first with live bullets, Israeli soldiers are instructed never to shoot to kill, and then, to aim only at the source of the shooting, never randomly. No other army has such restrained orders.
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Media reports frequently skew the picture by presenting only one side of the story.
EXAMPLE: In a recent report on CNN, Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said: "We are not bombing Israeli towns. We are not sieging Israeli people. We are not firing at Israeli children. The war is being waged against us, and the international community must equate Israel as the aggressor, and us as being aggressed against." Erakat's comments went without challenge or qualification by the interviewer, and in the 20-minute report, not one Israeli was interviewed or given a chance to respond.
EXAMPLE: CNN.com offers a list of web sites relating to the Middle East. Under the heading of "General Information Sites," all 12 sites are Arab-related, including one specific Palestinian site. There are no Jewish or Israel-related sites listed in this category.
Each Middle Eastern country is then giving its own listings of web sites. A tiny under-developed country like Yemen is given 5 sites, as are 5 sites given to Palestine. The Israel category lists 4 sites.
EXAMPLE: CNN.com posts a running tally of Palestinians killed since the start of the intifada. However, there is no equivalent tally for Jews killed by Palestinians -- in suicide bombings, lynchings, terrorist attacks, bus hijacking, café bombings, etc. By counting only the number of Palestinians killed, the media gives the impression that the sole victim in this conflict is the Palestinians.
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In today’s competitive media world, reporters frequently do not have the time, inclination or resources to properly verify information before submitting a story for publication.
EXAMPLE: The New York Times, Associated Press and other major media outlets published a photo of a young man -- bloodied and battered -- crouching beneath a club-wielding Israeli policeman. The caption identified him as a Palestinian victim of the recent riots -- with the clear implication that the Israeli soldier is the one who beat him.
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It is now well known that the bloodied
"Palestinian" depicted in the photograph
was Tuvia Grossman, a 20-year-old Jewish
student from Chicago, studying in Jerusalem.
And that the assailants were not Israelis, but
members of a Palestinian mob who beat and
stabbed Grossman mercilessly for 10 minutes.
And that the infuriated Israeli policeman with
a baton was deterring the Palestinians from
finishing their lynching. |
Media bias assumes that if there's a victim, it must be a Palestinian. Yet who are the real victims and who are the aggressors? The truth is often the opposite of how it appears.
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By failing to provide proper context and full background information, it is easy to dramatically distort the true picture.
EXAMPLE: The world was horrified by news footage of 12-year-old Palestinian boy shot and killed [
Mohammed Al Dura]. The film, replayed again and again as a demonstration of the cruelty of Israeli soldiers, does not provide any context, leading to the false conclusion that the boy was directly fired upon in full view of Israeli soldiers.
As an aerial photo of the area depicts, the scene is actually a highway junction near a Jewish town, with an Israeli military outpost stationed nearby to guard the road into the Jewish town. During the confrontation, the Israeli post was surrounded and fired upon from three sides by Palestinian gunmen. The unfortunate father and son were caught in the crossfire. As the photo clearly shows, Israeli soldiers could not see the father and son from their vantage point at the far side of the intersection.
An astute media observer would ask: Since there are no Palestinian homes or towns in the area, nor are there stores or playgrounds, what were the father and son doing there to begin with? Had they come to riot? Furthermore, why didn't the Palestinian gunmen, who were positioned right next to the father and son and who were presumably aware of their presence, do anything to protect them -- or at least signal to the Israelis that innocent civilians were caught in the crossfire?
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By using terminology and definitions in a way that implies accepted fact, the media injects bias under the guise of objectivity.
EXAMPLE: The BBC recently discussed Israeli presence in "the occupied territories," a pre-Oslo term that bears no relation to reality when discussing the areas now under total Palestinian control like Ramallah, Nablus, etc.
EXAMPLE: In recent weeks, The New York Times has subtly altered its references to the Temple Mount, which unbiased historians have always described precisely as what its name represents -- the site of the two Holy Jewish Temples. Of late, in apparent deference to Palestinian leaders who claim that no Jewish Temple ever stood on the Jerusalem hill toward which Jews have prayed for millennia, The Times has appended the phrase to include "which the Arabs call the Haram al Sharif."
More recently, The Times referred to "the Temple Mount, which Israel claims to have been the site of the First and Second Temple." No longer established historical tradition but a mere "claim."
