[WCUSP] Fw: Alternative reality

[Libby or Mort Frank]

(And what of OUR media?  Libby)

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jewish Peace News " <jpn at jewishpeacenews.net>
To: <LMFrank1 at verizon.net>
Sent: Sunday, March 09, 2008 5:50 PM
Subject: Alternative reality


>
>
> One morning, in 1992, when I was working on the staff of Physicians for 
> Human Rights in Israel, we received notice from our contacts in Gaza of a 
> new tactic adopted by the Israeli armed forces. After numerous court cases 
> had stalled (though not prevented) their use of home demolitions in 
> retaliation for Palestinian individuals' alleged involvement in attacks 
> against Israelis, the army experimented with the following alternative: 
> claim that persons wanted for perpetrating alleged attacks are hiding in 
> their family homes, notify the families (at about 5am) that they must 
> evacuate immediately and use tanks to shell the homes, supposedly in order 
> to "flush out" the wanted persons. At the time, this was a highly 
> significant development because it trashed even the meager (and in 
> hindsight largely misplaced) hope of defending human rights through 
> recourse to Israel's High Court of Justice.
>
> After formulating a press release, we spent the day negotiating with the 
> Hebrew press, trying to get it to report this information coming only from 
> Gazan sources (which we knew to be reliable). One of our contacts, at the 
> news desk of a major evening paper, was closely related to a government 
> minister and she immediately called him to verify. His answer was brief 
> and dismissive: "I don't believe it." Not only did the paper shelve the 
> item but over the next few days it did not report on any of the 
> developments following the shelling which---in this newspaper's version of 
> reality---had never taken place.
>
> In the following piece from Haaretz, Gideon Levy describes the version of 
> reality currently being produced by Israel's media, one which is totally 
> devoid of direct reports from the Gaza Strip.
>
> For me, in 1992, knowing and understanding what was really going on meant 
> finding, following and assessing an array of alternative sources. While 
> Levy is totally justified, in my view, for exposing and condemning the 
> passive and perhaps criminal collusion of Israel's media, many 
> non-government and alternative organizations continue today, as then, to 
> publicize directly what the established media fails to report. Aside from 
> giving a sense of the slanted UN-reality presented by Israeli media 
> coverage and consumed by most Israelis, Levy's article underlines the 
> importance of the wide scope of activism collecting, reporting and 
> transmitting systematically hidden information.
>
> Rela Mazali
>
>
> Racheli Gai added:
>
> It's very common (almost a cliche) to point out how open Israeli 
> newspapers are, and how so much stuff which one dares not mention in the 
> U.S., for instance, gets discussed in mainstream Israeli media. While this 
> has a grain of truth - it's mostly limited to opinion pieces, and - as 
> Levy's piece shows - isn't particularly true of ongoing coverage (or 
> lackthereof) of the "facts on the ground".
>
> ---------------------------
>
> Twilight Zone / A great darkness has fallen
>
>
> By Gideon Levy
> Haaretz
> Last update - 23:35 08/03/2008
> http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/961666.html
>
>
> Operation Warm Winter ended without a single Israeli journalist setting 
> foot on the Gaza side of the Erez border crossing with Israel. Even the 
> military correspondents, who usually recount the brave acts of our forces 
> from inside their jeeps and armored vehicles, were not taken this time to 
> report on the raids in Jabalya and Sajiyeh. A handful of other 
> correspondents, those who are still interested in what the Israel Defense 
> Forces leaves behind after its campaigns of killing and destruction, 
> stayed home. They have been holed up in their houses for over a year and a 
> half already.
>
> Don`t believe the microphones you sometimes see in TV reports on Gaza, 
> adorned with the logo of the Israeli television channels. They are meant 
> only to deceive us. Don`t believe the meager reports in the press from 
> Gaza that are written by Israeli correspondents. They are all done by 
> phone, with all the limitations that involves. Not one local journalist, 
> neither Jewish or Arab, neither Shlomi Eldar nor Suleiman al-Shafi, 
> neither Amira Hass nor this writer, has passed through the Erez terminal 
> since the end of November 2006.
