The Other War:
A Debate

Questions Of Balance In The Middle East

Ahmed Bouzid, Ira Stoll

No news subject generates more complaints about media objectivity than the Middle East in general and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in particular. While many write letters, e-mail, fax, and phone to voice their dissatisfaction, for some that is not enough.

Ahmed Bouzid and Ira Stoll both started Web sites in 2000 to address the biases they perceive in the coverage. Bouzid’s site (www.pmwatch.org) tracks both broadcast and print journalism for what he sees as anti-Palestinian bias, while Stoll’s (www.smartertimes.com), when it was active, specifically critiqued The New York Times in all areas of coverage, but pointed most frequently to examples of what he considered an anti-Israeli tilt. The site went dormant when Stoll became involved with the launch of a new daily, The New York Sun, last April.

CJR’s Adeel Hassan asked Bouzid, a software developer in Philadelphia, and Stoll, managing editor and vice president of the Sun, to take part in an e-mail debate about news coverage of the conflict and the region. An edited version of the discussion follows.

In the Middle East, do the news media try for fairness and balance? What is it about the story that makes fairness/balance particularly difficult?

IRA STOLL: It depends what elements of the news media you are talking about. I think most of the American daily newspapers do try for fairness and balance in their news columns when covering the Middle East. That’s not always desirable. Imagine a “balanced” account of September 11, 2001: “Nearly 3,000 New Yorkers were killed yesterday in what Americans decried as a brutal terrorist attack but what al Qaeda viewed as an important victory in its struggle to reduce American imperialist influence and to advance Islamic beliefs.” Most deficiencies of fairness and balance, alas, aren’t the result of editors deliberately placing their papers on the side of freedom, democracy, and the West and against murderous, repressive tyrants. I suspect they are instead the result of four factors: 1. Self-hatred and bending over backward by Jewish or once-Jewish reporters, editors, and owners; 2. Ordinary, innocent carelessness and mistakes that can creep in on any stories that are constructed by tired human beings working on deadline; 3. The structural imbalance that comes from journalists being able to work mostly free and uninhibited in Israel but being subject to severe restrictions in countries like Syria or Iran; 4. Lack of understanding of the underlying historical and political background.

I’m not sure I accept the proposition that the Middle East is particularly difficult to cover in a fair or balanced way, though someone who does accept it might cite the restrictions on the local press and on independent human rights groups in places like Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. One might say also that the moral issues are so clear-cut — innocent Israeli bus-riders are being deliberately targeted in cold blood by terrorists funded and encouraged by brutal tyrants — that it makes balance difficult. But many newspapers seem, alas, to have overcome that obstacle.

AHMED BOUZID: If we were talking about news coverage, I’d say that most “respectable publications” do make an effort to be fair and balanced. But the effort more often than not ends in failure, and almost always in favor of the official Israeli point of view. An easy way to gauge this next time you read a story from the AP wire, The New York Times, The Washington Post, or watch a news segment, is to count how many times Israeli officials, Israeli army spokespersons, and Israeli civilians, are quoted, how large are the quotes, where in the story the quotes appear vs. the space given to the Palestinians. Why is this the case? I think it can be explained, at least partially, with one word: access. The media have very easy access to Israeli spokespersons, who are always on the ready with a statement, a TV appearance, who actively promote their point of view. Access to the Palestinians, meanwhile, is made extremely difficult by the realities of the occupation, the curfews, the town closures, the checkpoints, and, of course, by deliberate actions of harassment from the Israeli army against journalists.

Now, if we are talking about the opinion pages, then the answer is much more clear-cut: even the effort itself to be “fair and balanced” is negligible. The New York Times and The Washington Post consistently parcel out 80 percent or more of the op-ed space they dedicate to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to anti-Palestinian points of view. There are papers that are mindful to give both sides equal time, such as the Los Angeles Times, but they are the exception and not the rule.

Ira’s suggestion that the media should be “on the side of freedom, democracy, and the West and against murderous, repressive tyrants” is telling. Ira seems to believe that the media should be cheerleaders for the good guys against the bad guys. My view is that the media’s role is first and foremost to inform and enlighten. Telling me that 9/11 is evil is redundant. Telling me what the perpetrators claim to be their motive, how they think, on the other hand, is information that is useful, since it enables us to better understand the threat against this country. And understanding is the first step toward finding an effective solution.

News outlets say they receive criticism from both sides, so they must be doing a good job. Is that a good indicator?

