• Explore how the news media so often gets the Israel narrative wrong, and provide specific examples.
• Explore the implications of media distortions.
• Give reasons for their occurrence.
• Provide guidance and resources for actions that can be taken.
• Give background information that can be used in making Israel’s case.

It is designed for use by teachers in a crucial area where little guidance is available.

The treatment of Jews has always been an indication of the moral condition of the world. And, as we have experienced only 60 years ago, propaganda (lashon hora) facilitated the Holocaust. Thus, we need to take seriously anything in the media that facilitates widespread scapegoating of the Jewish State and weakening of support for Israel.

By employing critical analysis, bringing out the facts, and taking action, educators and students can make a significant contribution to fair reporting about Israel. And this pursuit of truth can be an incomperable lesson for Jewish students, as well as a significant step toward peace and moderation.

For the fourteen months proceeding and the months following the 9/11 radical Muslim terrorist attacks on the United States, Israel has been under stepped up terrorist and verbal attacks by the Palestinian authority. The trigger was Yasir Arafat’s July 2000 walkout from Camp David and choice of violence and demonization over negotiations and peace. Palestinian calls for jihad have spread throughout the Arab/Muslim world, culminating in the verbal lynching of Israel at the August/September 2001 UN-sponsored Conference Against Racism, held in Durban, South Africa, and a jump in anti-Semitic incidents in Western countries. Israel has been attacked for its “occupation” of and “aggression” against Palestinian Arabs in full-page ads in major US media and by well-organized Arab and Muslim groups on university campuses. Our youth are ill equipped to respond and our community has been slow in making Israel’s case.

Important points to be made include:

1. As the result of Israel’s compliance with Oslo, over 96% of Palestinian Arabs live under their own rule.
2. Palestinian Arab terrorism is the reason for Israeli checkpoints.
3. It was Arab, not Israeli, aggression leading to Israel’s defensive Six Day War that is the source of the “occupation.” (i.e., Egypt declared war by closing the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, moving their army to Israel’s border, and making public threats; Jordan declared war by attacking Western Jerusalem; and Syria, by years of shelling of Israeli villages.)

The 9/11 terror attack exacerbated the situation, as the Arab/Muslim coalition assembled to fight anti-US terrorism, pressured the US Administration into placing restraints on Israel’s war against terrorism. But, the heavy loss of Israeli lives from Palestinian terrorist attacks at the beginning of December 2001 convinced the Bush Administration to give Israel a freer hand to fight back.

Compounding the problem has been widespread misreporting of the news in the media. This past year’s Palestinian Arab terrorism against civilians and Israel’s defensive responses are almost always mis-portrayed as a “cycle of violence,” while deadly Palestinian Authority incitement and anti-Semitism are rarely covered. Such false symmetries and omissions, and other distortions, can influence public policy and contribute to the dangers Israel and the US face from Arab/Muslim terrorism.

Arafat’s public abandonment of Oslo was a rude awakening for most in the West. The Peace Process was turned into an almost religious pursuit, masking seven years of wholesale Palestinian noncompliance, while Israel provided autonomy, land, weapons, and money.

In retrospect, not only did Arafat not reciprocate, but he also used the machinery of the Palestinian Authority, set up for peace, instead to preach, teach, and make war. While Israel was implementing a Shalom curriculum in schools, the Palestinian Authority was teaching hatred of Israel. TV production facilities donated for peace used Sesame Street techniques to brainwash Palestinian children into becoming suicide bombers. Summer camps taught terrorism. The intended results were Palestinian suicide bombings and terrorist attacks, moving in a crescendo to the present carnage. The media significantly downplayed these seven years of Palestinian noncompliance.

Israel regularly is demonized for “mistreatment” of the Palestinian Arabs, and indeed does bear some responsibility. Ironically, by far the greatest damage done to the Palestinian people has and continues to come from their own leadership and from Arab states, a point that is rarely mentioned.

