Down the Memory Hole
Report, FAIR, 29 July 2006



Israeli contribution to conflict is forgotten by leading papers

In the wake of the most serious outbreak of Israeli/Arab violence in years, three leading U.S. papers—the Washington Post, New York Times and Los Angeles Times—have each strongly editorialized that Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon were solely responsible for sparking violence, and that the Israeli military response was predictable and unavoidable. These editorials ignored recent events that indicate a much more complicated situation.

Beginning with the Israeli attack on Gaza, a New York Times editorial (6/29/06) headlined "Hamas Provokes a Fight" declared that "the responsibility for this latest escalation rests squarely with Hamas," and that "an Israeli military response was inevitable." The paper (7/15/06) was similarly sure in its assignment of blame after the fighting spread to Lebanon: "It is important to be clear about not only who is responsible for the latest outbreak, but who stands to gain most from its continued escalation. Both questions have the same answer: Hamas and Hezbollah."

The Washington Post (7/14/06) agreed, writing that "Hezbollah and its backers have instigated the current fighting and should be held responsible for the consequences." The L.A. Times (7/14/06) likewise wrote that "in both cases Israel was provoked." Three days and scores of civilian deaths later, the Times (7/17/06) was even more direct: "Make no mistake about it: Responsibility for the escalating carnage in Lebanon and northern Israel lies with one side...and that is Hezbollah."

As FAIR noted in a recent Action Alert (7/19/06), the portrayal of Israel as the innocent victim in the Gaza conflict is hard to square with the death toll in the months leading up to the current crisis; between September 2005 and June 2006, 144 Palestinians in Gaza were killed by Israeli forces, according to a list compiled by the Israeli human rights group B'tselem; 29 of those killed were children. During the same period, no Israelis were killed as a result of violence from Gaza.

In a July 21 CounterPunch column, Alexander Cockburn highlighted some of the violent incidents that have dropped out of the media’s collective memory:

"Let's go on a brief excursion into pre-history. I’m talking about June 20, 2006, when Israeli aircraft fired at least one missile at a car in an attempted extrajudicial assassination attempt on a road between Jabalya and Gaza City. The missile missed the car. Instead it killed three Palestinian children and wounded 15.

"Back we go again to June 13, 2006. Israeli aircraft fired missiles at a van in another attempted extrajudicial assassination. The successive barrages killed nine innocent Palestinians.

"Now we're really in the dark ages, reaching far, far back to June 9, 2006, when Israel shelled a beach in Beit Lahiya killing eight civilians and injuring 32.

"That's just a brief trip down Memory Lane, and we trip over the bodies of twenty dead and forty-seven wounded, all of them Palestinians, most of them women and children."

On June 24, the day before Hamas' cross-border raid, Israel made an incursion of its own, capturing two Palestinians that it said were members of Hamas (something Hamas denied—L.A. Times, 6/25/06). This incident received far less coverage in U.S. media than the subsequent seizure of the Israeli soldier; the few papers that covered it mostly dismissed it in a one-paragraph brief (e.g., Chicago Tribune, 6/25/06), while the Israeli taken prisoner got front-page headlines all over the world. It's likely that most Gazans don’t share U.S. news outlets' apparent sense that captured Israelis are far more interesting or important than captured Palestinians.

The situation in Lebanon is also more complicated than its portrayal in U.S. media, with the roots of the current crisis extending well before the July 12 capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah. A major incident fueling the latest cycle of violence was a May 26, 2006 car bombing in Sidon, Lebanon, that killed a senior official of Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian group allied with Hezbollah. Lebanon later arrested a suspect, Mahmoud Rafeh, whom Lebanese authorities claimed had confessed to carrying out the assassination on behalf of Mossad (London Times, 6/17/06).

Israel denied involvement with the bombing, but even some Israelis are skeptical. "If it turns out this operation was effectively carried out by Mossad or another Israeli secret service," wrote Yediot Aharonot, Israel’s top-selling daily (6/16/06; cited in AFP, 6/16/06), "an outsider from the intelligence world should be appointed to know whether it was worth it and whether it lays groups open to risk."

In Lebanon, Israel's culpability was taken as a given. "The Israelis, in hitting Islamic Jihad, knew they would get Hezbollah involved too," Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, a professor at Beirut’s Lebanese American University, told the New York Times (5/29/06). "The Israelis had to be aware that if they assassinated this guy they would get a response."

