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Why don’t we know what is going on in Israel & Palestine?

If Americans Knew | 26.01.2006 23:24

The media is overwhelmingly biased in favour of the Israelis. What can be done to counteract this?

Why don’t we know what is going on in Israel & Palestine?

Question
Recent studies of U.S. media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict reveal that the media reported Israeli children’s deaths at rates 7 to 40 times greater than Palestinian children’s deaths. Some typical examples:

In 2004, when 8 Israeli children were killed and 179 Palestinian children were killed, NBC reported on 100% of Israeli children’s deaths and on 10% of Palestinian children’s deaths, ABC on 100% and 11%.
The New York Times reported on 50% of Israeli children’s deaths and 7% of Palestinian children’s deaths.
In the first six months of the current uprising – during which time four Israeli children were killed and 93 Palestinian children were killed – the San Francisco Chronicle reported prominently on 150% of the Israeli children’s deaths (through repetitions) and on 5% of the Palestinian children’s deaths.
A 2004 study of Portland’s Oregonian newspaper revealed headline coverage on 88% of Israeli children’s deaths and on 2% of Palestinian ones.
At least 82 Palestinian children were killed before the first Israeli child. Why is there such an immense differential in reporting on deaths related to the ethnicity of the victim? Why are so few Palestinian children’s deaths being reported to the American public?

Clues
The Associated Press is the major source of international news for U.S. news media. Virtually all AP news reports about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict go through its bureau in Israel.


Clue #1
On Nov. 1, 2004, while we were in the Palestinian territories meeting with the AP bureau chief in the West Bank, he received a phone call from a correspondent. Israeli military forces occupying the area had just killed a 12-year-old Palestinian boy who had been throwing stones from approximately 300 meters away. A soldier had shot the boy in the throat with live ammunition. The bureau chief immediately phoned the bureau in Israel with all the details.

Later, back in the U.S., we looked up AP coverage of the killing of this child. We found no story. We did find an AP photo on the internet, but could not find a single American publication that had printed it – perhaps because there was no news story accompanying it.


Clue #2
On October 17, 2004, several armored Israeli vehicles invaded a Palestinian refugee camp. The vehicles stayed for twenty minutes, asserting their control. There was no Palestinian resistance. At one point an Israeli soldier poked his gun out of his vehicle, aimed at a boy nearby, and pulled the trigger. The 14-year old boy was shot in the lower abdomen. (He survived.) A Reuters photographer photographed this incident, and an Associated Press cameraman filmed it. The AP cameraman sent the video to the bureau in Israel, where it was erased.

In other words, AP had video footage of an Israeli soldier intentionally shooting a young Palestinian boy who was not attacking him, and they erased it. How could such footage not be considered newsworthy?


Clue #3
On Dec. 2, 2004, newspapers around the country received an Associated Press story about a candidate for the Palestinian presidency. The story reported that the candidate was in an Israeli prison, but, oddly, did not mention that he was being physically abused while in custody. It also failed to mention that over 8,000 Palestinians are incarcerated, that they are routinely abused, and that many are tortured, despite never having been charged with a crime.

This article carried a Palestinian byline and dateline. In reality, however, the Palestinian journalist given as the author of this report does not write articles. He phones information in to the AP bureau in Israel, where a journalist living in Israel writes the story. This ghost writer is almost always either an Israeli citizen or a person with strong ties to Israel.

It seems fraudulent to portray articles as having been written by one party in this conflict, when, in reality, they have been written by members of the other party.


Clue #4
On May 11, 2004, an AP news story reported: “The Geneva-based Defense for Children International and Save the Children, based in Sweden, said that as of May 2004, 373 Palestinians under 18 were being held in Israeli detention centers and prisons. At least three of the detainees are under 14...The groups charged that the treatment of Palestinian child prisoners by Israeli authorities amounts to a pattern of violence that has gone unchecked for years...”

This is important information for American taxpayers, since the US gives Israel over $10 million per day, and people throughout the world are aware that the US is Israel’s major supporter, thus blaming Americans for Israel’s actions. Oddly, however, AP sent this story out only on its Worldstream newswire, and not to American newspapers. Thus, people everywhere else in the world learned about these reports on Israeli human rights violations, but Americans did not.


