Media: Kidnapped by Israel

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http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=COO20060720&articleId=2767

Kidnapped by Israel
The British Media and The Invasion Of Gaza

by Jonathan Cook

July 20, 2006
Media Lens

Few readers of a British newspaper would have noticed the story. In the
Observer of 25 June, it merited a mere paragraph hidden in the “World in
brief” section, revealing that the previous day a team of Israeli
commandos had entered the Gaza Strip to “detain” two Palestinians Israel
claims are members of Hamas.

The significance of the mission was alluded to in a final phrase
describing this as “the first arrest raid in the territory since Israel
pulled out of the area a year ago”. More precisely, it was the first
time the Israeli army had re-entered the Gaza Strip, directly violating
Palestinian control of the territory, since it supposedly left in August
last year.

As the Observer landed on doorsteps around the UK, however, another
daring mission was being launched in Gaza that would attract far more
attention from the British media – and prompt far more concern.

Shortly before dawn, armed Palestinians slipped past Israeli military
defences to launch an attack on an army post close by Gaza called Kerem
Shalom. They sneaked through a half-mile underground tunnel dug under an
Israeli-built electronic fence that surrounds the Strip and threw
grenades at a tank, killing two soldiers inside. Seizing another,
wounded soldier the gunmen then disappeared back into Gaza.

Whereas the Israeli “arrest raid” had passed with barely a murmur, the
Palestinian attack a day later received very different coverage. The
BBC’s correspondent in Gaza, Alan Johnstone, started the ball rolling
later the same day in broadcasts in which he referred to the Palestinian
attack as “a major escalation in cross-border tensions”. (BBC World
news, 10am GMT, 25 June 2006)

Johnstone did not explain why the Palestinian attack on an Israeli army
post was an escalation, while the Israeli raid into Gaza the previous
day was not. Both were similar actions: violations of a neighbour’s
territory.

The Palestinians could justify attacking the military post because the
Israeli army has been using it and other fortified positions to fire
hundreds of shells into Gaza that have contributed to some 30 civilian
deaths over the preceding weeks. Israel could justify launching its
mission into Gaza because it blames the two men it seized for being
behind some of the hundreds of home-made Qassam rockets that have been
fired out of Gaza, mostly ineffectually, but occasionally harming
Israeli civilians in the border town of Sderot.

So why was the Palestinian attack, and not the earlier Israeli raid, an
escalation? The clue came in the same report from Johnstone, in which he
warned that Israel would feel compelled to launch “retaliations” for the
attack, implying that a re-invasion of the Gaza Strip was all but
inevitable.

So, in fact, the “escalation” and “retaliation” were one and the same
thing. Although Johnstone kept repeating that the Palestinian attack had
created an escalation, what he actually meant was that Israel was
choosing to escalate its response. Both sides could continue their
rocket fire, but only Israel was in a position to reinvade with tanks
and ground forces.

There was another intriguing aspect to Johnstone’s framework for
interpreting these fast-moving events, one that would be adopted by all
the British media. He noted that the coming Israeli “retaliation” -- the
reinvasion -- had a specific cause: the escalation prompted by the brief
Palestinian attack that left two Israeli soldiers dead and a third captured.

But what about the Palestinian attack: did it not have a cause too?
According to the British media, apparently not. Apart from making vague
references to the Israeli artillery bombardment of the Gaza Strip over
the previous weeks, Johnstone and other reporters offered no context for
the Palestinian attack. It had no obvious cause or explanation. It
appeared to come out of nowhere, born presumably only of Palestinian malice.

Or as a Guardian editorial phrased it: “Confusion surrounds the precise
motives of the gunmen from the Islamist group Hamas and two other armed
organisations who captured the Israeli corporal and killed two other
soldiers on Sunday. But it was clearly intended to provoke a reaction,
as is the firing of rockets from Gaza into Israel.” ('Storm over Gaza,'
29 June 2006)

It was not as though Johnstone or the Guardian had far to look for
reasons for the Palestinian attack, explanations that might frame it as
a retaliation no different from the Israeli one. In addition to the
shelling that has caused some 30 civilian deaths and inflicted yet more
trauma on a generation of Palestinian children, Israel has been
blockading Gaza’s borders to prevent food and medicines from reaching
the population and it has successfully pressured international donors to
cut off desperately needed funds to the Palestinian government. Then, of
course, there was also the matter of the Israeli army’s violation of
Palestinian-controlled territory in Gaza the day before.

