;.l1,6,63,66,1,0,10,75,192,2,15,20,25,127,10,0,
;.l2,15,75,192,2,20,25,127,15,0,
;.l3,20,75,192,2,25,127,20,0,
;.l4,25,75,192,2,127,25,0,
;.l5,30,75,192,2,127,30,0,
.h2, MEDIA BIAS
.h3, TO:    David bar-Ilan, Eye on Media, Jlem Post
.h4, FROM:  Steve Amdur, Kibbutz Haon, Jordan Valley, 15170        DATE:  2 May 96
RE:    
REF:   English Radio News AM 2 May 96
CC:
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TEXT:                                     
Refers to the Hebron pullout as "overdue".
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COMMENT:
In general, English radio news coverage of this topic seems,arguably, intended to prepare the public for a Hebronpullout.  Mention something long enough as a fait accompli,and the public, which does not have unlimited time and energyto fight with the well-salaried over-staffed leaders to whomit has in principle delegated authority.

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DIATRIBE:
One might also note that Peres seems to have gone far inco-opting the supposedly objective branches ofgovernment, in particular the security services andmilitary, not to mention the Cabinet Ministers, asrubber stamps for his policy; so that, as hisincreasingly coy and vain public hints of his secretlyplanned catastrophes suggest, he become a mostincongruous virtual dictator, imposing a haywired rosytinted virtual reality upon a basically decent peopleand nation.

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.p
REF:  TIME Cover 6 May 96 (Fedarko) 

N.B.:  I cite the writer, not reporters, since media-bias,predominantly a matter of phrasing not of false reporting offacts, should be attributed to the writer/editor.

OVERVIEW:
Given the debacle of Operation Raisinbrains, practicallyunobjectionable.  In contrast with the same writer's previousbiased article on the same topic (TIME 4/22/96 (Fedarko; Cf.=mb041896), that suggests that anti-Israel bias is a function, notof the writer, but of editorial policy.
         

TEXT:
"the PLO changed its charter, removing passages that deniedIsrael's right to exist"

COMMENT:
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Fact is, it just decided to authorize itself to decidewhatever it decides it decided to authorize itself to decide,whenever it decides to do so (the latter, that is.)
"But 'twas a famous victory."

L3
ANALYSIS:
I don't this this notion of a "right to exist" "behindsecure  borders" is our optimal red line; JonathanPollard enjoys that right.      

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TEXT:
"Hizbollah's right to attack Israeli forces in the security zone,which Hizballah enjoys under international law, since the Israelisare an occupying power."
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COMMENT:  Would take a bit of untangling.
(1) Israeli troops are present and active in a generallyself-delimited area, at the invitation of a collaboratinglocal militia, but do not in general attempt to imposecontrol over civillian activity; nor gain any economicadvantage from the civilian sectory.
(2) Lebanon has de facto been divided into spheres ofinflence and occupation:  predominantly Syrian.  Israel hasoffered to relinquish its military presence in the southernsecurity zone to the Lebanese military; and might well havedone so to a UN force, had the UN not proved itselfineffective.
(3) Hizbollah is not essentially an indigenous movement ofnational liberation, but rather a para-military force paidtrained, supplied, and managed by foreign states.  (Albeitthe SLA is of similar design, though opposite intest.)
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.p
REF:  TIME 4/29/96 (Bruce Neal/Reported Lisa Beyer (T.A.); DeanFischer (Washington), Aharon Klein (Kiryat Shemona); Lara Marlowe(Qana) 
Material from the Kiryat Shemona reporter does not seem to havebeen used.

COMMENT:  In the context of the 4/22/96 TIME article, where LaraMarlow, termed TIME's Beirut Bureau Chief, is listed as reportingfrom Beirut, her role would seem problematic:  she seems to be achannel of official disinformation.  But then, given thekidnap/murders of unfriendly journalists in Lebanon in the 80s,that would seem to be part of the job description. 

