The other day Ashraf Khalil wrote about how hard it was for him to publish an account of the mistreatment of Palestinian journalist Mohammed Omer in the LA Times last year. Khalil's story reminded a reader of the story that Ken Silverstein wrote in Harper's two years ago, describing his ordeal in trying to publish a story explaining Hezbollah's political appeal in Lebanon:
After submitting my story, though, I ran up against insurmountable editorial obstacles. It was clear that I was deemed to have written a story that was too favorable to Hezbollah, even though any article seeking to examine its popularity would, by necessity, require some focus on the group’s more attractive aspects. After the story was near completion, a new editor was called in to review it because, I was told, Hezbollah had a history of inviting reporters to Lebanon and controlling their agenda. The obvious implication was that this had happened in my case—despite the fact that, outside of my interviews with Hezbollah officials, I had had no contact with the party. I had hired my own driver (who turned out to be sympathetic to Hezbollah, like most Shiites, but not connected to the movement) and translators (all Christians), with no restrictions placed on where I went or who I met with; and in fact I had spent significant time with the group’s critics.
The primary problem, it soon became clear, was fear of offending supporters of Israel. At one point I was told that editorial changes were needed to “inoculate” the newspaper from criticism, and although who the critics might be was never spelled out, the answer seemed fairly obvious. I was also told in one memo that “we should avoid taking sides,” which apparently meant omitting inconvenient historical facts. Over my repeated objections, editors cut a line that referred to “Israel’s creation following World War II in an area overwhelmingly populated at the time by Arabs.” That, I was told in an email from one editor, David Lauter, was
the Arab view of things. Israelis would say, with some justification, that much of the area wasn’t overwhelmingly populated by anyone at the time the first Zionist pioneers arrived in the first part of the 20th century and that the population rose in the mid-decades of the century in large part because of people migrating into Palestine in response to the economic development they brought about.
But that argument, which in any case doesn’t refute what I wrote, was long ago rejected by serious Mideast scholars, including many in Israel. It also avoids confronting a root cause of the conflict. According to the Jewish Agency for Palestine, the original Zionist governing body in what was to become Israel, there were roughly 1.1 million Arab Muslims living in Palestine at the time of partition—twice the number of Jews. “Perspective is everything,” I replied in an email to the editors. “If my name was Mostafa Naser and I grew up in the southern suburbs of Beirut, I seriously doubt I would be an ardent Zionist. If we can’t even acknowledge that Arabs have a legitimate point of view—and acknowledge what the numbers show—we caricature them as nothing more than a bunch of irrational Jew haters.” As I noted in a conversation with one editor, religious hatred, on both sides, is an element in the conflict, but it is fundamentally a struggle over land and national identity. If an Eskimo state had been created in Palestine in 1948, one suspects that anti-Eskimo feeling would have increased markedly in the Arab world. When I asked [Nawaf] Musawi [foreign affairs chief for Hezbollah] about the Holocaust denial that has been espoused by some Arab leaders, and suggested it reflected an unwillingness to acknowledge Jewish suffering, he replied, “We are not denying that European racists persecuted an entire people or belittling the suffering of the Jewish people, and we say this with utter frankness and without compliment. But Europeans committed those crimes, and then we were made to pay for them with our land.” After days of unfruitful negotiations, and a final edit that in my view gutted the story, I decided to pull the piece rather than “inoculate” it to the point of dishonesty.
A few comments. Wonderful account. Note that Lauter subscribes to Joan Peters's discredited From Time Immemorial thesis.
The only thing missing from this piece is an understanding of the Israel lobby. Why is this censorship taking place? Three reasons: empowered Jews in the media who feel loyalty to Israel and exercise that loyalty; Jews and non-Jews in the media who are aware of their colleagues' feelings and have absorbed them; Jews and non-Jews who are afraid of offending powerful sentiments in the community. When will the Arab narrative gain any nobility? Soon, friends. I believe that Silverstein is Jewish. The inroads that progressive Jews are making into Israel-centered Jewish identity is nothing short of a liberation.
In the American MSM, there is virtually no truly objective reporting on the I/P situation — with the exception of Christian Science Monitor, and Time (Tim McGurk's work, especially) have been running intellectually honest pieces about the crisis, and some op-ed pieces in the Nation, Boston Globe, WashPo (not counting the Fred Hiatt hasbara), and LA Times have sporadically popped up. Other than that, the MSM has sanitized the reality, suppressed stories about Rachel Corrie, tear-gas cannisters maiming an American protester, Cynthia McKinnley being abducted on a mission of peace, and so on and so forth.