None of this context surfaced to help audiences distinguish cause and
effect, and assess for themselves who was doing the escalating and who
the retaliating.

That may have been because all of these explanations make sense only in
the context of Israel’s continuing occupation of Gaza. But that context
conflicts with a guiding assumption in the British media: that the
occupation finished with Israel’s disengagement from Gaza in August last
year. With the occupation over, all grounds for Palestinian
“retaliation” become redundant.

The Guardian’s diplomatic editor, Ewen MacAskill certainly took the view
that Israel should be able to expect quiet after its disengagement.
“Having pulled out of Gaza last year, the Israelis would have been
justified in thinking they might enjoy a bit of peace on their southern
border.” ('An understandable over-reaction,' Comment is Free, 28 June 2006)

Never mind that Gaza’s borders, airspace, electromagnetic frequencies,
electricity and water are all under continuing Israeli control, or that
the Palestinians are not allowed an army, or that Israel is still
preventing Gazans from having any contact with Palestinians in the West
Bank and East Jerusalem. Meetings of the Palestinian parliament have to
be conducted over video links because Israel will not allow MPs in Gaza
to travel to Ramallah in the West Bank.

These factors might have helped to explain continuing Palestinian anger,
but in British coverage of the conflict they appear to be unmentionables.
Arrested, Detained Or Kidnapped?

There was another notable asymmetry in the media’s use of language and
their treatment of the weekend of raids by the Palestinians and the
Israelis. In the Observer, we learnt that Israel had “detained” the two
Palestinians in an “arrest raid”. These were presented as the legitimate
actions of a state that is enforcing the law within the sphere of its
sovereignty (notably, in stark contrast to the other media assumption
that the occupation of Gaza is over).

So how did the media describe the Palestinians’ seizure of the Israeli
soldier the next day? According to Donald MacIntyre of the Independent,
Corporal Gilad Shalit was “kidnapped” ('Israel set for military raid
over kidnapped soldier, Independent,' 27 June 2006). His colleague Eric
Silver considered the soldier “abducted” ('Israel hunts for abducted
soldier after dawn raid by militants,' 26 June 2006). Conal Urquhart of
the Guardian, referred to him as a “hostage” ('Palestinians hunt for
Israeli hostage,' Guardian, 26 June 2006). And BBC online believed him
“abducted” and “kidnapped” ('Israel warns of "extreme action",' 28 June
2006)

It was a revealing choice of terminology. Soldiers who are seized by an
enemy are usually considered to have been captured; along with being
killed, it’s an occupational hazard for a soldier. But Britain’s liberal
media preferred to use words that misleadingly suggested Cpl Shalit was
a victim, an innocent whose status as a soldier was not relevant to his
fate. The Palestinians, as kidnappers and hostage-takers, were clearly
not behaving in a legitimate manner.

That this was a deviation from normal usage, at least when applied to
Palestinians, is suggested by the following report from the BBC in 2003,
when Israel seized Hamas political leader Sheikh Mohammed Taha: “Israeli
troops have captured a founder member of the Islamic militant group
Hamas during an incursion into the Gaza Strip.” This brief “incursion”
included the deaths of eight Palestinians, including a pregnant woman
and a child, according to the same report. ('Israel captures Hamas
founder,' BBC online, 3 March 2003).

But one does not need to look back three years to spot the double
standard being applied by the British media. On the Thursday following
Sunday’s Palestinian attack on Kerem Shalom, the Israeli army invaded
Gaza and the West Bank to grab dozens of Palestinian leaders, including
cabinet ministers. Were they being kidnapped or taken hostage by the
Israeli army?

This is what a breaking news report from the Guardian had to say:
“Israeli troops today arrested dozens of Hamas ministers and MPs as they
stepped up attempts to free a soldier kidnapped by militants in Gaza at
the weekend. The Israeli army said 64 Hamas officials, including seven
ministers and 20 other MPs, had been detained in a series of early
morning arrests.” (David Fickling and agencies, 'Israel detains Hamas
ministers,' 29 June 2006).

