Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 02:05:23 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: a note on hypocritical liberals


Where 'caught in the crossfire' can leave no room for
doubt 

By Robert Fisk 

The Independent
2 October 2000 

When I read the word "crossfire", I reach for my pen.
In the Middle East, it almost always means that the
Israelis have killed an innocent person. When the
Israelis fired shells into the United Nations compound
at Qana in southern Lebanon in 1996, Time magazine
printed a photograph of a dead baby with a caption
saying it had been killed in "crossfire". This was
untrue. The baby had been killed in the Israeli
bombardment along with 105 other civilians – which
started after Hizbollah guerrillas opened fire on an
Israeli army unit that was laying booby-trap mines
inside the UN zone. 

So when 12-year-old Mohammed al-Durah was killed in
Gaza on Saturday and I read on the Associated Press
wire that the child was "caught in the crossfire", I
knew at once who had killed him. Sure enough,
reporters investigating the killing said the boy was
shot by Israeli troops. So was his father – who
survived – and so was the ambulance driver who was
killed trying to rescue the boy. Yet BBC World Service
Television was still saying yesterday morning that
Mohammed al-Durah was "caught in the crossfire of a
battle that has left hundreds wounded and killed many
others". I knew what this meant. 

True, the Israeli soldiers who killed the boy may not
have known whom they hit. They were apparently firing
through a wall. But why the reluctance on the part of
journalists to tell the truth? Why was it that in its
report from Jerusalem on Saturday, the AP only
mentioned – in paragraph 17, for heaven's sake – that
Israeli troops, on the word of their own officer,
fired anti-tank missiles during the confrontation?
What was the Israeli army doing using missiles against
rioters? 

By yesterday afternoon, the story had been transformed
into a "blame" conflict. The Israelis blamed the
Palestinian authority for organising riots. BBC World
Service radio ran a tape of an Israeli official
stating that rioters were "shooting [sic] Molotov
cocktails and stones" which "kill people". A listener
might have been forgiven for thinking that 22 Israelis
had been killed – rather than 22 Palestinians – in the
previous 72 hours. The BBC then ran a tape of Nabil
Shaath, the Palestinian spokesman, saying that the
Israelis, not the Palestinians, had been shooting. 

Truth is a hard bullet to bite. Palestinian policemen
had also opened fire on the Israelis. Ironically, the
Arab press in Beirut had no hesitation in saying this.
The press in Lebanon showed photographs of Palestinian
policemen firing Kalashnikov rifles at Israeli troops.
But, given the fact that they did not kill Israelis –
one of them was hit while firing – was it not worth
mentioning that the Palestinians were the victims, not
the Israelis? 

When BBC Television got round to mentioning Ariel
Sharon's flagrantly provocative visit to the Haram
as-Sharif/ Temple Mount on Thursday, they yesterday
called him an "Israeli leader" when – for Palestinians
– he was the man who bore indirect responsibility
(according to Israel's own inquiry) for the massacre
of up to 2,000 Palestinian civilians in the Sabra and
Chatila refugee camps in Beirut 18 years ago. The BBC
correspondent, Paul Adams, was one of the very few who
bravely drew attention to Sharon's appalling record,
pointing out Sharon had "an extraordinary capacity to
leave... destruction in his wake." 

And so, by last night, the story had changed. No
longer did Israeli soldiers and policemen kill at
least 22 Palestinians in three days; now the question
was whether the Palestinian Authority organised the
riots that "led" [sic] to their deaths. The Israeli
soldiers, who disobeyed every human rights commitment
by firing on rioters with live rounds, were
respectfully called the "Israeli security forces",
disregarding the fact that "security" was the one
thing Israeli soldiers were clearly unable to provide.


On CNN and the BBC and other satellite chains,
reporters were asked if the killings would upset the
"peace process", with no willingness to explain that
it was the collapse of the peace process which lay at
the heart of the riots. The Muslim holy areas of
Jerusalem were "disputed" – although UN Security
Council resolution 242, upon which the "peace process"
is supposedly based, demands the withdrawal of Israeli
forces from territories captured during the 1967 war,
including east Jerusalem. 

What lies behind this – apart from the sheep-like
inability of many journalists to call a spade a spade
– was the continuing belief that Palestinians are, by
nature, violent and riotous. 

The United States called for an end to the "violence"
– this courtesy of Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright – without making any reference to Sharon's
grotesque visit to the mosque grounds of east
Jerusalem. By yesterday afternoon, the BBC were at it
again, reporting that "Israeli authorities were
bracing themselves for what may lie ahead". Weren't
the Palestinians also doing that? 



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