'Just World News' with Helena Cobban

"Calm" in Palestine?

Today, both the NYT and the WaPo had short reports of yesterday's incident in Gaza in which a Hamas unit apparently lured an Israeli unit into an ambush and one Israeli soldier was killed.

In both reports, this incident was presented as an out-of-the-blue operation undertaken by Hamas that broke what was reported as (NYT) "a relatively calm spell that had followed Mr. Arafat's death", or (WaPo) "three weeks of relative calm in Gaza ".

Relative calm???

Who the heck do they think they're kidding?

Check, for example, this report from the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights, which tells us that during the week of Nov 25 - Dec 1:

* 7 Palestinians, including a mentally handicapped man and a physician, were killed by Israeli troops. [Four of these were killed in Gaza; three in the West Bank.]

* Israeli troops conducted a series of incursions into Palestinian areas in the West Bank and Gaza Strip

* 8 houses were destroyed in Rafah [Gaza]

* 35 donums[1] of agricultural land were razed in the Khan Yunis [Gaza]

* 3 houses were destroyed in the West Bank in the context of retaliatory measures against families of Palestinian activists

* Houses were raided and dozens of Palestinian civilians were arrested in the West Bank

* Continued shelling of residential areas and civilian facilities, especially in Rafah where 13 Palestinian civilians were injured...

* Construction of the 'Annexation wall' in the West Bank has continued

* Israeli troops have continued to impose a total siege on the OPT and a number of Palestinian civilians were arrested at military checkpoints

I think when the journos there lazily use terms like "relative calm" to describe what preceded Tuesday's incident, what they must be thinking of is, "relative calm from the Israeli point of view, only".

Which does kind of show their bias (or their moral and professional laziness), doesn't it?

But the effects of such bias (or laziness) are insidious. By reporting the situation as they do, such journalists paint a picture in which the Palestinian militants, alone, are seen as initiating violence. And especially when everyone in the world is described as being "excited by the prospects for peace after Arafat's death", or whatever, it makes Hamas seem like definite killjoys, at best, or enacters of senseless, gratuitous violence, at worst.

You can bet that, when the Israelis undertake the almost inevitable "punitive counter-action" for what happened on Tuesday, that will be duly reported in the major US media as "a response to" what Hamas did...

The high level of Israeli violence that has been sustained against Palestinians since Arafat's death has had real political consequences already. It has certainly contributed to making Hamas and Islamic Jihad very wary indeed of committing to any ceasefire of the kind that Abu Mazen and Co. have been urging. The Palestinians had an experience of a "unilateral" (i.e., from their side only) ceasefire back in summer 2003-- also under Abu Mazen's guidance-- and it got them nowhere... Because the Israelis refused to honor it...

What will happen this time?

AP is reporting that Israel and the PA have reached agreement on plans for the PA leadership election scheduled for January 9. That's good. The report doesn't say whether Israel will actually be withdrawing from the Palestinian towns and cities and allowing Palestinian freedom of movement during the campaign period, as the Palestinian side had demanded.

So let's wait and see how "free and fair" these elections actually end up being...

(By the way, that AP report also includes the "three weeks of relative calm" trope.. )