BBC World took the same view. In its late morning report, Lyse Doucet
told viewers that in response to the attack in which an Israeli soldier
had been “kidnapped”, the Israeli army “have been detaining Palestinian
cabinet ministers”. In the same broadcast, another reporter, Wyre
Davies, referred to “Thirty Hamas politicians, including eight
ministers, detained in the West Bank”, calling this an attempt by Israel
at “keeping up the pressure”. (BBC World news, 10am GMT, 29 June 2006)

“Arrested” and “detained”? What exactly was the crime committed by these
Palestinian politicians from the West Bank? Were they somehow
accomplices to Cpl Shalit’s “kidnap” by Palestinian militants in the
separate territory of Gaza? And if so, was Israel intending to prove it
in a court of law? In any case, what was the jurisdiction of the Israeli
army in “arresting” Palestinians in Palestinian-controlled territory?

None of those questions needed addressing because in truth none of the
media had any doubts about the answer. It was clear to all the reporters
that the purpose of seizing the Palestinian politicians was to hold them
as bargaining chips for the return for Cpl Shalit.

In the Guardian, Conal Urquhart wrote: “Israeli forces today arrested
more than 60 Hamas politicians in the West Bank and bombed targets in
the Gaza Strip. The moves were designed to increase pressure on
Palestinian militants to release an Israeli soldier held captive since
Sunday.” ('Israel rounds up Hamas politicians,' 3.45pm update, 29 June 2006)

The BBC’s Lyse Doucet in Jerusalem referred to the “arrests” as “keeping
up the pressure on the Palestinians on all fronts”, and Middle East
editor Jeremy Bowen argued that the detention of the Hamas MPs and
ministers “sends out a very strong message about who’s boss around here.
The message is: If Israel wants you, it can get you.” (BBC World News,
6pm GMT, 29 June 2006)
Siding With The Strong

So why have the British media adopted such differing terminology for the
two sides, language in which the Palestinians are consistently portrayed
as criminals while the Israelis are seen as law-enforcers?

Interestingly, the language used by the British media mirrors that used
by the Israeli media. The words “retaliation”, “escalation”, “pressure”,
“kidnap” and “hostage” are all drawn from the lexicon of the Israeli
press when talking about the Palestinians. The only Israeli term avoided
in British coverage is the label “terrorists” for the Palestinian
militants who attacked the army post near Gaza on 25 June.

In other words, the British media have adopted the same terminology as
Israeli media organisations, even though the latter proudly declare
their role as cheerleading for their army against the Palestinian enemy.

The replication by British reporters of Israeli language in covering the
conflict is mostly unconscious. It happens because of several factors in
the way foreign correspondents operate in conflict zones, factors that
almost always favour the stronger side over the weaker, independently of
(and often in opposition to) other important contexts, such as
international law and common sense.

The causes of this bias can be divided into four pressures on foreign
correspondents: identification with, and assimilation into, the stronger
side’s culture; over-reliance on the stronger side’s sources of
information; peer pressure and competition; and, most importantly, the
pressure to satisfy the expectations of editors back home in the media
organisation.

The first pressure derives from the fact that British correspondents, as
well as the news agencies they frequently rely on, are almost
exclusively based in Israeli locations, such as West Jerusalem and Tel
Aviv, where they share the daily rituals of the host population.
Correspondents have Israeli neighbours, not Palestinian ones; they drink
and eat in Israeli, not Palestinian, bars and restaurants; they watch
Israeli, not Palestinian, TV; and they fear Palestinian suicide attacks,
not Israeli army “incursions”.

Another aspect of this assimilation – this one unmentionable in
newsrooms – is the long-standing tendency, though admittedly one now
finally waning, by British media organisations to prefer Jewish
reporters for the “Jerusalem beat”. The media justify this to themselves
on several grounds: often a senior Jewish reporter on the staff wants to
be based in Jerusalem, in some cases as a prelude to receiving Israeli
citizenship; he or she may already speak some Hebrew; and, as a Jew
living in a self-declared Jewish state, he or she is likely to find it
easier to gain access to officials.

The obvious danger that Jewish reporters who already feel an affinity
with Israel before their posting may quickly start to identify with
Israel and its goals is not considered an acceptable line of inquiry.
Anyone raising it is certain to be dismissed as an anti-Semite.

