*SHARON CONQUERS CONGRESS*

*DID SADDAM GAS KURDS?*

*READERS RE$POND*

It is the third of May, World Press Freedom Day. AP reports: “Thirty-one reporters - eight of them covering the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan - died doing their work last year and 110 were in prison at year’s end, a Paris-based media watchdog said Thursday. Reporters Without Borders said in its annual report that the severest challenges to press freedom occurred in countries with one-party regimes like Syria and Iraq, military dictatorships like Burma, and absolute monarchies like Saudi Arabia.” Please see the Mediachannel’s c coverage offered up on the home page.

Readers of this column know that many of the severest challenges to MEDIA Freedom, including our right to RECEIVE a diverse diet of accurate news and information is to be found in countries that are nominally democratic but dominated by increasingly concentrated and commercially driven media systems. For that reason, we open today’s dissection with a quote from the former curator of Harvard’s Nieman Foundation and, currently a co-director of the Project on Excellence in Journalism, the former reporter and editor Bill Kovach:

“At a time when our basic institutions are under threat, and we most need accurate, independent information, journalists are told to stop asking questions, stop challenging authority. Journalists are asked to restrain their aggressive monitoring of institutions of power, to curb their skeptical nature.”

HAIL ARIK! CONGRESS BOWS TO SHARON

Ariel Sharon’s tanks, armed with influence this time, not munitions, rolled over Capitol Hill yesterday while not so subtly firing salvos across town at the White House. Sharon’s War won the support of both Houses of Congress who went on record with a strongly worded rubber stamping of Israel’s actions on the West Bank. In the House, the great champion of freedom from Texas, Congressman Tom “The Hammer” DeLay, whose field troops were last marshaled in 2000 to stop the recount of votes in Miami Dade County made some cosmetic revisions in the text of his Let Sharon Be Sharon slam dunk against world opinion and even the Bush White House, Only a small group of Democrats voted against this blatantly militaristic peace be damned measure. Just to add topping on the cake, Secretary of State Powell on behalf of his “quartet of supporters (including The EU, Russia and the UN) announced plans for an International Peace Conference this summer. Such a conference, you will recall as first proposed by Sharon as a way around bilateral talks. This opens the door for an IMPOSED solution, stage managed by the Israelis.

The resolutions sounded reverberated with the adoring tone and triumphalist rhetoric of resolutions passed by the Soviet deputies supporting the invasion of Prague. It was the sound of cheerleaders chanting Go Team Go. When you get a chance, check the political contributions roster and see who is rewarded (and punished) for signing on to refusal to recognize that if the US is to even pretend to be an honest broker of some peace process, it must appear, at least, to be somwhat neutral.

Jesse Helms and five other Senators actually voted against or did not vote for appeasing the Tank Commander, (You will recall the Tonkin Gulf Resolution authorizing the Vietnam War had only two Senators willing to dissent.) Another Republican conservative has now signaled what he and his cohorts are really thinking. Hint: It is not about ending the occupation, but rather by further ethnic cleansing, ie. solving the problem by eliminating it. Listen to this: the appropriately named Congressman Dick Armey talking to Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s HARD BALL:

“ARMEY’S RECIPE FOR ARMAGEDDON”

“ARMEY: I’m content to have Israel grab the entire West Bank.

MATTHEWS: Well, where do you put the Palestinian state, in Norway? Once theIsraelis take back the West Bank permanently and annex it, there’s no place else for the Palestinians to have a state.

ARMEY: No, no, that’s not–that’s not at all true. There are many Arab nations that have many hundreds of thousands of acres of land and–and soil and property and opportunity to create a Palestinian state.

MATTHEWS: So you would transport–you would transport the Palestinians fromPalestine to somewhere else and call it their state?

ARMEY: I would be perfectly content to have a homeland, just as–most of…

MATTHEWS: But not in Palestine?

ARMEY: Most of the people who now populate Israel were transported from allover the world to that land and they made it their home. The Palestinianscan do the same, and we’re per–perfectly content to work with thePalestinians in doing that…

MATTHEWS: Right, no. No, that’s not the question and that’s not your answer. The question here is: What is the future of the Palestinians who are fighting Israel right now? You say there future is somewhere besides Palestine. That runs in the way of US policy going back to 1948. It runs–it runs completely against the president’s policy and every policy I’ve heard a president take, which is that Israel has to give up its settlements on the West Bank and give it back to the Arabs in exchange for peace. You say the deal should be the Palestinians leave?

