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"Why Israel
Gets a Hard Time in the Media"
by
Steve
Huntley
Editorial Page
Editor
Chicago
Sun-Times
Presentation
delivered at AICC's Board of Directors
Meeting
February 19,
2003
Copyright 2003,
Steve Huntley
Thank you for
inviting me to participate today. I must confess
that I do
find it a little daunting to
appear before a sophisticated and
knowledgeable
audience like this one to
discuss issues related to the Middle
East.
No doubt many of you have
traveled to Israel, some of you many times,
and
could enlighten me on many
aspects about this issue. But I'll put aside
my
natural tendency as a journalist
to ask you about your insights and
experiences
and relate a few observations of
my own about why I think Israel gets a
hard
time in major media.
Since Sept. 11, Americans
have come to appreciate the stress that
Israeli
society has had to live with for
the last two years under a siege of terror.
Both
Israel and the United States are
at war against terrorism because we
have
been attacked. We're not in it
out of choice. And we have shared goals
in
the war on terror.
The people of no nation on the
earth back America in its determination to
take
on Iraq more than the Israeli
people. And time and again the American
people
have expressed strong backing
for Israel, even in the face of such
wrong-headed
notions that our support of the
Jewish state was the real reason we
were
attacked Sept. 11.
Thousands of Christians gathered
in Jerusalem last year and shouted their
support
for the Israeli cause. But, if
all this is true, and it certainly is, why did
the
American Jewish Committee and Israel 21
spend a truck-load of money not long
ago to buy advertising in 100
major media markets pointing out the
common
ground between America and
Israel? What's going on?
I think we know what's going
on: It's all about how Israel is too often
portrayed
negatively by major media organs
in America. One question I'm frequently
asked
by members of the Jewish
community is why many in the media see the Middle
East
the way they do, especially the
editorial pages critical of Israel, and especially
at a
time when Israel, with Britain
and the nations of the new Europe, is
America's
strongest ally in the war on
global terrorism?
It is true that in recent years,
in some big U.S. media outlets,
including the
editorial pages of some major newspapers, we have
seen
reflected a distinct suspicion of Israel,
a distrust of its leadership,
cynicism about
its motives and doubt about its cause. Bernard
Goldberg took
note of this media trend in
best-selling book entitled Bias: A CBS
Insider
Explains How the Media Distort the
News. He cited the case of a song
entitled "I
hate Israel" that was popular a while back in
Cairo, Damascus
and the West Bank. That bit of
bigotry got only scant mention in the
American
media. But Goldberg asserts, and correctly I
think, that if a song
entitled "I hate
Palestine" were to become popular in Israel, that
would be
a major news story on the front page
in American newspapers and it would
be
displayed prominently in network TV
newscasts. And one editorial page after
another
would be in up in arms about it.
Today I will offer some reasons
why I think a hypercritical view of
Israel
developed as it did in some major media,
why big media outlets have come to
see Israel
too often as, well, the bad guy in relationship to
the Palestinians.
Consider some things we've heard
and read. Like the consistent references
to the
"cycle of violence" over there. That implies there
is no beginning to
the violence, no one
responsible for starting it. Here is a very simple
rule
of thumb you can apply to the Middle East:
No Palestinian violence, no
Israeli violence.
In a complicated world, that's a simple fact. We
have read
and heard news accounts damning the
Israeli military actions in the West
Bank as
illegitimate. That argument asks the Israelis, and
us, to ignore the
homicide bombings and their
horrible death tolls. It asks us to ignore
the
explosives and weapons smuggled into the
Gaza Strip through tunnels from
Egypt. It asks
us to ignore the millions raised by Saudi Arabia
in its
telethon last year to support
terror. Imagine that, a telethon
for
terrorists! It asks us to ignore the daily
venom in the Arab press spreading
the worse
kind of lies and falsehoods about Israel and
America. It asks us
to ignore the Iranian- and
Syrian-backed buildup of missiles in
southern
Lebanon aimed by Hezbollah into the
Israeli heartland. It asks us to ignore
the
obvious self-interest Saddam Hussein has in
funding and promoting the
homicide
bombings.