And, indeed, on May 28, Lebanese militants in Hezbollah-controlled territory fired Katyusha rockets at a military vehicle and a military base inside Israel. Israel responded with airstrikes against Palestinian camps deep inside Lebanon, which in turn were met by Hezbollah rocket and mortar attacks on more Israeli military bases, which prompted further Israeli airstrikes and "a steady artillery barrage at suspected Hezbollah positions" (New York Times, 5/29/06). Gen. Udi Adam, the commander of Israel’s northern forces, boasted that "our response was the harshest and most severe since the withdrawal" of Israeli troops from Lebanon in 2000 (Chicago Tribune, 5/29/06).

This intense fighting was the prelude to the all-out warfare that began on July 12, portrayed in U.S. media as beginning with an attack out of the blue by Hezbollah. While Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers may have reignited the smoldering conflict, the Israeli air campaign that followed was not a spontaneous reaction to aggression but a well-planned operation that was years in the making.

"Of all of Israel’s wars since 1948, this was the one for which Israel was most prepared," Gerald Steinberg, a political science professor at Israel's Bar-Ilan University, told the San Francisco Chronicle (7/21/05). "By 2004, the military campaign scheduled to last about three weeks that we’re seeing now had already been blocked out and, in the last year or two, it’s been simulated and rehearsed across the board." The Chronicle reported that a "senior Israeli army officer" has been giving PowerPoint presentations for more than a year to "U.S. and other diplomats, journalists and think tanks" outlining the coming war with Lebanon, explaining that a combination of air and ground forces would target Hezbollah and "transportation and communication arteries."

Which raises a question: If journalists have been told by Israel for more than a year that a war was coming, why are they pretending that it all started on July 12? By truncating the cause-and-effect timelines of both the Gaza and Lebanon conflicts, editorial boards at major U.S. dailies gravely oversimplify the decidedly more complex nature of the facts on the ground.

Here's a link to their site. They've done good analysis about the right wing corporate pro-war, pro-israel media.
http://www.fair.org/index.php

Also, for some excellent analysis, check this site out:
www.ifamericansknew.org

Don't see this int he mainstream media.

THE QANA MASSACRE AND THE RISKS IN RELYING ON ISRAELI PROPAGANDA




On July 30, the Israeli Defense Force (“IDF”) released infrared aerial footage purporting to show a Hezbollah Katyusha battery situated in a residential area of Qana, firing rockets at Israel. The IDF claimed that Hezbollah hid the trucks, which are used as launch platforms for the Katyushas, in and around residential neighborhoods in Qana, in support of its claim that Hezbollah is using civilians as human shields. (The Wikipedia article on the Qana bombing provides a link to the IDF video. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Qana_airstrike)

And, although the IDF and the Olmert regime have expressed regret over the killing of dozens of innocent Lebanese civilians in Qana, when the Israeli Air Force (“IAF”) bombed a three-story apartment building on July 30, they take no responsibility. Instead, they lay the blame at Hezbollah’s feet, arguing that if it did not fire rockets from civilian population centers, the IAF would not target these sites for destruction. This is a convenient dodge that Israel has used on countless occasions to justify its wanton and seemingly senseless targeting of civilian populations.

The IAF used the same justification for the bombing of the Qana apartment building on July 30, only this time, realizing that the Western mainstream media - particularly in the United States - was paying a lot of attention to this latest atrocity, it released for propaganda use an infra-red aerial video taken by a surveillance aircraft purporting to show a Katyusha battery firing missiles that day from a residential location in Qana, presumably near the apartment building that was bombed.

Like true lap dogs, the Western mainstream media snatched up this “evidence” and used it to drive home Israel’s propaganda point that Hezbollah not it was responsible for the deaths of the Lebanese civilians in that building, most of whom were children. In other words, Israel was saying, “Hezbollah made us do it. Now watch the video and you’ll see that we were not responsible.”

CNN is one of Israel’s major propaganda outlets, and it dutifully aired the IAF surveillance video on Paula Zahn’s program on July 31. What follows is an excerpt from the July 31 transcript of Zahn’s program that sets up the airing of the video.

“ZAHN: Nic Robertson, appreciate the update. Thanks so much.

Now, tonight, the Arab world is outraged over the Israeli bombing that killed at least 54 Lebanese civilians in Qana. Israel says it targeted Qana because Hezbollah was firing rockets from there. Residents deny that, and many are calling it a massacre.

