July 15, 2005

To:
Israeli-Palestinian Impartiality Review
BBC Governance Unit
London

Dear Reviewers,

In 2003 Israels Press Office decided to cut cooperation with the BBC when it had enough of the latters long standing, prejudicial covering of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Daniel Seaman was the director of this office at the time. He described the nature of this bias rather well in an article for The Jerusalem Post in July that year. It was entitled “Can the BBC operate responsibly?”

I believe the contents of Seamans article will contribute much to your panels “Review of Coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict”.

Respectfully yours (etc) Seaman’s article begins here:

MEDIA REACTION to Israel’s decision to reevaluate its relationship with the BBC has tended to ignore the reasons why it was taken.

While the decision’s merits can be argued, any evaluation of Israel’s grievances should be based on whether the BBC adheres to universal standards of journalistic ethics. In short: Does BBC coverage of Israel meet the tests of integrity, impartiality, honesty and accuracy?

Recycling malicious falsehoods that have been documented and independently disproved is a clear measure of lack of integrity.

Months after a UN investigation concluded there was no evidence of a massacre in Jenin, BBC anchors and the BBC web site still implied doubt as to what really happened. In a recent program allegations were again raised about Israel’s use of a “mysterious” gas in Gaza, ignoring the fact that medical experts refuted this hoax over two years ago.

Adopting the narrative and terminology of one of the sides to a conflict is not impartiality. The BBC goes out of its way to state that the Temple Mount is called “Haram al-Sharif” by the Arabs, implying an Arab claim to the site. This in itself is not a problem – except that the same consideration is not extended to Israel. The West Bank is never “known by the Jews as Judea and Samaria.”

The BBC goes so far as to accommodate the Hizbullah terror organization when it describes the UN-recognized Israeli border with Lebanon as “disputed.” Similarly, Israeli settlements are “illegal” and the territories “occupied” rather than disputed.

Undermining the credibility of sources by implying doubt, by questioning and conditioning is disingenuous, especially when it is applied to only one side of an issue. Israeli sources reported by the BBC almost always “allege,” while Palestinians “report.” When hard evidence is presented by Israel, such as the photo of an infant Palestinian dressed as a homicide bomber, its authenticity is questioned. Yet Palestinians leveling the most ludicrous of accusations against Israel are quoted verbatim.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is often assigned a militant adjective such as “extreme right-wing” or “former general,” something that is almost never done when describing a Palestinian leader.

Those working in television are keenly aware that how something is said or what is shown can be much more important in creating and solidifying an image than actual content. In this respect the Israeli position repeatedly suffers in the BBC’s treatment of regional stories, a fact readily demonstrated by any objective analysis of its videotape archives.

The use of camera angles, hidden cameras, cinematographic techniques of insinuation and innuendo, intonation – even rhetorical questions – can create a sinister, even diabolical image of an interviewee, cast doubt on his point of view and raise unofficial concern about his character and intention.

Beyond that, Israel’s position has repeatedly suffered through the focus on only those points that support a particular view. Contrary information is omitted in a manner that can only be regarded as knowing and deliberate.

Such treatment of highly complex Middle East issues does not represent “legitimate criticism.” It is not an objective attempt to expose the truth, but defamation aimed at creating prejudice. This kind of reporting does not require an official Israeli response; it demands a legal defense. To discuss or debate such baseless accusations only lends them credibility.

In the past, defamation of Israel was neatly packaged in the claim of holding Israel to a “higher standard.” Such pretense has now evolved into “creative journalism,” in which all means are justified in order to depict Israel as a sinister society, one whose arrogance and total disregard for international law is the real menace to world peace and stability.

Thus the BBC can draw a moral equivalence between the premeditated murder of innocent men, women and children in Israel by Palestinians and their supporters and Israel’s justifiable actions of self-defense.

Criticizing Israel’s policies is the BBC’s prerogative. However, an accumulation of grievances over a number of years leads us to believe that the BBC has crossed the line from valid criticism into vilification and demonization of the State of Israel, to such an extent as borders on delegitimization of the nation itself. A direct cause of incitement, such treatment reinforces acts of anti-Semitism and violence against Israelis and Jews worldwide.

