Edmund Ghareeb - The US Media and the Palestine Question (2002)

Heidi: Tonight's topic is the American media and the Palestine question, and our speaker is Edmund Harib. Edmund teaches Middle Eastern politics and history at the American University and is a specialist on American and Arab media issues. He is co-author of War in the Gulf, 1990-1991, the Iraqi-Kuwaiti Conflict, and its implications, which was recently issued by Oxford University Press and numerous other works. Please join me in welcoming Edmund Green.

Edmund Ghareeb: Thank you, Heidi. It's a pleasure to be with you this evening, although with the terrible pictures we're getting from the region, I don't know what one is to think. I've just heard actually that a priest and several nuns were wounded in an attack in Bethlehem, and the confrontations are still going on in Ramallah and a number of other cities in the area. But if we step back from the horrible events taking place, in the West Bank and Gaza today and the horrific headlines and images in the media. We realize that the conflict in the Middle East, and particularly the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, is all about competing narratives. Both sides blame the other for forcing them to do so. In the media, the Israelis kill many more Palestinians than the other way around and with more effect and with deadlier weapons than the Palestinians. But in fact, it's the Palestinians who are accused of being terrorists and killing civilians. The US and Israel say the conflict will end when the Palestinians give up their commitment to terrorism and accept Israel's right to exist. The Palestinians, of course, say that they have already accepted Israel's right to exist, but that the intifada will continue until Israel ends its illegal occupation of Palestinian territories and compensates the refugees It created while creating Israel and during the 1967 war. One of the rest of the world, of course, most of the world, in fact, seems to accept the Palestinian version of what has happened. They see the Palestinians as a people dispossessed who have lost their own land and are living under occupation. In the United States, it's the Israeli version which dominates the coverage in the media. It is, of course, seen as a struggle between Israel as a fledgling democracy and living constantly under siege among people who want to throw it to the sea. Overall, however, the American media has failed to give a context for this conflict and has avoided answering some of the basic journalistic questions of who, what, and why and where the media has not shown that the core of the struggle is over the right of the Palestinian people to determine their own future. In addition to three million refugees from 48 and 67, there are three other million Palestinians living under Israeli occupation in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and their rights to live in freedom and their own independent state are not being realized. Yesterday I saw a poll, actually the results of a poll, or a story about a poll, but I'm not sure how accurate the story is. But even if it's close to being accurate, it's a bit frightening. It said that only 3% of the American people know that the Palestinians are living under occupation. Occupation, of course, is brutal and brutalizing. When an uprising takes place, it means that there is an unbearable situation which must be changed. Of course, it's not rational to commit suicide and kill oneself in suicide operations against your enemy, or against, of course, as we've seen it, against civilians. Nor is it necessarily, it may not be rational to throw stones at tanks and soldiers with modern weapons, but I guess it's also one can see that this is an expression of rage, an expression of despair, and hopelessness. At the beginning of the Intifada, the second Intifada, we began to see some articles in the Washington Post and the New York Times and some of the television channels which broadcast somewhat balanced, more balanced reporting and portrayal of the Palestinians and their issues. But of course this did not last for very long. The Israelis moved very quickly. hired a public relations campaign and succeeded in getting their terminology to be used by most of the media and that is that there is violence and the violence must be stopped. What I want to do is try to talk a little bit about the role of the American media in general and American society, then talk about some of the issues that lead to the coverage, the imbalanced coverage, and talk about the reasons behind the imbalanced coverage. Some of it has to do with the way the American media operate, and some of it has to do with the nature of this conflict, this Arab-Israeli conflict. I think over the last three decades, the American media have gone through the best and the worst of times. They have provided fair and balanced coverage on numerous issues, and expose governmental and corporate waste, corruption, and abuse. They have often served in the unique role given them by the founders of the American Republic, that of a watchdog. The media are today the most effective channel for the transfer of information necessary for political action, information that governments, non-governmental organizations, corporations, labor unions, whatever, and any other group want to communicate to the public or to each other in the United States and abroad as well. They are the means, as I said, for communicating the views of these players and of most of the participants in the political game