Then a day later, The Times described Israeli troops as having "stormed the Haram, holiest Muslim site in Jerusalem, where hundreds of people were at worship." No mention whatsoever in that article of any "Temple Mount."
EXAMPLE: Ariel Sharon, the democratically-elected leader of the second-largest political party in Israel, is consistently referred to in the media by the derogatory moniker "hard-line opposition leader."
EXAMPLE: Arab mobs, whose actions range from stoning Jews praying at the Western Wall, to firing guns at Israeli soldiers, to destroying Joseph's Tomb in Nablus, are typically characterized as "protestors" or "demonstrators" [or "activists"].
The New York Times (Oct. 10, 2000): "...the Israeli cabinet decided early this morning to avoid exploding a tense situation and gave Yasser Arafat more time to quiet protests." The article continues: "The demonstrators threw rocks and firebombs at the soldiers, and taunted them over loudspeakers."
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By choosing to report certain events over others, the media controls access to information and manipulates public sentiment.
EXAMPLE: The media virtually ignored the recent murder of a women and her 2-year-old child who were attacked by Palestinian firebombs while driving through Jericho. By failing to cover Jewish tragedies in the same way as Palestinian deaths, the media denies public sympathy for Israel as the victims of Palestinian aggression.
Deadly attacks on Israelis often receive no media attention. Last week, respected American Rabbi Chaim Brovendar barely survived a brutal lynching at the hand of Palestinian rioters, after he accidentally made a wrong turn into Beit Jalla, a neighborhood near Jerusalem.
EXAMPLE: A recent Los Angeles Times editorial cartoon depicted an Orthodox Jew praying at the Western Wall, with the stones of the wall forming the word "hate."
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| Worshipping Their G-d
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In defense, L.A. Times artist Michael Ramirez pointed out that a second man in the cartoon (who was sprawled out on the ground and much less noticeable) was actually a Moslem praying. Unfortunately, the keffiah which would supposedly identify the Moslem is practically invisible to the naked eye. [Muslims also do not pray towards Jerusalem or the Temple Mount. They pray with their backs to the Mount, and face south towards Mecca instead. The cartoon, therefore, gives a false impression of the importance of the Mount to Islam.]
Furthermore, Ramirez was unable to explain why the chosen venue of "hate" was the Western Wall, a site sacred only to Jews, and which has never been used as a place of Moslem prayer.
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By being astute media observers, we can make a difference. In response to public pressure, The New York Times reprinted Tuvia Grossman's picture -- this time with the proper caption -- and a full article detailing his near-death beating at the hands of Palestinians rioters.
Similarly, following a hailstorm of protest, the Los Angeles Times altered its cartoon, deleting the unique Herodian frame around the Western Wall stones, to make it look more look a generic wall.
You are encouraged to submit examples of media bias to
webmaster@aish.com.
Article reprinted from Aish.com, featuring Jewish "wisdom for living" on spirituality, relationships and current events -- plus a 24-hour live camera from the Western Wall.
Thanks to Gal Luft, Am Echad and Stuart Goldstein for providing some of the examples.
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With so much information available about the Mideast conflict, forming an intelligent opinion requires distinguishing the myths from the facts.
FACT: Israeli military reaction has been one of incomparable restraint. After the brutal lynching of two Israelis in Ramallah, Israel limited its response to bombing one floor of the negligent Ramallah police headquarters, the radio station that had been broadcasting incitement to violence, and two terrorist targets in Gaza. Israelis gave a 3-hour warning, to allow Palestinians to evacuate; indeed, no one was killed. Similarly, following the recent torching of an ancient synagogue in Jericho, Israel's only response was to bomb a military training school.
[Click
here for an up-to-date breakdown on casualty figures.]
On the front lines of this "intifada," Israeli soldiers have orders not to shoot unless they are in direct danger. Israeli soldiers are told never shoot at an ambulance or at women. Unless the Palestinians begin shooting first with live bullets, Israeli soldiers are instructed never to shoot to kill, and then, to aim only at the source of the shooting, never randomly. No other army has such restrained orders.
As the world decries Palestinian deaths, no one stops to ask how many would be dead if Israeli forces were actually doing what they are accused of -- shooting indiscriminately into crowds with automatic weapons. If that were the case, many thousands of Palestinians would be dead.