Clue #5
In 2004, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Thomas Moorer passed away. Moorer, a World War II hero and one of the country’s highest ranking officers, had long been an outspoken critic of Israel – particularly of Israel’s brutal attack on a U.S. Navy ship, which had killed 34 American servicemen and injured 172. Just months before his death, Moorer appeared on Capitol Hill heading an independent inquiry, which found that Israel had “committed acts of murder against U.S. servicemen and an act of war against the United States” – words he repeated in an op-ed in the military’s Stars and Stripes newspaper on Jan. 16, 2004.

On Moorer’s death three weeks later, AP quickly sent out a 366-word report. The story included a sentence stating that Moorer had “...accused Israel of deliberately attacking the USS Liberty, an American spy ship.”

Within a few hours, AP sent out an expanded, 529-word obituary. The above sentence had been removed, and with it any hint of Moorer’s views on Israel: “The American people would be goddam mad if they knew what was going on.”

If Americans Knew
- Homepage: http://www.ifamericansknew.org/media/clues.html

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There will be peace when the Arabs love their children....

27.01.2006 09:36

In recent months, three attacks involving teenagers have been thwarted: a suicide attack in Israel by a 17-year-old male who blew himself up near Jinsafut, a village east of Qalqilya; a shooting attack in Afula by three teenagers 13-15 years old, who were arrested near an army roadblock in Jenin; and an attempt to smuggle munitions from Egypt in the Rafah area by teens aged 11-14 years.

These incidents highlighted once again the exploitation of children and teens by terrorist organizations: young people who were instilled with messages of hate and incitement against Israel were recruited from the beginning of the current conflict to carry out attacks, including suicide bombings, and to participate in violence and terrorism-supporting activities (demonstrations; confrontations with soldiers; smuggling; spying; digging tunnels). This phenomenon has attracted sharp criticism in the Palestinian Authority and Palestinian society, but the PA has not taken any effective steps against it and even uses injured children and youth for propaganda purposes at home and abroad.

Terror-related events in which minors were involved

Recently, three cases in which youth were exploited by terrorist organizations were identified and thwarted:


A planned shooting attack in Afula by youths 13, 14 and 16 years old. The three, who were from Tubas (northeast of Nablus), were arrested on 26 February 2004 at an army roadblock near Jenin, with improvised pistols in their possession. They revealed during their interrogation that they were on the way to carry out a shooting attack in Afula. The oldest one (16) told that the Islamic Jihad of Palestine recruited him and that he recruited the other two boys. According to an AP report from Nablus, the three left a letter in which they requested that no one mourn for them if they were killed because they would become shaheeds. In the letter, two of the boys identified themselves as members of the Fatah/el-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and the third as a member of the Islamic Jihad of Palestine. The families and senior PA officials condemned the sending of the boys to perpetrate the attack (see below).

A planned suicide bombing by a 17-year-old male: on 11 January 2004, Ayad Belal el-Masri, a high school student from Nablus, blew himself up near IDF soldiers in the vicinity of Jinsafut, east of Qalqilya. The soldiers were not injured. The youth, who was alone and equipped with an explosive belt, was sent to perpetrate a suicide bombing in Israel, but lost his way, saw the soldiers and blew himself up (panicked? detonated the belt by mistake?). The Fatah/el-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and the Islamic Jihad of Palestine both claimed responsibility for the act. The boy's death was criticized by his family and by the Palestinian media (see below).

The attempted smuggling of munitions with the aid of boys aged 11-14 years: On 12 February 2004, a group of four teenagers tried to cross the border into Egypt from the Palestinian side of Rafah, in an attempt to smuggle munitions into Israel from Egypt. The youths were recruited by the smugglers in exchange for a paltry sum. One of the boys was slightly injured by IDF shooting, and the other three were arrested by the IDF and taken in for questioning. It should be noted that in the area in which the youths were apprehended, there is an extensive smuggling network run by terrorist organizations that use teenagers for smuggling as well as for digging the tunnels through which arms and explosives are smuggled.
In addition to the above, children and teenagers continue to take active part in demonstrations and violent events, sometimes spontaneously and sometimes at the initiative of terrorist groups. They frequently get caught in the middle of fighting between the terrorists and IDF soldiers. In a recent case (11 February), children and youth were injured as they crowded together with masked rioters who were exchanging fire with an IDF force in the northern Gazan neighborhood of el-Shajaya.

