This article by Patrick O’Connor, which appeared in The Electronic Intifada on 2 May 2007, passed by without much notice, but its importance to understanding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and all of its complications shows a clear dependence upon deciphering propaganda.
The full title is Buying the War on Palestinians: The US Media, The New York Times, and Israel.
Patrick O’Connor is a New York City-based activist with Palestine Media Watch and the International Solidarity Movement, who specializes, like Alison Weir, and the many participants in the documentary, Peace, Propaganda, & The Promised Land, in Israeli propagated lies about the Palestinians intended to cover up through media distortions its incessant 40 year military occupation of the West Bank, while it continues to colonize Palestinian land.
After four disastrous years of US military occupation, Bill Moyers’ April 25 PBS special Buying the War attempted to hold the mainstream US media accountable for its complicity in selling the war on Iraq to the US public. Moyers documented how the US media, with The New York Times in a leading role, bowed to financial and political pressure, succumbed to an environment of patriotism and fear of terrorism, and uncritically reported false US government claims. Tragically, despite the terrible consequences of 60 years of Israeli oppression of the Palestinian people, there is still no significant movement to hold the US mainstream media accountable for a similar, dramatic failure in covering Israel and Palestine, and for its complicity in the US’ uncritical support for Israel.
Bill Moyers has been cited in the past for his lack of courage to take on the Israel Lobby through his PBS outlets. To say the least, however beloved for his honest journalism, he has not yet demonstrated the ethical standards of a Jimmy Carter vis a vis Israel and Palestine. Carter has often mentioned the reality that Americans have been kept from the truth about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For that disclosure and others, his book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, has been called everything from lousy history to pure anti-Semitism.
(Although) Moyers mentioned that the now infamous ‘neoconservatives’ had “long wanted to transform the Middle East, beginning with the removal of Saddam Hussein,” Moyers omitted a crucial reason for why the government’s case for war resonated with both the US media and public. It was based on widely held stereotypes about Arabs, Muslims and the Middle East, assumptions which are also essential to understanding US policy in Israel and Palestine.
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The US case for war in Iraq rested on orientalist assumptions — that the Middle East was an undifferentiated region of Arabs and Muslims who, lacking any history or valid grievances, are possessed by an irrationally violent nature as well as hatred of the West, Israel, freedom and democracy. The region could be transformed through a combination of US military force and Western enlightenment. Playing on this racist view of Arabs and Muslims which is deeply rooted in the US psyche, the US government managed to convince most Americans, via a complicit media, of fantastic tales about links between Saddam Hussein’s Ba’athist regime and Al Qaeda, stocks of horrific arms, a maniacal desire to use them against the US, and of the beneficial impact of “shock and awe.” This belief that irrational Arab and Muslim violence requires enlightened Western intervention and domination is also used to justify Israeli oppression of the Palestinians, underpins uncritical US support for Israel, and is central to US media coverage of Palestine and Israel.
This propaganda is entirely an Israeli sponsored scenario intended to justify Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian people, while suppressing knowledge of Israel’s real intent on the West Bank: the colonization of the God-given lands of Judea and Samaria. In being complicit with such a project, news organizations such as the New York Times have made it easy for Israeli defense forces to kill Palestinians, indeed to shoot Palestinian children in the head, with no second thoughts. These are terrorist animals undeserving of any consideration as human beings.
Israel took on the war on terrorism as its own. The Palestinians as terrorists gave Sharon and the rest of the government’s right wing officials, including the pseudoDove, Peres, the right to kill Palestinians. In fact, the Israeli High Court eventually condoned targeted assassinations of Palestinian militants, fighting the military occupation. Orwell would have been pleased at his prescience: reality is easily flipped into distortions that permit criminal behavior.
(The) neo-cons continually drew the link between Iraq and Israel, asserting that “the road to Jerusalem passes through Baghdad.” And in Israel, the other major outpost in “the war on terror,” racist ideology and politically tainted intelligence are also pushed by the government and credulously reported by US media outlets like The New York Times. For example, an 11 April 2007 Times news article by Isabel Kershner headlined unverifiable claims by Israel’s Shin Bet (the equivalent of our FBI) that it had thwarted a massive Hamas suicide bombing planned for Passover. The article largely ignored Palestinian denials reported the same day in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz. The Shin Bet claim seemed to merit skepticism in light of the Palestinian denials, and Hamas’ decision two years ago to halt large-scale attacks.