[Frequently, Palestinians accuse Israelis of committing a 'holocaust' against them. To shed a little light on THIS claim, let's look at the Holocaust. Before WWII, there were 14 million Jews in Europe. After WWII, there were only 9 million Jews -- the Nazis had murdered 6 million Jews and 6 million others in under eight years. In comparison, when Israel was created in 1948 about 157,000 non-Jewish Arabs remained in the nascent state. Today, there are over 3.5 million. If Israel is committing a 'holocaust', why has the Palestinian population EXPLODED in the past five decades?]
But what about Palestinian youths who have been tragically killed in the fighting?
First of all, what kind of parent encourages children to go to the front lines to throw stones and firebombs at armed troops?! Palestinians know that Israelis are reluctant to shoot at children; and if a child does wind up getting killed, it makes for excellent anti-Israel propaganda.
Children are taught in school the heroics of dying as a martyr for the Palestinian cause. The Jerusalem Post reported that the Palestinian Authority is encouraging children to participate in clashes by offering their families $300 per injury and $2,000 for anyone killed. How tragic that Palestinians send their children to be slaughtered and then cynically use this against Israel in the court of world opinion.
But perhaps Israel should not be using force at all to stop the violence?
The BBC recently asked a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council if Arafat truly had the power to stop the mob violence. He replied that it probably could not be done without exerting fatal force on the rioters. Given that reality, how can the world possibly expect Israel to stop the violence without such force?
It is the duty of any government to protect its citizens from violence. Imagine what the response would be if this violence was occurring to any other country. During "Black September" when Palestinians rioted in Jordan in the 1970s, King Hussein massacred 10,000 Palestinians in a few days. Likewise, Syrian President Assad slaughtered 20,000 of his own people during civil unrest in Hama.
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If Israel was really interested in peace, they would cease the violence and continue the peace process
FACT: The last thing Israel wants is war. Never has there been a more dovish government in the history of Israel. Barak is offering full recognition to the first independent Palestinian state in history. He is making territorial concessions that include 99 percent of the West Bank, plus the strategically vital Jordan valley. He is even willing to give up the Temple Mount and make Israel's rights to its own capital negotiable.
Barak has made every concession he can possibly make to avoid war. He has no more left to give. A.B. Yehoshua, Israel's best-known literary figure and a longtime peace activist, told Newsweek: "Barak had offered [Arafat] things that even I as a permanent dove, even a zealous dove, couldn't imagine an Israeli leader would offer."
We ask: What is the source of the Palestinian frustration? What concessions are they still lacking to have resorted to such violence?
Even the Americans, whose role as a mediator demands total objectivity, have made clear where the fault lies. After Camp David, President Clinton said that if not for Arafat's consistent refusal, there would have been a peace agreement signed, with Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian state.
And Madeline Albright recently said on ABC's "This Week": "We all know Arafat is in charge of the Palestinian Authority. He has the responsibility for controlling the violence, and we think he should do more."
If in fact Arafat cannot control the violence, then the Palestinian people are out of control and any slight provocation can be expected to produce violent response. How then can Israel trust any peace agreement?
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The fact that a majority of deaths are Palestinians, makes them the victim and Israel the aggressor.
FACT: "Aggressor" implies that Israel is somehow responsible for initiating the violence. In fact, the Palestinians have created the climate of violence.
Within months of the Oslo agreement of 1993, Arafat gave a speech in South Africa promising jihad for Jerusalem, a call he has consistently repeated in the Arabic press. Today, the Palestine Authority's official maps and children's textbooks treat Israel as nonexistent -- and show the Palestinian state stretching all the way to the Mediterranean Sea. The PLO Charter still calls for the destruction of the State of Israel.
The Palestinian violence is fueled in part by Islamic doctrine. The Koran calls for "eviction by the sword" of any non-Moslem entity holding sovereignty over land in the Arabian Peninsula. In other words, annihilation of the Jews is an Islamic religious obligation, hence the term
jihad -- "holy war.'
Throughout the current wave of violence, Arafat refuses to call on his people to stop the rioting, shooting and firebombing. This is in direct violation of the Oslo Accords.
In fact, official Palestinian TV, radio and newspapers have urged people to blood and martyrdom. The day before an Israeli soldier was dragged through the streets of Ramallah tied to the back of an automobile, official Palestinian TV depicted the scene of a mannequin tied and dragged by an automobile.