Another thing we've been told is
that the Israeli military campaign has
so
weakened the Palestinian security forces that they
can't crack down on
terrorists. That's what
we're told. But those same Palestinian police
seem
to have no trouble arresting and often
quickly trying and speedily executing
anyone
they think is an Israeli collaborator. Nearly a
score of such alleged
collaborators were
rounded up on the West Bank and in Gaza last year
even as
Israeli tanks encircled Arafat's
compound. What does that tell us? And of
course
there as of yet has been no massive Israeli
military campaign
constituting what someone
could call a reoccupation of the Gaza Strip,
so
why haven't Arafat's security forces cracked
down on the leaders of Hamas
and Islamic Jihad
who make Gaza their home? It's a question that's
never
seems to get asked by media apologists
for Arafat who are forever forgiving
of
Palestinian offenses.
We've read about a reform
movement in the Palestinian Authority.
Well,
look at the misery of the West Bank, the
death, destruction and humiliation
brought to
the Palestinians by Arafat's rule, and is it any
wonder there's a
revolt? No truly democratic
government could survive the disaster
of
Arafat's policies. Those who speak up
against Arafat often are called
moderates. We
all certainly wish and hope that is true about
them. But I
fear that too often the definition
of a Palestinian moderate is someone who
says,
well, maybe homicide bombings "inside Israel" are
a mistake but it's
still open season on any
Israeli in a uniform or any Israeli man, woman
or
child on the wrong side of the Green line.
You've also heard about some
influential
Palestinians at long last questioning Arafat's
rejection of the
Camp David/Taba negotiations.
But what we heard very little about were
the
death threats and even shootings directed
by the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades
last year at
some of the Palestinians involved in this little
palace
rebellion against Arafat's rule. One of
them had to beat a hasty retreat to
Jordan and
at one point was reported to be on an extended
tour of Egypt and
Russia out of fear for his
safety. Now, look, we all hope and believe
there
are Palestinians who want peace, a stable
economy and better lives for
their
families. The new finance minister
Fayyad appears to be a promising figure.
But
the Palestinian Authority is not a democracy.
Given the past two years
of violence and the
polls that show high levels of support from
the
Palestinian populace for violence, it
remains to be proven that those who
want to
replace Arafat are genuinely interested in peace
and democracy. To
paraphrase something
President Reagan once said, we can hope but we
must
verify that any reforms or any new
leadership in the Palestinian Authority
is
dedicated to negotiations, peace and recognition
of the right of Israel
to exist. The reality
today is that what hope there is for reform comes
not
from any Palestinian initiative but from
the Israelis' strong backing of
Sharon in last
month's elections. The message from Israeli voters
was loud
and clear: No compromise with terror.
Articles in Palestinian newspapers
since the
Israeli voting have attacked Arafat's policies as
the reason for
Sharon's big victory. So the
message of Israeli voters is getting
across.
What else do we get from some of the
reporting from the Middle East?
When the Israelis target a
terrorist organizer in Gaza and
Palestinian
civilians are killed or injured, we
hear media condemnations of Israel like
this
one that appeared in a news dispatch, not an
editorial page opinion. I
quote here "Israel's
desire to settle scores and deter militants
often
appears to override concern for
Palestinian civilians." Where, oh where,
are
the criticisms of these murderers for
hiding out within civilian
populations, in
effect using women and children as shields?
Combatants
hiding among civilians is a
violation of international law. Yet, Israel
is
the one damned for going after murderers who
live and plot terrorism among
the women,
children and old people they claim to be champions
of.
Now, at this point, let me interject here
that many newspapers and
broadcast media around
the country are sympathetic, friendly and
realistic
in their view toward Israel. But I
think it's also fair to say that among
the
major newspapers available in the Chicago area,
the Sun-Times and the
Wall Street Journal are
the ones that consistently see things over there
the
way they really are.