The BBC can continue to operate freely in Israel. Israel is an open democracy embracing freedom of the press. But only at such time that the corporation acknowledges its responsibility to provide its viewers and listeners with an honest, balanced and factual account of events in the Middle East will the government of Israel restore cordial cooperation. {} {} {}

The writer is director of the Israel Government Press Office. Copyright 1995-2003 The Jerusalem Post

Published May 1, 2003
Revised May 1, 2007

Two main reasons have been advanced for the few hundred thousand Arabs who fled Palestine mostly ahead of the war against the tiny State of Israel which achieved statehood on May 14, 1948.

First was the fictional massacre of Arabs in Deir Yassin at the hands of the Irgun and Lehi. So frightening were the stories of the killing of ”˜innocentsby the allegedly ”˜ferocious Jews, that huge numbers upped and fled. Such was their astonishing fear – if you want to believe it. How such news got around in a country without phones and few radios still needs to be explained.

The Arabs have never hesitated to shout ”˜massacre` to high heaven when dozens or scores are sometimes killed in battle. Yet have never had any shame or compunction in declaring their intention to exterminate ALL the Jews in Israel!

How base is their morality . . . how totally lacking in civilized decency. And how utterly unconcerned too were the many European nations which supported the Arabs in word and deed.

1948 War Aim of Arab Armies

The 1948 war aim of the six Arab armies was broadcast in advance and was certainly well known to the small Jewish community in Israel. Israelis already understood from the German example that genocide was a realizable objective. Many had been rescued from the death camps of Europe by the advancing allies.

Now, from the day of its birth, the new state of Israel faced a coalition of Arab nations which lusted for a walkover of killing, looting and rapine. Against Jews who had no army, no military culture for over 2,000 years. Extermination was to be the Arab punishment for Jewish temerity in accepting the United Nation`s resolution offering statehood to both Arabs and Jews.

“Like the Mongolian Massacres”

Azam Pasha, Arab League Secretary General, proudly proclaimed the war aim of the Arabs, May 15, 1948. (Quoted in “New Dimensions” Jan. ’91)

“This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the crusades.” (For additional relevant quotes see numbers 1 and 2 in Appendix below.)

The Arab threats were genuine enough to instill fear. So ***why didnt the 650,000 Jews of the newborn state of Israel flee?*** By sea. By air. On foot? Why didnt they hide in the hills, forests and caves? Why did they gird their loins to fight the invaders against overwhelming odds?

Arab Leaders Command Them to Get Out

The second reason for the flight of the Arabs was the call by their leaders to get out and allow the Arab armies to make short shrift of the Jews. This however, is still strongly denied by the Palestinians. To admit they fled voluntarily would have brought into question their attachment to Palestine. It would also have hurt their international strategy since they wanted to be seen as victims of Israel, not having been led up the garden path by their leaders.

Abu Mazen Tells Why Arabs Fled

Nevertheless, the historical record is replete with numerous references attesting the truth. Here is one from the then PLO Spokesman Mahmud Abbas (Abu Mazen) Falastin aThaura, (March 1976). (The same Abu Mazen who was elected President of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) January 9, 2005.)

“The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny but, instead, they abandoned them, forced them to emigrate and to leave their homeland, and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live.” (Additional relevant quotes are given in the Appendix below. See numbers 3 to 5.)

Why didn’t the Jews flee?

After 2,000 years of exile the Jews started returning home. Despite two millennia of persecution their nationhood and attachment to their homeland had remained intact. They were determined to hold on to their nascent state, achieved at last. The Arabs fled because, unlike the Jews, they had no genuine attachment to the land. The majority had entered as work seekers and were in any event merely returning to the welcome bosom of their compatriots in the surrounding Arab countries.

From time immemorial?

The spin given out by the Arabs was that they were one nation in their homeland ”˜from time immemorial. That having been “unfairly removed” from their ancient homeland, they were entitled to return. This is untrue on both accounts. Firstly because most had in fact illegally immigrated into Palestine ”“ and not all that long ago either. Secondly, as the evidence clearly shows, the ”˜refugees had left voluntarily, at the urging of their leaders. Moreover, when the war was over they made no immediate clamor to return.

The majority knew perfectly well they were not indigenous. That Palestine never was their ancient homeland. Moreover, many had fought with the pan-Arab military forces intending to exterminate the Jews. Those who made war for this purpose had no expectation of any right to return. That was to develop in later years when the Arabs understood the value of PR and indeed became highly successful in the art of spin.

