There are two pressing media-related matters that have adjoined the illness and passing of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, which oblige comment. First, the Palestinian Authority’s media skills are close to nothing; and second, the resulting US media whirl induced by Arafat’s illness and death seem to be indicting the Palestinian struggle itself, rather than objectively and intelligently scrutinizing the legacy of the Palestinian leader.
Both matters are, of course, intrinsically linked. It would be imprudent, albeit futile to even strike a comparison between the PA’s primitive media apparatus and the well-devised and entrenched Israeli propaganda machine. A more suitable comparison would be between the latter and the country’s enormous nuclear weapons cache or the vastly destructive skills of its army. Also, even if Palestinians indeed possess the media sagacity required to lock horns with their Israeli counterparts, they will remain the underdog, so long as mainstream Western media is designated hostile territory with its twisted logic and fallacious frame of reference.
US mainstream newspapers — New York Times and Los Angeles Times are cases in point — persist in adopting an overused and expired Israeli foreign policy account, despite the fact that even those who forged this account have already abandoned it. Alas, while major Israeli Hebrew newspapers have reported on the Israeli Cabinet charade that led to holding Arafat solely responsible for the violence and the “collapse” of the peace process, major newspapers in the US fail to make any mention of that. As far as the Israeli daily Haaretz is concerned, Arafat was not to blame for the failed peace talks in Camp David in July 2002. That is also largely omitted from the dominating US media discourse.
That said, nothing can or should justify the media circus staged by Palestinian officials throughout the Arafat illness ordeal starting late October. Since the early hours of the reports about Arafat’s ailment, many PA faces popped up on TV screens throughout the world, each with a different reading and often an entirely contradictory interpretation of the crisis.
They were officials, semi-officials, relatives of officials and people who just happened to be there. None of them were media savvy or appeared to be the slightest worried about the consequences of there blabbering. Some condemned those who allowed themselves to speak at liberty about Arafat’s health, yet permitted themselves to rattle on endlessly about the “mysterious”, “critical”, yet “stable” condition of the president, and how that is linked to local, regional and international policy affairs.
While one must admit that the political transition that followed Arafat’s passing was very smooth, the way the Palestinian officials presented themselves to the media was equally chaotic. The charade carried on, and augmented into a disaster when Arafat’s wife, Suha, used Al-Jazeera television as a platform to deliver some punches to her foes, who willingly responded in so amateurish a manner. Suha’s “emotional outburst”, of course, allowed newspapers such as the Washington Times to carry the debate into completely alien ground. “A woman in the Arab world never dares to talk that way,” The Times quoted some Israeli professor, concluding its report with “These people are doomed,” a baseless prediction by the same individual.
And while Palestinians were consumed by their over-publicized quarrels, violating what should’ve been a time of unity and reflection, pro-Israeli media pundits willingly ravished the legacy of the dying president and with it the struggle of the Palestinian people as a whole, as if the two are inseparable.
The Los Angeles Times editorial of Oct. 29 for example insensibly sketched the needed traits of Arafat’s successor, not on the basis of mutual Palestinian-Israeli interests, but on Israeli needs alone. It partly read, “The new leader or leaders would have to hew to the framework of earlier peace talks, accepting Israel’s existence, condemning terrorism and working to stop attacks on the Jewish state.” And after his death, PA officials and others failed to strongly contest the primary question everyone in the Western media was asking; “Is there now hope for the peace process now that Arafat is out of the scene?”
The newspaper’s editorial once again infuses untold ignorance — deliberate nonetheless — by completely omitting a most relevant factor: Dov Weisglass, Israel’s former chief of staff, and Sharon’s closest personal advisor. Weisglass has already divulged that Sharon’s unilateral disengagement from Gaza was designed to render the road map empty from any substance and to block the removal of any illegal Jewish settlements from the West Bank, all with the blessings of the Bush administration.
According to the easily accessible Weisglass interview, Sharon’s plan “supplied the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians. (As a result) you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem.”
Thomas Friedman, the master of selective reading and reporting found it acceptable to label Arafat “the bad man” who “introduced a whole new level of terrorism to world politics.”
In his Nov. 8 column, the ever-crafty Friedman wrote: “Google is a wonderful tool. I spent time the other day Googling every variation I could of the words: ‘Yasser Arafat and Palestine and education.’ I couldn’t come up with a single speech, or even full paragraph, in which Arafat laid out his vision for how Palestinians would educate their youth and nurture their talents.”
If Friedman and the editors of the New York Times were so gravely concerned over the lack of investment in Palestinian youth and their talents, then where was the outrage at the destruction of scores of Palestinian schools, the closure of universities and the almost daily killings of Palestinian students? Palestinian schoolgirl Iman Al-Hams, 11, was showered with 20 bullets, from a trigger-happy Israeli solider just a few weeks ago. Her talent was thrown away, Mr. Friedman, was it not? Another schoolgirl also from Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip died Oct. 13. She was shot in the chest as she sat in her wretched refugee school. This is just a small sampling of the hundreds of school children killed or buried alive by the Israeli Army.
Yet what makes Friedman and his like determine the level and nature of the debate is simply that their misleading and one-sided narrative too often goes unchallenged. Alas, history is written in letters of trickery and deceit.
Arafat’s ailment and death proved another PR disaster for the Palestinians. However, I hope that the post-Arafat era fares better. Only without a “peace partner” can Israel carry on with its unilateral steps, alone determining the future of peace not only in the occupied territories, but in the region as a whole. Only when a fair narrative of the Arab-Israeli conflict is made available, will the world realize the depravity of the occupation and the intellectual invalidity of those who blindly side with Israel. And until Palestinians forcefully extract that fair narrative, Thomas Freidman, William Safire, Judith Miller and Charles Krauthammer will maintain their grip on the Arab-Israeli media discourse, formulating and manipulating its pertinent discussion for years to come.