ARMEY: That’s right…I happened to believe that the Palestinians should leave.”

TUTU COMMENTS: WHAT GOES UP, MUST COME DOWN

Dick Armey’s twisted words must have been music, or at least on old discordant tune for South Africa’s retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who has heard it before out of the mouths of Afrikaners who set up so called “homelands” for Africans to be forcibly relocated to. He comment recently on the power of the Israeli lobby which has had a shadowy hand in ‘floating” various “balloons” (or hot air) like Armey’s advocacy of Armageddon invoked the his views, based on his country’s conflict and view of a lobby which now seems so untouchable:

Noted Tutu, whose moral authority is widely respected: “…you know as well as I do that, somehow, the Israeli government is placed on a pedestal [in the US], and to criticize it is to be immediately dubbed anti-semitic [sic], as if the Palestinians were not semitic. I am not even anti-white, despite the madness of that group. And how did it come about that Israel was collaborating with the apartheid government on security measures? ”

“People are scared in this country [the US], to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful - very powerful. Well, so what? For goodness sake, this is God’s world! We live in a moral universe. The apartheid government was very powerful, but today it no longer exists. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pinochet, Milosevic, and Idi Amin were all powerful, but in the end they bit the dust.” Believe it or not, many intelligent people place Sharon in this pantheon of pariahs.

NIGHTLINE ON THE WAR OF IMAGES AND IMAGES AS WAR

On TV last night, ABC’s Nightline did a show on the images of the war from outside the Church of Captivity with Ted Koppel showing how PR conscious the Israelis are. They have video cameras documenting every sniper position and the whole neighborhood. They claimed therefore that their videos “prove” that they did not set the fire Wednesday night at the Church of the Nativity.

Koppel was a bit sarcastic about them “suddenly making available” a press person but never the less did not challenge their view with any real passion or the results of any independent investigation. Palestinians, meanwhile, are calling Jenin, “Jeningrad” after the Soviet defense of the Nazi siege of Stalingrad during World War II, where more than a million people were murdered.

ISRAELI SUSPICIONS

For their part, the Israeli’s remain suspicious of the press, believing that they support terrorism. Here is a typical account in an email being sent to Israel’s supporters, written ostensibly by an Israeli solider in Jenin: ” The media. Last Sunday while myself and my good friend Ben were on duty at the roadblock at the time when no press were allowed to enter Jenin, we spotted a jeep trying to evade the roadblock through an adjacent field. We managed to stop the jeep and discovered a group of French Journalists who had managed to enter Jenin and were now trying to leave. We followed the normal procedure of questioning them, checking their vehicle and identification. This process sometimes takes a while because we have to phone another army base who then checks the identities with the Israeli authorities which includes the intelligence operations. Anyway, it turned out that one of the supposed French journalists is actually a Palestinian terrorist on Israel’s wanted list. He was taken away by the police together with the other real French journalists. Bet you never heard about that one on TV.” True or not, and there is no way to check, stories like this are believed and inflame criticisms of the media.

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: WAR CRIMES, NOT A MASSACRE

While the UN probe of what happened in that refugee camp is as dead as some of the folks that died there, Human Rights Watch is reporting that they have found no evidence of a massacre, as usually defined, but do say there is evidence of war crimes. “Extremely serious violations of the laws of war,” they call it. Says senior researcher Peter Bouckaert, of a group that Times calls “generally fair minded” (is this damming with faint praise?) “the evidence is certainly strong enough to warrant a war crimes investigation.”

Israel adamantly denies this, and may have been fear of these findings, not exaggerated claims of a “massacre” that led them to flip flop, first supporting the investigation, and later stopping it.

ARAFAT SMILES IN US MEDIA, SNUBBED IN UK PRSS

The US press, including the Times this morning has photos of a smiling Arafat “mobbed” by well wishers. The Telegraph in London reports a different story. Alan Phillips says that many Palestinians are pissed at the deals he cut to win his release including an acceptance of the end of the UN investigation and reports that he “was shunned by most of the populace, amid whispers of betrayal.

“A small crowd of supporters joined him - only enough to fill the viewfinder of a television camera. There was no joy on the streets to celebrate the departure of the Israeli army after five months in the north of the city.

“‘Arafat paid a very high price for his freedom,’ said one shopkeeper.

