;.cNewsweek, 7 Oct 96
;.l1,6,60,66,1,0,10,75,192,2,15,20,25,127,10,0,
;.l2,15,75,192,2,20,25,127,15,0,
;.l3,20,75,192,2,25,127,20,0,
MEDIA BIAS
TO:    David Bedein, Israel Resource, Bet Agron Press Center
       37 Hillel St., Jerusalem 94581
       Tel:  02--236-368;  FAX:  02--6255-119 Att: DB
       E-Mail:  media@actcom.co.il
FROM:  Steve Amdur, Kibbutz Haon, Jordan Valley, 15170 Israel.
       Telephone:  972-6-6656-572; FAX:  972-6-6656-554
DATE:  
RE:    
REF:   Newsweek 7 October 96 / Tom Masland, w. Mark Dennis, Jlem,Tara Sonenshine & John Barry, Washington D.C.
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SUMMARY:  The article by Tom Masland, with Mark Dennis inJerusalem, is such heavy-handed Bibi-bashing that it's barelyworth slogging through; practically no interesting tricks, justinsults and falsehoods.
                            
Title-page lead-in:  "Fighting in the Holy Land raises doubts:  isNetanyahu up to his job?"         
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COMMENT:  Nobody even asks that of Clinton.
Turns out, upon closely reading the text, that  thateditorial question is a paraphrase of a leak from Clintonadministration.

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Michael Elliot has an innocuous article.       

Photos, captions, and graphics seem fair.
However, a follow-up article by Fareed Zakaria is illustrated witha real gory picture of "A wounded Palestinian in Ramallah"
(The article by Fareed Zakaria itself is reasonable, and has noidentifiable relationship to the photo.)


Photo captions:  "A Palestinian policeman fires on Israelis inRamallah as others take cover fromincoming fire."
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COMMENT:  Caption seems fair; 'fires on' is more accuratethan 'fires at', (eg NYT).
I can't tell how photos are doctored nowadays.  The civiliansare cowering on the ground, the policeman is standing andfiring, in the photo the civilians  seem to be giving the policeman a clear line of fire, but not to be protected fromreturn fire.                            
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ARTICLE BY TOM MASLAND, reporting by Mark Dennis
SUMMARY:  The writing is from the Spiro Agnew School ofJournalism, but lacks his wit; anti-Israel rhetoric is slopped outwith a trowel, with free-wheeling disregard for published andpractically undisputed facts.

Article serves as a platform for off-the-record attacks onNetanyahu by the Clinton administration:  "hemmed in byextremists" "inept"          

"A return to violence could only hurt Western strategic intereststhroughout the Arab world, especially in the gulf."
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COMMON:  I guess they ain't talking Oman  & Qatar; looks likeSaudi Arabia, which the PLO more or less has by the vitalswith assassination potential, put the screws on the USA.
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"It's absurd  that wehave so little influence over a country wepour so many billions into," says a senior Pentagon official.
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COMMENT:  Neglecting to point out that  those billions flowright through Israel and back to U.S. banks; they go almostentirely to pay off interest and  some principle on U.S.loans to Israel in the 70s-80s.  The mafia should do as wellwith loan-sharking.

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"The immediate cause [pretext?  causus belli?] of the violence --opening an archelogical tunnel beneath Jerusalem's old cit
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[More precisely, opening an exit to an archelogic tunnel thathad been open for years]
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was the equivalent of a thumb in the eye of Palestinians
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COMMENT:  
Why?
Because they don't like to see Jews in the Moslem Quarter?]

ANALYSIS:
The trick here is one I'd not noticed before:  Use agratuitious  image so grossly emotionally upsetting ["a thumbin the eye"] that the reader doesn't have the stomach tochallenge your logic, he just wants to get past and away fromthat point in the article as fast as possible.
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"already seething over Netanyahu's moves to increase the Israewlipresence in the holy city's Arab quarter"
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How?  Sharon calls out for a jumbo pizza?  Like, the Old Cityain't precisely the Kansas land-rush.
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"The two previous administrations had refused to provide a secondentrance
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[More precisely, an exit]
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to an ancient viaduct beneath the Temple Mount
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[The sappers strike again.  
But the Newsweek map shows clearly that the tunnel does notgo under Temple Mount.
The writer may not have seen that map; the Editor must have.
So the Editor collaborated in knowingly publishing afalsehood.]
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"Judaism's Second Temple, which Netanyahu's more radical followerswant to reconstruct"
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[Aw shucks.  
 Followers?    Like, Netanyahu sympathizes with their aims?
 "more radical followers"  -- we're talking maybe asubstantial percentage of those who voted for him?
Ok; it's a few crazies whose political party wasillegalized.]
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"In 1990, 17 Palestinians died there while protesting a Jewishgroup's efforts to lay a cornerstone for the new temple."
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[A Jewish group?  Of about a dozen, as memory serves.  And infact Israel had prevented them from going to Temple Mount;the rest was deliberate rumour.  And the "protest" consistedin throwing rocks at Jewish worshippers at the Western Wall. And the rocks had been pre-positioned.]
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"Netanyahu approved a secret paln to pen the tunnel under armyguard
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[Gasp!  Under army guard.
 Fact is, the state of Israel is under army guard.]
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in the dead of night."