Following is excerpt of a sermon broadcast live on October 13, 2000 by the official Palestinian Authority television. The speaker is Dr. Ahmad Abu Halabiya, Member of the PA appointed "Fatwa Council" and former acting Rector of the Islamic University in Gaza:
"O brother believers, the criminals, the terrorists are the Jews, who have butchered our children, orphaned them, widowed our women and desecrated our holy places and sacred sites. They are the terrorists. They are the ones who must be butchered and killed, as Allah the Almighty said: Fight them: Allah will torture them at your hands...
"This is the truth, O Brothers in belief. From here, Allah the almighty has called upon us not to ally with the Jews or the Christians, not to like them, not to become their partners, not to support them, and not to sign agreements with them...
"Even if an agreement for Gaza is signed, we shall not forget Haifa, and Acre, and the Galilee, and Jaffa, and the Triangle and the Negev, and the rest of our cities and villages. It is only a matter of time...
"Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country. Fight them, wherever you are. Wherever you meet them, kill them. Wherever you are, kill those Jews and those Americans who are like them..."
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MYTH: Ariel Sharon’s Visit to the Temple Mount Provoked the Riots
FACT: Sharon came to the Temple Mount unarmed and without violence. Sharon's visit was so non-confrontational in tone that he was even accompanied on his visit by Arab members of the Israeli Parliament!
Palestinians say he shouldn’t have been there in the first place. Yet why should the Moslem claim to their third-holiest site override Sharon's right as a Jew to set foot on the single most holy place for Jews?
Sharon's visit was an excuse for violence, not the real reason. Days before Sharon's visit, Arafat met with the tanzim, his armed militia, and told them to "be ready." Palestinian violence had already begun before Sharon's visit. The prior week, an Israeli Border Patrol soldier was murdered by a double roadside bomb inside of Israel. The morning before Sharon's visit to the Mount, a Palestinian policeman, on a joint patrol with an Israeli partner, used his automatic rifle to murder his partner, and then wounded another Israeli policeman.
The rioting that followed Sharon's visit was not spontaneous. When Sharon ascended the Mount, he saw the mounds of boulders which had been prepared in advance for pelting Jewish worshipers at the Western Wall below. The next day, the preacher at al Aqsa mosque called at prayers to "eradicate the Jews from Palestine." Official Palestine television began playing over and over archival footage of the Palestinian intifada of 1987-1993 showing young people out in the streets throwing stones. Arafat then closed the schools and declared a general strike, causing everyone to go out into the street.
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FACT: Arafat accuses Israel of attempting to "Judaize Jerusalem,", further corroborating his deep-seated belief that Jews are interlopers in the Holy City. Arafat knows that once the legitimate religious connection of Jews is removed from the land, then the continued physical presence of Jews can eventually be called into question.
In fact:
- Jerusalem was founded 3,000 years ago by King David, as the capital of Israel.
- Jerusalem was controlled by Christian Byzantium during Mohammed's entire lifetime, he never set foot outside Arabia.
- Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in the Jewish Bible, but not once in the Koran.
- Jews pray facing Jerusalem, while Moslems pray with their backs toward Jerusalem.
- For over 3,000 years, Jerusalem has always been the Jewish capital, but never once the capital of an Arab or Muslim entity.
- In the 19 years that Jordan occupied Jerusalem (1948-1967), they never sought to make it their capital, nor did Palestinians or any other Arab nation demand it as theirs.
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FACT: Following the unification of Jerusalem in 1967, the Israelis acted quickly to normalize Moslem rights to pray on the Temple Mount, despite the fact that the Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism.
By contrast, during the years when the Old City was under Arab control (from 1948-67), Jews were fully barred from ever visiting the Western Wall.
Indeed, the only time in history of unlimited access to all religions to their holy sites in the Old City was under Israeli control of the Old City since 1967.
Most recently, in an agreement worked out by both sides, the Palestinians promised to protect the Jewish shrine at Joseph's Tomb. But within minutes of Israeli withdrawal, Palestinian masses stormed the tomb, tore up prayer books, and burned, desecrated and destroyed the Jewish holy site brick by brick. Jews are now barred from the site, and Palestinians are building a mosque in its stead.
Article reprinted from Aish.com, featuring Jewish "wisdom for living" on spirituality, relationships and current events -- plus a 24-hour live camera from the Western Wall.
