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When "small," but related, news stories are regularly and
thoroughly reported over time, readers and/or editors may be able to
see a larger pattern or reality that is gradually revealed. While none
of these "small" stories, taken individually, would likely
qualify as a Top Story of the year, the larger pattern, or the larger
reality, may very well be seen as a Top Story. And vice versa: The failure
of a news story to be considered a Top Story is often the result of
a chronic failure to report a group of individual, day-to-day stories
that, together, would reveal certain patterns or realities that could
help readers to make sense of the world. No better example of this type
of failure can be found than the chronic failure of the U.S. media to
report on the day-to-day realities of life in the Occupied Palestinian
Territories (OPT) over the past year.
Here, then, are four examples of important stories from the OPT that
were distorted or ignored by the corporate media in the U.S. in 2006.
Example #1: The Gaza Beach Killings
On June 9th, news reports from the Gaza Strip reported that Israeli
"artillery hit a family picnicking on the beach, killing nine people,
including three children." Around the world the attack was widely
reported with headlines like this one from the London Guardian: "Seven
Killed as Israeli Shells Hit Family Picnic on Gaza Beach," and
this one from the London Independent "Palestinians Killed on Gaza
Beach by Israeli Gunboats." The New York Times, in contrast, headlined
their story "Hamas Declares it Will Resume Attacking Israel."
(Yes, this was their story about the killing of Palestinians
by Israeli gunboats.)
The Washington Post reported that "the Israeli military said an
internal investigation showed that it was not responsible" for
the deaths. But neither the Post nor any other U.S. media outlet mentioned
that the "Israeli military's investigative practices and procedures
are not impartial, thorough, or timely..." That's from a June 2005
report from Human Rights Watch called "Promoting Impunity: The
Israeli Military's Failure to Investigate Wrongdoing." That report
never saw the light of day in the U.S. press, although one wire service
report did mention it in its report on the Gaza beach incident, saying
that "such internal investigations by the Israel Defense Forces
... have rarely uncovered the truth or held to account the perpetrators
of violations." Not surprisingly, no U.S. newspaper chose to publish
that particular wire service report.
Example #2: "Operation Summer Rain"
On June 27 Israel began "Operation Summer Rain," supposedly
aimed at releasing Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured in a raid
on a Gaza crossing point two days earlier. According to an Amnesty International
statement of June 28th, "the Israeli army has deployed large numbers
of troops in the South of the Gaza Strip and carried out large-scale
wanton destruction. This includes the bombardment and destruction of
three bridges and electricity networks across the Gaza Strip. These
measures have left half the population of Gaza without electricity and
have reportedly also adversely affected the supply of water." Amnesty
added that "The wanton destruction of civilian infrastructure and
property and the disproportionate restrictions imposed on civilians
by Israeli forces amount to collective punishment on the entire population
of the Gaza Strip, a violation of Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention,
which prohibits punishing protected persons for offences they have not
committed."
A Lexis/Nexis search of newspaper articles for the last year, looking
for mentions of "Operation Summer Rain," returns 4 articles
in the U.S. press. I tried to do the same search, looking for mentions
of "Gilad Shalit," but the database overloaded as it found
"more than 1,000" articles, too many for Lexis/Nexis to download.
Example #3: The Beit Hanoun Massacre
On November 8th an Israeli airstrike on the town of Beit Hanoun in
the Gaza Strip killed 18 civilians who "were asleep in their beds
when their homes were struck by shells fired by Israeli forces."
Amnesty International called for "an immediate, independent investigation"
of this "appalling act." Of 77 articles on the attack in the
Lexis/Nexis database of major newspapers, only 6 stories appeared in
the U.S. press.
One of those stories, in the LA Times, reported on "a Security
Council resolution ... that would have condemned Israel's military actions
in the Gaza Strip and demanded a withdrawal of Israeli troops."
That resolution "received 10 votes in favor and four abstentions,
but was killed by the U.S. veto." This page-14 article was one
of only two stories on the U.S. veto in the U.S. press, according to
Lexis/Nexis, despite over 100 wire service stories on the subject being
sent out to the nation's newsrooms at the time.
Example #4: The "Daylight Robbery" of Palestinian Land
On November 21st the story broke of a report from the Israeli organization
Peace Now that "39 percent of the land held by Israeli settlements
in the occupied West Bank is privately owned by Palestinians."
Here's the "Conclusion" that Peace Now reported in their press
release announcing the report:
"For many years the state of Israel has been seizing thousands
of dunams [a dunam is about 1/4 of an acre] of private Palestinian land
in order to construct settlements. The claim by the [Israeli] State
and settlers that the settlements have been constructed on state land
is misleading and false. The vast majority of settlement construction
was done against the law of the land and the Supreme Court ruling and
therefore unauthorized. On a moral note this report paints a picture
of the Israeli state acting in ‘daylight robbery' of Palestinian
land and handing it over to Israeli settlers. The State has been taking
advantage of the weakened status of the Palestinians in order to steal
their land."
The New York Times reported that "Israel has long asserted that
it fully respects Palestinian private property in the West Bank and
only takes land there legally..." Despite the obvious importance
of this story for the U.S. audience (whose government supplies considerable
funding that is almost certainly used for settlement-building) I was
able to find only four articles on this bombshell in the U.S. press,
only one of which made it to the front page.
These four examples, taken together, give just a hint of the daily
reality of life in the OPT in 2006, with conditions getting worse in
2007, from all indications. Conditions there are crucially affected
by political decisions made by the elected leadership of the United
States, but despite this fact I would guess that much of what is written
above is surprising or unknown to many readers, even the generally well-informed
readers of Nygaard Notes. This chronic failure to report on a reality
for which its readers bear more than a small amount of responsibility
happens to be in line with the demands of a propaganda system that wants
and needs ignorance on the subject in order to proceed unhindered by
dissent. The failure is due neither to coincidence nor to conspiracy
(for the most part), but to something far more subtle and complex. Helping
ourselves to understand that "something" is part of why Nygaard
Notes exists.
As a recent case study of New York Times reporting on human rights
in the Occupied Palestinian Territories puts it, "Given the low
standard [for reporting on conditions in the OPT] set by one of the
U.S.'s most revered media outlets, it is little wonder that Americans
raise so few questions about the US government's uncritical support
of Israeli policy."
Little wonder, indeed.
How about this for a Top Story to watch for in 2007: "U.S.
Media Consistently Functions as a Propaganda System, So Complex That
Few See It As Propaganda."
That's not a very good headline, but it's a Top Story, one that only
becomes visible when we consistently focus on the many examples of the
media "doing its job" every day. There'll be plenty more on
that Top Story in these pages as the year 2007 unfolds.
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