*ARAFAT KISSED ME ONCE, TOO*

*SHARON IS COMING*

*WHAT IS IN A NUMBER?*

The photo on the front page of the New York Times was upbeat for a change. It has Yasser Arafat being kissed on the cheek by a colleague, a common greeting commemorating his release from captivity in Ramallah. Such affectionate kissing is very common. In my travels, I once stumbled across the Chairman, in an unguarded moment and smiled as if I knew him. His arms stretched out, perhaps involuntarily, and he embraced me. And then, within a nano-second, his lips were on my cheek and his scratchy beard was making contact with my hairy face. And there you have it, my confession: Arafat Kissed Me, too! I can just sense some readers shrugging, as if to say, ‘you see, that just proves?&.(Yes, I know: this is not a moment for mirth. but in that moment, I was terrorized, too. Only half-kidding)

The New York Post on the other hand offers a less loving front page image, with that stark scene of a fire at Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity. The headline, like a true Murdochian morality missile is just one word: “OUTRAGE.” Inside the paper, the headline is “Midnight Madness: Blame game as flames erupt.” This demonstrates a surprising infusion of uncharacteristic balance. For what’s really happening I returned to Rome and Father Juliani’s Missionary News Service (Misna.org) with its sources deep in Manger Square. Here’s their latest update:

NEGATIVITY AT NATIVITY

“Negotiations between Israeli’s and Palestinians to put an end to the siege against the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, which has continued for the last month could resume today. At least 30 days have passed since the Church where Christ was born has become the place where Israeli forces which presently occupy Bethlehem have been fighting against the Palestinians barricaded inside the Church. Last night a violent shoot-out occurred just outside the Church, after Israeli forces launched fire bombs causing immense damage to the structure of the Church, even though it is not clear who opened fire first. “Now the situation is under control – confirmed the Mayor of Bethlehem, Hanna Nasser, to MISNA – the fire that broke out last night caused serious damage to the structure of the Franciscans Casa Nova, besides damaging the Church offices, fortunately the religious barricaded inside where unhurt. There are no reports of injured, nobody has requested to be evacuated from the Church”.

HAMMERING DELAY

Let’s go now to our DC Capitol (non) Bureau. The Bush Administration is still trying to rein in Tom “The Hammer” DeLay, the onetime exterminator turned House Majority Leader, to try to stop him from exterminating all wriggle room with Ariel Sharon whose portly presence will grace Washington next week. President Bush and just about everyone else in the world, save some Israelis and many Christian rightists, think it is a bad idea for the US Congress to go on record with a resolution totally embracing Sharon’s every military maneuver in the name of Israel solidarity. How does the Israeli government feel about its chummy relationship with the DeLays of this world? They aren’t saying, or perhaps the press is not asking.

Ha’aretz, the Israeli paper (via Globalvision News Network (gvnews.net) suggests that Sharon is going to have to pull something new out of his bag of tricks to keep Bush at bay. Bradley Burston writes: “Nearing a dangerous precipice with the UN Security Council, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon may need to make an overture the Arabs can’t refuse if he is to win White House support in diplomatic warfare over the disputed bloodshed in Jenin…

NEXT MOVE: SHARON

“…Former foreign minister Shlomo Ben-Ami said that an enraged Security Council determined to show a defiant Israel who was boss, could raise the stakes of an investigation, appointing a full-blown commission of inquiry into the events of Jenin as well as other elements of the broad IDF West Bank offensive ordered in response to an unprecedented series of suicide bombings. UN sanctions could follow.

“Sharon must come with an offer that the Arabs cannot refuse, an offer good enough to compensate them for forgoing pressure over Jenin,” (Ha’aretz commentator Akiva Eldar ) Eldar continues. “For instance, Sharon could go to the White House on Monday and say ‘Okay, I’m willing to discuss and give my blessing to the new version of the Saudi plan, let’s have an international conference.’

“Sharon needs something big, just to shift the emphasis from Jenin to something new. He needs to make it possible for Bush to be able to tell the Arabs ‘Listen, I’ve got something even bigger for you, and (if you reject it, then) I will have to impose the veto.”

