The battle for public opinion
Fahed Fanek


THE REAL battle in the Arab-Israeli conflict over the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people will be settled neither by Israeli armour nor by Palestinian suicide bombers. It will be settled in Washington, and will be fought within President George Bush's administration.

But the Bush administration - which is familiar with all the facts of the conflict - only acts according to the mood of the American public opinion,  which, in turn, is shaped by the Jewish-dominated American media.

These media haven't been giving an exemplary account of themselves lately. After their resounding failure in the war in Afghanistan (in which they acted disgracefully, sounding like a propaganda tool for the Pentagon), the media went on to cover events in the West Bank from a purely Israeli perspective. The Israeli invasion was viewed through the eyes of Ariel Sharon; in most cases facts were suppressed or otherwise distorted.

Some examples: Time magazine, in its April 22 issue, ran a cover story about the events in the West Bank. Despite printing photographs of the damage caused by Israel's brutal soldiers, the headlines used in the story revealed where the magazine stood. The main headline, “Jenin: Defiant to the death” was followed by a subtitle that declared: “First, Palestinians ambushed and  killed 13 Israelis. Then the Israelis levelled the camp.”

In other words, Time was saying that it was the Palestinians who started it  all by killing 13 peace-loving Israeli army regulars. It wasn't as if the Israelis in question were part of an occupying force that was attacking a refugee camp. Time's bias is revealed in the chronological order it used to describe what happened in Jenin and in portraying Israel's destruction of the camp as reaction - as if the Israeli soldiers were originally engaged in  a humanitarian mission.

Newsweek's coverage was even worse. Instead of photographs of the destruction wrought by the Israeli army on Palestinian towns, the magazine printed only pictures of Israeli victims: “One soldier was hit in the head as he emerged from his APC (armoured personnel carrier), another was hit in the throat and died murmuring, `I can't feel myself'.”

Newsweek didn't trouble itself to ask what those soldiers were doing in Jenin in the first place.

“Israel under siege!” screamed a headline on the cover of Foreign Affairs, that august publication written by intellectual analysts and read by American decision makers.

So, according to the publication, the Palestinians had Israel under siege. The only thing Foreign Affairs didn't say was that Fateh activists were surrounding Sharon's office in Jerusalem, and were preventing deliveries of food and water to the “beleaguered” Israeli leader.

We know that the US president and his administration don't get their information from their country's pro-Israel media. But they are forced to pander to US public opinion, which is shaped by these rags that have betrayed the moral code of journalism.

This is not to say that the Arab-Israeli conflict is a media war for public opinion. However important, news coverage is only a reflection of what is taking place on the ground. Had the Palestinians decided to surrender, the world would never have risen in their support. Israel would then have been free to create new facts on the ground and use the time element to its advantage.

But while action in the field is paramount, effective media coverage and energetic diplomacy play important supporting roles as well. Unfortunately, Yasser Arafat is the antithesis of the public relations leader. His ill-advised pronouncements only help the opposite side.

It is time the Arabs gave media coverage and diplomacy the attention - and the resources - they rightly deserve. The recent trip by His Majesty King  Abdullah to the United States was a successful bid to change all that. What he achieved was not less than a breakthrough which needs to be built upon.

Monday, May 27, 2002

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