“‘The Israelis lifted the closure around his compound, but it remains imposed on all the Palestinians. We cannot move anywhere outside of town. It is an incomplete achievement.’

“Abla Saadat, wife of Ahmed Saadat, the head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine who is detained in the Jericho prison, said the ditching of the Jenin inquiry was a betrayal. “It is not just me who thinks so. Ninety per cent of the Palestinians, even some people around Arafat think so,” she told reporters.

“Mrs Saadat put into words the despair of the Palestinians after 19 months of violence. For all Mr Arafat’s promises of victory, the Israeli iron fist has left city centres in ruins, broken the lives of thousands and ripped the guts out of the Palestinian administration, just like the Education Ministry computers.

“For 50 years Israel never brought us to despair. But seven years of Palestinian rule has brought us to the brink,” she said. “Did we achieve a victory? Did we end the occupation? Only from around Arafat’s compound.”

“The same negative sentiments were aired for hours on Al-Jazeera, the Arabic satellite news channel, though speakers were asked not to use the word “treachery”.

IMPOSING A SETTLEMENT?

PBS’s Charlie Rose interviewed former US negotiator Dennis Ross last bight whose view of Arafat, with whom he has directly dealt, is of someone who is not a decisive leader, and who acquiesces to pressure on all sides — hardly the terrorist mastermind as he has been pictured repeatedly. He also revealed, for what it is worth, that the Palestinians did make concessions at Camp David. Both sides, he said are unwilling to abandon their “core” myths or beliefs. He also said, before news of this new international conference was made public, that only the US can force a settlement — and must do so. This view was also articulated almost a year ago in Foreign Affairs. Wrote Hussein Agha and Robert Malley in a call for US intervention last June that was not heard:

“Seldom has more ink been spilled than over the issue of whether Israeli or Palestinian leaders genuinely want or can make a final deal. These are assumed to be the key questions, the answers to which can unlock the door to a peaceful settlement. But they are not and cannot. The point now should not be to accommodate the Israeli and Palestinian leaders’ limitations and shape the effort to fit their proclivities; it should instead be to make the limitations of both sets of leaders irrelevant. As violence continues to threaten and the outlines of a fair agreement lie idly by for all to see, the notion of simply waiting for these leaders to finally negotiate a deal or for the two sides to gradually regain their trust in each other is ringing increasingly hollow. The time has come for an effort that is neither top-down nor bottom-up, but outside-in: the forceful presentation by external actors of a comprehensive, fair, and lasting deal.”

DID SADDAM GAS THE KURDS

It is not an article of faith in the Administration that Iraq gassed the Kurds in l988. This incident, was recently re- reported on in an influential story in the New Yorker magazine which has now been cited by both President Bush and Vice President Cheney in calls for a ‘regime change” Baghdad. This piece has become a pretext for the war against Iraq that is being planned and prepared in Washington.The gassing of the Kurds story is part of the propaganda fabric and was spelled out in spellbinding detail by Jeffrey Goldberg in an l8,000 word piece that ran March 25 and recounted what was said to have happened in the town of Halabja, on March 16, 1988. I am talking about that massacre by poison gas of civilians. That New Yorker story reminded me of an incident that I accepted as reported.

But wait a minute. Not so fast. Another dissector by the name of Roger Trilling, the brilliant ex-Details editor and TV producer, has taken a close look that casts doubt on the key thesis — namely that Saddam and only Saddam did the deed. His story, in this week’s VILLAGE VOICE, raises questions that US military analysts also raised. Namely, that the crime may have been committed by the Iranians, not the Iraqis, given the nature of the gas and how it was delivered.

Trilling writes: It’s quite a stretch to predicate a threat of war on an incident that took place 14 years ago — especially if there’s a possibility that it didn’t happen the way Goldberg described it….He cites studies “commissioned from and produced by the military and intelligence communities, ” and notes articles asserting Iranian complicity also ran in The New York Times (”Years Later, No Clear Culprit in Gassing of Kurds”), Newsday, The New York Review of Books, and elsewhere. To Stephen Pelletiere, who was the CIA’s senior political analyst on Iraq throughout the Iran-Iraq War, this is highly alarming. “There is to this day the belief — and I’m not the only one who holds it — that things didn’t happen in Halabja the way Goldberg wrote it,” he told the Voice. “And it’s an especially crucial issue right now. We say Saddam is a monster, a maniac who gassed his own people, and the world shouldn’t tolerate him. But why? Because that’s the last argument the U.S. has for going to war with Iraq.” See Village Voice.com

WHAT WILL HAPPEN IN THE FRENCH ELECTIONS?