The second pressure involves the wide range of sources of information
foreign correspondents come to rely on in their daily reporting, from
the Israeli media to the Israeli army and government press offices. Most
of the big Israeli newspapers now have daily editions in English that
arrive at reporters’ doors before breakfast and update all day on the
internet. The Palestinians do not have the resources to produce
competing information. Israeli officials, again unlike their Palestinian
counterparts, are usually fluent in English and ready with a statement
on any subject.

This asymmetry between Israeli and Palestinian sources of information is
compounded by the fact that foreign correspondents usually consider
Israeli spokespeople to be more “useful”. It is, after all, Israeli
decision-makers who are shaping and determining the course of events.
The army’s spokesperson can speak with authority about the timing of the
next Gaza invasion, and the government press office knows by heart the
themes of the prime minister’s latest unilateral plans.

Palestinian spokespeople, by contrast, are far less effective: they
usually know nothing more about Israeli decisions than what they have
read in the Israeli papers; they are rarely at the scene of Israeli
military “retaliations”, and are often unreliable in the ensuing
confusion; and internal political disputes, and a lack of clear
hierarchies, often leave spokespeople unsure of what the official
Palestinian line is.

Given these differences, the Israeli “version” is usually the first one
to hit the headlines, both in the Israeli media and on the international
TV channels. Which brings us to the third pressure.

News is not an independent category of information journalists search
for; it is the information that journalists collectively decide is worth
seeking out. So correspondents look to each other to determine what is
the “big story”. This is why reporters tend to hunt in packs.

The problem for British journalists is that they are playing second
fiddle to the largest contingent of English-language correspondents:
those from America. What makes the headlines in the US papers is the
main story, and as a result British journalists tend to follow the same
leads, trying to beat the American majors to the best lines of inquiry.

The effect is not hard to predict: British coverage largely mirrors
American coverage. And given the close identification of US politicians,
business and media with Israel, American coverage is skewed very keenly
towards a pro-Israel agenda. That has direct repercussions for British
reporting. (It does, however, allow for occasional innovation in the
British media too: for example, whereas American reporters were
concerned to promote the largely discredited account by the Israeli army
of how seven members of a Palestinian family were killed during
artillery bombardment of a beach in Gaza on 9 June, their British
colleagues had a freer hand to investigate the same events.)

Closely related to this sympathy of coverage between the British and
American media is the fourth pressure. No reporter who cares about his
or her career is entirely immune from the cumulative pressure of
expectations from the news desk in London. The editors back home read
the American dailies closely; they imbibe as authoritative the views of
the major American columnists, like Thomas Friedman, who promote
Israel’s and Washington’s agenda while sitting thousands of miles away
from the events they analyse; and they watch the wire services, which
are equally slanted towards the American and Israeli interpretation of
events.

The reporter who rings the news desk each day to offer the best “pitch”
quickly learns which angles and subjects “fly” and which don’t.
“Professional” journalists of the type that get high-profile jobs, like
Jerusalem correspondent, have learnt long ago the predilections of the
desk editors. If our correspondent really believes in a story, he or she
will fight the desk vigorously to have it included. But there are only
so many battles correspondents who value their jobs are prepared to
engage in.
Collective Punishment

Within this model for understanding the work of British correspondents,
we can explain the confused sense of events that informs the recent
reporting of the Independent’s Donald MacIntyre.

He points out an obvious fact that seems to have eluded many of his
colleagues: Israel’s reinvasion of Gaza, its bombing of the only
electricity station, and disruption to the water supply, its bombing of
the main bridges linking north and south Gaza, and its terrifying sonic
bombs over Gaza City are all forms of collective punishment of the
civilian Palestinian population that are illegal under international law.

Derar Abu Sisi, who runs the power station in Gaza, tells MacIntyre it
will take a “minimum of three to six months” to restore electricity
supplies. ('Israeli missiles pound Gaza into a new Dark Age in
"collective punishment", 29 June 2006). The same piece includes a
warning that the petrol needed to run generators will soon run out,
shutting off the power to hospitals and other vital services.