At the Sun-Times, our editorial
page policy is driven by a few basic
propositions, which are: In a
troubled and dangerous world,
Israel is
America's trusted friend and ally. But more
fundamentally, the
United States and Israel
share common values - belief in the worth of
the
individual, a commitment to a free and open
society, democracy, the rule of
law, and a
preference and desire for peace. I believe former
Prime Minister
Netanyahu got it basically right
when he said the Islamic fundamentalists
don't
hate America because of Israel, they hate Israel
because of America,
because Israel is an
outpost of freedom and democracy in a desert
of
repressive regimes.
We at the Sun-Times believe the
Israeli desire of peace was never more
clearly
demonstrated than at Camp David in the summer of
2000 when Prime
Minister Barak made his far
reaching proposals. As we all know,
Arafat
walked away from the historic
opportunity presented at Camp David and
went
home to plot murder and mayhem. Barak kept
talking, Clinton kept producing
ideas, and more
concessions were offered Arafat. But they were
never enough,
not even when they would have
produced the Palestinian state that he
claimed
was his goal. Now, all of this
certainly is familiar history to this
audience.
But I repeat it because this
basic account of Camp David rarely if
ever gets
mentioned in news accounts from the region any
more. For example,
one major newspaper's
account yesterday of Israel's decision to
include
Rachel's Tomb behind the security wall
it is building against terrorism
talked about a
Palestinian family that would be adversely
affected by the
wall. Quoting the article now:
"The family's predicament underscores
the
difficulty Israel is having untangling the
knotted populations, and their
intertwined
political and religious traditions, as it builds a
new barrier
fence in the West Bank." This
Palestinian family's predicament and
Israel's
difficulty would not exist if Arafat
had come to Camp David to make peace.
Yet not a
word about that is mentioned. Now, partly this is
the problem of
journalism. Under deadline
pressure, we're good at telling what
happened
today but tend to forget what happened
a year ago. But it also is true that
major
figures in the media have written off Camp David
as essentially not
relevant any more. To them,
Sharon and the "occupation" are the
problem.
That the destruction of Israel remains
an Arafat goal was made crystal
clear in his
demand for a so-called right of return. Yes, some
say it's
possible, in the course of peace
negotiations, to come up with a formula
of
compensation and a symbolic resettlement of
some refugees. But what formula
would satisfy
the radical Palestinians like Hamas and
rejectionist Arab
states such as Syria?
Especially those radicals that insist on a
unilateral
Israeli declaration of guilt for a
historic wrong done the Palestinians.
Such a declaration would be
wrong, immoral and historically inaccurate.
The
crime here is not Israel's. During the 1948
war and afterward hundreds of
thousands of Jews
fled Arab lands and Israel found a place for them.
Arab
regimes, many of them hugely rich, could
have done the same when Palestinian
refugees
numbered far fewer than today. It is the Arab
states that have left
the world this festering
wound that bleeds so much hate and
bloodshed.
If this picture of the
Israeli-Palestinian situation is so clear to
the
Sun-Times, why don't others see it the same
way? Indulge me for a few
moments longer as I
review some more familiar history. Some of us
here, at
least, can recall when Exodus was
published. This best seller recounting
the
heroic story of Israel reinforced what I think was
then a common
sentiment among many Americans -
that Israelis were pioneers in the best
sense
of the word who were turning a desert
into a garden, bringing democracy to a
part of
the world that had never known it. Then came the
1967 war and the
lightning victory, which
further enhanced the image of Israeli
excellence:
David had defeated Goliath in a
stunning fashion. The war strengthened the
U.S.
- Israeli relationship because the Jewish state
came to be seen as a
strong and reliable
ally.
But sometime after that the
world began changing. Israel's military
success
got transformed into Israel being viewed as
Goliath against the
Palestinian David.
Never mind that the Jews of Israel constitute a
very tiny
island in a vast ocean of Arabs and
Muslims in the Middle East.