Mosque translation courtesy of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).
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War Till Israel Gives In
by Charles Krauthammer
(a syndicated columnist for The Washington Post Writers Group)
October 23, 2000
WASHINGTON -- Once again, the great sphinx looms over the Middle East. Yasser Arafat has everyone baffled.
Yes, after Arafat started a war just weeks after being offered a generous peace, most Westerners awoke to reality. Even The New York Times' Thomas Friedman, searching in Arafat for "statesmanship and real peaceful intentions," discovered "Mr. Arafat, it's now clear, possesses neither." (This, on Day 16 of the killing.)
But the bafflement remains. What does Arafat hope to achieve with violence? Israel's defeat?
Isn't that totally irrational? How are his rock-throwing mobs and newly trained 40,000-man militia going to defeat the Israeli military machine?
Well, look what happened this year in Lebanon, say the Palestinians. (The best place to follow what Palestinian leaders say to their people in Arabic is at www.memri.org, where indispensable translations are provided by the independent Middle East Media and Research Institute.) A ragtag guerrilla army in an almost open field drove the Israelis into a retreat so disorderly that they left many of their Lebanese allies behind, Saigon-like.
On the West Bank, moreover, the Palestinians enjoy additional advantages: a crowded urban battlefield where conventional armies are almost useless, an aroused population and a sympathetic world press.
The Palestinian strategy is open and clear: Use violence to bring international pressure on Israel; keep the nation mobilized, draining its resources and exhausting its will; bleed it as in Lebanon, but this time in the suburbs of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv; and force it back to negotiating from a position of weakness.
Arafat doesn't oppose negotiations. He just opposes negotiations where he lacks the upper hand. The aim of the violence is to gain the upper hand, force Israel to sue for peace and then dictate the terms of a settlement.
Among the Arabs, writes defense analyst Ze'ev Schiff, "there is an increasing feeling that they have hit on the formula for bringing Israel to its knees." How? "Ongoing, low-level war that combines massive terrorism, guerrilla warfare and the international media. ... This strategy will expose Israel's Achilles' heel; an extreme sensitivity to loss of life and the kidnapping of its soldiers."
Despite the apparent current lull, the fighting could last for months, even years (as did, for example, the Arab Revolt of 1936-39). Gun battles and casualties. International condemnation, boycotts and oil threats. Suicide bombings, terrorist attacks from Lebanon on the northern frontier.
How long before Israel sues for peace? Remember, Israel found the first intifada (1987-93) so intolerable that it sued for peace with the Oslo accords. And that intifada--rock-throwing mobs, but few guns and no suicide bombings--was a picnic compared to today.
If Israel is brought to her knees, what terms does Arafat dictate? That's easy. He'll demand three things:
First, Jerusalem.
Second, a return not to the 1967 borders, but to the borders drawn by the 1947 UN commission for the partition of Palestine. That Israel is much smaller and barely viable. Arafat tried out that demand last year without success. Should he gain the upper hand, he will insist upon it.
The third is the coup de grace, to be administered were Israel to be totally prostrate. Indeed, it is so devastating that Arafat could forgo the first two and accept the terms Barak offered him at Camp David with but a single additional provision: the return to Israel of the descendants of the 700,000 Palestinians who left in 1948-49.
With a million Israeli Arabs already in open revolt against the Jews, imagine adding another 3 million to 5 million to Israel's population. With fewer than 5 million Jews, that single provision is demographic suicide. It means the end of Israel as a Jewish state. Within weeks, such a state would be absorbed, like East Germany, by Arafat's Palestine.
No muss, no fuss, no blood. Victory. Most Israelis would leave, deciding quite rationally that it is better to live as a minority in the tolerant West than as a minority among hostile Arabs.
Notice: just a single line in a new agreement is all it takes to liquidate the world's only Jewish state. Notice, too, that Arafat and his lieutenants never fail to include the "right of return" when demanding their "just rights" as the price for peace.
Smug Westerners think Arafat is an old fool. He "never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity," Abba Eban once said. Well, Arafat sees his opportunity now--for fulfillment of maximal Palestinian dreams. The means is this war, and the world is behind him. Only a fool would forgo such an opportunity. Arafat knows exactly what he is doing. The fools are those who think he doesn't.
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Copyright © 2004 Shoshana McCrimmon
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