Yasir Arafat’s choice of violence over negotiation at Camp David in July 2000 not only has led to the murder of many Israelis and Israel’s Durban lynching, but also to the deaths of even more Palestinians and the economic deprivation of the Palestinian Arabs. Arafat’s intransigence is similar to that of his predecessor’s, the Nazi collaborator, Mufti Haj Amin el Husseini. In the decades of the 1920’s, 1930’s, and 1940’s, he also pursued terrorism and spurned peace with Israel. And, in 1947, after the UN partitioned Western Palestine into Jewish and Arab sectors, he rejected a Palestinian State and coexistence. Palestinian Arab attacks were followed by an invasion by five Arab countries during the 1948 war of extermination against the new Jewish state, a war that killed thousands of Palestinian Arabs and 6000 Jews, and turned tens of thousands of Palestinian Arabs into refugees. Today’s often stated claim of a “right” of return, would not only destroy Israel as a Jewish State, but also is bad history, because it ignores the root cause of the refugee problem – the Arab leadership itself. The proof lies with those Arabs who did not join the war against Israel; they are today’s Israeli Arab citizens, who enjoy more freedoms than any Arabs in the Middle East.

Similarly, when the PLO was founded in 1964 while the West Bank and Gaza were under Arab (Jordanian and Egyptian) occupation, PLO factions, led by Yasir Arafat’s Fatah, opted for terrorism rather than a state for the Palestinian people. Likewise, Arab States pursued wars against Israel in 1967 and 1973 instead of a Palestinian state. Arab oil billions could have resettled refugees as world Jewry did for a similar number of Jewish refugees from Arab countries, but, for Palestinian and Arab leaders, opposing Israel, unfortunately, has been more important than a better life for the Palestinian people.

Teaching such history is vital.

Given the power and penetration of US media, especially TV, throughout the Arab/Muslim world, the Palestinian propaganda campaign to defame Israel, would not likely have succeeded had major US news media gotten the post Oslo story - Palestinian aggression and Israeli self defense – right. My 13 years of research show that the media regularly violate their own standards that require keeping opinions out of the news, headlines and pictures, as well as providing accurate and complete coverage.

Teachers can use the following scenarios to teach critical analysis of news reports:

• Watch out for false symmetries. Palestinian attacks and Israeli attempts to protect its citizens are generally misreported as a “cycle of violence” or “the violence.” The Palestinian Authority, a dictatorship, is put on the same level as Israel, one of the freest democracies in the world. Yasir Arafat, who claims that there is no Jewish connection to Jerusalem, is equated with Israel’s elected Prime Ministers and the Palestinian Authority “propaganda ministry” is given credibility equal to that of Israel’s open press office.
• Pictures, headlines, and text should be examined for advocacy. Pictures of Israeli tanks or heavily armed soldiers are often juxtaposed against Palestinian stone throwers; pictures and headlines featuring Palestinian casualties are shown without the context that they were killed attacking Israelis.
• New York Times background reports on the 9/11 terrorists are fairly counterbalanced by a continuing stream of stories on US victims, whereas Hamas propaganda photos and biographies of “martyrs” almost always are more fully reported than the stories of their Israeli victims.
• Articles need to be watched for attribution, choice of wording, and the active/passive voice. Be alert to statements in headlines or news reports such as “Israelis kill Palestinians,” whereas “bombs” or “suicide bombs kill Israelis.” Israelis merely “die,” as if from old age. The identification of victims is important to watch; Palestinians are usually identified when they are the victims, but Israelis are often called “people” or identified merely as the number killed.
• The terrorist acts of “martyrs” are often coupled with editorializing “news” reports of lives said to be hopeless from Israeli “repression.”
• Palestinian terminology often becomes the accepted media usage. The term “occupied territories” is used for what Israel calls the “disputed territories” or “territories,” and “assassinations” for “targeted killings.”
• Watch out for double standards. Israeli incursions to arrest terrorists who seek refuge in Palestinian towns are called “treaty violations” by The New York Times, but Arafat is not similarly called to task for continued wholesale violations of Oslo, including PA policemen attacking Israelis, refusing to arrest identified terrorists, incitement to violence, lionizing killers of Israelis, payoffs to families of suicide bombers, etc. Nor are textbooks, summer camps, and children’s TV programs that encourage Palestinian children to kill Israelis reported as violations of Oslo.

Getting the story wrong can have serious implications.