and the mirror that reflect to each player what the others are doing or thinking. All players use the media with varying degree of success to promote and discuss their issues to establish a framework for the debates over setting national and international agendas, and they use the media to assess the success and failure of their policies. The media are among the most powerful players in national and international political life. Nevertheless, much controversy has surrounded the mass media in recent years and has led to the rise of serious questions about their role and their responsibilities. The increasing unease and cynicism about the media may be symptomatic of the public unease over their growing role in shaping public opinion and in accurately informing the public about national and international issues. Television and print coverage of momentous events such as Waco, Ruby Ridge, the Oklahoma and World Trade Center bombings, the OJ Simpson, Richard Jewell, Monica Lewinsky affairs, has been often shallow, sensationalistic, and has also bolstered the charge that the media are elitist, negativist, and biased. Another problem that we are seeing these days more and more of is the problem of the conglomerations. of the media and the increasing competition for revenue dollars that's bringing us infotainment. And of course, with the McDonaldization of news coverage. One of the main things that we are seeing, and we are seeing this in the coverage of a number of stories, international stories, whether it's the war in Yugoslavia, Somalia, and the recent war on terrorism have led to harsher charges against the media and the way it covers these stories. The accusation is that the media have abandoned their traditional role of watchdog for that of the lapdog, and they became more or less cheerleaders in the political process. The media, of course, are getting criticism from the left and from the right. Even the Middle East media recently, which people in the Middle East media don't often see eye to eye on many of the issues that are affecting not only their part of the world, but sometimes the United States and other parts of the world.

Heidi: But recently, it seemed that Israeli as well as Arabs agree.

Edmund Ghareeb: A recent article by one of the Israeli leading journalists, Ze'ev Schiff, charged that the American media is being changed and changed dramatically. He said, the media have raised the flag and volunteered for the war in Afghanistan. He said they practiced self-censorship. They offer little real debate about what's going on in Afghanistan or about the number of civilian casualties. And even though there are debates about military tribunals, about whether or not to expand the war, These are coming from people outside the media who are using the media to get their points of view across. An Arab journalist who was speaking at a conference here in Washington and is a person who usually closely monitors the American media said that the world appears to have been turned upside down and that the way the American media is covering the situation in Afghanistan The war on terrorism and, of course, the situation in the Middle East reminded him of what was happening in the Arab world during the 50s, 60s, and 70s when the media was basically a mouthpiece for the government. He said reading some of the American newspapers and watching television was like reading Al-Ahram and Tishrin, which are Egyptian and Syrian newspapers, and Al-Qa'z, a Saudi newspaper. In fact, one of the main things that is interesting is that, I don't know, many of you, I'm sure, have heard a great deal about Al Jazeera in recent months, but you don't know that Al Jazeera and other Arab networks, which are much freer than the traditional media, have actually found a great deal of support in the region, partly because of the way the American media and the Arab media covered the Gulf War of 1990, 1991. There was a great deal of anger and disappointment and frustration with the way people saw their own media. That included both the pro-Iraqi and the anti-Iraqi side during the Gulf War, but they became even more frustrated with the way the American media was covering In fact, that led to an increasing demand by Arab journalists and people in the civil society for a more independent type of media. There was an article which appeared in a Tunisian newspaper by Jamaluddin Karmawi, who wrote the following, and I think this is quite a powerful statement. He said, there was a time when we avoided looking Western reporters in the eye. They created many a complex in us. They made us feel like dwarves and convinced us that we are incompetent, but we saw them in action. And we could not believe it. We saw them committing perjury. We saw them displaying hypocrisy and animosity. We saw them shaping public opinion in their hands like clay. We saw them romanticizing smart bombs in the so-called bloodless surgical technology. We have seen them weep for an oil-soaked bird and describe the torn limbs of Iraqi victims as pro-Saddam propaganda. There was a time when we thought they were from another planet. where regimes, peoples, plants, and trees breathe democracy. And we almost believed it. The recent events have opened our eyes. But this is, of course, the negative side. But the CNN factor has also allowed us to receive live and unfiltered, if at times partial and limited, coverage on the events of the day. We see events at the same time that decision makers do. The media, at least since the days of President Sadat and his