Joan Peters Exposes Arab Demographic Fraud

In a 7 year monumental investigation, historian Joan Peters researched the origins of the Arab inhabitants of Palestine. To her surprise she discovered that they had not in fact been in Palestine ”˜from time immemorial`. She titled her book “From Time Immemorial”. [J.KAP Publishing, 1985 reprint.] She quoted an early statement by Churchill in 1939, that effectively challenged the false claim of the Arabs that they had been in Palestine for millennia.

“So far from being persecuted, the ARABS have CROWDED into the country till their population has INCREASED more than even all world Jewry could lift up the Jewish population.” (Palestine) (Emphasis mine. Additional relevant quotes are given in the Appendix below. Numbers 6 to 7.)

Did Palestine Arabs Speak So Many Foreign Languages?

Much evidentiary support for her conclusions came from the 1931 census. Peters noted that non-Jews in Palestine listed at least 24 different countries as their “birthplace”! And that 23 different languages were used by the Muslim community; 28 by Christian Arabs. So many foreign languages spoken by Arabs!

There was no secular education for Muslims in Palestine under Turkish rule. Study was mostly confined to the Koran, sages` commentaries, and Islamic writings ”“ in Arabic. If all the Arabs in Palestine had been there since time immemorial how come they spoke such a plethora of foreign languages!?

They Have No Right of Return

The Arabs had immigrated to Palestine in search of work. They fled Palestine because they had neither nationhood nor other attachment to a country the British named Palestine in 1917. When the Arab nations made war on the handful of Jews they confidently expected total victory. They were fixated on the extermination and expulsion of the Jews and on the confiscation of their individual and communal wealth.

The Arabs refer to their defeat by the handful of poorly armed Jews as their ”˜Naqba` (disaster). Their defeat has certainly not earned any of them the right to turn the clock back. They were the victims of their own making and they are entitled to the disappointment resulting from their well deserved defeat.

Their hatred of Israel and Israelis has been actively nurtured from the day they fled. Israel has no obligation to give them yet another opportunity to fulfill their murderous intent. They have no ”˜right of return`.

The Jews stayed and fought for their homeland, to which they were indeed attached from time immemorial. And to reclaim their birthright 2,000 years of exile. Only diaspora Jews who so wish have the right of return to their ancient Jewish homeland.

APPENDIX

Quotes: War aims

1. Citing Damascus radio, TIME (page 20, June 2, 1948) recorded Syria calling on all Arabs to “undertake the liberation battle that will tear the hearts from the bodies of the hateful Jews and trample them in the dust”.
2. “Our forces are now entirely ready not only to repulse the aggression, but to initiate the act of liberation itself, and to explode the Zionist presence in the Arab homeland. The Syrian army, with its finger on the trigger, is united….I, as a military man, believe that the time has come to enter into a battle of annihilation.” May 20, 1948. Syrian Defense Minister, Hafez Assad

Quotes: Leaders command Arabs to leave

1. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Said: “We will smash the country with our guns and obliterate every place the Jews seek shelter in. The Arabs should conduct their wives and children to safe areas until the fighting has died down.”
2. Edward Atiyah, Secretary of the Arab League Office in London, wrote in his book, The Arabs: “This wholesale exodus was due partly to the belief of the Arabs, encouraged by the boastings of an unrealistic Arabic press and the irresponsible utterances of some of the Arab leaders that it could be only a matter of weeks before the Jews were defeated by the armies of the Arab States and the Palestinian Arabs enabled to re¬enter and retake possession of their country.”
3. Habib Issa in the New York Lebanese paper, Al Hoda (June 8, 1951) quotes Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League: “He pointed out that they were already on the frontiers and that all the millions the Jews had spent on land and economic development would be easy booty, for it would be a simple matter to throw the Jews into the Mediterranean …. Brotherly advice was given to the Arabs of Palestine to leave their land, homes and property and to stay temporarily in neighboring fraternal states, lest the guns of the invading Arab armies mow them down.”

Quotes: Arab immigration into Palestine

1. Tewfik Bey El-Hurani, Governor of the Hauran said August 12, 1935, as published in “La Syrie”: “in the last few months from 30,000 to 36,000 Hauranese (Syrians) had ENTERED Palestine and SETTLED there”.