THE INTERNATIONALS INTERVENE

As this diplomatic and not so diplomatic game plays itself out — often out of public view and media interest — on the ground one story is being missed. The role of the Internationals or overseas activists who have become an activist presence in the middle of the conflict, seen by the Israelis and Palestinians but apparently not by the overseas press which may just not be looking. Here’s an account by one Harlem resident, Derick Muhammad, who has sent back dispatches distributed by Leonora Foerstal’s PRIME listserv:

“Twenty citizens of Europe and the United States had come together to voice our opposition to the occupation of Palestine by Israel. We grabbed our Peace in the Middle East signs and marched the streets of Bethlehem toward the Church of the Nativity

“…Our mission was to supply those in the church with humanitarian aid: food, water, and mission and let it be known that much of the world is against Israel holding the Church of the Nativity hostage…..Israeli soldiers when possible ignore “internationals” for it can open up a diplomatic and public relations nightmare. This allows internationals to resist the occupation in a manner Palestinians never could.

“This power, this utilization of American privilege to stand up for those that have no rights anyone is bound to respect made me realize the power of non-violent action particularly by those who are citizens of and therefore protected by Western Europe and the United States and Canada. As an African-American it reminded me of the protective role white involvement in the Black Civil Rights movement of the South played.

“….None of the twenty “internationals” in our International Solidarity Movement (ISM) thought we would manage anything but to confront the soldiers at the barricades surrounding the Church of the Nativity. As luck would have it ISM caught the entire Israeli Army around Manger’s Square sleeping. ISM marched over the unmanned barbed wire barricade and kept going finding ourselves in Manger Square. Apparently, even the soldiers in the tank parked next to the church were sleeping for our entire delegation made it to the door of the Church of the Nativity delivering our food and water. We were the first people to break the Israeli siege of the Church of the Nativity ..

“After sitting in at the front of the church with our peace signs, the Israeli army eventually made its way to us dragging and pushing us away from the church. The soldiers placed us all out of the manger square and told us to stay seated while they brought in a military escort to take us from the area. Hawaida Arraf, the Palestinian-American who co-founded ISM, led us all to stand up and walk away from the soldiers, refusing to recognize the authority of the occupation forces. The soldiers were shocked that we would try to walk away from them and had only stationed a few soldiers to guard us. After some futile attempts to block our path, the street was too wide to prevent us from going around them, they amazingly gave up and we walked away..”Derick’s longer report has this quote tagged on to its end:

“Let us be realists, let us do the impossible.”

“Let me say at the risk of appearing ridiculous that thetrue revolutionary is guided by strong feelings of Love.”Both by - Ernesto “Che” Guevera

THE NUMBERS GAME

If press coverage of this type of activism is largely ignored, at least in the US, what press coverage there is often disputed with pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian groups accusing the media of bias on every turn. Some of those concerns on both sides have merit or at least points worthy of debate. I got in the crossfire myself two weeks ago when I reported on the Israel Solidarity Rally in Washington. I was chided by some readers for underreporting the number of people present. I put the number, citing a Washington Post report at 46,000, which turned out to be the number that a certain area at the Capitol could accommodate. Demonstrators insisted it was much higher, and the next day the New York Times, ABC News and other outlets put he figure at l00,000. I corrected this since I had no firsthand knowledge and let the matter drop.

But, Jerry Tully, a journalist writing for MSNBC.com did not. He delved more deeply into the matter as I discovered, when to my surprise, that site co-run by NBC and Microsoft out of Seattle carried a long and detailed account that challenged other mainstream media accounts, usually a no-no in polite media company,

THE NEW YORK TIMES BACKS DOWN

Most significantly, Tully got the New York Times to back away from its estimate. The piece also carries two pictures — one, an overhead shot, taken at the height of the rally which does not in any way look like l00,000 people and the photo on the front page of the Times, taken from the front of the crowd that made it appear much more robust. This is sort of interesting, since Israel is itself playing its own photo game with the media that I will get to in second. First, an excerpt from Tully’s well researched and soberly written account:

“Generally, estimates of such events vary. But in the white-hot debate over the Middle East, assigning a larger number to one side or another is often viewed conspiratorially by those who come out on the short end. It can also be an indication that one side is doing a better job of getting its message out.

“Does it really matter? Bob Thompson, a professor of media and popular culture at Syracuse University, says yes.

“‘The protest and coverage become one,’ he said. ‘The decision to have a rally is the fact that you will be covered. It’s all one event.’

Last week, The New York Times told MSNBC that it does not stand by the 100,000 number. Toby Usnik, the Times’ director of public relations, said “it was a failure of coordination on one of our desks.”

“A caption accompanying this photo on the front page of April 16 editions of The New York Times says “over 100,000 rally for Israel at the Capitol.” The Times now says it is comfortable with a figure in the “tens of thousands.”