visit to Jerusalem, appears to have supplanted the role of diplomats to a certain extent and have become the conduit used by governments and leaders to send messages to each other and to their publics. does the role of the mailman or the cheerleader here really replace the role that we really need, and that's the role of the reporter, and especially the role of the investigative journalist. And in fact, this role of the media playing that role, the role of the conduit, we saw it again recently with Thomas Friedman of the New York Times becoming sort of the godfather of the Saudi peace initiative. One of the interesting things about the way the media has been playing is that, in fact, we are seeing a new kind of reporter covering numerous stories, whether they are on the domestic or on the international scene. And as Scotty Reston, the well-known New York Times journalist, columnist, wrote a while ago, he said that there is a new breed of reporter who have become part of the action, manipulating, participating, building and destroying images, and often acting as a bullhorn for what used to be called the whispers of diplomacy. It has been said that the press cannot tell people what to think, but it is at least successful in telling them what to think about. Today, reporters, correspondents, and television anchor people go in and out of the corridors of governments, interpret news, assist administrations, and influence foreign policy in many ways. A triangular and symbiotic relationship appears to exist between public opinion, or perhaps more accurately between special interest groups, the government, and the media. One of the problems is that many in the media rely on government sources for their information, especially when it comes to foreign affairs. They don't do it all the time, but it seems that authoritative sources are more accurate than other sources, and we see a great deal of reliance on this. Also, and that has something to do with the way the media operate, because sometimes you have to cover a story, you have to cover it quickly, and the only people who really can provide that information are either people in the governments or sometimes people in the think tanks, who often have their own also, their own points of views and their agendas. Another problem that has affected the American media's coverage, and these are issues that I'm talking about that deal with the way the media operate, the nature of the media, and do not have anything to do necessarily with the Arab-Israeli conflict, but they deal with other issues, foreign affairs issues as well. And this is a fire brigade type of coverage in the media, where the media often ignores a story until it reaches

Heidi: a flashpoint.

Edmund Ghareeb: And this is actually, if you go back and watch what happened with the Iranian Revolution, the first Iran-Iraq War, the first Gulf War, the Somali story, Afghanistan, Lebanon, the Yemen Civil War, and many, many others, you find that The American media did not cover these stories before they became a major event or a major crisis, before we saw a major crisis on the ground, and sometimes not even then. The Yemen Civil War, for example, was not covered at all in the media. It was mostly ignored by the media. But what we see is that When that happens, and once the flashpoint takes place, once the crisis explodes, we see the American media sometimes sending hundreds of reporters to cover these stories. But the problem is that you do not get the context of the story. You do not get the depth. You don't really get the background of what happened, what brought this about. So this has been one of the main problems with the coverage. Also, there is another problem with the coverage, and to a certain extent, this is somewhat understandable, and that is the one-dimensionality of American media coverage. For a story to be covered, it must have an American angle for it to to become worthy of coverage. To a certain extent, that's of course natural and understandable, but sometimes this is carried too far, especially when there are issues that affect regional as well as international stability. And in a way, this has influenced the coverage of the Middle East because often Israel is seen as a friend of the United States, and it's covered as a result of that. And so to a certain extent, much of the coverage of Israel and its issues is viewed, especially when it comes to Arab-Israeli issues, are viewed from the perspective of the United States, of Israel as an ally of the United States. There's also another factor, and that is that I talked about earlier, and this is the increasing conglomerization of the media. In the United States, as I'm sure all of you know, there are something like about 1,000 television channels, there are 1,700 daily newspapers, thousands of weekly papers, 9,000 radio stations. And if each of these, as well as there are a number of magazines, there are also publishing houses and film, if Each one of these was owned by one individual. You'd probably have something like 20,000 people making the decisions, editorial decisions. But what we're seeing more and more, actually, is that as large corporations are buying media corporations, and we'll find that, in fact, Something like about nine corporations own three of the major networks, more than 200 television stations, 59 magazines, including magazines like Time and Newsweek, and chains of newspapers, including the large newspapers. And this monopolization has increased in recent years. In fact, we are seeing it going