Characteristic features of the exploitation of minors by terrorist organizations

The use of children and youth by terrorist organizations to carry out attacks, including suicide bombings, is well known. As part of the practice of including them in violent activities and in terror-supporting operations, children and youth are sent to participate in demonstrations and in confrontations with the army (at times they are taken out of school for this purpose). Terrorist groups also use them for smuggling, digging tunnels, spying and intelligence-gathering. The terrorists exploit their innocent appearance, which allows them to pass more easily through IDF roadblocks and to approach soldiers and Israeli settlements, the fact that they are easy to influence and recruit because of their tender age and the intensive incitement to which they have been exposed, and the tendency of Israeli soldiers to refrain from harming children and youth.

It should be noted that the recruiting of young people and their integration into operations that include suicide bombings reached a peak in 2002. Since then there has been a decrease in the exploitation of teens for use in terrorist operations, but the phenomenon still exists, as was demonstrated recently. The use of children and youth for terror-supporting activities is continuing, as is the encouragement to participate in demonstrations and confrontations with Israeli soldiers.

These children and teenagers, who are often used as "cannon fodder" by terrorist groups, grow up in an environment that instills in them hatred of Israel and a "culture of The Struggle" against Israel. Palestinian Arab children absorb these values at home, from the games they play, in the mosques, from television (which frequently shows programs of incitement and fomentation featuring children and teenagers), from educational frameworks (formal and extra-curricular), at summer camps, and in a variety of other ways. Some of these children, after they have grown up, supply the manpower for terrorist organizations. Some of them participate in violent activities and terrorist operations while they are still minors, either out of nationalist and religious motives (the desire to be a part of the struggle against Israel and the willingness to die a martyr's death for the sake of Allah), or out of economic motives (living in conditions of poverty make them ripe for temptation, even of relatively small sums of money).

This exploitation of children and youth by terrorist groups has been sharply criticized in Palestinian society (see below), even by officials in the PA. Police commissioner Ghazi el-Jebali issued guidelines in 2002 stating that school children should not be sent to confrontation areas, in order not to endanger them. However, by not taking effective steps to keep children and youth out of the violence, the PA has ensured that these guidelines remain on paper only. This is consistent with Arafat's and the PA's strategy of avoiding conflict with the terrorist organizations as well as their interest in maintaining the momentum of the fight against Israel as well as their desire to reap the propaganda benefits from wounded children and youth.

Accordingly, the PA has adopted a public relations strategy that emphasizes the role of children and youth in the Intifada, while exploiting the injuries caused by the IDF (unwittingly) or by Palestinian fire to children caught in the midst of the fighting. As part of this strategy, Israel is often presented on television as a "conqueror without restraints" who does not think twice about hurting children while, to strengthen the message, horrific pictures of dead and wounded children are shown in the background. Some of the children killed at the beginning of the Intifada have been turned into symbols of the Palestinian struggle, and books, articles, songs and movies have been devoted to them. Their deaths have been exploited for profit on the world public opinion market, to fan the flames of hatred and revenge and to cultivate the Palestinian street's consciousness of the violent struggle.

Encouragement vs. Criticism

The terrorist organizations, particularly the Hamas, very often use militant Islamic messages to encourage children and teenagers to join the conflict and to participate in military operations, including suicide bombings. Some examples follow:


Salah Shehada, who was one of the leaders of the Hamas in Gaza, stated in an interview (on the website Islam On-line, 26 May 2002), that children should be properly trained before they are sent on a mission and that they should be recruited into a special unit of the military arm of the Hamas in order to instill in them the culture of military jihad and to teach them to distinguish between good and evil.

Dr. Padhl Abu Hin, a psychology lecturer, was interviewed on this subject for a television movie entitled "Child Patriots and a Martyrs' Death". He noted that the Palestinian child understands that, by means of the shahada (a martyrs' death for the sake of Allah), through the perpetration of attacks, he/she can win honor and appreciation, without life being ended. [The concept of] Shahada, according to him, encourages children to take an active part in the conflict against Israel (Palestinian TV, 27 June 2002).

