Jon Pattee
Senior English Editor
Why do Americans give so much money and so many weapons to Israel, fuelling a Mideast war they might be able to stop? Ask the US media.
Turning on the television or opening the newspaper, Americans are soothed with euphemisms and myths, while their responsibility for perpetuating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – to the tune of tens of billions of dollars - is kept from them.
“The prevailing doctrine is that we should focus laser-like on the crimes of others and lament them, and we should ignore or deny our own,” noted Jewish intellectual Noam Chomsky recently said regarding the Middle East crisis. “Or more accurately, we should structure the way we view things so as to dismiss the possibility of looking into the mirror—shape discourse so the question of our own responsibilities can’t even arise.”
How does the US media avoid what Chomsky calls “the dilemmas of withdrawal of participation in major atrocities” – in this case, America’s massive military, diplomatic and financial support for Israeli military occupation of land seized in 1967?
Chomsky, the father of modern linguistics and a prolific author, says the Western media is characterized by selective amnesia about uncomfortable history, unquestioning repetition of slippery official explanations, and, when needed, simple lies.
Yahoo this week provided a fairly good example of these principles at work by presenting readers with an Associated Press timeline entitled Key Events in Mideast Violence.
Presumably, millions upon millions of US internet users get their Mideast information from Yahoo, since the portal is ranked around seventh globally. The timeline contains the “facts” of the conflict, unswervingly substituting “the official story” for real reporting.
Why? As Chomsky points out, “those who control information evidently don’t want to know or to let their readers know…To provide the population with information about what is being done in their name would open windows that are better left shuttered if you want to carry out effective domestic indoctrination.”
AP’s editors might claim that space constraints crushed their timeline into the same mold as the reporting in Newsweek, CNN and the New York Times.
But rewriting a few of AP’s timeline entries, with basically the same word count, shows how little effort is made to present Americans with the facts, and how often "the official story” wins out over reality:
“Sept. 28: Palestinians riot after a visit to a disputed Jerusalem holy site by hard-line opposition leader Ariel Sharon, starting the Al Aqsa Intifada or uprising, named after the mosque at the holy site.”
Sept. 28: Israeli leader Ariel Sharon’s visit to a disputed holy site in Jerusalem, coupled with grinding poverty and daily humiliations, triggers a new Palestinian uprising against Israel’s 34-year military occupation of land seized in 1967.
“Sept. 30: Palestinian boy, Mohammed Aldura, caught in cross fire, dies in father's arms in front of TV camera and becomes symbol of Palestinian uprising.”
Sept. 30: Israeli army admits it “apparently” shot dead Mohammed Ad Durra, 12, in the arms of his father, making him among the first of nearly 100 Palestinian children Amnesty International has reported killed by Israeli soldiers.
“Oct. 12: Two Israeli soldiers mistakenly enter a Palestinian city and are killed and their bodies mutilated by a Palestinian mob. Israel retaliates with helicopter rocket attacks.”
Oct. 12: Two Israeli soldiers are killed and mutilated by a Palestinian mob. Israel’s US-built helicopters, bought with billions in US military aid, “retaliate” by firing missiles into densely populated neighborhoods.
“Oct. 21: Nine Palestinians killed and more than 100 wounded in heavy fighting as ceasefire collapses.”
Oct. 21: Israeli soldiers kill nine Palestinians in heavy fighting that causes the collapse of a ceasefire, while maintaining the ratio of Palestinians to Israelis killed at the normal level of around 4:1.
“Nov. 9: Israeli helicopters fire rockets at car, killing local Palestinian leader Hussein Abayat, the first of a series of Israeli targeted killings of suspected Palestinian militants.”
Nov. 9: Israel kills a local Palestinian leader, in the first of a series of 40-plus assassinations referred to by the media as “targeted killings,” “liquidations,” “surgical strikes” and “interception.”
Jan. 27: Peace talks in Egyptian resort of Taba end with no agreement.
Jan. 27: Peace talks in Egypt fail; chiefly, as in the past, because Israel refuses to return the land seized in 1967, including Jerusalem, and insists on dividing Palestine into enclaves resembling apartheid South Africa’s Bantustans.
“March 5: Sharon takes office with national unity government, including Barak's moderate Labor Party.”
March 5: Sharon forms national unity government, including the “moderate” Labor and the “right-wing” Likud, which both flouted the 1993 Oslo accords by moving tens of thousands of “settlers” onto land seized in 1967.
Apart from AP’s timeline, there are countless other examples of how the Western media spins nearly every paragraph by simply using “the official story.”
Palestinians who attack military targets are identified as “terrorists,” not freedom fighters exercising their right, as enshrined in international law, to resist an occupying army. The term “cycle of violence” replaces “uprising against 34 years of military occupation.” The US becomes an “impartial broker” of peace talks – while sending billions in military aid to one of the warring sides each year.
Reading between the lines, it’s possible to discern that the role of the US media is to obscure the facts and history, not spotlight them. If the press did otherwise, Americans might start asking this question, which Chomsky posed in a lecture on the Middle East at the University of Toledo this spring:
“What about [America’s] fabled commitment to human rights?"
The answer, according to Chomsky, is “simplicity itself: rights are assigned in accord with the contribution to maintaining the system.”
The United States, he says, has rights “by definition. Britain has rights as long as it is a loyal attack dog. The Arab facade has rights as long as it manages to control its own populations and ensure that the wealth flows to the West. The local cops on the beat have rights as long as they do their job.”
What about the Palestinians? “Well, they don’t have any wealth. They don’t have any power. It therefore follows, by the most elementary principles of statecraft, that they don’t have any rights.”
The media effort to mislead Americans seems directly proportional to their power over the fate of the Palestinians, meaning huge.
While Yahoo lulls millions of Americans with AP’s “facts,” Congress sends billions to Israel. This, in turn, buys the US-made hi-tech weapons that have allowed Israeli soldiers to kill 547 Palestinians in the last eleven months, while suffering only 146 losses.
For Americans who care about what is done in their name, the tendency in such a skewed situation would logically be to despair.
Obviously, the 4:1 kill ratio is overwhelming. Obviously, the power of Yahoo, AP and the rest of the media to deceive Americans is awe-inspiring. Obviously, Congress is likely to continue sending billions to the Israeli army, since the pro-Israeli lobby, according to Fortune magazine, ranks among the five most powerful in Washington.
One American who has not given up, however, is Chomsky.
“It is a very strong temptation to externalize problems,” he says. But, “Let’s look at the problems out there…the highest priority is always to internalize them.
“What can we do about them? For us particularly that is extremely crucial because we can do a lot. We happen to be in an unusually free country and by far the most powerful one of the world. That gives us a range of options which is extremely important. And the big question is: are we doing anything about it?"
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