"He acts like a teenager," said Yaron Ezrahi, Israel's leadingpolitical theorist."
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[The Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles Theory of 90s Realpolitik?]
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"Netanyahu flatly rejected entreaties 
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[Ok, note the subliminal interpersonal image here:  PoorLittle Nell is entreating for her something-or-other, andheartless Simon Legree is flatly rejecting
And like, this is Clinton Country -- "Serial Sincerity" --Bill & Princess Di hugging AIDS children for the camera, asit-said, "Sincerity:  if you fake that, you've got it made."]
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from Christopher to reseal the tunnel, at least temporarily, inorder to shut down the killing. "

Chairperson Poopoohead's "support for protests over the tunnelopening"
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[More precisely, repeated attempts to incite co-ordinatedriots, and well-planned distortion and incitement ororchestrated riots over the tunnel]
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"the wilingness of young Palestians to face Israeli guns, and todie."
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[In the words of Wm. Burroughs:  "Pure uncut boy."
 Michner said in first, in The Source:  There was rather adash of pederasty in anti-Semitic British romanticization ofthe Arabs.]
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"Palestinians have been infuriated by Netanyahu's apparentcontempt"
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[Who could disprove it; nobody wants to talk to them.]

[Aw, why use 'apparent' for a weasal-word ]
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(it can mean either that his contempt appeared, or thatit appeared (rightly or wrongly) that he wascontemptuous.    
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in an article that in all other instances goes whole hog.]

[I've elsewhere argued that this is the Fallacy ofPersonaliztion; imagining political struggles as if they werean interpersonal yuppie tete-a-tete.
   
[This talk of humiliating the Palestinians is this falls'snew bit of politically correct media chic.   The USA ishaving, at the moment, what Russell Baker called an 'Age ofSensitivity' (IHT 9 Oct) where a Politically CorrectGentleman must profess unqualfied concern for everyone'sfeelings.  Then he can resume murder at pillage at will,because that's how he got to be and stay a ChristianGentleman.]

[There's also an assumed Manichean Underdog philosophy.  TheJews are on top, so we don't need to worry about theirfeelings, or concussions.  Lo the Noble Arab, Arising fromhis degredation  to throw off the yoke of -- just don't bringup Dutch Royal Shell]
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"Having promised 'peace with security' he has not yet revealed anykind of peace program.'
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[Or to polish your phrasing sir:  'piece program'.  Or:  'hehas not in more than 100 days given the PLO another piece ofanything.]

[Only squares like Bob Dole would say that peace is theabsence of war.  Visionaries like Peres & Clinton definepeace as an unending peace process, with lots of photo ops atevery stage along the way.]
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"`He's an idiot, he pulled the rope too tight,' says Shoshi Eitan, a Tel Aviv housewife who voted for Netanyhu."
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[Beats the Phanton Taxi Driver hands down.
[This is what Newsweek reporters research?  Days of poundingthe pavement to find the right housewife with an ok namebefore deadline.  Or maybe they got them on file, like fromCentral Casting, as Leary used to say.]
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"Netanyhu surrounded himself with untested aides, drawn from hiscoterie of loyal friends."
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[That is the usual procedure with a newly-elected ChiefExecutive.]
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"The Foreign and Defense Ministries feel sidelined
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[Rumour had it that David Levy had to fly Economy Class]
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and Netanyahu lacks the military bearing that is so reassuring toIsraelis in a crisis."
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[ Like, Sphaghetti Photojournalism.
  This article seems increasingly to be written about aVirtual Reality Israel. ]
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"The administration's hope is that the Israeli business community,not entreaties from Warren Christopher, will force him [Netanyahu]to his senses."
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[Well, thanks for the warning shot.  Even if Christopher didtry to buy David Levy one more time, last time he came totown.]
   

