From the Washington Post's media watch, on lack of balance in Mideast Reporting (This is something, but it covers American media only).
This lack of balance has two main factors: a) the huge moral double standard Israel labors under. The Jews gave morality to the western world, so everyone one expects Israel to set a shining moral example of how to fight terrorism without getting your hands dirty, and b) censorship, both self- and imposed. If you report nasty things about the IDF, no one will threaten or shoot you. This is definitely NOT the case if you report nasty things about the PLO from Ramallah. The PA intimidates reporters and censors news regularly. So the news from PA territory tends to concentrate on Israeli misdeeds. That's why it's so common to see pictures of Israeli soldiers and tanks and so rare to see pictures of Palestinian gunmen.
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Sense of Balance Tough to Find in Mideast
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 14, 2002; 9:15 AM
If the Israelis have lost Geraldo, they may be losing the American public.
As 150 Israeli tanks rolled into the Palestinian town of Ramallah, the Fox News correspondent had some surprisingly harsh things to say about the Jewish state.
In terms of world diplomacy, President Bush's mild rebuke of Ariel Sharon's actions yesterday is vastly more important.
But as a barometer of media coverage, Rivera's comments, as self-involved as they were, may be worth examining.
Complaining about the constant assaults on the West Bank by tanks and F-16s, with inevitable civilian casualties, Geraldo declared: "That's not fighting terrorism. That is inflicting terrorism.
"I have been a Zionist my entire life. I would die for Israel. But watching the suffering of the Palestinian people, I'm also becoming a Palestinian-ist."
The problem, which all journalists face, is that focusing mainly on Israeli retaliation tends to leave out the horrible Palestinian provocations – the suicide bombers that have killed Israeli civilians – that prompted the response in the first place.
It would be like showing U.S. warplanes hitting Afghan towns without mentioning that there was this episode called Sept. 11.
Geraldo soon got carried away. "You can't round up Palestinian young men and put numbers on their arms to make it easier to identify them," he said. "That reminds the world, that reminds Jews, of what Hitler and the Nazi pigs inflicted on the Jewish race during the Second World War."
He paused for a split-second. "Maybe the comparison is not precise," he said.
Maybe.
But the Middle East has become a killing field, and keeping a sense of balance – in covering those who intentionally kill civilians (like al Qaeda) and those who do so as an unavoidable part of warfare – is important.
The New York Times has Bush ratcheting up the pressure:
"President Bush criticized Israel today, saying that a halt to bloodshed in the Middle East depends on a willingness to 'create conditions for peace' and asserting that Israel's actions of late have been counterproductive.
"'Frankly, it's not helpful, what Israel has recently done,' Mr. Bush said at an afternoon news conference. At another point, the president said he hoped that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel was concerned about the loss of 'innocent life' in the region. 'It breaks my heart,' Mr. Bush said.
"Scores of Arabs and Israelis have been killed in the past two weeks, as Israeli troops have swept through Palestinian enclaves in what Israel says is a hunt for terrorists and a self-defense operation against Palestinian suicide bombers.
"But Palestinians have been enraged as some Israeli bullets have killed civilians, as the homes of some Palestinians have been demolished and as roadblocks and personal searches by Israeli soldiers have become more frequent."
The Washington Post sees Cheney caught in the diplomatic crossfire: "Vice President Cheney, who is traveling through the Arab world seeking support for a confrontation with Iraq, was forced in Egypt to focus on the Middle East in response to Arab anger at Israel's largest offensive in the West Bank and Gaza Strip since they were occupied in 1967. . . .
"The vice president had anticipated that concerns about the Middle East conflict would arise at each of his 11 stops in the region, but the issue now consumes more time than he expected, according to a senior administration official. The escalating violence was the subject of extensive discussions with Jordan's King Abdullah on Monday and will figure prominently as Cheney heads to Arab Gulf countries later this week.
"The administration official said the attention being paid to the violence has not bumped any of Cheney's priorities from the agenda. The official, however, left little doubt that the timing of the Israeli escalation has not worked to Cheney's advantage.
"In a news conference with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Sharm el-Sheikh, Cheney said, 'We plan to do everything we can to persuade both parties that it's time for violence to end, and I'll reiterate that position in every single stop along the way.' . . .
"Cheney, one of the administration's most ardent defenders of Israel, said, 'The burden is on both parties to bring an end to the violence. It's not going to be possible to make progress until both parties can agree to a cease-fire.'
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