Documentingthe Myth
By Martin Sieff, UPISenior News Analyst
WASHINGTON, (UPI) -- After the IsraeliArmy launched its retaliatory strike into the Palestinian Authority-ruledWest Bank in early April, the international media was filled withreports that the Israelis had possibly or probably killed hundreds,even thousands, of Palestinian civilians. The reports were laterdisproved and even the PA itself revised its own official figurefor Palestinians killed in the fierce fighting down to only 56.
Here, United Press International tracesthe course of this "media myth" and the reasons it becameso influential and was so widely believed.
The U.S. and Western European media coverage of the Battle ofJenin last month raises troubling and far-reaching questions aboutthe reliability of the modern mass media and press in conflictsituations. And the answers to them are both complex and surprising.
After the Israeli Army attacked the WestBank Palestinian city of Jenin on April 2, the Western Europeanmedia fell for the "Massacre Myth" in Jenin in a bigway. Even though the final Palestinian Authority figure acknowledgedonly 56 dead in Jenin, media coverage in major Western Europeannations gave credence to early claims by the PA's top officialsthat as many as 3,000 civilians had been killed in the fightingthere.
Israel's own actions led credence to themyth. The Israeli army barred the international media from Jeninas its forces drove into the city. The only sources that the mediathen had for what was going on there were from the Palestiniansthemselves. And in the inevitable confusion of battle, what thegreat 19th century military theoretician Carl von Clausewitz called"the fog of war" applied. At the time, both the Israeliand Palestinian authorities appeared unclear what was actuallyhappening on the ground.
However, even allowing for these factors,the Western media coverage of Jenin, epically in the Western Europeanpress and broadcast media, largely proved to be factually wildlyinaccurate in the light of what later emerged. And there was alsoa hysterical tone to many of them.
What made these unreliable and misleadingreports all the more remarkable was that many of the worst ofthem emerged in the most respected and influential organizationsin the British media. The British Broadcasting Corporation andthree of the four so-called "quality" daily newspapers-- The Times, The Independent and The Guardian -- fell for the"Massacre Myth" hook, line and sinker. Even the morecautious and -- as it proved -- reliable "Daily Telegraph"was not entirely immune either.
On April 17, the left wing "Guardian"in an editorial drew a moral equivalence between the Israeli driveon Jenin -- which itself was in response to an unprecedented seriesof suicide bomb massacres of Israeli civilians -- and the mega-terroristattacks on the United States of Sept. 11. The Israeli retaliatoryoperation was "every bit as repellent" as the hijackedairliner attacks that killed nearly 3,000 Americans in New YorkCity, the Guardian proclaimed.
Janine di Giovanni, the "Times"of London's correspondent in Jenin, reported on April 16, "Rarelyin more than a decade of war reporting from Bosnia, Chechnya,Sierra Leone, Kosovo have I have seen such deliberate destruction,such disrespect for human life." In terms of what was laterconfirmed to have actually happened, this amounted to a whopperof mis-reporting comparable to Walter Duranty's claim in The NewYork Times that there was no famine in the Ukraine from 1929 to1932. In fact, 10 million Ukrainian peasants starved to deaththen. Duranty won a Pulitzer Prize for his (mis-) reporting.
Di Giovanni's comparison also inevitablycalled into question what she had actually seen in Chechnya, Bosniaand Sierra Leone if she really imagined that the death toll inJenin was worse than any of them. At least 100,000 people arebelieved to have died in Russia's two wars of 1994-96 and of 1999to the present to crush Chechen separatists. As many as 250,000people were killed in the 1991-95 Bosnia war and many mass gravesof slaughtered entire towns and villages have been discoveredand excavated. Scores of thousands died in the chaotic civil warsof Sierra Leone. Yet the documented death toll in Jenin was soonestablished as being literally one thousand times smaller thanin Bosnia and Chechnya.
Other British papers shared in the hysteria.Phil Reeves in the London Independent compared Jenin to the KillingFields of Pol Pot's Cambodia where between 1 million to 3 millionpeople were slaughtered from 1975 to 1978. Analysts later notedthat many of these reports were openly one-sided. Reeves did notcite or quote a single Israeli source in his story. Other claims,such as the one that hundreds of Palestinian victims were buriedby an Israeli bulldozer in mass grave, later proved to have novalidity or verification whatsoever.
