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April/May 1994, Page 30 Media Watch
Mainstream Media Mideast SlantersBasically, a newspaper can do whatever it wants with the wire service copy it receives. The reader doesn't know whether it's printed roughly as received, or edited to suit the needs of the publisher, editor or advertisers. Other journalists do know, however, because they have access to the original, undoctored copy. For example, the Washington Report's U.N. correspondent spotted two glaring examples on the same day of the pervasive slanting of news and routine selection of "facts" concerning Palestinians and Israelis practiced by America's two major "newspapers of record," The New York Times and The Washington Post. It started with a box moved by the Associated Press at 2:51 p.m. Feb. 25, the day of the massacre of Palestinian worshippers at the Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron by Brooklyn-born Dr. Baruch Goldstein, a reserve captain in the Israeli army and a physician at the West Bank Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba. The AP tabulation (reproduced in full at right) was headlined: "Violent attacks between Israelis and Palestinians that have resulted in high civilian death tolls since Israel was established May 14, 1948." AP listed, in chronological order, a total of 13 attacks (including that in Hebron), 7 by Palestinians with a total of 139 victims, and 6 by Israelis with 337 victims. The information was extremely timely, just what both newspapers needed to help flesh out full-page spreads on the attack for their Saturday editions. Someone on The New York Times, however, didn't like those numbers, which indicated that victims of Israeli terrorists exceeded victims of Palestinian terrorism by almost two-and-a-half to one. So, two more terrorist attacks by Palestinians were added to the box, and three attacks by Israelis, including the Hebron attack, were dropped from it. The table that appeared in the Feb. 26 New York Times listed 12 attacks, 9 by Palestinians with a total of 204 victims, and 3 by Israelis with a total of 76 victims. It still was bylined "By the Associated Press." At The Washington Post, the process was more subtle and the results even stranger. The Post table printed on Feb. 26 was headlined "Violence Since 1967" and sourced to "News reports, Associated Press, Reuter. " In fact, however, by limiting the time period to post- 1967 and adding three attacks not covered in the AP listing, the Post came up with a total of 10 attacks prior to the Hebron attack, 6 by Palestinians with a total of 123 fatalities, and 4 by Israelis with a total of 28 fatalities. The Hebron attack was included, but the number of fatalities was given only as "dozens." So who wins the slanting sweepstakes? The AP tabulation indicates 2.42 Palestinians killed for every Israeli killed. The New York Times tabulation turns the numbers upside down by indicating 2.68 Israelis killed for every Palestinian killed. The Washington Post listing, without including the reference to "dozens" of Hebron victims, has 4.39 Israelis killed for every Palestinian killed. Does that mean that The Washington Post and The New York Times outrageously slant accurate Middle East copy received from AP? Not necessarily. In fact, by the most conservative arithmetic, for every Israeli civilian killed, at least 10 Palestinian civilians have been killed over the years from 1948 to the present. With Israelis now so heavily armed, and Palestinians not, the odds are even worse today for the Palestinians than they were 45 years ago. They become much worse if they include state-sponsored terrorism," meaning Israeli bombs and shells dropped on villages and refugee camps in Lebanon, and random shooting into Palestinian homes, offices and schools by Israeli troops in the occupied territories. Inclusion of such documented events would yield odds closer to 50 or 100 Palestinians and Lebanese killed for every Israeli killed. So the AP table, too, is selective history. Where, for example, is the attack by masked Israelis on the Islamic University in Hebron, in which 3 students were killed; the bombings in which newly elected West Bank Arab mayors were killed or maimed by the self-styled "Jewish Underground" ; or the almost daily toll of Palestinians shot by Israeli soldiers out of control or by West Bank Jewish settlers who fire machine guns not only at kids who throw stones, but into crowds in the towns near where such incidents take place? Often-quoted Rabbi Moshe Levinger, for example, the U.S. -born Gush Emunim leader from Hebron has two such notches in his gun—one for a boy who was throwing stones at his car and one for a middle-aged father who was killed in the back of his shoe store when the rabbi sprayed machine gun fire at random down Hebron's main shopping street. With slanted material to start with, and pro-Israel creativity permitted in the editorial offices of most of the mainstream American press, it's no wonder many Americans are so misinformed. —RHC SIDEBAR (Following is the text of a compilation by the Associated Press transmitted to clients on Feb. 25, 1994) Violent attacks between Israelis and Palestinians that have resulted in high civilian death tolls since Israel was established May 14, 1948:
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