Why do the media take sides, against their own code of ethics, in this area?

• For the past 30+ years, Arab propaganda has done an excellent job of portraying the Palestinian Arabs as victims of the Israelis, even though their chief oppressors are their own leaders and the Arab states. Reporters, who are often poorly educated in this area, and who tend to favor “victim” groups, generally have bought into this line.
• The US Jewish community and Israel have done a poor job in countering this Arab propaganda, educating our youth in the facts, making the case for Israel, and responding to anti-Israel distortions. Arab activism is becoming a powerful force and is intent on winning what James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, describes as the “media war”.
• The need for Arab oil, the petrodollars and power available to Arab states from the sale of their oil, and anti-Semitism would appear to play a minor role, since the media is so diverse.
• Palestinian Authority intimidation of journalists: Reporters who try to provide fair coverage of Palestinian violence and other “unpleasant” news have been detained, beaten, and threatened with death. Most media bury stories of the intimidation of journalists, further eroding their independence and credibility. Reuters’ shameful public refusal to use the word “terrorism” out of concern for the safety of its journalists has not disqualified it as a major news source. Well-known Israeli journalist Ehud Yaari estimates that 95% of news from the territories comes from Palestinian sources. Since the Palestinian Authority brooks no dissent, we should request in our communications that such news not be reported, unless independently corroborated.

The power of US media coverage to shape world events should not be underestimated. Pictures of US soldiers being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu in 1993 were followed shortly by US withdrawal from Somalia. Minimizing Palestinian aggression as a “cycle of violence,” downplaying official Palestinian incitement and anti-Semitism, and bringing Israeli democracy down to the level of the Palestinian dictatorship have significant consequences. Such distortions support demands that Israel not take the steps to defend her citizens that she feels are necessary and encourage even more Palestinian terrorism and movement even farther away from peace. They weaken ties with allies, especially with US Jews, who are the most sensitive to “news” about Israel. And by distorting radical Islamic terrorism against Israeli civilians as merely another episode in the “cycle of violence”, they may have contributed to the US’ lowering its own guard.

After 50+ years, the “newspaper of record,” The New York Times, has finally admitted getting the story of the Holocaust wrong. This admission came first, briefly, in a 1996 exhibit at the New York Public library and more comprehensively in a November 14, 2001 full page article by former NYT Executive Editor Max Frankel. However, The New York Times did not puruse the implications for the Jews of Europe of this distorted coverage. The Jewish community cannot afford to allow another such lapse in the all-important media coverage.

The US Jewish community needs to get “media smart” by becoming critical readers/viewers/listeners, by acquiring the background information to make the case for Israel, and, most importantly, by taking action against anti-Israel distortions and omissions. Students, of all ages, should learn the “media standards,” how to distinguish fact from opinion, how to separate propaganda from information, and how the active/passive voices and charged words can shape news. They need a knowledge base to identify inaccuracies and omissions. They need to learn that communicating effectively with journalists is similar to any other effective communication, and that persistence pays off.

News reports in the major US media should be compared to alternative news sites such as The Jerusalem Post International (jpost.com), the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (jta.org), Ha’aretz (haaretzdaily.com), etc. Widespread and continuous community and student response to journalists with e-mail, letters, and calls is needed until the distortions stop.

Discussion of the news and formulating responses are excellent family activities. Older generations should be encouraged to share their recollections of the pioneers, birth of Israel, the Six Day War, etc., with younger generations who have not lived through those heroic times.

Crucial background information to make the case for Israel and respond intelligently should be sought out in web sites such as us-israel.org (including “Myths and Facts- a Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict”), mfa.gov.il, ajc.org, imra.org.il, pmw.org.il, hadassah.org, honestreporting.com, zoa.org, memri.org, and many others. Selections from these materials should be covered regularly in classes, clubs, organizations, and meetings.

Samuel H. Bahn is an independent analyst and speaker on Israel and the media. As Israel Media Consultant to the Board of Jewish Education of Greater New York, he is a frequent presenter of his program, “Getting Media Smart About Israel,” at teacher’s conferences and at schools. He was affiliated with CAMERA from 1988 TO 1991, when he served as founder/director of its New York Chapter.