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PMWATCH (ATLANTA) - APRIL 19, 2002 -- For the past weeks, AJC has shown an
unbalanced trend in its opinion page with regard to the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict. Tuesdays racist opinions (April 16) included Mona Charens denying
the existence of Palestinians. In the second Op-Ed the writer uses the Irish
troubles as a backdrop to assailing the Palestinians. Consistent with the
recent trend opinions from the Palestinian side are absent.
To live to the basic standards of journalistic integrity the balance on the
opinion pages needs to be addressed immediately
Included below:
- Excerpts from the Op-Eds
- Talking Points
- The Op-Eds
Palestine Media Watch Contact: Rani El-Hajjar, suhmati@hotmail.com
ACTION(s) REGQUESTED:
CALL, EMAIL and FAX the Public Editor Mr. Mike King, 404-526-5819, fax
404-526-5311,
(As your liaison to the newsroom, the Public Editor takes comments from our
readers about fairness and accuracy in news coverage and editorial pages)
Or use the interface below to send an email. You email will be sent to:
insideajc@ajc.com; Cc: rmartin@ajc.com, dbeasley@ajc.com,
bsenftleber@ajc.com, cynthia@ajc.com, rkintzel@ajc.com
EXCERPTS FROM 4/15/02 OP-EDS
http://www.creators.com/opinion_show.cfm?next=2&ColumnsName=mch
http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/opinion/0402/0416konner.html
- Further, these Arab refugees had no ancient tie to the land of
"Palestine."
- The whole idea of a Palestinian nation and a Palestinian people is an
invention of Arab propaganda.
- It is not and never was "Palestinian land."
- At Camp David in 2000, Yasser Arafat rejected an offer of more than 90
percent of the land he wants, yet he wouldn't even negotiate from that as a
starting point, a place from which to work toward a free, coherent state.
Israel's government can in time remove many settlements; it can control its
few extremists. But Arafat can't or won't control his, and their actions
echo Sept. 11 every day.
TALKING POINTS
* Upon tracking the AJC daily the pro-Israeli bias in the opinion page is
evident, we ask that you represent the Palestinian side.
* Balance means not only "Israel-can-do-no-wrong" columnists are given all
the space.
* The Palestinian opinion should be represented clearly, as there are
Europeans, Jewish, Arab Americans.
* The NY Times, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, and other mainstream newspapers
print alternative opinion columns - when will the Atlanta Journal live up to
this diverse and multicultural cities reputation?
* If asked who suggested you call the AJC, mention Palestine Media Watch.
* In the past few months, we estimate that the number of non-pro-Israel,
non-Israeli-government line pieces to be 2. During the same period, there
were tens of the blame-Arafat, only-Israeli-suffering-counts,
Sharon-is-doing-the-right-thing columns.
* Pro-Isreali columnists: Between them they write at least 8 REGULAR COLUMNS
PER WEEK!
William Safire
Mona Charen
George Will
Thomas Friendman
Thomas Sowell
Bill O'Reilly
and others.
* Neutral columnists: Molly Ivins
- COLUMNS REPRESENTING THE PALESTINIAN SIDE: ZERO
* Sources for alternative opinion pieces (to name only a few):
They are ready to point the AJC towards additional more balanced resources.
PMW (www.pmwatch.org): pmw-op-ed@yahoogroups.com
ADC(www.adc.org)
ADC-GA (adc_ga@yahoo.com)
ADC-South (adcsouth@adc.org, 404 815 7337)
Search for Justice and Equality in the Palestine/Israel
(www.searchforjustice.org)
Common Dreams (www.commondreams.org)
Media Monitors Network (www.mediamonitors.net)
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THE OP-EDS
THE BIG LIE by MONA CHAREN
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/charen.html
THE BIG LIE SUCCEEDS ... AGAIN
Several members of the Nobel Committee have expressed regrets about the
Peace Prize that was jointly awarded to Yasser Arafat and Shimon Peres in
1994. This is certainly understandable -- one of the recipients has
consistently failed to live up to the promises made in Oslo, lied repeatedly
about that failure, imported arms and explosives against the explicit
wording the Oslo agreement, sent teen-agers to blow themselves up amid
civilians, and actively fomented a wider war. But the person the Nobel
committee regrets honoring is not Arafat -- it is Peres!
Europe is shaming itself. Across the continent, crowds fill the streets
demonstrating against Israel. Synagogues are burning all over France. Old
anti-Semitic imagery and language is resurfacing. The Italian newspaper La
Stampa ran a cartoon featuring an Israeli tank pointing its muzzle at the
crib of baby Jesus with the tag line, "Don't tell me they want to kill me
again." On April 10, the European Parliament voted to impose trade sanctions
on Israel.
Some of this is simple Jew hatred. Some is a sinister response to guilt.
Since the Holocaust happened on European soil, how cleansing to believe that
the Jews are now the guilty parties, which is why the Nazi analogy crops up
with nauseating regularity vis a vis the Israelis, probably more often than
it is invoked against anyone else (except perhaps for America in Vietnam).
This is monstrous, and in an ideal world, Secretary of State Colin Powell
and President Bush would be saying so. Instead, they, too, are undermining
the Israelis, demanding that Israel permit terror to succeed -- thus utterly
clouding America's clear stand against terror.
But some of this anti-Israel sentiment represents a victory for Arab
propaganda and lies about the origin of the conflict -- lies that have been
swallowed whole by large segments of the press and public even in the United
States.
A one-stop shopping book puts these myths to rest. Joan Peters set out to
write a sympathetic history of the Palestinian "struggle." Her research soon
persuaded her that nearly everything she thought she knew about the
Arab-Jewish conflict in the Middle East was wrong. Her meticulously
researched book, "From Time Immemorial," was published in 1984 but is still
in print.