“It was an estimate,” he said. “We are comfortable with tens of thousands, but do not feel that our estimate should become the basis of anything firmer.”

“Good Morning America spokespersons did not respond to several requests for comment.

“The Capitol police, who were responsible for overseeing the pro-Israel rally on April 15, know all too well how controversial such numbers can be. As a result, for years now it has been their policy to refuse to estimate crowd sizes. But their spokesperson, Lt. Dan Nichols, did share pertinent information. He said the rally’s organizers, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said in its permit application that it expected 20,000 people.” The piece goes on to cast doubt on the l00,000 number. I brace myself for an expected verbal assault for even bringing this up. Personally, I am prepared to accept the larger number for that protest AND for the one the next weekend. I am sure organizers of that protest argue their numbers were downplayed too.

PHOTOS CAN BE DECEPTIVE

I bring this up only because of another photo, one released by the Israeli government, aerial shot of Jenin, showing that only the center of the refugee camp was destroyed, not the whole camp. (20% of the resident are now homeless, ABC News reports). In short, pictures rarely prove anything. A harsh critic of Israel, someone named Raja Chemayel poured rather vicious contempt on this by contrasting it with a picture of Manhattan to show that the city was not destroyed, “only two very tall buildings were hit.”

ISRAELI PAIN

In Israel, families of solidiers who died in Jenin are protesting finger pointing by the world at large, according to one email report: “Eighteen families of soldiers killed in the Jenin battles published a pained call this morning entitled, “Letter from a Broken Heart.” The article expresses their anguish at recent accusations that their fallen sons had perpetrated a massacre or war crimes, and at parallels drawn between the battle in Jenin and the Holocaust.

Mrs. Pninah Yaskov, wife of Maj. Avner Yaskov who was killed in the Jeninbattles, said: “I want to express my anger at the words of [veteran Israeli singer] YaffaYarkoni [who said that photographs of Arabs surrendering in Jenin remind her of pictures of the Holocaust]. My poor husband was not a Nazi, did not drag innocent Palestinians to death pits or to the gas chambers, and did not smash babies’ heads against the wall. All he did was to go and protect [his country]…”

ANTISEMITISM AS A WEAPON

Much of this debate here in the USA often conjures up ugly charges of antisemitism. They have prompted veteran columnist Richard Cohen of the Washington Post to speak out on the issue, but not in the same way that many commentators have who just report on the outbreak of horrific incidents in Europe — Belgium, France and that synagogue in Finsbury Park, London. That issue deserves the focus it is getting. But Cohen, like many other writers who are Jewish, including your news dissector, are dismayed about how some Jewish organizations use charges of antisemitism to silence critics of Israel:

“The Anti-Defamation League, one of the most important American Jewish organizations, comes right out and says so. ‘Anti-Zionism is showing its true colors as deep-rooted anti-Semitism [sic],’ the organization says in a full-page ad that I have seen in the New Republic as well as other magazines. ‘No longer are the Arab nations camouflaging their hatred of Jews in the guise of attacking Israel.’

“I feel compelled to pause here and assert my credentials. Few people have written more often about Arab anti-Semitism [sic] than I have come at this subject time and time again, so often that I have feared becoming a bore. Arab anti-Semitism [sic] not only exists, it is often either state-sponsored or state-condoned, and it is only getting worse. It makes the Arabs look like fools. How can anyone take seriously a person who believes that Jews engage in ritual murder?

“But that hardly means that anti-Zionism — hating, opposing, fighting Israel — is the same as anti-Semitism [sic], hating Jews anywhere on account of supposedly inherent characteristics. If I were a Palestinian living in a refugee camp, I might very well hate Israel for my plight — never mind its actual cause — and I even might not like Jews in general.

“After all, Israel proclaims itself the Jewish state. It officially celebrates Jewish holidays, including the Sabbath on Saturday. It allows the orthodox [sic] rabbinate to control secular matters, such as marriage, and, of course, it offers citizenship to any person who can reasonably claim to be Jewish. This so-called right of return permits such a person to ‘return’ to a place where he or she has never been. Palestinians must find this simply astonishing.

“To equate anti-Zionists or critics of Israel in general with anti-Semites is to liken them to the Nazis or the rampaging mobs of the pogroms. It says that their hatred is unreasonable, unfathomable, based on some crackpot racial theory or some misguided religious zealotry. It dismisses all criticism, no matter how legitimate, as rooted in prejudice and therefore without any validity.

