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Subject: Fighting the media
From: "Leon B." <leon@anon.lcs.mit.edu>
Date: 2000/10/22
Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20001022172304.0091caa0@anon.lcs.mit.edu>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.europe
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Fighting for the best angle
By Gil Hoffman

(October 20) - As Israel and the Palestinians

each try to make their cases to the world, Gil
Hoffman examines how the international media has
become a crucial battleground in the conflict

CNN Bureau Chief Mike Hanna is a veteran
journalist who knows what it's like to report
under fire. But these past few weeks he has had
to do his job while facing a barrage of a
different kind.

While Israeli security forces and Palestinians
engage in battles on the streets of the West Bank
and Gaza, both sides grapple simultaneously for
control of international public opinion on the
airwaves of CNN, the BBC, and other media outlets
- a battleground considered no less important.

Hanna says he has received hundreds of e-mails,
letters and faxes from people on both sides of
the conflict, plus a formal complaint from the
Foreign Ministry. The ministry complained, both
here and through its consulate in Atlanta, that
Israel is not being given equal time and is being
portrayed as an aggressor. The complaint singled
out the reporting of two Palestinian CNN
stringers in Gaza, who had used the word 'we'
when covering the Arab uprising.

"We're not asking that CNN become an agent of the
Israeli government," says Gideon Meir, the
ministry's deputy director-general for public
affairs. "What we are asking from this important
media organization is honesty and even-
handedness. Right now we don't see it."

Hanna responded that "the network has attempted
to be as fair and comprehensive as possible,
covering both sides and giving as wide a spectrum
of opinion as possible. CNN constantly monitors
the balance of people interviewed."

For Hanna, the conflict is business as usual, and
not a "media war," as it has been called by both
Israelis and Palestinians.

"The media is not fighting any wars, honestly,
just reporting the facts on the ground," he says.
"In general, we have been doing a pretty fine job
under very difficult circumstances. The emotions
involved in the situation on all sides are
intense, and people are far more sensitive then
they are at other times."

THE CNN complaint is part of a new proactive
approach being taken by a government that had
been lax in its media outreach efforts since
taking office nearly a year and a half ago.
During the course of over a year, the Foreign
Press Association complained that Prime Minister
Ehud Barak had failed to meet with them and had
not appointed a spokesman willing to be
interviewed on camera in English.

Israel finally began its own serious media effort
two weeks ago, setting up a press center at the
Isrotel in Jerusalem and appointing Science,
Culture and Sports Ministry Director-General
Nahman Shai to coordinate the information efforts
of the Foreign Ministry, the IDF, the police, the
Government Press Office and the Prime Minister's
Office.

What changed the government's attitude, according
to Shai, was the footage broadcast around the
world of 12-year-old Mohammed Aldura being killed
in the crossfire in Gaza as his father tried to
protect him. That public relations nightmare
ruined the good reputation Barak had been
building up for months, and necessitated the
appointment of Shai and a team of spokesmen to
explain Israel's position in the conflict.

In naming Shai, Barak not only chose a man
respected in Israel for the calming effect he had
on the nation as the IDF spokesman during the
Gulf War. He also brought back a figure from the
last conflict in which Israel was portrayed
favorably in the international media.

Shai says the media has a tendency to side with
the underdog in any conflict. This, he adds, gave
Israel an advantage in the Gulf War when it was
fired upon, but puts Israel at a disadvantage in
this conflict, in which its strength is superior.

"It is a universal law that you can never win a
media war when you are stronger militarily and
are winning on the ground," says Col. (Res.)
Ra'anan Gissin, a 20-year veteran of the IDF's
spokesman and strategic planning offices, who was
called in to assist the IDF information
("hasbara" in Hebrew) effort with his mother-
tongue English.

"A media war is always a war of the weak. If
you're not weak, all you can do is damage
control," Gissin explains.

Hanna confirmed that the difference in power
between Israel and the Palestinians is emphasized
on CNN, saying, "There is a difference between a
crowd with stones and Israeli firepower. The
reality of the images - tanks, helicopters -
raises the profile of the conflict to a totally
different level."

Gissin says the government is making an effort to
minimize the damage by feeding the media
constantly with Israel's side of the story and
inviting them to join Israeli troops on patrols
to see what soldiers have to deal with.

During the Sharm e-Sheikh summit, Shai and other
spokesmen wandered the Movenpick Hotel in search
of bored reporters. They distributed five-minute
cassette tapes with images of the Ramallah lynch
of two Israeli soldiers and of Palestinian
children learning how to handle weapons at
Islamic Jihad training camps, plus packets with
resumes of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists
freed from prison by Palestinian Authority
Chairman Yasser Arafat.