The BBC uncritically swallowed the MassacreMyth. BBC News headlined a report on April 18 as "Jenin 'Massacre'Evidence Growing," and the Guardian newspaper's headlineon a May 6 analysis piece as "How Jenin Battle Became a Massacre."The BBC report said an Amnesty International investigation "hasonly just begun, but Palestinian claims of a massacre were gainingfoundation."
The claim that Israel had committed warcrimes proved to be a popular one. Reeves' story in The Independenton April 16 was headlined "Amid the Ruins, the Grisly Evidenceof a War Crime," and he wrote: "A monstrous war crimethat Israel has tried to cover up for a fortnight has finallybeen exposed." The Guardian on April 17 zeroed in on GeraldKaufman, a Labor member of Parliament and a prominent leader inthe British Jewish community, calling Ariel Sharon a "warcriminal" and accusing the Israeli prime minister of "orderinghis troops to use methods of barbarism against the Palestinians."
However, by the end of April, the hysteriawas dying down in the British press as U.S. media reporting establishedthat the earlier wild accusations and accounts had no validity.On April 29, the BBC interviewed military expert David Holleywho concluded on the basis of the evidence by then available:"It just appears there was no wholesale killing." Holleywent on to conclude, "I think massacre is a word that istoo often used in these situations and it doesn't really help."
In Italy, while coverage of Jenin was stillwidely distorted, the hysteria and inaccuracy proved far lesssweeping than in London. Instead, it broke down much more predictablyalong left-wing party lines, reflecting each newspaper's editorialstance and political leanings.
Il Manifesto, a left-wing newspaper andthe former mouthpiece of the Italian Communist Party, said ina special Jenin-related package in its May 4 edition that theUnited Nations was "frightened of taking a stand in Jenin"and that Israel's actions in Jenin could be taken as war crimes.
Similarly, La Repubblica, the main center-leftpaper, had covered the topic with a general anti-Israel stance.That was criticized by the May 7 issue of Il Foglio, a small butpowerful intellectual paper on the right that is edited by anally of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
Il Foglio ran a whole issue blasting LaRepubblica's coverage, saying the paper gave a "twisted viewof reality," especially taking issue with a banner headlineLa Repubblica ran on April 10 reading "Massacre in Jenin."In several issues, La Repubblica made the events in Jenin soundHolocaust-like, using words like "apocalyptic" and "historical."One story on April 28 that discussed the U.N. fact-finding mission,for example, was buried inside, while scathing stories blastingthe Israelis were on the front.
The pro-business newspaper Il Sole/24 Oreproved much more evenhanded and reserved in its dealings withthe subject than the left wing ones. For example, on April 7,the paper said in an editorial that it is impossible to get accuratenews from Jenin but that "circumstantial evidence ... (seemed)to indicate a potential massacre."
Another story on April 9 quoted conflictingwitnesses who said that the victims numbered in the hundreds andthose who said there were around three dozen. In May, the paperran at least two editorials complaining about "irresponsible"media coverage.
Although there was exaggerated and inaccuratereporting in the French press, serious newspapers tended to keepmore of a balance than their opposite numbers in London.
The respected daily Le Monde on April 13reported that the Israeli army had acknowledged that hundredsof people were "wounded and killed" in the Jenin refugeecamp. It also reported that at least 23 Israeli soldiers had beenapparently killed.
Three days later, on April 16, Le Mondeagain refused to be swept away by the mounting hysteria. The paperconcluded, "It was still impossible Monday to confirm ordeny Palestinian accusations that Tsahal (the Israeli DefenseForces) committed a 'massacre' in the camp of 15,000 refugees."On May 5, the paper stated in an editorial, "Nothing permitsthinking that the Israeli army perpetuated massacres in Jenin."However it did then echo Human Rights Watch and other groups insuggesting Israel had committed war crimes there.
Even the leftist newspaper Liberation inan editorial on April 16 advised caution in dealing with the allegations.
"Up till now, nothing proves the existenceof such crimes. One cannot brush (such accusations) aside - Israelis blocking all serious inquiries. [But] that is not a reasonto decree them a-priori," the newspaper commented.
Liberation then recommended a lesson manyother major Western European news organizations and even governmentswould have done well to emulate: "It is a sad diplomacy thatcan't distinguish facts from propaganda, even in a region wherethis mix is a sort of rule."
This report was based on the reporting of Al Webb in London,Elizabeth Bryant in Paris and Eric Lyman in Rome.
Next: the Massacre Myth was Believed.