Last night, an Italian publisher with excellent media sources startled our small dinner by announcing fears that Jean Marie Le Pen may do better than expected — as much as 40 — percent in the next round of French elections this weekend. The NY Times reports that Le Pen has refashioned his “image from an immigrant basher to a people’s champion.” One story in the Times from a small town this morning reveals “there is something deep in the French spirit that has helped fuel Mr. Le Pen’s rise — seems to reinforce suggestions that the rightist politician’s influence in an arc of France stretching from the Mediterranean, through eastern France and onto the rust belt of the northeast, may be more nuanced and less easily predicted than was thought.”

The Internet has become a major organizing force according to Britain’s Guardian: “”In the wake of Jean-Marie Le Pen’s unexpected success at the French polls, new Internet sites carrying responses ranging from hoaxes to online petitions have popped up. “The social movement we have in France is relayed on the Internet, but it was born in the street,” says Olivier Blondeau, a sociologist who studies online social affairs. “The Internet enables people to organize demonstrations, saying what happens where and when…While political parties and trade unions want to unite people for Labor Day, mostof the other sites promote continuous social agitation.” On political party and candidate sites, discussion forums have exploded.”

READERS WRITE, NEWS DISSECTOR FINALLY SMILES

I have a small hope that this column is reaching people in new ways Janet L writes from Washington where she remains in the trenches supporting Israel for many reasons that have been aired in this space. She sends along more evidence today of Arafat’s untrustworthiness but she also says after I ran parts of an earlier letter “skewing my coverage”:

“Since the ‘skewering’ as you refer to it, I have seen a subtle change in your dissecting techniques. I no longer shudder when the dissection moves towards the Middle East. The change has grounded me and my approach to the news. The tone change in your column has encouraged me to distance myself from my steadfast position and be more impartial. Even your audience response has moved on to more qualitative observations. Good going Danny!

PUTTING MONEY WHERE HER PEN IS

Also, very encouraging in what are dark times for us was a letter from one reader responding to my appeal yesterday — and repeated below — for your help in keeping Media Channel going and growing. I am not sure if I can use her name so I won’t BUT we would be doing much better if we can build a team of TEN people willing to help with research and email outreach to get the word out, raise some needed funds, and reach out for real funders and sponsors. The Media Channel is not exempt from that old political injunction:”IF YOU DON’T PAY, YOU CAN’T PLAY”I hope other readers will take this e-mail commitment as personal challenge:

“Danny, That’s it! Today’s dissection was the fire that needed to be lit underneath me. I feel like I have an obligation to do something, anything to help spread the word, especially under the new dictatorship. Okay, I’m exaggerating, but I STILL can’t get over the stolen election. When 9/11 happened, people were saying that the world changed forever/the world will never be the same. I said the same thing pre-9/11, when it became painfully clear that one can become President without actually being elected.

“I’m willing to do whatever it takes, free of charge. I need to remain low-key, though. ….

Also, I would be interested in giving to MediaChannel financially, like I give to ZMag. I give Michael Albert’s ZMag $10.00 per month. It’s not much, but it’s what I can afford.

“I know you’ve heard this before from too many other people, but your dailies help me maintain my sanity. My helping get the word out and doing whatever else I can is what I MUST do.”

RESPONSE: THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU

Now, who will match her? In case you missed it, here’s what I ran on this theme yesterday:

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

MEDIACHANNEL IN THE MEDIA

Look for my ravings soon in the pages of Die Zeit next week in Germany, and, soon, on Swedish National Radio. Years ago, when I was a kid, there was a peddler who shouted under our apartment window: “I CASH CLOTHES” as he paid money for used clothing. My mantra has become: I DO INTERVIEWS.

So if you work for a media outlet, consider citing or interviewing folks here on Mediachannel. We want to go multi-media, just as our colleague DOUG GEORGE did yesterday with a brilliant first outing on WBAI radio in New York (with former Globalvision intern and youth activist. Yu Yu Din.) What a dynamic duo…Listen for them again, before some network scoops them up, just as NBC seems to be trying to do with Bill Clinton

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND. It couldn’t come any sooner.