>
> The press in Israel is under a major blackout: The IDF is not allowing it 
> to do its job. Gaza, an hour-and-a-half drive from Tel Aviv, is outside 
> the range of journalistic coverage. Daring Israeli correspondents have 
> traveled to Iraq and Lebanon, Syria and Iran, to report to their readers 
> what is happening there - but not to Gaza. It`s as though the Strip, which 
> is central to our diplomacy and security, and where everything that 
> happens affects the Negev and the rest of the country, has been declared a 
> closed military zone, as though it were beyond the Mountains of Darkness.
> Advertisement
>
> We were in the refugee camp in Jenin during the height of Operation 
> Defensive Shield, we were in Bethlehem when it was besieged, we were in 
> Gaza when armed gangs walked around on every street corner, we were in 
> Beit Hanun when Israel shelled it with artillery, we were in the home of 
> Salah Shehadeh the day after the one-ton bomb was dropped on it, we were 
> in the house of the paralyzed girl on a respirator, Maria Aman, the day 
> after most of her family was killed by a criminal missile. One stormy 
> summer`s day IDF soldiers even fired at our car in Tulkarm. But we haven`t 
> been in Gaza for months.
>
> This blackout on the actions of the IDF and the Shin Bet security 
> services, and the fact that the Israeli press is forbidden to cover what 
> is happening in the Strip, has been accepted with exemplary silence. The 
> press bowed its head, submissive and obedient, as in the bad old days when 
> it maintained other disgraceful silences, from Qibya to Kafr Qasem.
>
> Was it too much to expect some signs of protest on the part of the media 
> regarding the ongoing closure, whose end is not in sight? Should it accept 
> as self-evident the explanations of the defense establishment to the 
> effect that it is `dangerous` in Gaza and that there are warnings about 
> journalists being kidnapped? Can anyone determine that Nablus, which can 
> still be covered, for example, is less dangerous? How much less? And why 
> not close the West Bank to coverage as well, and forget about journalism?
>
> Doesn`t the powerful press have means of democratic protest at its 
> disposal, to use to fight the evil decree? Apparently this decree is not 
> evil in the eyes of most leading media figures. A rare coalition, almost 
> wall to wall, seems to be very pleased with Gaza being closing off to 
> coverage: When the readers don`t want to read, the government and the 
> defense establishment don`t want things to be read or broadcast, and the 
> reporters, editors and publishers don`t want to anger anyone either. They 
> are all very pleased with the fact that Gaza is beyond the pale. Thus 
> Israel has covered its eyes and looked away from what is happening on the 
> other side of the fence, and a great darkness has fallen on the abyss.
>
> The exclusion of Gaza from Israeli coverage is critical. Just when 
> millions of viewers and readers the world over are having their perception 
> of the country shaped by the terrible pictures being broadcast from Gaza, 
> occasionally in an exaggerated manner, they are witnessing an almost total 
> absence of coverage from the Israeli side. It is one thing to hear or read 
> that the IDF killed, assassinated and prevented some action, and another 
> thing to see the results on the ground. Someone - and it must be an 
> Israeli journalist - also has to reach the stricken and bleeding places 
> after the missile has fallen, the shell has landed, the bulldozer has 
> destroyed, the water has run out, the fuel is finished and the electricity 
> is turned off. Someone has to tell the Israeli reader that when the IDF 
> announces that it dropped a bomb on `unoccupied huts,` as it did the day 
> after the assassination of Shehadeh, it was in fact a house of several 
> stories filled with residents, including many child!
> ren.
>
> The need to see and to know the results of Israel`s activity in Gaza as 
> well as the terror of the Qassams, in which the local press incessantly 
> wallows, does not have to be related to one`s political views - not at 
> all. The need to know should be a natural need for both the right and the 
> left. Yes, sometimes it is not easy to look at the results of our actions, 
> but if we don`t know what has gone on, how will we judge and assess? Do we 
> accept the idea that an average newspaper reader in Oslo and a TV viewer 
> in London will see more than we do about what is being done in our name? 