Palestinian
terrorism forced the world to take
notice of what the Palestinians said were
their
grievances. The 1973 Yom Kipper War was another
Israeli victory but it
did restore some sense
of legitimacy to Arab war making. Then the oil
shock
of the 1970s stunned the world, and
Americans began to learn that there was
a price
to be paid for supporting Israel. That in turned
caused some people
to look at Israel with a
more critical eye. To put it another way,
some
Americans started saying to themselves, if
it is going to be painful
economically to
support Israel, then Israel better be in the
right. That's
the essence of the politics of
oil regarding Israel and they continue to be
in
play today.
Another factor in the change of
attitudes towards Israel, I think, was
the
ascension of conservative politicians and
leaders there whose views in
general were out
of touch with liberal leadership elements in
America media
and politics. I once heard a
prominent liberal Democrat assert it was
the
election of Likud that had turned the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict into, in
his
words, "a religious war." He had nothing to say
about fanatical
Islamism. Netanyahu and Sharon
are not figures that American liberals
like.
But just as crucial and fundamental to
altering media perceptions about
the Middle
East, in my view, was the Vietnam experience for
America. While
America's grappling with the
dilemma of Vietnam, and with the
Watergate
scandal as well, in the long run
confirmed the values and strengths of
Western
society and the principles on which it is founded,
these two
episodes had a perverse effect on
many Americans of that generation.
The
government dishonesty, bungling and
mishandling of Vietnam and Watergate
seemed to
call into question the fundamental worthiness of
Western values.
Had not the West oppressed the
poor around the globe? Was not colonialism
but
one more sinful manifestation of the Western
world? How could our view
of the world be any
more valid or morally superior to that of any
other
society? Worse yet, was the view of us
held by the Third World the valid
one? In other
words, are we guilty just because they say we are?
These are
simplistic questions that produced,
not surprisingly, simplistic answers.
Such as
... The West is a bunch of corrupt, exploitative,
imperialistic
nations that have had their way
in the world for far too long.
In short, the Vietnam generation
lost confidence in the enduring Western
values
that have produced the greatest freedom and
prosperity the world has
ever known. For our
purposes today, when we talk about the
Vietnam
generation, we're talking about the
mostly middle and upper class, mostly
liberal,
mostly baby boomers who hold positions of
influence in the media
now. This loss of
confidence affected their view of the Middle East.
If
America and Europe oppressed the peoples of
Africa and Asia, aren't the
Israelis oppressing
the Palestinians now? Aren't the Palestinians
suffering,
under quoting here--the "terrorism
of the occupation by the colonial
Zionist
power"? Wasn't Lebanon just a replay of
Vietnam with Israel the villain as
America was
in Southeast Asia? Isn't the real obstacle to
peace the Israeli
prime minister, and you pick
the name because in the eyes of
Arafat's
apologists they are all equally guilty
except Rabin who died as a martyr for
peace?
Aren't the Israelis guilty because the oppressed
Palestinians say
they are? This kind of
thinking leads to the most grotesque forms of
moral
equivalency.
An example: The assassination of
Tourism Minister Zeevi a year
ago was called in
some editorial pages a case of tit-for-tat for the
Israeli
killing of Mustafa Zibri, who headed
the Popular Front for the Liberation
of
Palestine. Now Zeevi was admittedly a man of
extremist views but you don't
kill someone for
espousing extremist views. Zibri, by contrast, was
involved
in seven bomb attacks in the last
half-year before his death and was
planning
more. He was killed for his deeds, not his words,
for his terrorism,
not his politics. This type
of moral equivalency gets stretched to the
point
that some people say both sides of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict are
equally to
blame for the current situation, that Israeli
settlements are
just as bad as Palestinian
violence. Whatever you may think about
the
settlements, they don't involve blowing
somebody to bits.