on now, probably there are about seven or eight corporations which own most of these channels. Also, there is one other problem before I turn specifically to the Arab-Israeli issue, and that's the decline in the number of foreign correspondents. In fact, the United States used to have more foreign correspondents covering the world in the 40s, 50s, and then the United States has today. And part of it, of course, has to do with cost. And there are a few that have increased the number of their correspondents. NPR has, I think, at least one or two added, one or two. CNN added also one or two. But generally, most of the major magazines and networks have cut back on the number, of course. These are issues that have to deal with the way the media operate, but there are others that have to deal with the way the media cover the Middle East and are very much affected by the Middle East, the nature of the Middle East conflict itself. And this is reflected in the coverage.

Heidi: Well, how does the coverage reflect this conflict?

Edmund Ghareeb: Well, of course, one of the main ways is in the amount and size of news coverage that we see that's given to Israel and its news, especially if you compare it to all the Arab countries put together. One of the things that we also, if you take a look at what's happening, you find that most networks and most major newspapers have bureaus in Israel, but at one time they used to have, some of them used to have bureaus in the Middle East or at least one correspondent in Beirut, but after the Lebanese Civil War many of them left and they didn't return. Sometimes you do have one and some of them have one for the whole Middle East except for Israel operating out of Cairo. But these are only some of the major newspapers as well as magazines and networks that do have that. Another thing that we see is that the media ignores usually Israeli practices. Israeli sometimes discrimination against Palestinians and sometimes even against Oriental or Sephardic Jews. Of course, there's also another problem is that usually Israelis are seen and viewed as the good guys. And the Palestinians are the bad guys. Israel, of course, is often seen as an extension of Western civilization and culture. And most polls that have been done in recent years, actually, even if you go back to the 70s, 60s, and 70s, you find that Israelis are generally seen given positive attributes and characteristics as peace loving, truthful, smart, friendly, while the Palestinians or the Arabs they get characteristics such as backward, dirty, Recently, we've seen about the Palestinians often referred to as terrorists, gangs, thugs, while we don't often get that when it comes to the Palestinians. Even when there are Israeli militias or settlers, they are often described as underground fighters or militants, but you don't hear the similar descriptions when it comes to them. Also, it's the way stories are reported. For example, you get stories reported from Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, even though most countries of the world do not recognize Jerusalem as the capital. of Israel. You also get stories such as when Israeli forces are described as commandos, as security forces, or Israeli defense forces, while fighters from Hezbollah or the Palestinians are described as guerrilla fighters when it's neutral, or terrorists, rebels. Actually, I saw that the Washington Times used to often say that Hezbollah described Hezbollah as a rebel organization. I don't know. You can say a lot of things about Hezbollah, but they certainly were not a rebel organization. And sometimes we've also seen the reference to the Palestinian occupied territories as the administered territories. We saw the question of the security, what was described as the security zone in southern Lebanon, the area that was occupied by Israel in southern Lebanon. And we also often and sometimes even heard about the captured territories. And of course, we often heard about, we still hear about the need to have security in return for peace. After the second, the rise of the second intifada and the election of Prime Minister Sharon, We began to hear about Palestinian violence, Palestinian terrorism, Islamic terrorism, and we did not hear anything about resistance to occupation. We heard about Israel making generous and wide-ranging concessions to the Palestinians and that the Palestinians have turned these concessions down, although that was not, as if you read Robert Malley and his article in the New York Times, and I think there was also a little longer piece in the New York Review of Books, you'll find that there weren't that, the concessions, quote unquote, were not that generous in fact. But what's even more interesting about this is that the Palestinians are not asking for concessions. The Palestinians are asking for compliance, compliance with United Nations resolutions. And when it comes to, for example, if you compare that to the Iraqi situation, when Iraq complies with 99% of UN resolutions but does not with 1%, then the Iraqis are described as being defiant and force must be used against them to bring them, to ensure that they are going to comply. But we don't hear this kind of language. used when it comes to the Israelis. One of the other problems that we often also see is that there are so many so-called experts who appear on the American media. Many of them don't know very much about the region. Some of them have traveled over it a couple of times, and some, of course, have their own agendas. And you usually