2. Massive Arab immigration from 1922 to 1936 into Palestine was confirmed by the British Governor of the Sinai, who observed that: “This illegal immigration was not only going on from SINAI, but also from Transjordan and Syria…..”

June 2, 2002

Whenever I see discredited liar, Saeb Erekat, given more airtime to expound the Palestinian “truth” about a so called Israeli calumny, I recall a particular CNN broadcast in April, during the height of the sound and fury which followed the alleged Jenin massacre.

There was Erekat telling the world that Israel had massacred over 500 innocent, defenseless Arabs. Grilled by CNNs disbelieving anchor Bill Hemmer, he didnt budge from this outrageous lie. Here is a quote from Honest Reporting which published a transcript:

Erekat`s “absolutely”

“ . . . when Palestinian spokesman Saeb Erekat claimed that 500 Palestinians were massacred in Jenin, (CNNs) Atlanta-based anchor Bill Hemmer demanded to see proof, and challenged him: ”˜If [Israel's] numbers are right and your initial numbers are wrong, will you come back here on our network and retract what you said? ” Erekat replied: “Absolutely.”

Relying on public`s short memory

That “absolutely” continues to ring in my mind. For of course Erekat did not come back to CNN to retract his evil lie. Despite his Ph.D. in Conflict Resolution and Peace Studies from Bradford University, Erekat is a consummate propagandist who never apologizes in public for lying. He relies on the public`s short memory to forget such details. And in general this seems to work very well for him.

So the apology promised to Bill Hemmer never happened. Palestinian propagandists never apologize for misleading both the news media and the public. They rely on our short memories. It doesn`t take all that long for the public to forget.

UN Reports ”˜No Evidence of Alleged Massacre`

Late in April the UN released its report on Israels military incursion into Jenin. It documented 52 Palestinian deaths (30 militants, 22 civilians, and 23 Israeli soldiers). It concluded there was no evidence whatever of a Palestinian massacre. (Israels figures were 52 killed (38 armed men, 14 civilians.)

As far as lying goes this 10 to 1 exaggeration was in a class all its own. The liars were the Palestinians and Erekat in the first instance; Prof. Derrick Pounder and Amnesty in the second – supported by the BBC. While CNN evinced disbelief in Erkats numbers, BBC went along dutifully. (By ”˜dutifully I wish to infer that where the Palestine-Israel conflict is concerned, BBC generally slants things the Palestinian way.)

Its not news that Palestinian propagandists dont apologize when caught out by their lies. Getting in first with lies brings them worthwhile PR rewards ”“ at the expense of Israel`s slow moving truth.

Peace talks with a liar?

Honest folk who make mistakes have no such problems. Apologies are offered at the earliest opportunity. Israel has demonstrated this, with suitable expressions of regret, when correct to do so.

To think that this accomplished liar will continue to represent the Palestinian Authority at peace negotiations is an affront to President Bush and to those in his coalition who are pressing for Palestinian regime change. Not the least to Israel which might be required to talk peace with him face to face.

Always ready to believe the worst of the Israelis.
And the best of the Palestinians.

Still in hot pursuit of the massacre that never was the BBC aired this “authoritative” scoop on April 18:

“A British forensic expert who has gained access to the West Bank city of Jenin says evidence points to a massacre by Israeli forces. BBC must get their dig in. Here they say “gains” access, as if he had to do this illegally or dangerously. (In the next sentence however, we find that Israel had granted him access.)

“Prof Derrick Pounder, who is part of an Amnesty International team granted access to Jenin, said he has seen bodies lying in the streets and received eyewitness accounts of civilian deaths.”

“The truth will come out” – Pounder”

The Dundee University expert said the Amnesty investigation has only just begun but Palestinian claims of a massacre were gaining foundation as the team continued its analysis. Pounder said: “The truth will come out, as it has come out in Bosnia and Kosovo, as it has in other places where we’ve had these kinds of allegations.” Prof. Pounder doesn`t hesitate to lay the truth on the side of the Palestinians. But Pounder lied, as it became clear when the UN counted the bodies.

The allegations are truthful, said Pounder

“ I must say that the evidence before us at the moment doesn’t lead us to believe that the allegations are anything other than truthful and that therefore there are large numbers of civilian dead underneath these bulldozed and bombed ruins that we see.”