The Arabs have successfully blurred the true history of what happened when
Israel was formed in 1948. Six hundred thousand Jewish refugees from Arab
nations fled to Israel -- many in fear for their lives, most after having
their property expropriated. They were assimilated by Israel.
About the same number of Arab refugees fled what is now Israel, the West Ban
and Gaza. They were not assimilated by the Arab nations, with whom they
shared a common religion, ethnicity, history and language, but were instead
herded into refugee camps the better to "return" to their homes after Israel
was obliterated by Arab armies.(Since the World War II, more than
100,000,000 people have been forced to become refugees. Nearly all were
forced to assimilate into nations with different cultures and traditions.)
Further, these Arab refugees had no ancient tie to the land of "Palestine."
Most were recent immigrants, a fact implicitly acknowledged by the United
Nations when it altered the definition of refugee to apply to those who have
lived "at least two years" in a location.
When Mark Twain visited the Holy Land in 1867, he found to his dismay that
the land was barren. "Stirring scenes ... occur in the valley (Jezreel) no
more. There is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent -- not for
30 miles in either direction. There are two or three small clusters of
Bedouin tents, but not a single permanent habitation. One may ride 10 miles
hereabouts and not see 10 human beings." But when large numbers of Jews
began to resettle the land in the 1880s and made it more prosperous, large
numbers of Arab migrants began to arrive.
The whole idea of a Palestinian nation and a Palestinian people is an
invention of Arab propaganda. Arafat is himself an Egyptian. The only people
to have lived continuously on the land "from time immemorial" are Jews. So
many others have conquered, ruled, thrived and ultimately perished there
that the list would take hundreds of pages. A mere sample would include:
Byzantines, Persians, Arabs, Turks, Circassians, Kurds, Abbassids (Iraqis),
Egyptians, Kharezmians (Genghis Khan), Mamluks, Mongols, Latins (Crusaders),
Ottomans, French and English.
It is not and never was "Palestinian land."
To find out more about Mona Charen and read features by other Creators
Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at
www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2002 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
Originally Published on Friday April 12, 2002
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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: 4/16/02 ]
Mideast can follow N. Ireland's example
By MELVIN KONNER
Konner
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It was a blessing to join my daughter for St. Patrick's Day in Northern
Ireland. One surprise was a TV news story about the festival in Savannah.
What fascinated people in that strife-torn country was that Savannah's
Catholics and Protestants celebrate together.
People in Northern Ireland would have to be fascinated, since for centuries
they have not found the unity these upstart Americans take for granted.
My previous visit to Northern Ireland, in 1998 for a conference in Derry on
the social science of peace, took place during the week the Northern Ireland
Assembly met for the first time. This put fierce enemies in the same room,
and it was marred by a walkout. Worse, the next night, synchronized bombings
damaged Catholic churches in eight locations around the country. No one was
hurt, but clearly there were still forces against peace.
Tragically, there were more bombings, once as recently as September. But
overall the peace held; the assembly has survived. We met with a senior
republican, toured North Belfast and attended an inquiry into Bloody Sunday.
Everyone we spoke to said the time for violence is over.
The Emerald Isle is prospering. Bill Clinton and George Mitchell, American
peacemaker-heroes, are revered for their role in healing the old rift. But
above all, people in Northern Ireland are tired of a life tinged with fear;
they are bored with hatred. They care far more about having a civilized life
than about their religious differences.
As an American Jew who loves Israel, I could only watch sadly from my safe
Irish haven as the Middle East burst into flames; now the fire is blazing.
Back in July when I visited there I saw signs of hope; today it is almost
gone. To put things in perspective, half as many people have been killed in
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the past 18 months as in the whole
modern history of the Northern Irish Troubles. Twice as many Jews died in
Israel's war for independence alone when it was nearly killed in its cradle
by six invading Arab armies as the multigeneration Irish total of around
3,000.
There are parallels, to be sure, but the Middle East conflict is fiercer,
the region far less civilized than Ireland. Too many on both sides are not
yet ready for peace. Palestinian terrorists destroy pizza parlors and
discotheques, supermarkets and seders, not military targets, in a terror
campaign unprecedented in history.
But Jewish settlers continue to build illegal extensions of their
settlements, adding to Palestinians' loss of hope. The fanatical acts on the
two sides are hardly comparable, yet both help to sustain the endless war.
At Camp David in 2000, Yasser Arafat rejected an offer of more than 90
percent of the land he wants, yet he wouldn't even negotiate from that as a
starting point, a place from which to work toward a free, coherent state.
Israel's government can in time remove many settlements; it can control its
few extremists. But Arafat can't or won't control his, and their actions
echo Sept. 11 every day.
No one who knows Israel thinks it can stand by while hundreds of women and
children are murdered. The Nazi shadow is too long there. And anyway, what
nation would just stand by?
Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad are Israel's al-Qaida, and they will be
hunted down in much the same way. As for those who harbor terrorists, they
must be viewed as enemies. Right now, peace seems a vain dream. But it was
not so long ago that things looked very bleak in Northern Ireland. One month
a bomb went off near where Catholic children walked to school, yet the next
month the IRA laid down thousands of weapons. Men who had given their lives
to violence now dedicate them to peace.
Yitzhak Rabin, murdered by a Jewish fanatic for seeking peace, said, "You
don't make peace with your friends; you make peace with your enemies."
Israel today calls Arafat its enemy, but ultimately it must make peace with
him or someone like him. We may still cherish the hope that the Middle East
will some day follow the Irish example. In the end, there is no other way.
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Melvin Konner, who teaches at Emory University, is the author most recently
of "The Tangled Wing: Biological Constraints on the Human Spiri
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