get maybe about five or six to every one Palestinian or sometimes even neutral. analyst or commentator. Now, why has this happened? Historically, I think Israel's friends have used a certain discourse to try to reach and gain the support of the American people. Well, part of it has to do with the emphasis, and not only by the way, not only the support of the American public opinion, sometimes specifically even American Jewish public opinion. One is that Israel is the promised land and this has led to especially the attempt to gain the support and has been supported by some elements of the evangelical Christians in the United States who for religious reasons believe that they have to support that view, that vision of Israel. of Israel and of what means to them from a religious perspective. Basically, I'm talking about the right of the Israelis to return, of the Jews to return to Palestine before Armageddon. The other thing is that also there has been a great deal of emphasis that Palestine is a land without a people and that it must be given to a people without a land. Even now we still hear in the American media, including major media like the Washington Post and the New York Times, when they refer to the Palestinians, they refer to them as Arabs. They are not referred to as Palestinian. Also, another thing that we've heard a great deal about, and that is that Israel is a democratic country in the midst of a backward region in the Middle East, and that it has the same values and principles as the United States, and it's very different from its neighbors. Also, of course, that Israel is a small country that wants to live in peace and that it's organized by countries and organizations which are hostile, hate Israel, and they want to throw Israel into the sea. And that these people, the only language they understand is a language of force. Israel also is, we see a great deal of emphasis of how Israel has achieved and made tremendous, and Israel has, technological, scientific progress, and how it has transformed the desert into a garden, although I'm not sure that Palestine was, parts of it are desert, but a lot of it was not. And this is something that we also hear a great deal. And there's the emphasis that this fits with America's values, America's principles, and with the values and ideals of Western civilization. Now, how does this happen also in a society like the United States that has one of the highest educational levels in the world and has one of the freest and most powerful media institutions? Well, I think there are a number of reasons. Part of it has to do with the fact that many Americans rely on the media to get their information. And in fact, one, there was a very interesting, especially also what kind of media. There was a poll that was done in San Diego sometime last year. They asked a group of people, what do you think of Arabs? And where did you get your information about them? The answers came something like this. The Arabs are Mediterranean. Arabs are Bedouins. Arabs come from the desert. Arabs come from Africa. Arabs come from Asia. Arabs are generous people, hospitable people. The Arabs hate the Jews. The Arabs hate the Christians. So you got all kinds. You got positive as well as negative responses. But what I found interesting was when we tried to find out where did they get their information from. And it was interesting that the people who had the most negative information, they got that information from television, from the films, from Hollywood, from some cartoons, some of them when they were young. And the ones that were most positive got their information. from friends who were Arabs, or people who, because they knew people, neighbors, for example, who were Arabs or had traveled to the Middle East, or they were people who had studied about the Arab world and the Middle East in a college or university. So this has been one of the, the media has played an important part. I think there's also, there is a lack of information, as I said, cultural bias sometimes, which has historic, political, and sometimes religious reasons. There is also a think-alike atmosphere or a pack-like mentality in the way that American media operate. I think one time Senator Gene McCarthy compared journalists to black birds. He said, when one flies away or the others follow. There is another thing is that sympathy with the Jewish people for their plight after the Holocaust and the treatment of the Nazis, and on the part of some, perhaps there may be even a sense of Western guilt as a result of this. In addition, there is also the role of special interest groups, and in this sense, the pro-Israeli lobby, which is well organized, quite powerful and influential, and has a lot of friends in the media and in the governmental institutions, as well as other institutions in the United States. Also, another thing is that the failure of the Arabs and the Palestinians, of course, to understand the way the media operates, and how to communicate with the American media. And I think this has been a big problem. In addition, there's another problem that affects, I think, coverage in the way Palestinians and Arabs and their image in the West. And this is, in fact, the ongoing conflicts, differences, divisions, fights between Arab countries, the absence of democracy in the Arab world and many Arab countries. and the violations of basic human rights in a number of areas. All of these have contributed to the emergence of a negative portrayal of Palestinians and Arabs in the Western world.