“The Dundee University expert said the Amnesty investigation has only just begun but Palestinian claims of a massacre were gaining foundation as the team continued its analysis.” (My italics.) Amnesty`s report, quoting Derrick Pounder, its authoritative scientist, provided evidence ”“ not rumor – of a genuine massacre.

This can only mean that the number of bodies already counted should have been far more than Israels estimates of 50 to 56. As lying goes this one ”“ from a respected university scientist - was as bad as Erekats.

Where`s the apology?

Did BBC ever apologize for the daily Jenin blackening of Israel, until Israel`s truth was finally and undeniably confirmed? Nor did the malevolent, malice-aforethought Pounder apologize.

This pretentious expert must be required to apologize, publicly, for his blatant lie. Or be consigned by his university to a well-deserved oblivion. His continued employment as an Amnesty investigator is also untenable.

Has BBC learned a lesson they will never forget?

Thatll be the frosty Friday. The only lesson they learned was they can continue to quote lie after Palestinian lie with impunity. Sadly, the BBC would rather propagate Palestinian lies than Israels truth. Should you research the massacre that never was you will be sickened by the plethora of plainly anti-Semitic reports that played out in British media.

The BBC may not be aware of it but the fact is it is helping to spread anti-Semitism not only in the UK but throughout the world.

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The Spectator May 25, 2002

Would I, asked the BBC researcher who called from Radio Five Live last week, be available to appear on the Nicky Campbell programme the following morning?

“It should be very interesting,” she said, warming to her sales pitch. “We want to discuss whether Israel is a morally repugnant society.”

Thanks, but no thanks.”

“You sure?” she asked, disbelief mingled with impatience.

“Absolutely positive. Absolutely,” I replied, to avoid any possible confusion.

A moment`s silence, then icily, “OK,” and the line went dead.

The BBC, in my experience, has always been critical of Israel. At times, its coverage has made me feel somewhat queasy; on occasion, I have thought it downright unfair. But, as an Israeli and a journalist, I have defended its right to take a critical view of Israel, even an extremely critical one. After all, no one could accuse the Israeli media of being tame. And besides, I have always subscribed to the cock-up rather than to the conspiracy theory when it came to BBC coverage of the Middle East.

I argued that the Arab-Israeli conflict, anchored in a heady mixture of religious, territorial, political, social, economic and historical issues, presented an eye-crossing challenge to even the reasonably well-informed observer, let alone to the neophyte from London intent on establishing a reputation in one of the world`s media hotspots.

All that changed on 11 September. Even as the Twin Towers came crashing down, the BBC was interviewing Arab studio analysts who solemnly intoned that it was racist to assume that Arabs or even Muslims were responsible. More likely, they said, it was Mossad, because such an event “played into Israeli hands”.

But, even if Arabs and Muslims had flown those planes, they said, was it not obvious that America itself was the real culprit? After all, it was America that was pursuing a pro-Israel foreign policy, dictated by the Jewish lobby; it was America that was ignoring the occupation and turning a blind eye to the settlements; it was America that was contemptuous of Arab sensibilities. Could anyone blame the Arabs for wanting to vent their humiliation, frustration and rage at this one-sided American foreign policy?

Apparently not. At least not at the BBC, which could not get enough of it. As I followed events, I felt increasingly as though the rest of the world, or at least that part of it which was inhabited by the BBC, had gone stark, staring mad. Disbelief, it seemed, was suspended at Television Centre as logic was turned on its head and victim became perpetrator. But far more shocking than the repeated ventilation of these bizarre views was the fact that they went virtually unchallenged by the BBC¹s usually robust interviewers.

Forget the apparently inconsequential fact that Israel only a few months earlier had offered to disgorge 97 per cent of the West Bank, grant the Palestinians a share in Jerusalem, permit a limited return of the refugees and recognise an independent Palestinian state (which no previous ruler in the area had ever done). Forget all that. In the Newspeak of the BBC, there was a direct, causal link between the attack on America and the occupation of the West Bank.

Did the BBC, which reaches into virtually every British living-room, take a conscious policy decision to allow this arrant nonsense to become an established fact on its airwaves? I doubt it. Rather, I believe that the profound anti-Israel bias [and now I am convinced that it does exist] has, over the years, become ingrained in the BBC’s corporate culture. Combine that with a massive dose of anti-Americanism and you have a combustible cocktail.