To me, all this revisionist
history is a lot of nonsense. Israel
stands
squarely in the Western tradition of
freedom and democracy. Where among the
hostile
neighbors of Israel is there one nation that
affords its citizens
the possibility to fully
develop as individuals as does Israel? Name
one
Arab nation since Sadat's Egypt that has
sought peace as earnestly as
Israel. Name one
Muslim society among Israel's neighbors that
questions
itself as thoroughly as the Israelis
loudly and combatantly criticize and
challenge
their government and their society. You can't name
one.
The final fallacy held by important
elements in the media is that the
Israelis and
we are in separate wars, that their war against
Palestinian
terrorism is different than our war
against international terrorism. But
let's look
at what we know. Al-Qaida on numerous occasions
has attacked
Americans - the World Trade Center
in 1993, the American embassies in Africa,
the
USS Cole, and the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon on Sept. 11. Much
inspiration for
al-Qaida's rabid anti-West rantings came from the
fanatical
Wahhabism of Saudi Arabia. Fifteen of
the 19 Sept. 11 terrorists were Saudis
and the
Saudis last year raised millions in a telethon for
Palestinian
terrorism. Al-Qaida was behind the
attack on Israelis in Kenya in November.
Hamas,
a terrorist organization whose goal is the
destruction of Israel,
urges attacks on
Americans. Bin Laden's gang makes common cause
with the
terrorists of Hezbollah, killers of
hundreds of Americans and Israelis.
Hezbollah
operates out of southern Lebanon, which for all
practical purposes
is a terror state funded by
Iran and controlled by Syria. Damascus is
the
Headquarters City for nearly a dozen
terrorist organizations that attack
Israelis.
Syria is suspected of hiding chemical and
biological weapons for
Iraq. Iraqi dictator
Saddam Hussein, who makes cash gifts to the
families of
Palestinian homicide bombers, has a
history of relations with al-Qaida.
As
Secretary of State Powell pointed out to the
UN last week, al-Qaida has a
cell in Baghdad
and a camp in northern Iraq which it uses to
attack Saddam's
enemies, the Kurds, and engages
in plotting terrorism using poisons. And on
and
on it goes.
There's no need for us to
connect the dots. The terrorists and
their
supporters and their sponsors by their
actions have done it for us. Every
development
underscores the key point: We and the Israelis are
in the same
war on terrorism, and the
terrorists' only hope is to persuade us that
the
dots aren't connected. That might play in
Europe, it might play with some of
the big
media outlets in this country, but not, I think,
with most
Americans. One of the results of the
Sept. 11 attacks has been, for the
overwhelming
majority of Americans, a realization of the
importance of our
values and how they separate
us from much of the rest of the world and
how
they connect us with Israel. With his
important speech last June abandoning
Arafat,
Bush restated and reaffirmed for the world
America's alliance with
Israel. But how could
it be otherwise? The reasons that Israel has
always
been a strategic partner for America
have not changed: Support of the Arab
world for
any U.S. effort against Islamist terror is
conditional. Arab
regimes bombard their
populations with anti-West propaganda and hate.
The
Arab street boils and seethes with hate and
resentment as the poor and
miserable of the
Arab world vent their frustrations with their
lives toward
the outside world. By contrast,
Israel is the region's only democracy and
most
stable nation with a people united in affection
for the United States.
America and Israel are
locked in a mutual embrace of respect and
common
values. Poll after poll demonstrates
that, despite what some prominent media
outlets
have advocated, the vast majority of Americans
support Israel and
understand its struggle. A
new poll out this week shows that by a three
to
one margin Americans say it is Palestinian
rejection of Israel's right to
exist and not
Israeli policies that are the cause of the
Palestinian-Israeli
conflict. Another puts
Israel's favorable rating among Americans had
the
highest level since the Gulf War. On Sept.
11 America had, as former Prime
Minister
Netanyahu put it, "a wakeup call from hell," and
we Americans know
who our friends
are.
Steve Huntley
Editorial Page
Editor
Chicago
Sun-Times | 