Heidi: There is also something else that has to do with, and this is something that is historical.

Edmund Ghareeb: Sometimes, I think to a large extent, many Americans have inherited many of the things that they know about the Middle East And for a long time, Europe has had a hostile relationship with the Middle East. Although now, if you take a look at the Europeans, the Europeans seem to understand the region much better than Americans do. And they are actually playing a, trying to play a positive role in trying to bridge some of the differences that do exist in the West. and the people of the Middle East. But I think that there's no doubt that the history is an important element. If you go back, some people take it back to the Crusades, although I think that's probably stretching it a little bit. Some people take it to the conflict and the competition over East-West trade routes, and that time from the 14th, 15th century onwards. to try to gain control over the trade routes and to get to the spices. Also there is, but the most important factor I think has been the colonial conflict. The Europeans came to control many Middle Eastern and Islamic countries. And this led to a number of conflicts and wars of liberation, and it goes all the way from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, all over most of the region. We saw this, and this left an impact. But interestingly, at least in the early days, the Americans were seen in a very positive light by the majority of the people of the area. And if you go back, actually, to the period immediately after the First World War, when people of the Middle East were asked, President Wilson, I don't know how many of you followed this, but President Wilson sent the King Crane Commission to try to determine what are the views and the opinions of the people of the Middle East, and what would they like to do after the end of the war. And in fact, many of them told members of this commission they would like to be independent. They would like to have a united, independent Arab state. But they were told that that's not going to be possible. It looks like they're going to be placed under a mandate, a European mandate. And they said the choice is usually the British or the French. But most of the people that they talked to said that they do not want British or French mandate. But if they had to have a mandate, they wanted an American mandate. And in a sense, if you take a look at that, it's quite interesting if you compare that to the poll that the Gallup organization took a few weeks ago. and had showed that people in many parts of the Middle East had a different perspective of the United States at that time. But also the United States, people like President Wilson was considered, in fact, by at least the elite. Some people knew about him among the average people, but the majority, I'm talking about the elite, was considered a hero because he supported people's right to self-determination and independence. President Kennedy's support for the Algerian revolt against the French. President Eisenhower, his support for Egypt and his pressure on the British, the French, and the Israelis to withdraw after 1956 was a tremendous impact on the people, on the minds of the people of the Middle East. Well, I don't know how much I don't want to take a great deal of time, but basically, and we can talk about it during the period of question and answer. One of the things is that the image of people, of the Palestinians and the people of the Middle East has gone through different phases. There have been some very negative ones, and sometimes it has improved, the image improved. And then sometimes there was a return to more negative portrayals. But basically these things have not remained static. There has been an improvement a number of times. We saw it after Sadat, regardless of whether you think Sadat did the right thing or the wrong thing. When Sadat went to Jerusalem, that changed the image of Egyptians and of Arabs generally in the Middle East. There was also, after the 1982 invasion of Lebanon by Israel, there were many, many critical articles of Israeli policies, including articles written by well-known prominent American Jewish journalists who criticized Israeli policies. We saw during the Gulf War had positive as well as negative aspects. You had on the one hand the fact that Americans and Arabs fought on the same side that sometimes contributed to a better understanding, although there was also a great deal of criticism and opposition because of what happened to Iraq and especially since the end of the war and the impact of the sanctions. But one of the most important periods occurred during the Madrid summit, when there were something like 5,000 journalists attending the Madrid summit. And at this time, there were Arab spokespeople, including Palestinian spokespersons, who