Let there
also be no doubt that Greg Mitchell of the trade publication
Editor and Publisher has turned in a sorry performance,
offering his anti-Israel opinions under the guise of media
criticism.
Editor
and Publisher describes itself as "the authoritative journal
covering all aspects of the North American newspaper industry." It
has been around since 1884. Lately Mitchell has been writing
with great consternation that most newspapers are not editorializing
and reporting the way he believes they should be. Namely,
that Israel should be roundly condemned for its actions
that have led to the death of civilians during its war
with Hezbollah.
"Amazingly,
writes Mitchell, "criticism of the extent of Israel's bombing
and its policy of collective punishment—has actually decreased
as the carnage has mounted."
"The
editorial response is all the more scandalous," he complains, "because
this is not some distant conflict where America is merely
a third party. The U.S. is Israel's prime (sometime virtually
its only) major ally, and the funder or producer of much
of the armaments landing on Lebanon—though you'd never
know of this special link from reading most of these editorials."
Mitchell
goes on and on, criticizing papers if they don't blast
Israel for "the bombing of Beirut," as if Israel is deliberately
targeting the civilian population rather than outposts
for Hezbollah. Mitchell says that "it's a disgrace that
few [editorial pages] have expressed outrage, or at least
condemnation, over the extent of death and destruction
in and around Beirut—and the attacks on the country's infrastructure,
which harms most citizens of that country."
What
is disgraceful is the kind of attack that Mitchell wages
on a country whose survival is on the line. Israel is in
a unique situation because there are many different terrorist
organizations, and their state sponsors, who want to see
Israel completely destroyed. Mitchell's one-sided commentaries
ignore the fact that Hezbollah is responsible for the deaths
of innocent civilians because its terrorists hide and operate
among the civilian population.
Think
about how World War II would have turned out if the media
had followed Mitchell's advice and had attacked Western
nations for trying to destroy the Nazi war machine, on
the grounds that too many civilians were being killed.
In that war the U.S. did deliberately bomb civilian areas.
There was no question about it.
The outcome
of World War III, as Newt Gingrich calls it, is in doubt
partly because of the Mitchell mentality. According to
the Mitchell dictum, terrorists are allowed to operate
in civilian areas but the nations under attack by them
cannot bomb those areas because civilians might die—even
though Israel takes the extra step of warning the civilians
to get out of those areas in advance of any military action.
This
double-standard benefits the terrorists, who use 24-hour
cable and satellite TV, including networks like Al-Jazeera
and Al-Manar, to promote their propaganda.
There
is a great piece in
National Review Online by Noah Pollak, called "Video Made
the Terrorist Star," about how the coverage has moved beyond
propaganda to reports that are incoherent and even silly.
He cites
Ann Curry of NBC as a prime example. We would expand that
to others who have been on the scene. Curry, like Shepard
Smith of Fox News, and Tucker Carlson of MSNBC, and
others, basically have little or no experience or expertise
in the region. In Lebanon, they tend to focus on the alleged
civilian casualties, creating the impression that Israel
has overdone its response to terrorism. That is the Mitchell
line.
In Israel,
the story can change, however, depending on what is defined
as "news." Pollak describes a scene in which Ann Curry
sticks a mike in the face of an Israeli soldier and asks
him how it feels to be killing innocent civilians, and
the next day she is doing a sympathetic story about an
Israeli family under threat of attack.
"In fact,
they are not exactly journalists at all," writes Pollak, "at
least not in the sense that we have been taught to believe.
They do not seem interested in reporting what is traditionally
understood as news—that is, information that attempts to
convey as complete and realistic an accounting of events
as possible. They can be more accurately described as entertainers,
who stimulate their audiences with that which is factual
and passing. The most striking thing about the producers
and on-air reporters who show up in Israel is how deeply
ignorant they are of the conflict and its history."
In the
end, however, the bias always seems to be concentrated
against Israel, depicted as an aggressor when it was the
victim of aggression.
The anti-Israel
bias, as demonstrated by media critics such as Greg Mitchell,
is unfair because of the documented fact that Israel has
repeatedly demonstrated a desire to live in peace with
its neighbors and has shown over and over a willingness
to withdraw from territories it has taken in previous wars.
The Israeli leadership, including "hawks" such as Ariel
Sharon, has indicated no desire to occupy Lebanon or Palestinian
areas in the West Bank and Gaza.
The war
in Lebanon is the result of an attack on Israel, not Israel's
desire to expand its land.
In this
war, the distinction between civilian and military cannot
really be maintained because Hezbollah hides amid the civilian
population. That gives terrorists the ability to deceive
the people of the free world, through commentators such
as Greg Mitchell, and to blame Israel for civilian deaths
when they occur.
Mitchell
is entitled to his opinion, but he should not advertise
it as legitimate media criticism. If he wants to continue
bashing Israel for exercising its right to defend itself,
he should resign from Editor & Publisher and became
a commentator for Al-Jazeera. CRO