TEXT:
"The shells -- at least a dozen -- fell on the unprotectedcivillians for 11 or 12 minutes ..."
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COMMENT:
Israel reported 5 shells.  Newsweek 4/29 says 6. I don't knowthe time frame.  Since the artillery fire had apparently beencalled in to extricate an Israel patrol that had come underKatuysha fire, one might expect that this would be a briefbarrage.
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TEXT:  "it soon became clear that Israeli shells and missiles werealso aimed at Lebanese cities and villages, roads and powerstations."
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COMMENT:  Israel did intentionally target one power station;and did have a tactic of continually bombarding the coastalroad, after warning the civillian population to stay clear, to temporarily block resupply of Hizbollah.  Sites in severalcities and in villages believed to be used by Hizbollah werealso targeted, after the civillian population had been warnedto evacuate.   Apart from that, there does not seem to havebeen deliberate targetting of civillian property, nor ofcivillians.
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TEXT:
"the Golan Heights, the portion of Syria that Israel captured in1967." 
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COMMENT:  Yup; albeit after it had been used continually andpractically exclusively as a base from which to shell Israelicivillian settlements; and had served as base for an invasionof Israel intended to destroy the state.
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GRAPHICS:  Map.
10 red burst-symbols marking Israeli bombardment of Lebanon; 6incidents with Lebanese civilian casualties detailed, (with thesort of detail that always gets to U.S. Presidents, eg  "a 2-yearold girl and a 100-year-old man"  7 dark-blue 6-pointed stars, allsmaller but the one at Kiryat Shemonah, mark "Hizbollah rockets" ;no mention that those targets were exclusively civillian; nodetailing of Israeli casualties by occurrence, number, sex, norage. 
l2
COMMENT:
Ever fashionable, TIME, which pioneered media-bias jive, seems to be breaking new conceptual ground in media-biasgraphics.                     
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.p
REF:  Newsweek 4/29/96  (Masland; Stephanie Nolan, Beirut; et al.)
		
Cover story is Qana; caption, used out of context and withoutpermission, is from Jeremiah 22:20 "Go up to Lebananon and Cry" ,but the cover photo is not inflamatory.

Text opens with a gory description of casualties.  Don't know ifNewsweek describes Israeli casualties similarly; if so, it's notmedia-bias, just even-handed pandering to voyeuristic necrophilia.
l2
{Occasionally  one feels a bit out-of-place playing clergymanat an international  psuedo-sentimentalist thanatophilicmedia-circus.
	We assume that the global village is motivated bypolitical morality; not using it as an excuse for voyeurismthat can as easily be fed, as the tabloids have long andprofitably known, by apolitical mayhem.
	So in the last analysis what Israel does and doesn't domay not make much difference; the public herd will run off tothe next electronic blood-letting.}
          
l1
The map, in contrast to that in TIME 4/29/96, is quite fair.

Photo caption:  "`Tell America'".
Yup, that's the name of the game.  The PLO is getting the biblicalland of Israel with it.  Israel still hasn't even admitted thatthe game is being played.                         
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TEXT:  "`The one important thing is that the prime minister notcrack," said opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu."
L2
ANALYSIS:  Here the joker is in the context.  That quotecomes practically after the lead description of casualities. 
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(subjectively: if one could gauge which images dominatea reader's attention as the reader continues reading;objectively:  It's in the 5th paragraph; the first 4deal in deal with the horrors of the casualties)
l2
The reader is thus given the impression that what Netanyahu 
is endorsing is a continuation of the tactics that led tocivillian casualities.  
l3
(There is also a less pronounced impression -- I thinkone might give that some objective sense with textanalysis -- that it was pressure from Netanyahu thatforced Peres into and pressured him againstrelinquishing those tactics.)
l4
Curiously, Peres seems to play the Poor Pussycatimage 
l5
[as Newsweek's ironically-titled "ConventionalWisdom Watch" might put it] 
l4
rather successfully in the US Media; 
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rich mamzerim long to be taken for gentlemen.
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With surprising fairness, notes, albeit in 1 sentence in Par. 13 ]
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(a word count would show even more clearly a ratio of about400:1 anti-Israel coverage in this article )  
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that Hizbollah may have intended to draw Israeli fire onto the UNPost & possibly the refugees.                            








