A cursory look at the British newspapers brings home the fact that the European press in general looks at the Middle East conflict with different glasses than most of the press across the Atlantic in the US. A recent commentary by the respected English journalist Robert Fisk in the Daily Independent points out how most Western journalists succumb to Israeli propaganda when covering the ongoing bloody conflict in the Middle East.
He draws a rather interesting parallel between the treatment of the Palestinians at the hands of Israelis and the atrocities committed by the white South African government against its black population. In case of South Africa the press called it as it saw it. In case of Middle East it is highly selective. The white South African leaders were called racists but the Israeli leaders are called ‘hard line warriors’. When the South African police gunned down 56 blacks in Sharpeville, it was called cold-blooded brutal murder and not ‘security crack down’. When the South Africans police killed black children the press did not call it ‘child sacrifice by the parents’ as it so shamelessly accused the Palestinian parents of doing. And did anybody call upon the ‘terrorists’ African national Congress leadership to ‘control their own people’ as the Palestinian leaders are being asked to do?
Why this journalistic dishonesty? Why does the same press while eagerly exposing human rights violations and atrocities elsewhere in the world and at home is either silent or blatantly biased when it comes to the Palestinians?
Because the journalists (and just about every one else) are scared out of their wits to be tarred with the all too convenient brush of anti-Semitism. Any criticism of the Jewish State, no matter how mild, fair or appropriate, is labeled anti-Semitic.
Earlier this year the Swedish president of the European Union mildly criticized Israel for selective killing of Palestinians and called it an obstacle to peace that could provoke new violence. She was accused of encouraging ‘anti Jewish violence’. In a letter to the Swedish Prime Minister the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Paris compared her criticism of Israel to the allied argument during the Second World War that bombing the railways leading to Auschwitz would encourage anti-Semitism among the Germans. The letter went on to say that Sweden was making a unilateral attack against the state of the survivors of the Holocaust.
Or take the failed Camp David II and its aftermath. It was said that the Palestinians brought the current misery upon themselves by rejecting a generous offer by Israel. Hidden behind the ‘magnanimity’ of Israel was the cold fact that the Palestinians were offered less than 21% of their land minus the sovereignty over their holy places. What choice did the Palestinians have but to reject a truncated and moth eaten state that is pocked with the ever-proliferating Jewish settlements?
Ariel Sharon is now being projected as a later day Charles de Gaulle. Conveniently forgotten is his long and consistent record of total opposition to any peace with the Arabs. For the record he opposed peace with Egypt in 1979, voted against the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon in 1985 and opposed the Madrid Peace Conference in 1991. He took the same stand against the Oslo Agreement in 1993, the peace with Jordan in 1994 and the Hebron agreement in 1997. Last year he condemned Israeli withdrawal from South Lebanon. And wasn’t he the one who as Israel’s defense minister allowed the massacre of Palestinians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatiala in 1882?
A later day De Gaulle? It takes a lot of imagination to put up with such a ridiculous comparison. Charles De Gaulle had the foresight to see the folly of the French policy in Algeria and withdrew. Given his rather checkered record can we expect the same from Ariel Sharon? I don’t think so. Instead he is poised, in total violation of international law and the stated policy of Israel’s main benefactor the US, to spend $400 million for additional settlements on the Palestinian land.
It is interesting that the Israeli public opinion is also turning against the hard line policies of their present government. According to a recent editorial in the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot, most Israelis in contrast to their Prime Minister support a freeze on Jewish settlements. A decisive majority also supports diplomatic activity and just not military pressure. They see Yasir Arafat as a partner (for negotiations and peace) and want to accept Jordanian-Egyptian proposal for ending the violence.
While the spin maestros in Tel Aviv try to put on a kinder gentler mask on the brutal face of Israel, most journalists are all too happy to report what they are told. It takes the likes of Robert Fisk and a handful of other journalists to question the imaginary splendid robes of the emperor. The emperor has no clothes.