The anger spilled over in Beirut streets, as protesters broke into U.N. headquarters there, injuring three U.N. workers. Qana survivors have fled, looking for shelter elsewhere. And, today, the town is deserted, buildings now just rubble. Israel calls this a tragic mistake.

Joining me now, Lebanon's consul general here in the United States, Mohamad El-Harake.

Thank you so much for joining us.

The Israelis have expressed their sorrow for the loss of innocent loss in Qana. Do you really think the Israelis targeted those civilians?

MOHAMAD EL-HARAKE, CONSUL GENERAL OF LEBANON: I know that the Israelis are very proud of their military powers. And they are good in targeting Palestinian activists, so they can hit a car among the 20 cars, and save the other cars. So...

ZAHN: So, you are saying there's no doubt in your mind the Israelis are so good at this that they would have intentionally targeted civilians?

EL-HARAKE: Here, we're talking about smart bombs, about military expertise, very advanced, and we're talking also about, let us say, well-mapped area. They know everything. And, supposedly, there was Hezbollah fighters near this building, as they are claiming. Why...

ZAHN: Let's show some pictures, before you go any further... EL-HARAKE: Yes, sure.

ZAHN: ... because the Israelis have provided us video from the IDF of an aerial view of the area.

Let's look at this closely together. It shows the proximity of the missile launching sites very clearly here to the civilian population in Qana.

Do you deny that they put their rocket launchers close to civilians to use them as shields?

EL-HARAKE: Yes, at first, we should verify this video by expert to see if exactly it reflects the same building that was targeted.”


http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0607/31/pzn.01.html

It is interesting to note that Mohamad El-Harake, Counsel General of Lebanon challenges the authenticity of the IAF video, knowing full well that besides the awesome array of United States-supplied weapons at its disposal, Israel’s arsenal also includes a very efficient propaganda apparatus. But, one would expect that most of Zahn’s viewers probably discounted El-Harake’s objection as so much Hezbollah/Lebanese counter propaganda. After all, these discerning folks would probably argue, the IAF video is solid proof that Hezbollah uses Lebanese civilians as human shields.

“As it turns out, however, the IdF made a full about face two days later, and stated in a press release that it had no proof that Hezbollah had fired any rockets from Qana on July 30, as reflected in this excerpt from a Ha’aretz news item on August 1. (Ha’aretz is one of Israel’s largest newspapers known for its “liberal” slant, although it never challenges any pronouncements issuing from the IDF High Command.)

As the Israel Air Force continues to investigate the air strike, questions have been raised over military accounts of the incident.

It now appears that the military had no information on rockets launched from the site of the building, or the presence of Hezbollah men at the time.

The Israel Defense Forces had said after the deadly air-strike that many rockets had been launched from Qana. However, it changed its version on Monday.

The site was included in an IAF plan to strike at several buildings in proximity to a previous launching site. Similar strikes were carried out in the past. However, there were no rocket launches from Qana on the day of the strike.”

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/745185.html



Two points are immediately quite obvious. 1) Unless Zahn’s viewers read the Israeli press, they will probably never learn of this IDF “correction.” Nor is it likely that CNN/Zahn will provide their viewers with a clarification. 2) Either someone at IDF headquarters was asleep at the switch and released the video by “mistake.” Or, the video was deliberately released in an attempt to cover up another Israeli war crime and favorably influence public opinion via the Western mainstream media.

Another point to note is that Israel’s past aggressions were carried out before the advent of the Internet. With the willing collusion of the Western mainstream media, its propaganda apparatus had a free hand in controlling the flow of information. However, it is not so easy to control public opinion today, since one no longer has to rely exclusively on the mainstream media for information. The Internet is chock full of alternate information, views and opinions over which Israel has no control. And, although Israel may be flexing its muscles in Lebanon – killing civilians and destroying infrastructure – and seemingly slowly gaining the “upper hand” over Hezbollah, it has already lost the PR war.

Finally, in closing, it should also be pointed out that Israel’s self-proclaimed defensive invasion of Lebanon is now seen for what it truly is – another act of aggression by a state with imperial pretensions in the Middle East. Under the pretext of wanting a return of its two captured soldiers, the disarming of Hezbollah and the creation of a “security buffer zone” in southern Lebanon, Israel is once again waging an aggressive war against one of its neighbors, this time in order to wrest control of the Litani river from the Lebanese and annex southern Lebanon as part of the “Greater Israel” that was originally envisioned by its Zionist founding fathers a century ago.



Minerva’s Owl
August 2006