Phil, I'm delighted you're taking on this very important issue of the systematic discourse suppression that the Palestinian Question has been subjected to in the US SM for many decades now. I have lengthy experience as a victim of this; and I think the explanation you offer is quite insufficient because you haven't mentioned the efforts of the non-journalistic organizations that have worked over the years precisely to organize and enforce this discourse suppression. The main ones I have been aware of over the years have been CAMERA and FLAME. Mire recently, 'The Israeli Project' has emerged as a well-financed big player in the Discourse Suppression field, perhaps even eclipsing Flame and Camera. For some reason the DS efforts in the field of academia– primarily, Danny Pipes's 'Campus Watch'– have received more publicity than the DS efforts inside the media itself. Quite likely that's because so many management folks in the MSM are (unlike most universities) so vulnerable to market forces and boycotts that they don't even like to mention the constant barrages of pressure under which they're operating. Even– or perhaps, especially– NPR is highly vulnerable to market forces and boycotts. Here's a piece that Camera head Andrea Levin wrote about boycotting NPR in 2002: http://is.gd/1kjft . You should hear my friend Loren Jenkins, NPR's foreign editor, talk about the constant pressure the station is under from the DS folks… As it happens, Camera's online self-history (http://is.gd/1kjft tels us that the organization was founded in 1982 by a Boston-area woman called Winifred Meiselman, precisely "to respond to the Washington Post’s coverage of Israel’s Lebanon incursion, and to the paper’s general anti-Israel bias." At the time, Loren was one of the WaPo's key journos in Lebanon; and he and Tom Friedman shared the Pulitzer in 1982 for foreign reporting, for their reporting of the Sabra and Shatila massacres. Anyway, Camer's website is still well worth exploring– perhaps we should all do some good investigative reporting on the organization! I'm proud to note that I am on their journalists' "roll of honour": http://is.gd/1kjft
This account brought back to mind the account by Donald Neff of his experience in 1978 as a journalist for Time Magazine reporting from Jerusalem. The second half of his story dealt with an incident of planned IDF cruelty towards Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank and the negative reactions he got to his reporting on the incident. Its a good read in its entirety for its historical references, its revelation about Israeli self-denial of its racism and oppression, and for its acknowledgment that Israeli mistreatment of Palestinians occurred long before any suicide bombers were created or primitive rockets were fired. http://www.ameu.org/printer.asp?iid=103&aid=1...
You dare to say there was a major problem before the Pals resorted to suicide bombers or primitive rockets? How dare you!
Helena – I am glad you brought up NPR, a station that's become literally defanged on any issue to do with Israel, Palestine – and by extension, democracy itself, even in the US (their election coverage was shameful, IMHO). Same is true about PBS, with Bill Moyers as a notable exception (an understandable one, as he is independently funded – and has enough banked reputation to coast on for many years to come). The way NPR and PBS reporters/pundits seem to deal with the I/P issue is by mostly ignoring it, or if that can't be done with any honesty (due to say it being way too prominent in the news) then by wading in most gingerely with enough caveats to fill a leaky bathtub. Unfortunately, any outlet that depends on public funding and individual donations is completely exposed to well organized campaigns, such as CAMERA can mount. This is made worse by the fact that jewish people do, on the whole, contribute a great deal to public media outlets and generally are known to support the arts more generously than any other single identifiable group (identifiable by ANY accepted marker, be it religious affiliation, ethnic background, cause related, gender specific, etc). Sure, all these jewish people are not alike in outlook, but guess what – the sheer number is sufficient too mount an effective intimidation campaign. In a way, one does not need to actually assemble the jewish multitude (diverse as it is) into a boycotting avalanche. Ten scathing letters to the station's chief will do – the rest can be left to the imagination. This is a very worisome dynamics in so far as the future of the independent media is concerned as well. I bring Huffington post and daily kos as Exhibit 1. You Tube is Exhibit 2 – seeing how max Blumenthal's video got taken off (which has now been removed from vimeo as well). You Helena and Phil and a few others may be allowed (more like tolerated) to go around and spill beans and draw attention to the issue. But that's true as long as the influence you wield is perceived as confined to the ranks of those who are already inclined to seek truth in narrative. The minute the influence would be considered more threatening (threat is defined as passing a certain threshold in numbers of regular folks who are suddenly tuning), you can expect the pressure to mount, and an organized campaign of smears to materialize out of nothing. Though I suspect that in Phil's case, the pressure will first materialize in the form of a very generous check, something large enough to make a big difference to the site. The check will come from a sympathtic corner, and, to throw off suspicion, it'll have no strings attached. No visible strings, that is. We could ask Arianna Huffington how this works, BTW. In yours and JWN case, it might be a judiciusly timely pick-up by a super-duper msm outlet – guaranting you all but prominent display coupled with the ensuing clamor. Would you be able to resist? would Phil? because once accepted, these gifts turn out to be the trojan horses that keep on giving. I've seen NPR compromise slowly, bit by bit over the years, giving in to the golden ties that bind, even as its place in the public sphere became more assured. That's how the Jewish pressure groups were able to be so effective – they co-opt more than they boycott. For every Finkelstein cast out, there are 10 Friedmans brought in. And once in, it's all but impossible to escape the net. BTW, keep up the good work – loved those Hamas interviews.