"The Palestinians can't beat us on the
battlefield, but they can win the media war by
creating pictures that put pressure on us,"
Gissin says. "That's why we made sure to beat
them at their own game and exploit their mistake
by making sure the world saw the lynchings in
Ramallah."

FOR Shai, the gruesome images of the brutal
lynching and mutilation of two reserve soldiers
by a mob of Palestinian rioters were key in the
government's effort to take the upper hand in the
media war.

"I'm not sure there's a way to win this war, but
we are doing better than before and we are
getting closer to balance with the Palestinians -
which is an achievement," asserts Shai after an
Isrotel briefing this week. "The old pictures of
the boy are still seen, but with new images of
the lynching and of the funeral of [Hillel]
Lieberman," the American-born rabbi murdered on
his way to save Torah scrolls from being burned
at Joseph's Tomb, which was destroyed by
Palestinians after the IDF withdrew.

Shai defends the government's decision to pursue
a video of the lynchings shot by an Italian
cameraman and make it available to the foreign
press. After other reporters had their tapes
confiscated by Palestinian police or rioters, the
government was ready to offer a large sum of
money for the video. The station made the tape
available for free only after the cameraman had
left the country out of fear of a Palestinian
reprisal.

(This week another Italian TV correspondent,
Riccardo Cristiano, lost both his GPO press card
and his Jerusalem posting after sending a letter
to the Gaza daily Al-Hayat al-Jadida in which he
denied that the film had been shot by his own
station and also declared himself committed to
"the journalistic procedures [of] the Palestinian
Authority.")

"We discussed it with Barak, and he said to make
sure the story [of the lynchings] would be
known," Shai says. "Not that I'm in favor of
putting such pictures on TV, but we at least
wanted there to be an option... There are no more
sacred cows in the [media] war."

Presiding over a briefing room packed with a mix
of battle-hardened veteran Middle East
correspondents, uninformed and confused recent
arrivals, and cynical Israeli journalists, Shai
projects the same reassuring air of confidence
that made him a national hero during the Gulf
War.

However, his heavy Israeli accent and less-than-
perfect command of English are a stumbling block
preventing him from adequately giving the press
required information. Reporters mocked Shai for
consistently mispronouncing the word
"hostilities" and for saying that missing
businessman Elhanan Tannenbaum had "disappeared
at his own initiative."

One factor differentiating the current situation
from previous conflicts is the constant coverage
of CNN, the BBC, and electronic media; they are
especially hungry for non-stop updates with new
information and pictures.

According to Shai, the faster news cycle
influenced the government's efforts to achieve
maximum coverage of the lynchings before it
undertook reprisal attacks against PA facilities
in Ramallah and Gaza.

"We didn't have time to wait a day, when the
media moves on to another matter in minutes,"
Shai says. "This is a TV war, and TV dictates."

Foreign Ministry Spokesman Aviv Shir-On says the
accelerated pace of media coverage puts Israel at
a disadvantage, because reporters have less time
to learn the facts. Israel receives better
treatment in print media than on television, he
says, because the extra time allows the reporters
to better examine a situation and learn the
facts.

Video also does not make it clear when the IDF is
taking precautionary actions, like shooting
rubber bullets and using tear gas grenades.

Shir-On agrees with Shai that the media has
changed its coverage in Israel's favor since the
first days of the clashes.

In explaining the turnaround, he cites four main
Palestinian mistakes: pictures of Palestinian
police and Tanzim shooting at Israeli troops,
which corrected impressions that while Israel
shoots, the Palestinians merely throw stones; the
destruction of Joseph's Tomb; the burning of the
Shalom Al Yisrael synagogue in Jericho; and the
lynchings.

DESPITE the good intentions of Barak and Shai,
Immigration Absorption Minister Yael (Yuli) Tamir
this week accused her own government of "failing
in the press war" and not making enough of an
effort to defend its policies, especially in the
US.

Tamir, who recently returned from three days in
New York, says she was "horrified" watching
coverage of the conflict there. She called upon
Acting Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami to recall
New York Consul-General Shmuel Sisso, whom she
blames for not properly coordinating her visit
and for not fighting for time in New York-based
media.

Also nearly invisible on the American airwaves is
camera-shy Ambassador to the US David Ivry.