AHMED BOUZID: For me, the fact that two sides are complaining is no indicator that the media are doing their job right. The media do indeed love to point out that they are getting it from both sides, and I imagine the fact that both sides attack them and accuse them of “bias” comes in quite handy for them during heated meetings with media activists. In our case, the fact that anti-Palestinian groups (who, we are told repeatedly, are “much louder” than us) complain is almost always used as an end-all argument and a way to avoid dealing with specific concerns we may raise. For example, that exact response was given to me by the foreign desk editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer, Ned Warwick, back on July 12, 2002, when I met with him and complained that a study we did on their paper found a ratio of thirteen to one for above-the-fold, front-page photographs showing human suffering of Israelis vs. Palestinians. CNN’s Rick Davis also replied in the exact same way when I asked him on July 3, 2002, why CNN had established an exhaustive Web site mourning every single Israeli victim of political violence in the first half of that year, but had done nothing of the sort for the hundreds of Palestinian children, women, elderly, and other innocent victims killed by the Israeli army. And just a couple of weeks ago, the exact same answer was given to us by CNN’s Aaron Brown, in response to a report we issued on February 20, 2003, in which we found that NewsNight reported 74 percent of Israeli deaths but only 18 percent of Palestinian deaths. They all asserted their “fairness” as an indisputable fact, and pointed to the much higher level of noise made by the anti-Palestinian side as conclusive evidence of that fairness. In other words, instead of addressing the specific complaints, they all opted to simply weasel out.

IRA STOLL: I agree with Mr. Bouzid; the fact that complaints come from “both sides” is no indication that the press is “doing a good job.” Sometimes the press might not be doing a good job and no one complains. For instance, before September 11, there was little attention in the press to Saudi Arabia’s export of Wahhabi Islam. We’ve since realized it was a hugely important story, and it’s gotten lots of attention. Newspapers would do well, too, to become more sophisticated about who is doing the complaining. For instance, as The New York Sun reported in November, the Council on American Islamic Relations, one of the loudest critics of the press, recently received a $500,000 donation from a Saudi prince. According to several press accounts, Cair’s executive director, Nihad Awad, has publicly declared his support for Hamas, which the U.S. State Department lists as a terrorist group. And Sami Al-Arian, a Florida professor who has written of the “demonization of Muslims by the media,” was recently indicted by the American government on charges of being a leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group and fired by his college.

That’s not to suggest that no Arab complaints about the press should be taken seriously, or that supporters of Israel don’t sometimes make frivolous complaints. I think that Yasir Arafat’s corruption and abuses of authority within the West Bank and Gaza, for instance, were terribly underreported by the mainstream American press. Yet it was mainly law-abiding Palestinian Arabs who suffered as a result of those abuses.

Briefly, what are the central points that the American media miss? Why?

IRA STOLL: Well, as the editor of an American newspaper, when I know of any stories that much of the American press is missing, I try to put them in my own paper. The New York Sun, for example, recently had two articles that the other papers didn’t seem to have. The first was about a directive issued by Kuwait’s ministry of information, ordering Western journalists in Kuwait City not to cooperate with Israel or risk “persecution” under Kuwaiti law. The directive was later renounced by the ministry. The second was an editorial pointing out that Yasir Arafat’s new prime minister, Abu Mazen, doesn’t meet the tests for a new Palestinian leadership that President Bush laid out in his June 24, 2002, speech. The editorial points out that in a 1983 book, The Other Side: The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and the Zionist Movement, Abu Mazen suggested that the figure of six million Jews killed in the Holocaust was “peddled” by the Jews and that in fact “the Jewish victims may number six million or be far fewer, even fewer than one million.” The point is, some American newspapers and broadcast outlets tend to play down old-fashioned Jew-hatred by the Arabs. Maybe it’s a dog-bites-man story.

AHMED BOUZID: We are now more than two years into the second intifada, and yet not once have I seen in any major newspaper a map detailing the so-called generous offers made by Ehud Barak back in Camp David, 2000. Story, upon editorial, upon op-ed, upon news broadcast, upon miserable radio or TV talk show has repeatedly made use of the “95 percent” figure to describe the “offers” made by Ehud Barak — but never maps showing those “offers”! Why have the media decided that it is fine to write about a dispute over land without bothering to show us maps? The so-called 95 percent is territory dotted by army-protected Israeli settlements deep into Palestinian land, and the proposed Palestine is a collection of balkanized enclaves. Showing us maps would make the Palestinians’ refusal to accept the Barak “offers” look perfectly reasonable. Not showing the maps makes the Palestinians look like they are not serious about resolving the conflict — a perfect illustration of how just letting the story speak for itself is not an acceptable option, since the conclusions the truth leads us to are much too jarring.

What are the best and worst American news outlets when it comes to Middle East coverage? Why? Can you offer some examples?

AHMED BOUZID: I’m not particularly interested in assigning static scores to media outlets, but rather in phenomena that demonstrate a commitment to established narratives. A New York Times journalist, Chris Hedges, reported in the October 2001 Harper’s seeing Israeli soldiers taunting and killing children “for sport.” Yet no follow-up reporting has ever been done by anyone that I know of.

Still, setting aside both crude propaganda outlets, such as The New York Post, The Washington Times, Fox News, which in my view are hopelessly beyond criticism, variations within the “respectable” mainstream media are quite limited. But we can say things like the Los Angeles Times is more open to dissenting views (they give pro-Palestinian columns about the same space as anti-Palestinian columns) than, say, The New York Times or The Washington Post; the reporting by The New York Times and The Washington Post is much better than that of The Associated Press; National Public Radio, for all its deficiencies, is better than anything we watch on TV; the nightly news programs are mediocre at best, but World News Tonight with Peter Jennings is better than Dan Rather’s or Tom Brokaw’s show; CNN is marginally better than Fox News or MSNBC. But I reiterate: the flaws they share are far more interesting than the marginal differences that barely set them apart.

