I have noticed over the years that every incident, every data point, every fact, and certainly every news story is interpreted differently by Israelis and Palestinians, each time suspecting bias against them. Here is a study that explains the psychology behind the perceived partisan bias towards the other side.
Jason Alexander often shares with prospective OneVoice supporters that the first thing that drew him to OneVoice was not the creativity, courage or logic of our plans, but the parental empathy he felt when my friend Mohammad Darawshe.
Mohammad spoke about his efforts to steer his then 9 year-old son Fares away from the commitment to become a Shahid. Back in 2001, Fares had told his Dad that, just like he had met his commitment to make the soccer team, and just like he had met his pledge to score the highest grades in class, he now was committing to achieve martyrdom. These were heady times, when Israelis and Palestinians were engaged in one of the deepest cycles of violence in their history. Mohammad took the warning signs seriously. He more than succeeded in steering Fares towards positive ways to lead his people, and today Fares attends Kings Academy in Jordan and is - like his Dad - one of the brightest hopes that Israelis, Palestinians and internationals have for peace and reconciliation.
This powerful article by Ethan Bronner made me think of Jason’s emotional connection with Mohammad’s plight. Back then I had no children. Now I do. And this piece made me shed more than one tears of hope.
December 31, 2009
By ETHAN BRONNER, New York Times
JERUSALEM — He can be impulsive. She has a touch of bossiness. Next-door neighbors for nearly a year, they talk, watch television and explore the world together, wandering into each other’s homes without a second thought. She likes his mother’s eggplant dish. He likes her father’s rice and lamb.
Friendship often starts with proximity, but Orel and Marya, both 8, have been thrust together in a way few elsewhere have. Their playground is a hospital corridor. He is an Israeli Jew severely wounded by a Hamas rocket. She is a Palestinian Muslim from Gaza paralyzed by an Israeli missile. Someone forgot to tell them that they are enemies.
Interesting article by IPF’s Roberta Fahn Schoffman on recent moves by Prime Minister Netanyahu to enforce restrictions against Settlement building.
Dave Halperin wrote an excellent column reacting to Tom Friedman’s frustration with the failed peace process and his resulting recommendation to give up trying.
There are doubts whether Mahmoud Abbas will truly resign, as he has claimed he will. He has threatened to do so several times before, but he does seem exhausted by lack of momentum and a partner – on the Israeli side and among his own people. This could strengthen him as his people start to appreciate him more and the international community and Israel do more to strengthen his course for peaceful negotiations.
If he does resign, analysis ranges from:
· A return to a third intifadah as Fatah resorts to violent or non-violent popular resistance
· Disbandment of the Palestinian Authority amidst a power struggle within Palestinian leadership, with serious repercussions for Palestinians and Israelis
· A major democratic step as a key Palestinian leader institutes an orderly election from a democratically elected successor
· Release of Marwan Barghouti, who claims the leadership mantle
· Introspective evaluation about how Israelis, Palestinians and the international community take the “peace process” for granted
· Emboldened Hamas momentum, amidst lack of leadership within Fatah
Ha’aretz did a long deep piece about Robi Damelin’s journey, from losing her son to a terrorist attack, to becoming a leader of Parents Circle, a forum of bereaved family members on the Palestinian or Israeli side who have lost a loved one to the conflict and channeled the pain from that loss to push for an end to the conflict. The piece is worth reading.
Last night I listened to Anderson Cooper on CNN as he analyzed the Netanyahu speech at the UN. He asked if Netanyahu had naively bitten Ahmadinejad’s bait, and he introduces an excerpt where Netanyahu appears to angrily overreach by attacking every member of the UN for allowing Ahmadinejad to speak, saying:
I say on behalf of my people, the Jewish people, and decent people everywhere: Have you no shame? Have you no decency?
My immediate reaction as I listened to this edited piece was, man, this is dumb. Netanyahu should not attack all members of the UN. After all, the body at the UN is designed for ALL nations - even those ruled by oppressive regimes - to have a forum to speak (as David Gergen explained, pointing to Netanyahu’s moral clarity but criticizing him for not recognizing this). And how dare Netanyahu say he represents all the Jewish people? I don’t think he represents me - certainly not on how to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict.
But something felt wrong. I may disagree with him on many policy issues but Netanyahu is a smart man with strong diplomatic and public speaking skills. Was this the real story?
So today I read the entire transcript of Netanyahu’s speech. And I was shocked at how bad CNN/Anderson Cooper had framed the issue! I’ve written about how FOX over-does the spin in the right-wing direction. But CNN and Cooper should be embarrassed about how they handled this. And one of my favorite commentators and real statesmen - David Gergen (perhaps the only excellent one left among dozens of mini-opinionators) probably did not even listen to the speech in full, and certainly did not frame things clearly. The other commentator (Reza Ezlan?) was way way off.