“The only way out of the current mess is for each side to listen to what the other is saying. To protest living conditions on the West Bank is not anti-Semitism [sic]. To condemn the increasing encroachment of Jewish settlements is not anti-Semitism [sic]. To protest the cuffing that the Israelis sometimes give the international press is not anti-Semitism [sic] either.”

WHEN PEOPLE DONT HEAR EACH OTHER

The intolerance and refusal of people on opposing sides to listen and HEAR each other also inflames the conflict in the Middle East, explains Palestinian leader Sari Nusseibeh as quoted in article by editor David Remnick in this week’s New Yorker. “The biggest problem, as Nusseibeh sees it, is that neither side contained its anger, and so “the system of discussion was blown to smithereens.” Each side indulged its worst suspicions about the other: an increasing number of Israelis felt that Arafat had been unmasked as a messianic terrorist who had never really wanted compromise except, perhaps, as a tactic; the Palestinians felt confirmed in their suspicion that Israel had no intention of giving up the settlements or their general dominance. According to Palestinians, Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount, the most disputed of all pieces of land, was the spark that set off the “cycle of armed violence.” According to Israelis, the uprising had been planned months before.

MAYDAY PROTESTS IGNORED

I reported that yesterday was May Day, and all over the world there were commemorations and protests that were well covered by Deutche Welle, the German broadcaster seen in new York on CBC’s News World International but ignored by most US TV news. The only protest they couldn’t ignore was the mass march of more than a million people in Paris and throughout France rallying against Marie Le Pen for next Sunday’s electoral runoff. Le Pen supporters staged a much smaller rally. There protests in London, riots in Berlin, and worker protests worldwide. A Mexican broadcast I watched mocked union marches en el Districto Federal.

I got a Happy Holiday greeting from a friend in Beijing, who was perhaps unaware that he US Congress had years ago proclaimed May Day here as Law Day to distance the US from the rest of the world, a practice the media respects. Ironically, China’s new-leader-to-be brought his own form of May Day greetings to President Bush in Washington. Vice president Hu Jintao, tapped to replace Jiang Zemin next year, was on an official trip. I caught his talk on C-SPAN and noticed his fellow traveler, none other than Henry Kissinger, on the dais.

THE NEW GUY SOUNDS LIKE THE OLD GUY

Hu spurned an effort by Congress member Nancy Pelosi to give him letters appealing for him to free human rights abusers. Human rights activists challenged him, with Falun Gong practitioners among them, Hu’s response, as reported by AFP: “Hu also defended China’s human rights record, saying religious freedom was guaranteed by law in China. He said it had been no easy task “for a big developing country like China with a population of nearly 1.3 billion to have so considerably improved its human rights situation in such a short period of time.” EMAIL ACCOLODE

Eugene Duran writes: “Danny, I know you get a lot of praise for your weblog but let me say that I find your weblog very thought provoking and quite open to both sides. Including criticism only increases your credibility. You’re a unique mind in a confusing world and you have helped to educate me on many issues. I will soon support MC in the form of dollars as I feel your weblog is that important. Those I have informed about you all root for you with every issue. Keep it up!”

HOW READERS CAN HELP US SURVIVE

Thanks Eugene for your praise, but I was more interested and appreciative of your offer to support Mediachannel financially. This is a not-for-profit site but it cannot survive just as a labor of love. Media outlets like this are important, as readers know, but few are willing to financially support our work. We are not as good at fundraising as we are at consciousness-raising, and we would welcome your help if you have any fund raising experience or skills to contribute in this area. We are only interested in people who are serious, who can write appeals and follow up with emails and the like. If you are willing to get involved, and make some kind of serious time commitment, let me know.

Our friends at Media Unspun, formerly the late Industry Standards’s Media Grok, an excellent commercial news service, makes an appeal to their subscribers today that I would like to emulate in reaching out to you. Their editor, Jimmy Gutterman, writes to their readers:

“We’ve been asking you to pass on the newsletter and recommend it to colleagues. Many of you have done so. That’s the best way to grow our circulation. Thanks for the help — and please don’t stop! (ie. tell your friends about this weblog)

“Some colleagues who know way more about marketing than I do have suggested that I collect a series of “testimonials” from readers, telling how Media Unspun has saved them time, informed them, entertained them, etc. So I’d like to ask you – our core readers — if you’d be willing to jot down a sentence or two that we could use.”

JUST DO IT

How about it Mediachannel and weblog readers? Are you willing to do the same? Will you move from being passive consumers to becoming active participants? We are trying to build an interactive global media resource. Will you help us? If so, you know where to reach me: dissector@mediachannel.org