IRA STOLL: Mr. Bouzid again throws around these phrases “pro-Palestinian columns” and “anti-Palestinian columns” without defining them. So I wonder, What constitutes “pro-Palestinian” in his definition? I don’t think it’s “anti-Palestinian” to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state in peace within secure borders. I don’t think it’s “anti-Palestinian” to acknowledge the right of Israeli civilians to sit in cafés or ride buses without being blown to bits by suicide bombers.

I find questionable, to put it mildly, the notion that the American press should devote “the same space” in its op-ed pages to those who meet Mr. Bouzid’s definition of “pro-Palestinian.”

My own list of the best news outlets, aside from my own paper, would include the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, which recently published an important piece by Iraqi opposition leader Ahmad Chalabi and a memorable feature on Omar Karsou, a Palestinian reformer. Commentary, the monthly journal, has published some of the best journalistic analysis of the Middle East. Worsts: 1. NPR; 2. PBS.

AHMED BOUZID: What I mean by an anti-Palestinian journalist is someone who opposes the establishment of a fully sovereign Palestinian state, who believes that Palestinians understand only force, and who never, ever acknowledges, let alone sympathizes with, the plight of innocent Palestinians. Pro-Palestinian columnists all accept Israel’s right to exist, but also insist that Palestinians have a right to a fully sovereign Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Let’s just note that not once, ever, have I read a column by a pro-Palestinian where there was even a hint of a challenge to Israel’s right to exist. Not once! By contrast, regular anti-Palestinian columnists — such as William Safire, Charles Krauthammer, George Will, Jeff Jacoby, Daniel Pipes, A.M. Rosenthal, Mort Zuckerman — never tire of denying Palestinians’ right to exist as a nation, regularly call for more death and destruction against them, and never, ever, acknowledge, let alone sympathize with, the plight of innocent Palestinians unless to make cynical use of their suffering.

IRA STOLL: It’s not true that the columnists he names “never, ever acknowledge, let alone sympathize with, the plight of innocent Palestinians.” Mr. Krauthammer, in the September 3, 2002, Weekly Standard wrote, “Those Palestinians wishing minimal civil relations with Israel live in fear for their lives.” Jeff Jacoby, in the May 6, 1997, Boston Globe wrote, “In Arafatland, power flows not from the people but from the barrel of an AK-47. Teachers who go on strike are rounded up by the police. Students are warned in class that if they criticize the regime, their families will pay the price.” Daniel Pipes in the February 2003 Commentary writes, “The Palestinians, in other words, are suffering even more from the consequences of their own violence than is Israel.” Mortimer Zuckerman, in the January 14, 2001, Daily News, wrote of the horrors of “the Palestinian practice of employing children as human shields for gunmen.” He quoted the Tulkarm Women’s Union, a Palestinian Arab group that wrote to Arafat, “We urge you to issue instructions to the police force to stop sending innocent children to their death.” A.M. Rosenthal, in the May 30, 1997, New York Times, wrote of Arafat’s “Terrorism against Palestinians — the murder of Arabs who sell land to Jews, the arrest of Palestinians who criticized him.” These are just a few examples. There are many others.

Do you feel that your criticisms of the press have made a difference in coverage? Do you look forward to the day when this conflict is no longer a major story?

AHMED BOUZID: One can’t really gauge one’s influence, and I don’t know how to quantify the success of Palestine Media Watch. But what is important is to have faith that what you do makes a difference, and to stick to it. And if you want to have an effect, you need to be able to repeat yourself — and the obvious — day in and day out. I, for one, will never tire of asking editors at The New York Times, for instance, why they continue to ignore reports that Israeli soldiers deliberately target civilians and why they insist on portraying Israeli actions as, at worst, “heavy-handed” acts of self-defense. I will raise that question whenever I can, until hopefully something clicks.

And yes, I look forward to the day when the conflict is no longer a major story — but only if the conflict is resolved equitably. I do not want to see the conflict ignored by the media, simply because there is nothing “new” going on: a few Palestinians are killed every day, a few houses demolished, a few settlements built or enlarged — the usual “boring” litany.

IRA STOLL: My work on Smartertimes.com may have played some role in attracting backers and subscribers for The New York Sun, and, as I’ve said, I do think the Sun has done some exceptional coverage in the year or so it’s been in existence. More broadly, I am glad to have played a small supporting role, not just in press criticism but also in actual journalism at the Forward, The Wall Street Journal, The Jerusalem Post, and now The New York Sun, in the change in American policy in the Middle East that we are now seeing played out in Iraq. It’s an approach that places a new emphasis on freedom, democracy, and rule of law. Certainly, that approach has made its way into more of the press coverage now than, say, seven years ago.

I, too, look forward to the day when freedom, democracy, and rule of law spread in the Middle East beyond Israel. In Iraq that may be soon. That will benefit those who now live under the boot of tyranny. It will also, if history is any guide, dramatically reduce the security threat to Israel. As a Jew and a human being, I certainly pray for lasting peace in the Middle East and everywhere else.

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