"Everyone says this is a press war. We have a
legitimate point of view to present, but we are
losing because we are barely making an effort to
get the message out," Tamir says.

While various officials and aides have been sent
to the US for three-day shifts, Tamir recommends
appointing a spokesman to run Israel's US
information effortas it did here with Shai.

The minister praised Israeli and Jewish leaders
living abroad for defending Israeli policy in the
absence of government representatives, including
David Makovsky, a former Jerusalem Post executive
editor and a senior fellow at the Washington
Institute for Near East Policy who frequently
appears on ABC's Nightline and PBS' NewsHour with
Jim Lehrer.

Makovsky confirmed that "there has been an
absence of an Israeli voice" in coverage from the
US, which he says is due in part to a tendency on
the part of the government to think that with
today's global communications it can handle the
American media from Jerusalem.

ADL National Director Abe Foxman says the
government has succeeded in getting its best
spokesman, Barak himself, on the most crucial
American news shows. But he criticizes Deputy
Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh, Jerusalem Mayor
Ehud Olmert and Meretz MK Naomi Chazan for
participating in a controversial ABC Nightline
broadcast from east Jerusalem last week that he
says made Israel look bad.

Foxman says that Sneh - often criticized for
appearing on many American TV programs even
though his English is far from fluent - is
"honest and sincere," but that he could not have
made Israel look good on that broadcast "even if
he spoke the Queen's English."

Regarding politicians who attempt to represent
Israel to the foreign press despite poor English,
Shir-On says, "Many public figureshere think they
can convey a message, when in reality, they are
the only ones who think so." Problems like this,
he says, are beyond the Foreign Ministry's
control.

Likud MK Uzi Landau says the government has
failed with the foreign press, primarily because
"it does not have a policy to explain. After
years of the government presenting Arafat as a
peace partner and attempting to hide Palestinian
incitement against Israel, it is not sufficiently
prepared to criticize the Palestinians."

Landau criticizes Barak for having no information
mechanism until Shai's appointment, which was too
late. He believes the government should continue
to maintain its new information system after the
conflict is over.

That would be helpful for the Foreign Press
Association, whose chairman, Reuters Deputy
Bureau Chief Howard Goller, says "the Prime
Minister's Office has suddenly woken up to the
fact that there are nearly 300 media here, hungry
for information, day in and day out.

While Goller represents only the reporters
stationed here year-round, Shai's office
estimates that the number of foreign press
covering the conflict has reached over one
thousand.

Goller says the treatment of the foreign press
has improved in recent weeks because of the
appointment of English-speaking Ben-Ami in place
of David Levy, and the hiring of the efficient
David Baker as the Prime Minister's Office's
foreign press coordinator. But until Shai was
named, no one was regularly available to answer
questions for the government in English, as David
Bar-Illan did during the Netanyahu
administration.

"Shai's appointment was a necessity because the
Prime Minister's Office did not have the
infrastructure for dealing with the foreign media
on a regular basis," Goller says. "This is a
situation we would have liked all along, before
it became an emergency."

Shai acknowledged the criticisms, saying that he
"jumped into the cold water" of his new post at
Barak's request and that since then, the
government's information effort has become
organized and improved.

"Maybe next time, if someone is already in
charge, he will be appointed in advance. We had
to build a whole operation from scratch, but now
we are ready," Shai says.

Dismissing allegations that Barak waited too long
to hire someone to run the information campaign,
Shai sighs, "I don't know what too long is, but
it does look like it's going to be a long
campaign."

LANDAU reserves most of the blame for what he
considers slanted international coverage with the
government, because he says it does not
adequately explain its position when it is given
a chance. But he also is convinced that both CNN
and the BBC have a "clear anti-Jewish bias."

For Andrea Levin, head of the Boston-based
Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting
in America (Camera), reporting bias is her
business - and when it comes to the current
conflict, she sees lots of it.

Levin says the main problem with the coverage is
the failure to mention the long pattern of
Palestinian incitement that puts the conflict in
context. Instead of dating the start of the
conflict from the time of the visit of Likud
leader Ariel Sharon, which was coordinated in
advance with Palestinian security chief Jibril
Rajoub, her organization says the intense
violence between Israelis and Palestinians didn't
start until the next day, when Moslems were
falsely told that the Jews wanted to tear down
al-Aksa mosque.

The unreported sermon on the Temple Mount that
day called on Palestinians to "eradicate the Jews
from Palestine."

Camera accuses the media of falsely accusing
Israel of using excessive force.