This is more than the Guardian’s coverage managed on the same day. Conal
Urquhart writes simply: “Israel reoccupied areas of southern Gaza
yesterday and bombed bridges and an electricity plant to force
Palestinian militants to free the abducted soldier.” Blithely, Urquhart
continues: “In Gaza there was an uneasy calm as Israeli aircraft and
forces operated without harming anyone. Missiles were fired at
buildings, roads and open fields, but ground forces made no attempt to
enter built-up areas.” ('Israel rounds up Hamas politicians,' 11.45am,
29 June 2006)

In MacIntyre’s article, despite his acknowledgment of Israel’s
“collective punishment” of Gaza (note even this statement of the obvious
needs quotation marks in the Independent’s piece to remove any
suggestion that it can be attributed directly to the paper), he also
refers to a Hamas call for a prisoner swap to end the stand-off as an
“escalation” of the “crisis”, and he describes the seizure of a Hamas
politician by Israel as an “arrest” and a “retaliation”.

In a similarly indulgent tone, the Guardian’s Ewen MacAskill calls
Israel’s re-invasion of Gaza “an understandable over-reaction”: “Israel
has good cause for taking tough action against the Palestinians in Gaza”
– presumably because of their “escalation” by firing Qassam rockets.
MacAskill does, however, pause to criticise the invasion, pointing out
that “Israel has to allow the Palestinians a degree of sovereignty.”
('An understandable over-reaction,' Comment is Free, www.guardian.co.uk,
28 June 2006)

Not full sovereignty, note, just a degree of it. In MacAskill’s view,
invasions are out, but by implication “targeted assassinations”, air
strikes and artillery fire, all of which have claimed dozens of
Palestinian civilian lives over the past weeks, are allowed as they only
partially violate Palestinian sovereignty.

But MacAskill finds a small sliver of hope for the future from what has
come to be known as the “Prisoners’ Document”, an agreement between the
various Palestinian factions that implicitly limits Palestinian
territorial ambitions to the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. “The
ambiguous document agreed between Hamas and Fatah yesterday does not
recognize Israel's right to exist but it is a step in the right
direction,” writes MacAskill. (ibid)

A step in which direction? Answer: Israel’s direction. Israel has been
demanding three concessions from the Palestinians before it says it will
negotiate with them: a recognition of Israel’s right to exist; a
renunciation of violence; and a decision to abide by previous agreements.

A Guardian editorial shares MacAskill’s assessment: “Implicit
recognition [of Israel] coupled with an end to violence [by the
Palestinians] would be a solid basis on which to proceed.” ('Storm over
Gaza,' 29 June 2006)

If the Palestinians are being faulted for their half-hearted commitment
to these three yardsticks by which progress can be judged, how does
Israel’s own commitment compare?

First, whereas the long-dominant Palestinian faction Fatah recognised
Israel nearly 20 years ago, and Hamas appears ready to agree a similar
recognition, Israel has made no comparable concession. It has never
recognised the Palestinians right to exist as a people or as a state,
from Golda Meir’s infamous dictum to Ehud Olmert’s plans for stealing
yet more Palestinian land in the West Bank to create a series of
Palestinian ghettos there.

Second, whereas the Palestinians have a right under international law to
use violence to liberate themselves from Israel’s continuing occupation,
the various factions are now agreeing in the Prisoners’ Document to
limit that right to actions within the occupied territories. Israel,
meanwhile, is employing violence on a daily basis against the general
population of Gaza, harming civilians and militants alike, even though
under international law it has a responsibility to look after the
occupied population no different from its duties towards its own citizens.

Third, whereas the Palestinians have been keen since the signing of the
Oslo accords to have their agreements with Israel honoured -- most
assume that they are their only hope of winning statehood -- Israel has
flagrantly and consistently ignored its commitments. During Oslo it
missed all its deadlines for withdrawing from Palestinian territory, and
during the Oslo and current Road Map peace negotiations it has continued
to build and extend its illegal settlements on Palestinian land.

In other words, Israel has not recognised the Palestinians, it has
refused to renounce its illegitimate use of violence against the
population it occupies, and it has abrogated its recent international
agreements.

Doubtless, however, we will have to wait some time for a Guardian
editorial prepared to demand of Israel an “implicit recognition [of the
Palestinians] coupled with an end to violence as a solid basis on which
to proceed.”


Jonathan Cook is a former journalist with the Observer and Guardian
newspapers, now based in Nazareth, Israel. He has also written for the
Times, the International Herald Tribune, Le Monde diplomatique, and
Aljazeera.net. His book “Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish
and Democratic State” was recently published by Pluto Press. His website
is www.jkcook.net

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