These are the names: Al'a Hilo, 23, and
his brother Said, 28; Tamer Qata, 27; Amar al-Dayeh, 19; Abd
al-Karim Bakroun, 25; Mohammed Salhoub, 27; Abd al-Rahman Kassam,
26; Munzar Safadi, 27; Ali Abu al-Hir, 30; Iyad Abaed, 27; and Abd
al-Rahim Abu Naja, 30. Eleven Palestinians, who were killed in the
Israel Defense Forces operation in the Sejiya neighborhood of Gaza
City last Wednesday. Most (not all) of them were armed, but were
they all marked out for death? Together with two others killed in
Nablus and one in Jenin, 15 Palestinians died in that day's bloody
harvest.
The next day the headline in the mass-circulation
daily Yedioth Ahronoth blared, "City under shelling." Which city?
Sderot, in southern Israel. In the twin paper, Ma'ariv, none of the
headlines and sub-headlines contained any mention of the
Palestinians who were killed or of the destruction wrought in Sejiya
by the Givati infantry brigade combined with tanks and helicopters.
Only Sderot, only the Qassam rockets, only us. Four Qassams landed
in the southern town in the wake of the Sejiya operation, lightly
wounding a forklift driver, Vladimir Valodya, 48, who works in a
local factory that makes shower stalls (he was initially said to be
in serious condition).
Israel was preoccupied exclusively,
and almost hysterically, with him and his city. A future historian
who peruses the papers will reach the conclusion that Sderot was the
only city that was shelled last Wednesday. Israelis again learned
that they are the only victims of the violence. As for the killing
and devastation in Sejiya, who heard about it? Who knows about it?
Similarly, the fact that the rocket attack was in direct response to
the action in Sejiya, following three weeks of quiet on the Qassam
front and an effort by the Palestinian Authority to put a stop to
the rocket attacks, was barely noted. The Palestinians are shooting,
and it makes no difference why.
The afternoon current events
programs on television, which are a particularly good index, dealt
only with the Qassam rockets. No call from Gaza, no report from the
dead or critically wounded. Even the intention of "New Evening"
(Channel One) to interview an IDF officer who would describe the
Gaza operation - from the army's point of view - was torpedoed by
the IDF Spokesperson's Office. After the Qassams struck, the unit
joined the militant effort to present only the Sderot story, and the
interview with the officer was canceled. No one thought of
interviewing anyone from bloodied Gaza. The Israeli media again told
the truth, but not the whole truth. Only the evening newscasts
partially balanced the picture.
One shouldn't make light of
the terror that struck the people of Sderot or the wounds of
Valodya. But on that same day Gaza endured wholesale killing and
destruction. In the first 20 days of the month, no fewer than 56
Palestinians were killed (according to the Palestinian Center for
Human Rights), including seven children and teenagers. What did we
hear about them? What were we told about the circumstances in which
they were killed? Hardly anything. Does knowing about them
necessarily mean identifying with them? Don't Israelis have an
obligation to know what happened in Sejiya? After all, even the
defense establishment warns after every harsh operation that a wave
of terrorist attacks can be expected in response. What we are
seeing, then, is a systematic effort to conceal information,
entailing a serious breach of trust by the media.
Focusing
exclusively on our victims while ignoring the other's victims is
morally contemptible, but above all this it has grave political
ramifications. With such selective and distorted information at the
disposal of the Israeli public, it is little wonder the country has
moved so far to the right. Every sensible person who is nourished by
the Israeli press would reach the same conclusions. If the
Palestinians really are firing rockets at us while they are
ensconced securely in their homes, as could be understood from the
reports of the Israeli media, the political conclusion is clear: the
only solution is force. If there is no occupation, no appalling
wrongs and no war crimes, the only possible conclusion is that the
Palestinians really were born bloodthirsty. The news pages and the
current events programs on radio and television shape public opinion
in this way more than a thousand learned and enlightened op-eds.
"We have different views partly because we see different
news," the columnist Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times last
week. Krugman was talking about the great divide that has opened up
between Europe and the United States, but his comment is even more
true of the Middle East. Every night the Arab world - and to a
lesser degree, the Western world - is exposed to images of atrocity
from the territories, whereas the Israeli viewer doesn't have a clue
about what is happening less than an hour's drive from his home. He
knows only about the brutal suicide bombings and the Qassam rockets.
