What Good Is a Free U.S. Press That Chooses Not to See?

By George Laumann

An old Arab man silently wipes the tears from his lined and weathered face and slowly turns away from the funeral procession passing on the road below. In the shadow of the Old City of Jerusalem, at the entrance to the ancient City of David, a Muslim cemetery covers a hilltop overlooking the village of Jabal Mukabbar. Nearly 5,000 Palestinians gather there to bury two 22-year-old sons of the village.

This funeral is both remarkable and unremarkable. What is unusual is that it is the largest funeral gathering of Palestinians in several years. It honors two cousins, Hussein Obeidat, who died in prison during the prison hunger strike, and his first cousin, Mustafa Obeidat, who died from a gunshot wound he received during a demonstration in support of the hunger strikers. Present were members of competing political factions, led by Fatah and Hamas supporters. Not present were Israeli border police, but they were positioned at strategic locations several kilometers from the village. Whether from respect or caution, they made no attempt to disrupt the funeral. Israeli authorities state that Hussein Obeidat died because he had a weak heart. His family believes he was weakened by the hunger strike and died of a heart attack because he did not receive prompt medical attention when he complained of chest pains.

Similarly, there are conflicting claims about his cousin Mustafa's violent death at the hands of a border policeman in East Jerusalem. The truth, however, can be seen on a film. The Israeli police report states that Mustafa tried to grab the gun of an officer, who shot him in self-defense. Eye-witness accounts and a British Visnews videotape directly contradict the police version.

"While breaking up a demonstration, border guards arrested a number of young Palestinians and put them in their jeep,'' reports Roli Rosen, a writer for the Hebrew weekly Kol Ha'ir, as quoted in Al Fajr newspaper. "Older women, mothers of the prisoners, gathered around the jeep to argue with the border guards and try to convince them to release the young men. There was an argument, crowding, shouts.

''Suddenly a tear-gas canister was thrown, and a young Palestinian grabbed it and threw it back. The crowd applauded and the humiliated border guards were furious. The next image, etched in my memory, is that of the young man held to the ground by two border guards, who are beating him fiercely with their rifle butts. And then, suddenly, with speed that prevented one from immediately absorbing the significance of what was happening, another border guard approached the battered youth with his rifle, pointed downward, and shot him."

The bullet entered near Mustafa Obeidat's rectum, exploded, and severely damaged the organs of the lower abdomen and kidneys. He died a week later, leaving a young wife and two children. They are present at the funeral, along with the mother of one of the young men, all flanked by an honor guard of masked PLO youth, and fluttering red, green, white and black Palestinian flags and banners. When the bodies are interred and prayers said, the colors are almost obscured by rising dust as the throng attending the funeral descends from the hilltop cemetery, leaving a lone Palestinian flag snapping in the wind above the grave.

Less remarkable, unfortunately, is Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's threat to Palestinians after the deaths of the two cousins: "If you carry on with terrorism, your fate will be grave and bitter. . . Look what a terrible situation you are in. Stop for a moment and think what you have achieved. Weigh your actions well, because it is you who will bear the results of your mistakes."

After that warning I was able to photograph, on a recent Friday morning in East Jerusalem, the beginnings of what Rabin might describe as "terrorism." It started when border guards, for "security reasons," prevented Muslim men from entering the Old City to worship. Men who challenged the restriction were slapped lightly on the cheek, grabbed by the back of the neck or jabbed in the stomach with a night stick as they were turned away. In calculated actions to humiliate and degrade them, other Palestinian men were lined up against a wall, spread-eagled, and patted down and their belongings checked. An American tourist from Texas, watching the proceedings at my side, was outraged. "They could never get away with this crap in the States," he fumed. "There would be a riot. We never hear about this stuff. "

As I photograph the degrading scene, a border policeman in fatigues suddenly confronts me. "Do you see a problem?" he asks menacingly as he demands my passport. He is joined by two other officers, who ask me sarcastically whether I want to take their pictures.

I refuse to answer, but instead ask if this is a closed military area. It isn't, and they know it, so they angrily return to their degrading work. I know I've been lucky because the Jerusalem police have a reputation for destroying the film and cameras of tourists who seem inclined to photograph American tax dollars at work there.

An Aggravating Routine

As I continue to watch, a huge policeman, well over six feet tall, flak-jacketed, starts to storm around the Damascus Gate market. He upsets boxes of produce, tosses clothing to the ground, and screams at the thin old men and groups of young boys who scamper out of reach of his night stick. He is clearly aggravated by the routine of his duty. Suddenly his rampage ends. He returns to sit with his cohorts, sipping water and laughing over his diversion. Merchants hurriedly pack up their wares and scurry away as tension increases.

Two 14-year-old boys join me at the wall overlooking the gate. The clink of glass against glass draws my attention to the plastic bags they place on the wall. Our eyes meet and I look away. I know that cola bottles are used for throwing at soldiers in clashes at Damascus Gate. But the giant soldier remains seated and tensions slowly dissipate.

As I leave I wonder how many incidents in which men, women and children die under the bullets of Israeli soldiers begin as casually as the near-confrontation I have just witnessed. The Palestine Information Center reports that nearly one-third of all Palestinian deaths since the beginning of the intifada have been of children under the age of 16. Many must have been boys like those who stood beside me overlooking the Damascus Gate, watching their fathers, uncles and grandfathers deliberately harassed, debased and humiliated.

Certainly there are battles between armed Palestinians and the occupation forces, and certainly innocent Israeli civilians have been the victims of indiscriminate attacks by "terrorists." But much of the Israeli press refuses to distinguish between such actions and those that result from deliberate provocations of innocent civilians like those a visitor can witness almost daily in East Jerusalem and the occupied territories.

"This is not the way peace talks are usually conducted," a Jerusalem Post editorial recently observed with studied indignation. "Normally a cease-fire is observed before the adversaries start negotiating. But totalitarian countries have found that they can undermine the resolve of their democratic adversaries by continuing the bloodshed unofficially even during the peace talks, through guerrilla warfare and terrorism... A totalitarian, terrorist enemy is seldom placated. On the contrary, manifestations of generosity and largess encourage him to continue shedding blood in the sound assumption that a democratic enemy will go to almost any lengths to avoid war."

This repulsive journalistic double-standard smacks of the racism which permeates daily life in Israel. Who challenges the violent excesses of the occupation forces, the torture, the summary executions of "wanted" Palestinians, the murder of children for refusing an order to stop, or for writing nationalistic slogans on walls?

Where is the outrage at Israeli police whose actions make the Rodney King beating look almost innocent? Who judges the shameful double standards not just of racist Israeli journalists, but of American correspondents who see what I have seen, but who either do not report it, or who suffer in silence the censorship of their reports by their editors? What good is a free American press that chooses not to be free?

George Laumann is a free-lance photo-journalist who is currently working in the Middle East.