The US Media and the PLO: Will Things Ever Change?

By Dr. Alfred M. Lilienthal

"Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose" can best describe the reaction of the establishment and the media to the "Arafat affair," as many refer to it here in Washington. I speak authoritatively as the only living American who was at Lake Success in 1947 when the UN voted to partition Palestine into what was supposed to be a Jewish state and a Palestinian state; at the United Nations in 1974 for Yasser Arafat's appearance; at Algiers in November for the Palestine National Council meeting; and at Geneva in December for the special UN General Assembly session held there because the US government would not grant Arafat a visa to speak to the UN in New York.

PLO Turned Into Defendants

After Secretary of State George Shultz rejected Arafat's speech in Geneva as inadequate both as to recognition of Israel and in its denunciation of terrorism, European diplomats and Arab-American supporters prevailed upon the PLO chieftain to hold a press conference, in English, the next morning. This time his words, which aside from the change in language from Arabic to English, contained only the minutest deviation from what he had already said, were accepted as the basis for a US-PLO dialogue. Commenting on the new US position, President Reagan stated: "Let them match their deeds to their words, and if they do not, that is the end of our talks with them."

Columnists, editorial writers, and news reporters, with few exceptions, have picked up the Reagan theme, turning Arafat and the PLO into defendants. "These PLO 'terrorists' must now show us they will not be reverting to their old ways," is what now emanates from the same writers and commentators who were hoping that the ban on US-PLO negotiations would last forever.

Time magazine of Dec. 26 carried nearly a full page expounding "The Case for Skepticism," signed by Michael Kramer, who used to write for New York Magazine, whose pro-Israel stance is well known. Replete with a snide illustration, the article seeks to link Palestinians with terrorism and issues a stern warning that the PLO is very likely to revert to its old ways. Henry Kissinger is quoted: "If you believe that their real intention is to kill you, it isn't unreasonable to believe that they would lie to you." The Palestinians, Time insisted, "must prove that they will not use a West Bank state as a foothold to strike for the rest of Israel."

Jewish Americans must not now permit, in their name, the scuttling of talks which could lead to direct negotiations between the adversaries and to a two-state solution to the Palestine question, righting an old wrong.

The entire burden of proof is placed on the Palestinians—not a word about what Israel must do to build trust, let alone what the US ought and can do to force Israel to the negotiating table with the PLO.

In the weeks following the Geneva meeting, diehard apologists for Israel like George Will and Fred Barnes, unable because of Shultz's record to criticize the secretary of state's initiative as "anti-Israel," constantly alluded to one act or another of past terrorism—although none of those cited were instigated by Yasser Arafat or the mainstream At Fatah wing of the PLO. Virtually all of the "terrorists" cited are Arafat's sworn enemies, and the chiefs of state cited-Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini, Syria's Hafez al Assad, and Libya's Muammar el Qaddafi-have been extremely critical of Arafat's acceptance of a two-state solution.

While there was discussion of the possibility of a radical wing of the PLO, Abu Nidal, or even Syria's Assad (as talk show host John McLaughlin himself interjected) torpedoing the current US-PLO talks, it seemed that none of the media personalities dared allude to the ability of the Mossad or some other Israeli agency to sabotage the initiative. (interestingly, on call-in radio and television shows, members of the general public alluded repeatedly to this Mossad capability and past record, particularly in connection with the downing of Pan Am Flight 103.)

It is this diabolical enemy image of Palestinians and of the PLO, never put to rest by either the Congress or the media, that underlies the disastrous failure of US Middle East policy

As always, since the creation of Israel, this double standard prevails among professional journalists and politicians, not so much out of love of Zionism or of the Jewish state, but out of plain, simple fear. "Do not run afoul of the Zionist lobby, the pressure groups, and Jewish political-financial power, which can be and has been exerted against one and all of us."

Conservative, opinionated George Will, whose wife is Jewish, has probably been the most unwavering supporter of Israel and consistent critic of the PLO in the United States. In his syndicated column which appeared in the Washington Post on Dec. 22, headlined "The Snowball of Appeasement," Will added a new page to the already prevalent myth-in formation and prejudice aimed at scuttling prospects for a just peace. Without a scintilla of proof, the columnist argued that the partition resolution of 1947 intended Jordan and Israel to be the two states to be carved out of the Palestine mandate. Pure nonsense! If the United Nations had so intended, they would have specifically named Jordan as the Palestinian state.

As part of his slash and burn attack on the new, moderate Arafat image, Will alleged that "Arafat gave the order by telephone from Beirut for the murder of the US ambassador in Khartoum." There is no semblance of substantiation of this charge. (Were you there, Georgie? How about a $1,000 bet on the validity of your charge—the money to go to a charity?)