were very effective in presenting their case to the international media. And probably one person you all know who has done a very good job of that and who attended that summit was Hanan Ashrawi, who was the prominent Palestinian activist. Now, before I end, one of the things that I wanted to mention is that there has been, it's not only sometimes what is said, but what's missing from the stories. And generally, there has been a problem, for example, is that when there's an ongoing bias when it comes to coverage, And I thought I'll use, I had a number of examples, but I'll just use one and then I will stop, is that there was a study that was done around 98 for two years on the coverage of the Middle East by National Public Radio, which is one of the better, relatively speaking, media outlets. And they found out that there was something like over 100 stories But now what kind of stories were there? They found that 49 of these stories focused on security. 33 referred to terrorism. 32 referred specifically to Hamas. Six reports referred to human rights violations. Eight referred to closures. One referred to Shin Bet and its activities, that's the Israeli internal security force. Two referred to the use of live ammunition or rubber bullets. Three referred to torture, and two referred to demolition. There were also 42 reports which referred to Israeli settlements, which is another major issue that has been a problem between the Palestinians and the Israelis. But 18 out of those reports contain the word security. while only five continued the word land confiscation. And the term illegal never appeared in the media. The same thing about the settlements. There was a study that was done actually by somebody who gave a talk here a while ago who was, I think her name was Marta Dunsky. Does anybody remember her? and who focused, did a study on the way the media, she picked six major newspapers, and the way they covered the settlements. And she found out that in all of the stories that came out, and some of them were long stories, most of them revolved around the settlers' various points of views, both religious and secular. The reporting focused also on how the violence had disrupted the settlers' quality of life and their anxieties over what negotiations could bring. Of the six, only the Los Angeles Times, in one of its two stories, mentioned in a passing reference that the settlements are illegal under international law. And only two of the seven stories quoted Palestinians. The only exception was that there were, at that time, on radio, because it was a story, and it was one story, but it was a story that went in depth, and that was done by National Public Radio. One of the things that also we often see is, I was going to give you an example of one of the, an article that appeared by Yossi Klein Halevi, who published an article, who's a correspondent, one of the writers of the Jerusalem Report, and who is also a correspondent for the New Republic, and he did an interesting piece that I think in many ways it summarized the problem with the coverage in the media. And basically what he went on to say, he said that there are two sides here. He said that there is one side that accepts the radical leader, but only they accepted that leader after the failure of the peacemaker. And he was talking about the Israeli side, while the other side has never produced any peacemakers and has not produced any leaders who want to arrive at a compromise. He also said there is a party that teaches its children the songs of peace and the songs of love while the other one teaches its children the songs of blood and fire. He said there is one side that maintains an Israeli press that criticizes its own government and army while the other one basically accuses, makes hateful comments about the other side and does not represent the other side accurately. He said that One side tries to avoid killing civilians while the other side is basically a war against civilians. He said there is one side where the mothers send their children to commit suicide while the other ones are trying to avoid. They want their children to live and they are trying to avoid making others suffer and to sacrifice their lives for a cause. So there's one side that wants to end the debate about history, and give priority to the future while the other side is still fighting medieval wars. He said there are here two movements, it's a tragic conflict, but he said one side sees itself as legitimate and the other side as illegitimate. And I think in a way this discovery, this tells us a great deal about the perceptions. It's a clever piece and it in fact is full as anybody who follows the region. of misrepresentations and distortions, but that's the kind of thinking that unfortunately a lot of people have bought into and a lot of people are focusing on in the media these days.