Twenty years ago I wrote a story for the View section of the LA Times about a left wing Israeli lawyer who defended Palestinians in the West Bank. I spent a day with her as she traveled around Los Angeles, meeting with supporters, doing a radio shot, and giving a talk at UCLA, where she serenely ignored the no-smoking signs. I fully quoted her quite bitter remarks about what she regarded as ubiquitous persecution of Palestinians by the Israeli courts and the IDF. I remember at one point her savagely mocking Israeli parents who were so concerned about the anguish felt by their sons in the IDF at having to break Palestinian bones. "How come they never worry about the people who got their bones broken?" she demanded. The story, it occurred to me more than once while I was writing it, had the potential to piss a lot of people at the paper off. To my surprise, it never happened. Perhaps the Israeli narrative was so strong and unassailable in those days that no one cared about a single story giving the other side. Also it appeared in the View section and thus wasn't perhaps seen as as reflecting the "official" voice of the LA Times. Whatever the reason, there were no editorial objections or demands for changes whatsoever, and, more surprisingly, no complaints from west side (i.e. Jewish) readers who usually went through the paper with magnifying glasses, looking for phrases in stories remotely critical of Israel.
No, moron. They have not become "literally defanged". "Literally" means "even though what I am saying is usually used as a figure of speech, in this case, it refers to stuff that actually happened, not being used as a figure of speech". God, I hate you ignorami who use "literally" for emphasis. It is a useful, compact way to express that something isn't a figure of speech, which you and your ilk are destroying, leaving no convenient way of making that point. You can literally defang a snake by pulling out actual fangs, you can't literally defang an organization because it doesn't have actual fangs to pull. Get the picture you (not literally) brainless Palestinian supporter?
Speaking of Hezbollah: A United Opposition Hezbollah After the Elections http://www.counterpunch.org/lamb06302009.html
Thom – when you have no reply to the substance, you take on linguistics, right? Alas, I do beg to differ even though linguistic casualties are a recognized form of collateral damage, especially when it comes to I/P speak. And differ I shall, if only for the sheer fun of it (not that "fun" is ever "sheer"). You see, organizations do, in fact, have fangs – how else would they bite? with molars? Just because you choose not to see them doesn't mean they are not there. Perhaps not unlike them vempires who run among us – unperceived until they get hungry? (darn vempires…). Homework for Thom: 1. can an "organization" take a "bite" out of crime? and with what would it bite, unless it had teeth? 2. can an "organization" be "cowed"? can you? and if so, how? please be brief. 3. can a law have "teeth" and can it bite (say into crime)? 4. can you cite examples when the figurative and literal co-exist? (expand to your heart's content, assuming you have one…) Sorry guys, I know it's wasted on the philistines, but how could help it?
The philistines whom the palestinians claim to be direct descendants.
Once? You mean they've stopped?
Wow. Thanks for sharing that. That's quite a bit of history (and would not have dared to believe it had you not given your first hand account). Insightful analysis of the whys and wherefores as well.
Ouch, struck a nerve Thom? It's always the ones who pick apart the small details of the story, 'literally' don't have much to offer.
There were other forms of terrorism in the 70's. Here's a sample: 1970: Avivim school bus massacre http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiryat_Shmona_massac... 1972: Lod airport massacre http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiryat_Shmona_massac... 1972: Munich massacre http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiryat_Shmona_massac... 1974: Kiryat Shmona massacre http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiryat_Shmona_massac... The list goes on and on. Why do you people have no knowledge of history? Maybe I shouldn't be so surprised.
Also speaking of Hezbollah: Hezbollah keeps its eye on the ball By Sami Moubayed http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KF27Ak01...
The substance of your remarks was bland and unremarkable. Typical paranoia, stated in a longwinded and boring fashion along with inane speculation about what the "Evil Jewish media conspiract ™" will do next. No real substance=no reply to substance. The only thing interesting about your post was your (not literal) butchering of the English language. You are like the idiots who try to redefine the word "rape" to include any heterosexual sexual activity. If they succeed then we will no longer have a word for the real thing. People like you attack our very ability to communicate. Figuratively (not literally) turning the world into a tower of Babel.