Mythinformation Campaign Continues

Trying to get back to Washington from Columbus over the Christmas holidays, I picked up the Indianapolis Star, which carried the George Will article under the headline "Western Appeasement Gathers Momentum." In this same paper (published by the Pulliam family, whose illustrious scion is Vice President Dan Quayle) there were two lengthy back-to-back articles by other well-known Zionist pundits: William Safire and Daniel Pipes. The latter resorted to sweeping generalizations about both Arabs and Palestinians to muddy the PLO image. Safire called for a "united Israel front to the world to ensure the survival of Israel, now threatened by the PLO."

Even as a young man, Safire was a little shifty. Back in the late 50s, when he was an assistant on the famed "Tex and Jinx" radio show, broadcast from the Waldorf Astoria's Peacock Alley, I appeared on the program. I had brought with me a devastating rebuttal to then-current Zionist propaganda which I had intended to read at an appropriate moment. The moment came, I reached for my written rebuttal, and found that both it and Safire had vanished from the studio.

An appropriate rebuttal to Safire's current Massada-type thinking is contained in a brilliant article, printed in the New York Times of Jan. 2 and reprinted in the "Other Voices" section of this issue of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, by former Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban. He writes: "Israel's defense system is one of the wonders of the world. Never in history has so small a country been able and ready to wield such a vast capacity for defense, deterrence, and reprisal."

'Slanting Through Photography'

Joining the front against US talks with the PLO, the New York Times Sunday Magazine of Dec. 18 printed a cover story titled "The Ambiguous Yasir Arafat," written by Marie Colbin, Middle East correspondent for the London Sunday Times. There was nothing wrong with the Arafat cover photograph, but the other pictures scattered throughout the article constituted "slanting through photography" par excellence. They included a half-page photo of Arafat embracing Colonel Muammar el Qaddaffi, and lumped together under the caption "The Harder Line," photographs of George Habash, "long Arafat's main radical rival"; "renegade" Abu Nidal; Abul Abbas, a figure in the Achille Lauro, hijacking; and finally, a current photo of Arafat deputy Abu Iyad, captioned as a "former Black September leader." References to the long-defunct "Black September" organization, with all its connotations of terror, appeared three times in the piece.

A photo of Arafat at breakfast pointedly informed the reader that this was at the "PLO villa in Libya." In her text, Colbin referred vaguely to "acts which went a long way toward disqualifying the PLO as an organization with which civilized nations could do business, an attitude that persists among many key American officials."

By contrast, writers in such publications as the Washington Post, who have in the past been more objective, now seem disinclined to discuss Israeli misdeeds. Although Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir, and Ariel Sharon all established themselves through blatant acts of violence, it is now the Palestinians alone who must prove themselves. "Can we trust the Palestinians?" is the theme that prevails.

"As Far as He Can Go"

It is a use of character assassination to poison the US-PLO talks. Arafat says justifiably that he has been made to do a striptease. Indeed, it is hard to see what more can be asked of him. To paraphrase a fine from Oklahoma, "He has gone about as far as he can go." It is wrong to permit the conjuring up of the image of hated Palestinians killing innocent Israelis whereas the shoe has for so long been on the other foot. It is this diabolical enemy image of Palestinians and of the PLO, never put to rest by either the Congress or the media, that underlies the disastrous failure of US Middle East policy.

Public opinion, as so often is the case, is far ahead of the politicians, and this has happened not because the media has done its job, but despite the fact that until the past year the mainstrearn media have seldom presented the public with "the other side of the coin." Nevertheless, all indications show that a majority of Americans are pleased that talks between the US and the PLO have started and want to see them pursued to a successful conclusion. Many, probably most, Americans are very aware of Israel's brutality on the West Bank which, despite Israel's ban on coverage there, is still being widely reported today. Some are beginning to understand the nature of the "original sin," the turning over to the Zionists of the Holy Land, with its 66 percent Muslim and Christian-Arab populace, to atone for Western guilt over Nazi criminality.

President Bush has tried to keep out of it all, although he must surely be relieved over the Shultz reversal, which absolved the Bush administration of the responsibility—or blame—for starting talks with the PLO. In the course of news programs before Christmas, there had been quick flashes to Bush, who seemed to be advocating that Israel talk with the Jordanians. It was consistent with his rhetoric early in the campaign but surely not a serious indication the new president is thinking of wasting precious administration political capital on reviving the Jordan option.

Organized Jewry, with the assistance of the media, as we wrote in What Price Israel? so many years ago, usurped the voice of the average Jewish American in staking a claim to a part of the Arab world. Jewish American must not now permit in their name, the scuttling of talks which could lead to direct negotiations between the adversaries and to a two-state solution to the Palestine question, righting an old wrong. The essence of universal Judaism remains its unswerving passion for justice and righteousness.

The consequences of still another Middle East peace failure at this time would be calamitous, not only to Israelis and Palestinians, but also, and particularly, for Jewish Americans and for the long-term national interests of the United States.

Dr. Alfred M. Lilienthal served in the Middle East in World War II and has spent a lifetime since then educating Americans on Middle East realities. He is the author of What Price Israel?, There Goes the Middle East, The Other Side of the Coin, and his monumental The Zionist Connection.