> Is it enough to cover Sderot while blatantly ignoring what is happening in 
> Gaza, in order to satisfy the needs of the wise media consumer?
>
> But the prevention of Israeli coverage of Gaza and the acquiescence of 
> most local media to this situation, with almost no sign of protest, are 
> only one part of the picture, the less serious part. The deliberate 
> covering of our eyes has gone even further this time.
>
> This past Sunday something important happened. Part of the local, popular 
> press that shapes mass opinion - the Yedioth Ahronoth and Maariv dailies, 
> to be specific - decided that the killing of over 60 residents of Gaza in 
> one day by our soldiers is not a story. The proof: There is no mention of 
> it, not even implied, on the first pages of these two newspapers, their 
> obvious showcase.
>
> One`s eyes refused to believe it. Not a single word. Maariv`s first page 
> showed a huge picture of a wounded IDF fighter, a threatening headline 
> stating, `In the cross hairs: Hamas` leaders,` plus information about the 
> number of Qassam and Grad missiles that fell on Sderot and Ashkelon, and a 
> promise: `It`s not war yet.` As if to say: We`re only in the `promo` 
> stage. Only on the margins of page 3, in tiny letters, was there a first 
> mention: About 95 Palestinians killed since Wednesday. A first picture of 
> the killing and the outcry in Gaza on page 6.
>
> Yedioth goes even further, as if to say: Everything that Maariv can do, we 
> can do better. Not a word on the first page about the dozens of 
> Palestinian dead. Only a huge picture of a wounded soldier being evacuated 
> by helicopter (when in Gaza the ambulances do not even have gas to allow 
> them to evacuate their wounded). The headline: `Hundreds of fighters deep 
> in Gaza,` a promise that `this is not `the` major operation,` a confession 
> from the mother of one of the two soldiers who were killed (`I dreamed 
> that they were informing me that my son had been killed`), and the number 
> of rockets landing in Sderot and Ashkelon. The first mention of 
> Palestinian dead appeared only on the margins of page 3, in small letters.
>
> `A city without defenses` - that is, of course, Ashkelon. There is nothing 
> else in the region, and not a single picture, please note, not a single 
> image in Yedioth of the killing and suffering in Gaza in all the pages of 
> the newspaper - except for a tiny photo of a demolished house. Among all 
> the photos of Sderot and Ashkelon, the heart-rending confessions and the 
> human-interest reportage about the fear and the relatively light 
> destruction in these two cities, there was no room to print even one photo 
> of bleeding Gaza? Of one wounded child? Of one fearful mother, as in 
> Sderot? One picture that would illustrate to some degree, at least, the 
> dimensions of the mass killing we have sowed? One picture like those that 
> adorned the first pages of most of the newspapers in the world that day? 
> No. Not here. Not in `the newspaper of the country.`
>
> These two newspapers now boast new, relatively young and promising 
> editors. The days of Rafi Ginat at Yedioth and Amnon Dankner at Maariv are 
> over. Instead we have highly regarded editors who give us reason for hope: 
> Shilo De-Beer at Yedioth, and Doron Glazer and Ruti Yuval at Maariv. What 
> did they think when they opened their papers on Sunday morning? That this 
> is professional journalism? That this is the proper service they owe their 
> readers? That they don`t deserve to see with their own eyes at least a 
> hint of what happened in Gaza?
>
> This is how one shapes the opinions of the public - and also how one 
> brainwashes it. Penetrating op-eds convince the already convinced, and 
> only the flow of information determines one`s awareness. The local popular 
> press, almost free of censorship, highly professional and in part also 
> selling well, opted for the gravest thing of all: self-censorship, of the 
> kind that will never arouse any signs of opposition.
>
> One day, when the historian or researcher burrows in the archives of these 
> newspapers and tries to understand what happened here, he won`t be able to 
> understand a thing. He will only know that we had a press here that 
> betrayed its role.
>
>
> ................................................................
> --------
> Jewish Peace News editors:
> Joel Beinin
> Racheli Gai
> Rela Mazali
> Sarah Anne Minkin
> Judith Norman
> Lincoln Shlensky
> Alistair Welchman
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