Many organizations have figurative fangs (the ability to harm others). Few have literal fangs (zoos with snakes and other fanged animals). I don't object to your using a figure of speech, I object to your false claim that you are not using a figure of speech. For your education: 1. Figuratively, yes. Literally, no. Which is why you would be wrong if you said "literally took a bite out of crime". The point is that you don't use the word "literally" when using a figure of speech as a figure of speech. A police dog might literally take a bite out of a criminal, but not out of crime. You can't literally take a bite out of an abstract concept. 2. Figuratively and literally, yes. "Cowed" means "to have one's resolve destroyed". It is not about actual cows. It is also possible for someone to be dogged or sheepish without actual animals being involved. As to whether I personally can be cowed, sure. I won't say how though. 3. Figuratively, yes, literally, no. 4. Sure, someone does not literally get your goat unless you have an actual goat and he actually gets it. There is a figure of speech "rip off his head and spit down his neck" which I have seen the word "literally" used on (in a book that involved a troll doing so). You are a figurative Philistine, Goliath was literally a Philistine. People figuratively say "I am going to kill.. <name here>" quite frequently. Rather less frequently, people actually mean it literally. Someone could "kick your ass" literally, without defeating you, or figuratively without foot making contact with posterior. Finally, you figuratively have your head up your ass. I rather doubt you could manage to accomplish it literally. If you can, apply for a job as a contortionist. If you want an actual guide to when to use "literally" 1) Along with something that is usually a figure of speech but 2) is not being used as a figure of speech in your statement.
I enjoy communicating. I dislike people who try to make it more difficult by trying to change the meanings of words to suit their own political purposes (trying to call settlements colonies for example). I despise people who do it for no reason at all. Oddly enough, you correctly used the word "literally", though you happen to be wrong.
abducted, I love it!
Dear me… what I don't like is the horde of ill-educated 'prescriptivists' who think language operates according to the definitions found in abbreviated dictionaries. 'Literally' has been used as an intensifier for figurative or metaphorical speech since the 1760s, and such usage is perfectly correct English. It was only in the 20th century that ignorant grammarians took offence at that and other examples of good English, and started 'correcting' them (and thus, the English language was molested by generations reared on the ramblings of Messrs. Strunk & White…). http://bit.ly/pXqXH
None of those incidents were perpetrated by Palestinians living in the West Bank. So why did the IDF think it necessary or proper to attack Palestinian schoolchildren in Beit Jalla? We all have a knowledge of history, it's just that it isn't as one-sided as yours is.
It sounds more like you enjoy anonymously belittling people and calling them names.. Perhaps it helps to give you a false sense of superiority but its truly a petty pastime. Literally.
Brilliant (if lengthy) article, Phil. Thanks so much for posting this. It's refreshing, albeit a bit shocking, to hear a contributor to the LA Times echo so many of the same feelings I have regarding political Islam and what the West's posture should be towards Islamic political movements. I wasn't surprised one bit to see Silverstein's invocation of Alistair Crooke as a voice of reason: I've long been a reader of Crooke's, and the analysis of the July War put forth by Crooke and his colleague Mark Perry is easily the single best analysis of the 2006 war between Hizbullah and Israel that has ever been done. Here are the links for anyone who wants to read them, and I strongly encourage you all to do so: How Hizbullah Defeated Israel Part One: Winning the Intelligence War Part Two: Winning the Ground War Part Three: The Political War
Contemporary news articles provide information; comparison of various articles regarding such incidents allows one to evaluate various points of view. Wikipedia is strong when articles are fact based and from a neutral point of view (NPOV), weak when opinion is expressed in the delivery of information. From reading discussion on various pages regarding Wikipedia philosophy, separate articles such as this on one topic seem to indicate a lack of NPOV.
Vladimir Dubnow realized that Palestine would have to be taken by force: ADL, Ron Paul, Stormfront. There were so many native Palestinian Arabis that Herzl made a special point of dehumanizing them in Alt-Neuland in order to silence any objections to an ethnic cleansing: Participating in an Obsolete Discourse.
Zionist Controll: Spanish Language Media. Discourse suppression is part of the activist community as well. I think I was the only historical political economist in Jewish studies. I wrote a thesis on Jewish restraint of trade in Saxony and its relationship to the growth of the anti-Semitic movement in Germany. Guess what the reaction was. Of course, African Americans writing about African American criminality are praised for their courage. Phil does not address a lot of the major Jewish and Zionist frauds that I list in Collection: Chief Zionist Frauds.
Yes, we should certainly give Hezbollah credit when appropriate. Maybe you can explain that to the hundreds that lost their lives in the American barracks bombing in Lebanon.