Here is a quote within context from Netanyahu’s speech:
Yesterday, the man who calls the Holocaust a lie spoke from this podium. To those who refused to come here and to those who left this room in protest, I commend you. You stood up for moral clarity and you brought honor to your countries.
But to those who gave this Holocaust-denier a hearing, I say on behalf of my people, the Jewish people, and decent people everywhere: Have you no shame? Have you no decency? A mere six decades after the Holocaust, you give legitimacy to a man who denies that the murder of six million Jews took place and pledges to wipe out the Jewish state. What a disgrace! What a mockery of the charter of the United Nations!
Now, of course that in the age of twitter, you need to keep things brief. But Cooper/CNN could have easily introduced the segment of Netanyahu by explaining that he criticized not the entire UN audience, but those who stayed to listen to Ahmadinejad. Denying even monsters like Ahmadinejad the podium is not an option at the UN. But every nation has a right to get up and walk out - to exercise its right not to be subjected to his vitriolic hate-mongering, and this was a valid position for Netanyahu to take.
With this post I do not mean to endorse all of Netanyahu’s foreign policy positions - quite the opposite, in some areas I feel he harms Israeli and Palestinian interests alike. But as a student of the media, following on my prior post about editorial spin, I am yet again alarmed at how dangerous unchecked news sources can be. Indeed, a big part of why the Middle East and the world are in the shape they are is because partisan media feeds each audience what they want to hear rather than what they need to hear, and they don’t constructively engage audiences to better understand each other.
For students of oratory and for students of history, Netanyahu’s speech is actually constructed extremely well, and will probably become a historical piece that others will study for decades. The transcript is provided below in full for those who want to examine it for themselves:
To get a sense of how radically an editor of a newsletter can spin a story, take a look at the two different ways that an identical story is summarized by two different newsletters:
From OpinionSource, which is pretty mainstream, maybe slightly progressive but reliable reporting:
Israel’s Gaza Indication
By Jackson Diehl
Washington Post, 9/21/2009
Most of Washington’s predictions regarding the adverse outcome of Israel’s invasion of the Gaza strip (locally known as Operation Cast Lead) were correct. Yet Israeli leaders consider the attack a success. Why they do so bears consideration as Israel prepares to weigh Washington’s opinion regarding an attack on Iran. Israel points to Operation Cast Lead as bringing a respite from Gaza’s attacks on Israel, which had been nearly continuous since April 2001. Yet this view of victory does not take into account the loss of life, Palestinian suffering, and the subsequent offense to UN leaders. Nor does Israel recognize that Hamas is stronger since Operation Cast Lead. As Israeli leaders debate whether to launch an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, they may well decide, as with Gaza, that temporary respite trumps long-term repercussions.
Diehl is deputy editorial page editor of The Post. He is an editorial writer specializing in foreign affairs.
Link to full text in primary source.
And now look at the way it’s redacted in the "Daily Alert" which is put out "for" the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organization BY the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, a right-wing outfit managed by Dore Gold:
Israel’s Gaza Vindication - Jackson Diehl (Washington Post)
- When it was launched last December, Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip looked to most people in Washington to be risky, counterproductive and doomed to futility. But today, the three-week operation is generally regarded by the country’s military and political elite as a success.
- Between April 2001 and the end of 2008, 4,246 rockets and 4,180 mortar shells were fired into Israel from Gaza, killing 14 Israelis, wounding more than 400 and making life in southern Israel intolerable. During what was supposed to be a cease-fire during the last half of 2008, 362 rockets and shells landed. Since April there have been just over two dozen rocket and mortar strikes. No one has been seriously injured, and life in the Israeli town of Sderot and the area around it has returned almost to normal.
- Hamas remains in power and unmoved in its refusal to recognize Israel. It is still holding an Israeli soldier who was abducted in 2006. It is still smuggling material for weapons through tunnels under the Egyptian border and, if it chose to, could resume rocket attacks on Israel at any time.
- However, Israel has bought itself a stretch of relative peace with Hamas, just as its 2006 invasion of Lebanon has produced three years of quiet on that front. "They will never change their ideology of destroying Israel," a senior government official told me last week. "But you can deter them if they are convinced you are not afraid of fighting a war."
- As for the Goldstone report, the heat it briefly produced last week will quickly dissipate; the panel was discredited from the outset because of its appointment by the grotesquely politicized UN Human Rights Council.
You can draw a conclusion from the above:
The above is not the most extreme example of spin. I have noticed over time that the Daily Alert is a partisan effort to scare people off with paranoia. It is very professionally written and redacted - far better than most newsletters put out by mainstream, center, center-left and far-left newsletters I get or review; but regrettably it is full of spin and not objective. Too bad because it loses much of its legitimacy that way.
Btw, here is the original story the two sources above aimed to summarize:
Also been meaning to upload this picture of the YGL delegation that came with us on a visit of Jerusalem this last spring…