It is outside the range of my expertise to explain the behaviour of the BBC in this matter. On the face of it, one might have expected a respected British institution to feel a sense of affinity with Israel, a Western, democratic state that shares common values, ideals and aspirations in a region where antidemocratic, despotic and corrupt regimes are the norm.

Perhaps a clinical psychiatrist could offer a cogent explanation of the causes and consequences of the BBC`s extraordinary conduct. Or perhaps the answer is far simpler: a reflex reaction of the grown-up, new-Left radicals from the Sixties who now occupy executive positions in the great offices of state.

Could such a collective mindset, permeated with post-colonial guilt, have animated the director-general Greg Dyke to declare that the BBC was “hideously white”? Could it have animated the Foreign Office minister Peter Hain to advocate, in a previous incarnation, the violent destruction of Israel and label Israelis “greedy oppressors”?

If there is a disparity between the time given to Arab and Israeli commentators on the BBC, I must take some of the blame. Over the past five years or so, I have been a frequent commentator on Middle East affairs. Since 11 September, however, I have refused all invitations to appear on BBC radio or television. The reason is not that I wish to avoid a debate, but rather that I believe that the BBC has crossed a dangerous threshold.

In my judgment, the volume and intensity of this unchallenged diatribe has now transcended mere criticism of Israel. Hatred is in the air. Wittingly or not, I am convinced that the BBC has become the principal agent for reinfecting British society with the virus of anti-Semitism. And that is a game I am not willing to play, even if, as one BBC researcher recently assured me, my interview fee far exceeded that of my Arab opposite numbers (an outrageously racist point that I, a third-generation refugee and an exile from apartheid South Africa, found difficult to appreciate fully).

I am neither an apologist for the Israeli government nor a defender of its policies. I have been perfectly capable of taking a critical view of Israel when appearing on the BBC, whether it was the Israel of Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, Binyamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak or Ariel Sharon. And I am not afraid of informed criticism from others. On the contrary, I believe that criticism is essential to the health of the democratic process (although I was always perplexed that Arab guests were treated with a kind of paternalism that never permitted hard questions).

I have a problem with the BBC’s propensity to select and spin the news in order to reduce a highly complex conflict to a monochromatic, single-dimensional comic cut-out, whose well-worn script features a relentlessly brutal, demonically evil Ariel Sharon and a plucky, bumbling, misunderstood Yasser Arafat, the benign Father of Palestine in need of a little TLC (plus $50 million a month) from the West.

But it was not just the lamentable standards of journalism. I parted company with the BBC over its hysterical advocacy of the most extreme Palestinian positions; an advocacy that has now transmogrified into a distorting hatred of a criminal Israel and, by extension, into a burgeoning hatred of Jews closer to home.

It is astonishing that little more than half a century after the Holocaust, the BBC, guardian of liberalism and political correctness, should provide the fertile seedbed for the return of ‘respectable’ anti-Semitism that finds expression not only in the smart salons of London but also, according to the experts who monitor such phenomena, across the entire political spectrum, uniting the far-Left with the Centre and far-Right.

It is astonishing, too, though perhaps no longer so surprising, that the Oxford poet Tom Paulin should continue to star on the BBC Newsnight¹s Late Review, despite his clarion call, published in the Cairo-based al-Ahram, to kill Jewish settlers. One can only guess at the BBC¹s reaction if his remarks had been directed at Bradford Asians rather than at Israeli Jews.

I still receive a couple of calls a week from producers and researchers at the BBC, but they should know by now that I am no longer a candidate to make up the numbers in order to allow them to justify the injection of yet more poison into the national bloodstream.

Nor, as Nicky Campbell¹s researcher so sweetly asked, am I prepared to defend the legitimacy of Israel’s existence, and, effectively, the legitimacy of my own existence as an Israeli and as a Jew. To that I say, “Get stuffed.” {} {} {}

Douglas Davis is the London correspondent of the Jerusalem Post. Copyright The Spectator, 2002

May 1, 2002

Last Saturday Palestinian terrorists entered the Israeli village of Adora on the West Bank killing four, including a child, and wounding seven others. The wounded were the lucky ones. The bullets that hit them were intended to kill.

None of the networks nor media journalists were at Adora in person to report the news when it happened. They had to rely on Israeli sources to convey the news to them.

