ARABSTATES have reacted to Israel’s plan to launch a new Arabic-language TV channel with the announcement of their own proposal for a satellite channel to promote the Arab point of view in English and other languages.
The International Press Institute (IPI), the global network of editors and media executives, has updated and revised its report on press freedom violations related to the Palestinian Intifada. Covering the period from the beginning of the uprising on 29 September, 2000 until 24 July, 2001, the report provides a detailed examination of the serious abuses of journalists and media outlets in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel.
Although the use of the adjective ‘vigilante’ is unlikely to be intended by any journalist to imply that killing three Palestinians — including a baby — on their way to a wedding party is an act of ‘justice’, their inappropriate use of this word does make it obvious that many journalists shy away from applying the adjective ‘terrorist’ to Jews or ‘Israelis’ but do not apply the same restraint when writing about Palestinians.
We must again note that CNN’s reporting of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not all bad. But, once again, here is a report that employs terminology to describe land — the central issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — that comes straight from the Israeli lexicon. The language of this report suggests that the status of West Bank land is unclear, that it is “disputed”. The status of this land is anything but unclear and is defined by international law as occupied territory, regardless of the views of Israel or CNN.
We first must note that CNN’s reporting of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not all bad. On several critical points, however, the network has adopted a unique, bizarre, and indefensible position on what is otherwise universally understood to be Israel’s status in the Occupied Territories as well as the legal status of Jewish settlements in these areas.
The Palestinian people have made it quite clear that they will resist the occupation until it ends completely, and they are learning more about the occupier’s vulnerabilities every day. Even Sharon will have to stop and think before he does anything more foolish than he has so far.
Abu Ismail is sitting on a sofa as he speaks. The tape recorder sits on a low table in front of him, absorbing his voice, and the noise of mopeds and people from the alley outside. He is in his mid-sixties, but looks perhaps a little older.
Your children are hungry, irritable, and smelly. You try to calm them, singing them songs while heating up some left-over coffee and listening to news reports on a battery powered radio that promise your difficult life is only going to get worse.
I am writing to express my deepest opposition to the United States continued support for and participation in Israeli attacks against Palestinian civilians in the occupied territories.
Schumer and Clinton displayed clear bias and a lack of good judgement in accepting as fact a distortion created by a pro-Israeli group. They compounded their error by further exaggerating this claim in their comments to the press and in their letter to President Bush. In doing so they did a disservice to their positions as U.S. Senators and to the pursuit of truth and peace.
