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October 13, 2000/14 Tishri 5761, Vol. 53, No.3
Shame, shame, shame
Things are not always as they appear in print
BARRY COHEN
Community Editor
Made you look, right? An Associated Press photo made a lot of people look. The New York Times printed it on Sept. 30, Page A5.
But what exactly are you looking at?
- An Israeli policeman and a Palestinian on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem's Old City?
- An Israeli policeman and a Palestinian in Jerusalem?
- A Palestinian policeman and a Palestinian in Jerusalem?
- An Israeli policeman and an American in Jerusalem?
The answer cannot be "a" because of the gas station sign seen in the background. There is no gas station on the Temple Mount. Nor is it "c" because of the Hebrew insignia on the policeman's uniform.
That leaves "b" and "d." Did the policeman assault the man and now is pointing his baton as if to say, "Who's next?" Or perhaps the policeman is protecting the incapacitated man from the mob that assaulted him.
Here is a description of what happened from the bloodied man himself:
"I was in a taxi on the way to the Kotel (Western Wall) and we got stoned. ... (They took me out of the car and beat me and) I gave a scream and for a second they let go of me, and I said 'Shema Yisrael' because I thought it was all over. ... After they let go of me, I ran - even though I had a knife in my leg, God gave me the strength to run, and I was able to make it up the hill where there were soldiers by the gas station, and they took care of me. But I had been beaten for around five or six minutes with a rock on the top of head, and I was stabbed in the back of my leg and kicked all over my body."
A Palestinian would not be likely to say "Shema Yisrael"; that rules out "b" as the correct answer.
The final answer? "D" - The photo depicts an Israeli policeman and an American in Jerusalem. The American is Tuvia Grossman, a Chicagoan studying in Israel who found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time and paid a price that nearly cost him his life.
Grossman later explained the policeman was yelling at the Palestinians who attacked him to back off, protecting him from further harm.
He was hospitalized for a number of days and then released; unfortunately, he had to check himself back in because of fainting spells.
How did you do on the quiz? The Associated Press failed. So did the New York Times. The caption underneath the photo, published Sept. 30, read: "An Israeli policeman and a Palestinian on the Temple Mount."
A few days later, AP printed a correction stating the bloodied man was Boaz Elinson. Wrong again.
Finally, on Oct. 4, The New York Times printed a correction including Grossman's name and the location of the attack.
What will readers remember, the misidentified photo of a menacing Israeli soldier seemingly beating an unidentified defenseless Palestinian protestor, or an obscurely placed correction?
As violence continues between the Israelis and the Palestinians, another battle is being waged, this one by Western media using the weapons of headlines, images and rhetoric that too often paint a picture that is one-dimensional and suggests an anti-Israel bias.
AP and New York Times writers continue to point the finger at the visit by Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon to the Temple Mount as sparking the violence. And while his visit was selfish and foolhardy, blaming him exclusively for instigating the violence is simplistic and irresponsible.
New York Times readers saw a horrific photo of 12-year-old Rami Aldura, who was tragically shot to death and his father Jamal wounded by Israeli police. Printing the photo once or twice would be newsworthy and effective reporting of a senseless tragedy. But the photo has been used repeatedly as an apparent rhetorical device to show heartless Israeli occupiers and defenseless, cowering Palestinians.
Again and again, we read about the excessive use of force by Israeli police and the Israel Defense Forces. Most photos show fleeing Palestinian stone throwers, Palestinian Authority policemen ducking for cover in the face of Israeli attacks or Israeli snipers digging into fortified positions.
But a number of facts have been downplayed or buried.
Palestinian rioters shot Rabbi Hillel Lieberman when he attempted to save Torah scrolls from Joseph's Tomb, which Palestinians desecrated and set ablaze on the Jewish Sabbath. Although violence has occurred on the Temple Mount in the past, neither Israeli citizens nor the Israel Defense Force ever desecrated or burned the Dome of the Rock or the Al Aksa Mosque.
Now, with the attack on Joseph's Tomb, the Palestinians destroyed a Jewish holy site they had pledged to defend in the territory under their sovereignty.
They also have thrown stones from the heights of the Temple Mount on unarmed Jews worshipping at the Western Wall, one of Judaism's holiest sites.
Press reports have downplayed claims from members of the cabinet of Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat that neither Temple existed, thus disqualifying any Jewish claims or connection to the Temple Mount.
While Hezbollah's kidnapping of three Israeli soldiers has received widespread coverage, the media has reported little on their firing rockets on Har Dov in northern Israel, or of Palestinian snipers firing from private residences on Israeli settlements.
Articles seldom explain that encounters between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers are rarely, if ever, civil. Typically, Palestinian gunmen - often not youths but policemen out of uniform - hide in the crowds and fire the first shots, using live ammunition, at Israeli soldiers and police.
Also downplayed are long-contended charges of corruption against Arafat's administration. Arafat has allegedly consolidated power and privilege to the few, while the Palestinian masses continue to endure a near Third-World standard of living.
At the latest rounds of peace talks at Camp David, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak placed on the negotiating table: the issue of transferring nearly all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip from Israeli to Palestinian control, the issue of returning Palestinian refugees and the issue of Jerusalem as a Palestinian capital.
But Arafat was not satisfied. Tension built because the peace initiatives failed.
And now, tragically, the pressure cooker is not merely blowing off steam. It is ready to explode altogether.
But this is not David vs. Goliath. Both sides have too many factions to be reduced to one voice, one personality.
In fact, the renewed violence began before Sharon visited the Temple Mount.
But not all of it has been initiated by Palestinians. There are instances of Israeli soldiers giving into their primal instincts, and of Israeli citizens and settlers targeting Palestinians and their holy sites.
Notwithstanding these actions, it is Arafat who deserves special blame for opening up a Pandora's box of aggression and frustration among the Palestinian people, a malady that has extended to some Israeli Arabs.
In the meantime, Hamas terrorists wait in the wings; as long as Arafat is directing and encouraging violence in the streets, Hamas can sit back and smile in approval.
But this is not the intifada, part two. In past protests, Palestinian teenagers threw stones - now, grown men, many with guns. And while some joint Palestinian-Israeli police patrols have acted to control and disperse violent protestors, others Palestinian police have stood by idly or directed them.
The horrific reality of the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians is too complicated to be reduced to simple terms. One recent catch phrase is "the Balkanization of Israel." But what is going on in Israel cannot be captured in a slogan or an image.
The saga of bloodied Tuvia Grossman, the Israeli policeman and inaccurate reporting are reminders that some media observers' biases led them to misread an instance of Israeli self-defense against a roving mob. What they need to start looking at and reporting is what really is happening on the streets and in the negotiating rooms.
To discover the truth in a conflict as complicated and deeply emotional and intensely personal as that between the Israelis and the Palestinians, readers are well advised to reach conclusions only once they have consulted a variety of reliable sources.
In the war of rhetoric, slogans and images, a wealth of information is the only reliable weapon.
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