”˜Mechablim` are terrorists

Israeli sources have only one word to describe Palestinians who carried out the bloodbath. That word in Hebrew is “mechablim” and it`s denotation is terrorists. Not gunmen. Not militants. Not activists. Not any other euphemism preferred by pro-Palestinian journalists and reporters.

But here`s how CNN reported this breaking news item:

“The Israeli army is searching for Palestinian gunmen who infiltrated the Jewish settlement of Adora near the West Bank town of Hebron, killing at least four Israeli settlers in their homes, including a 5-year-old girl, an army spokesman said.”

CNN did not tell the truth

Why did CNN use ”˜gunmeninstead of ”˜terrorists which the Army spokesman used? The only explanation can be CNN policy which forbids its editors, journalists and anchors to apply the word “terrorists” to Palestinian murderers, trained, indoctrinated and financed to kill Jews. How come altering the words of the Israel Defense Force`s spokesman does not trouble CNN professionals?

CNN demonstrates its prejudice even further in telling their audience that it was the Israel Army which specifically used the word ”˜gunmen`. This is an absolute lie, an outrage.

BBC did not tell the truth

BBC also changes the key words of the Army spokesman, thus: “The Israeli army says four people, including a young child, have been killed by Palestinian gunmen . . .” No sir, the Israel Army called them terrorists, you called them ”˜gunmen`!

SKY did not tell the truth

SKY was hardly different: “Four people have been killed after Palestinian gunmen attacked an Israeli settlement in the West Bank.”

It might be suggested that there`s not much difference between the one word and the other. But if that were true why should these networks deliberately avoid using the terrorist word? Why did they not repeat the word supplied by their source? By what right did they alter it?

The networks` dilemma

I believe there`s a good reason these networks dare not describe the killers as terrorists. For if you are committed to the Palestinian cause how can you, in all good conscience, label them as terrorists? And still continue to support them? That is their dilemma. Their solution, regretfully, is to falsify the news.

It`s hard to believe CNN, BBC and SKY want to be known as terrorist supporters. Yet ironically, by not labeling the murderers for what they truly are ”“ terrorists ”“ they do in fact support them.

Terrorist organizations claim responsibility

Let`s also remember that the terrorist organization involved in the killing of the Adora civilians will claim credit for having organized the death and maiming of their Israeli targets. Frequently the organization in question is one of the 9 listed by the US Department of State as a Palestinian terrorist organization.

Arafat calls them terrorists

Even if responsibility is claimed by a new, hitherto unknown organization, terrorists, not gunmen, carried out the attack at Adora. Thats by Arafats own definition. Here`s his specific quote from his full-page declaration published in the New York Times early in the year:

“But first, let me be very clear. I condemn the attacks carried out by terrorist groups against Israeli civilians. These groups do not represent the Palestinian people or their legitimate aspirations for freedom. They are terrorist organizations, and I am determined to put an end to their activities.”

Britain calls them terrorists

Britain`s Terrorism Act 2000 defines terrorism as:

“. . . the use or threat of action where

· the use or threat is designed to influence the government or to intimidate the public or a section of the public . . .

· the use or threat is made for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause.

· The use or threat of action . . . which involves the use of firearms or explosives is terrorism . . .

http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00011–b.htm#1

The US calls them terrorists

The US State Department defined terrorism in 1983:

“The term “terrorism” means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience. The term “terrorist group” means any group practicing, or that has significant subgroups that practice, international terrorism. http://www.history.navy.mil/library/guides/terrorism.htm#definition

The EU will call them terrorists. Finally, the EU is developing a list of Designated Foreign Terrorist Groups. The EU has proposed that the Palestinian terrorist groups already proscribed by the US Department of State, should be incorporated into its own list. However, the EU has not yet adopted a commonly agreed definition of terrorism. Appeasers in the EU may yet succeed in postponing a decision. For how long?

So there you have it. Israel, Britain, the US State Department, Arafat (and perhaps the EU too) favor calling a spade a terrorist.

But CNN, BBC and SKY are all for calling a terrorist a gunman.

The winners in this public relations debate are those nice guys, the Palestinian murderers. Israeli victims are the losers. Because Palestinian lies are far trump the truth when strengthened by such powerful, prejudiced, networks.

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