Rasha el-Rantissi, wife of Abed el-Aziz el-Rantissi, told the Arab media that she is educating her children to resistance and jihad. She added, "I hope that my husband, my children and I will receive the shahada so that we may prove that we are the first to sacrifice our children for Allah;" "Allah is generous with us, because our children die as fighters, and we wait with them for death for Allah's sake any minute" (el-Bian, 16 June 2003).
Furthermore, Islamic terrorist organizations are not the only ones to instill in children the value of dying for the sake of Allah (shahada); Arafat and the Palestinian Authority indulge also. Thus, Arafat's speech on the occasion of "Palestinian Child Day", broadcast by Palestinian television (1 June 2003), in which Arafat conveyed a militant Islamic message to the Palestinian child, based on Islamic tradition, encouraged the children to be fighters on Islam's front line (rabat) and to die as martyrs for Allah, while bestowing special status on the ones thus killed (shaheeds).

On the other hand, harsh criticism has been leveled against endangering the lives of school children, and especially against sending young people on suicide missions. The criticism comes from officials in the PA, the children's families, and figures in the Palestinian media. For example:


The families of the three teenagers sent to carry out a shooting attack in Afula (26 February 2004) and senior PA officials expressed anger at the dispatching of the boys. Palestinian minister Saab Ariqat said (AP, Nablus), "Our children should be our hope and future; they must not turn into suicide terrorists. We want them to be doctors or engineers…" The family of one of the boys, Tarek Abu Mahsan, were infuriated that the Islamic Jihad of Palestine recruited the three for a mission that would almost certainly have led to their deaths. Regarding the letter left by the three, the boy's mother, Amira Abu Mahsan, noted that "my son doesn't know how to write a letter like that and has never belonged to one of the organizations. Some grownup wrote the letter for him" (AP, Nablus).

The family of Ayad el-Masri, a 17-year-old student killed near Jinsafut, published an unusual announcement in the newspaper el-Ayyam (14 January 2002) demanding an investigation of the circumstances of their son's death. The family expressed their opposition to sending their son on the mission, described his death as "a senseless death that raises legitimate questions" and claimed that their son "was sent to carry out a hopeless suicide attack, the consequences of which were known from the outset."

This teenager's death near Jinsafut stimulated sharply critical articles in the Palestinian media. For example, Hafet el-Barghouti, the editor of the daily PA newspaper el-Hyat el-Jadeeda (16 January 2002) noted that the circumstances of el-Masri's death "raise anew the question of recruiting people in their teens, when it is known that the prophet Mohammed himself refused to recruit young boys for his raids..."

On 23-24 April 2002, three Palestinian schoolchildren from Gaza aged 12 to 14 attempted to enter Netzarim for the purpose of carrying out a suicide attack there. On the Hamas website (24 February 2002) it was revealed that these youths were sent by the Hamas following the decision to conduct a jihad against the Jews. Their deaths aroused resentment at the time among the residents of Gaza, who began to be concerned about their children in Gazan schools; special lessons were devoted to combating this phenomenon. In January 2003, against the background of the criticism that arose following the attempted infiltration of Elei Sinai by three youths armed with knives, senior Hamas officials spoke out against using teenagers to perpetrate attacks.

The newspaper el-Ayyam reported (31 April 2002) that during this same period, in which the phenomenon reached a peak, the participants at a conference of the journalists union in Gaza came out against youths carrying out suicide missions. At the conference, ways were discussed to deal with this negative phenomenon, including women and children becoming "living bombs," that had swept through Palestinian society.

Half as much as they hate the Jews
- Homepage: http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism


Hidden Comment

This posting has been hidden because it breaches the Indymedia UK (IMC UK) Editorial Guidelines.

IMC UK is an interactive site offering inclusive participation. All postings to the open publishing newswire are the responsibility of the individual authors and not of IMC UK. Although IMC UK volunteers attempt to ensure accuracy of the newswire, they take no responsibility legal or otherwise for the contents of the open publishing site. Mention of external web sites or services is for information purposes only and constitutes neither an endorsement nor a recommendation.

imc overseers

27.01.2006 10:55

Please remove the previous comment as it is: innacurate, not news, biased and originating from a heirachical organisation, a cut and paste from way back, racist and disruptive.

jackslucid
mail e-mail: jackslucid@hotmail.com


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