"Contrary to most reports, the Israelis are using
notable restraint," Camera's website says. "When
at all possible [soldiers] shoot in the air, then
use tear gas; if that doesn't work they use
rubber bullets and try to shoot at the legs. When
all else fails, they use live ammunition, but
still do not aim to kill."

Levin also accuses the media of not reporting the
Israeli warnings to Palestinians to leave
targeted buildings in Ramallah and Gaza that
minimized casualties, or the release of Hamas
murderers from PA jails.

Camera's counterpart is the American-Arab Anti-
Discrimination Committee, the largest Arab-
American organization. Its communications
director, Hussein Ibish, agrees with Levin that
the coverage has been "horrendous" and "wretched
beyond our wildest imagination" - but he believes
the bias is in favor of Israel.

The major media sin, according to Ibish, is
"describing the territories as if there were no
occupation and no requirement by international
law for Israel to withdraw from the territories."

"The American press is in an Alice in Wonderland
world where the whole conflict is a neighborhood
dispute and not a military occupation, and the
territories are a weird and vile neighborhood in
Israel that is full of insane people," Ibish
says.

Ibish sees a tendency in the Western media to
humanize Israeli victims of atrocities, because
they are Western, while disregarding the stories
behind the deaths of non-Western Palestinians.
The case of Mohammed Aldura, Ibish says, is the
exception that proves the rule, because he was
humanized by the media worldwide.

"Newspaper editorials have written that the
Palestinians deliberately send children to be
killed in an effort to win world sympathy," Ibish
says. "A lot of the commentators have said the
reason for the conflict is that all Arabs want to
kill all Jews, that the point of the conflict is
genocidal antisemitism by crazed Arabs who want
all Jews dead. They have portrayed the
Palestinians as lashing out for no discernible
reason at a government that wants to give them
everything they can possibly hope for."

Like Nahman Shai, Ibish sees the conflict as a
media battle. But according to him, the Sharon
visit gave the Palestinians an advantage, which
continued when Israelis were seen shooting at
demonstrators. Ibish calls the image of Aldura's
death "one of the most damaging in the history of
Zionism."

However, much groundwas lost by the lynching of
the IDF reserve soldiers, which Ibish says was a
tremendous blunder that undid a great deal of the
Palestinian momentum.

MAKOVSKY, who directs the Washington Institute's
Project on America, Israel and the Peace Process,
says that the issue of media bias is not as black
and white as often portrayed in Israel.

"Arafat is taking it on the chin here [in the
US], because people take the conflict beyond the
images," Makovsky says. "The issue is much more
complicated than a couple of visual bytes. So
long as Arafat doesn't stop the violence, the
silence is deafening."

Makovsky cites a recent CNN poll that showed 44
percent of Americans say they identify with the
Israelis, and only 11% with the Palestinians.
Those figures are reflected on the op-ed pages of
America's newspapers, where most editorials and
columns run in Israel's favor.

Foxman also says that with the exception of the
BBC, he does not think the media is biased. "The
press is not the enemy of Israel," he says.

Even Levin says that there has been an effort
recently to greater understand Israel's
predicament and a lot of thoughtful analysis by
editorial boards that reflect a growing awareness
of what is happening. But she spares no criticism
for the BBC.

Ibish, meanwhile, says the BBC has done a
credible job of trying to be fair.

Along with its efforts against CNN, the
government has sent complaints to the main office
of the BBC in London. Regional Cooperation
Minister Shimon Peres went to London to meet with
the head of the BBC news division.

BBC's Jerusalem Bureau Editor Sarah Beck said
that throughout the conflict, the reporters in
her bureau have "just been doing their job,
broadcasting as objectively and accurately as
possible. We have tried to put on both points of
view as evenly as possible, which is reflected by
the fact that the BBC receives criticism and
praise on both sides."

Northwestern University Medill School of
Journalism Professor Richard Schwarzlose teaches
his students how to evaluate bias in the media in
his History and Issues in Journalism course.

In his own evaluation of the American press
during the conflict, Schwarzlose found the
coverage fairly balanced.

"When it comes to coverage, it is Arafat and the
Palestinians who have been getting the bad press,
because he is seen as the one balking, who can't
control his people," Schwarzlose says. "The boy
and his father made the press pro-Palestinian,
then the Ramallah murders were given prominent
coverage, especially with Israel seen as the
natural ally of the US. But in general, the
coverage has been very fair."

Which means that although Israel may have the
military might to prevail on the battlefields of
the West Bank and Gaza, it is far less certain
whether it will ultimately win the war being
fought on the media battleground.