Indeed, Hamas’ implication in a large-scale bombing plot would have come at a convenient moment for Israel. Following 16 months during which 27 Israelis were killed by Palestinians, the lowest total in more than six years, Israel is struggling to prevent the crumbling of the international boycott of the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority, and to fend off repeated peace overtures from the Palestinian Authority, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the Arab League. The Israeli government has been feeding the media stories saying that the calm is a ruse, that Hamas is using it to arm and plan attacks, and that Israel will therefore be forced to mount a large-scale invasion of Gaza soon. The Times has published at least four other articles echoing these Israeli government assertions since March 2007.
Of the 1,085 Times news articles since 1 December 2004, 37 percent mentioned Palestinian “attack(s),” 36 percent mentioned “terrorism,” 28 percent mentioned “terrorist(s),” 21 percent mentioned Palestinian “violence,” 18 percent mentioned “suicide bombing(s),” 16 percent mentioned Palestinian “weapon(s),” and 14 percent mentioned Palestinian “radicals.” In contrast to this strong Israeli narrative, only two words reflecting a Palestinian narrative appeared in a comparable percentage of Times’ news articles. Israeli “settlement(s)” were noted in 32 percent of articles, and Israeli “occupation” was mentioned in 16 percent of articles. This imbalance is even more striking because the emphasis on Palestinian terrorism and violence corresponded with a two year and five month period during which Israelis killed 965 Palestinians, more than half civilians, while Palestinians killed 85 Israelis. Nonetheless, Israeli “attacks(s)” are mentioned in 13 percent of Times articles, and Israeli “violence” in only 4 percent.
Only very careful readers of Times news reporting would be able to locate, amidst the barrage on Palestinian terrorism, basic elements of the Palestinian experience — Israeli human rights abuses, Israeli attacks and violations of international law, Palestinian poverty, the Palestinian understanding that they are victims of Israeli discrimination and racism, and Israel’s denial of the right of return to Palestinian refugees. In a startling display of bias, since December 2004, 70 to 130 times as many Times news articles mentioned Palestinian “terrorism” or Palestinian “attack(s)” as mentioned Israeli “discrimination”, “racism” or “apartheid.” Thirty-five times as many articles mentioned Palestinian “terrorism” as mentioned Palestinian “poverty”, though 70 percent of Palestinians are now living below the poverty line.
The remainder of Patrick O’Connor’s long article citing numerous examples of NYT biased reporting is enlightening to anyone desiring to be relieved of the delusions that all of us may be harboring about the reality in Israel and Palestine. After all, where do we get our knowledge of this reality except from respected sources of information like the New York Times. As far news respectability in concerned, however, the New York Times is probably the last place one might wish to venture to get information concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Indeed, it is quite evident that the New York Times is now in the pocket of AIPAC/Israeli Lobby/ZOA/Likud faction and its feed on the regional reality is dictated from Tel Aviv.
I’ll let this topic go with these last quotes from Patrick O’Connor:
Growing Palestinian radicalization is a dangerous trend, but by minimizing Palestinians’ radicalizing experience of oppression and denial of rights, the Times reader is left to rely on the orientalist assumption that radicalism is a disease that springs naturally from Arab and Muslim minds and spreads. Over six years and thousands of articles during this Palestinian uprising, The New York Times quoted or paraphrased just 6,256 words on human rights abuses by Israelis or by Palestinians from three respected, independent third parties, the major human rights reporting on Israel and Palestine — Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the Israeli organization B’Tselem. The phrase “human rights” can be found in only 7 percent of the 1,088 Times articles since December 2004, “international law” in 2 percent of articles, and “Palestinian rights” in 0.4 percent of articles.
While it is not surprising that The New York Times marginalizes human rights and international law, the Times reports as infrequently on Palestinians’ basic human needs. Though 70 percent of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories now live below the poverty line, and 30 percent are unemployed, over the last two years and five months, only 1 percent of Times news articles from Israel and Palestine discussed Palestinian “poverty” or “unemployment,” while 1.8 percent of articles described Palestinians as “impoverished,” and 1.3 percent described Palestinians as “unemployed.”
Additionally, the Times virtually ignores the situation of 1.2 million Palestinian citizens of Israel, 20 percent of Israel’s population, and that of the five million Palestinians living as refugees.
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The Times has essentially refused Palestinians the opportunity to present their view that they are victims of discrimination and racism.
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Renowned Israeli reporter Amira Hass has asserted that “What journalism is really about — it’s to monitor power and the centers of power.” The US mainstream media, with The New York Times in the lead, has failed miserably in achieving that ideal, not only in covering Iraq, but also in reporting on Israel and Palestine.
We are waiting, Bill Moyers, for you to join the honest journalists in this conflict, ones like Jimmy Carter and Patrick O’Connor.
Reprinted with permission.
