The Other War: Israelis, Palestinians and the Struggle for Media Supremacy

This book was published a year ago, but it has even more powerful resonance today in light of the recently concluded (for now, anyway) hostilities in southern Lebanon. That conflict was widely deemed a PR "loss" for the Israelis, an outcome that author Stephanie Gutmann cannily anticipates in her review of media coverage of the Second Intifada. She presents in copious detail the international (especially European) media's favoritism toward the Palestinians. One acclaimed photojournalist won't take pictures of armed Palestinians because "he would not want me to." The Middle East correspondent for the BBC (a news organization singled out for particular anti-Israel bias) wept openly over Arafat's death. More distressing is media complicity in allowing terror groups to control news coverage: children throwing rocks is okay; but an adult goading the kids to do so is off-limits. Often, the control is through intimidation. The AP cameraman who videotaped Palestinian celebrations of the 9/11 atrocity had his film confiscated at gunpoint. The Italian TV crew that filmed the mob lynching of two IDF soldiers in a police headquarters violated an unwritten "understanding" prohibiting such coverage -- revealed through another Italian journalist's public apology for the incident. He did not want his network blamed for the coverage. Gutmann also sharply criticizes Israeli (especially IDF) media relations efforts, which can charitably be described as "ham-handed." The initial press conference after the seizure of the Karine A was conducted in the late afternoon before the Sabbath in a remote port location far from the media centers. International journalists who bothered to attend were kept far away from the munitions (no "photo-op") and had to cope with a press briefing conducted in Hebrew only. Two years into the intifada, Gutmann credits the Israeli Foreign Ministry and Government Press Office with improving its ability to fight the Media War, facilitating media access to images that make "good television." However, the IDF has been slower to improve communications, as recent events in Lebanon underscore.

I couldn't put this down. It is about famous massacres that did not happen. The author has a literate yet contemporary voice and a sense of humor. She takes you to the exotic hangout of journalists at the American Colony hotel; inside Palestinian offices, families, and funerals; into the Israel Defense Forces; and into house-to-house combat. She is not only gutsy but also persistent. Not content to reveal ~ in evenhanded assessments ~ how unsound the reporting from the Middle East has been, she presses on and asks "Why?" She shows how reporters arrive in Jerusalem prepared to do battle, and how coercive and controlled their environment becomes. She even takes you into the Associated Press and Reuters ~ into their very inner workings. Every chapter is like the unravelling of a terrific mystery. It is a real page turner. Hats off to Gutmann for a terrific, exciting, courageous, and important book.

Ms Gutmann has written a very readable insiders account of the coverage of the palestinian/israeli conflict. In it she has documented the media's failure to objectively report on the events of the conflict. The Mohamad al-dura death, the lynching of 2 israeli reservists, and the sensationally reported jenin massacre are among the many examples of stories the media have poorly reported. As a result, the coverage of these events do not repesent the truth. Like Bernard Goldberg's book 'Bias' and 'Arrogance', Gutmann demonstrates how reporters and news bureaus alike come to a story with pre-conceived ideas, and how this slants the coverage. In addition, she exposes how journalists bend to palestinian authority's heavy handed use of intimidation, and how many journalists care more that they have a marketable story than the actual truth. 'The other War'and 'Bias' and the recent revelation that cnn sat on negative information about the iraqi regime before the war so that they could stay in Baghdad, should make consumers of news, unfortunately, skeptical of vitually everything they read. It seems that sensationalism has been so rewarded that it has replaced the journalistic code of objectivity, thoroughness, and fairness, and we all suffer for it.

This book is about the media war between the Arabs and Israel. It deals with journalistic sensationalism and lack of ethics. I am not surprised that Israel is not faring well in this war. The other side is cheating. And the referees aren't taking them to task for it. Still, Israel has no choice but to maintain its standards and value truth. Meanwhile, I think that many Arabs have drifted into a culture of destruction in this war. And maybe this culture is reflected to some extent in the media war. As Stephanie Gutmann shows, the anti-Zionists are making a mockery of journalistic standards. They are destroyers, not creators. In the short term, they may appear to be winning, but they are not achieving anything positive. Like many other people, including myself, Gutmann was surprised at the extent to which many people "were ready to drop the skepticism they showed in most other areas of their lives and believe everything the New York Times and CNN told them about the conflict and then develop such great passions about a relatively small affair, in a land very far away." Many people are doubtful that Israel even wants peace, even though almost all humans, including Israelis, would rather be rich, free, and alive than poor, enslaved, and dead. The author tells about the Mohammed al-Dura case in some detail. This was a 12-year old who probably died in September, 2000, during the Arab aggression against Israel. If he died, he was probably killed (intentionally or unintentionally) by Arabs. But there isn't enough evidence to tell for certain what happened. Still, the case points out the huge number of staged events (look at the cover of the book for a typical example) and the amount of media misinformation. As Gutmann says, "there is one clear bad guy in `al-Dura' and that is the international media." In another chapter, the author tells us of another case of journalistic malpractice, exposed by the apologies by Italian TV to Arab thugs for filming the some of the lynching of two Israeli soldiers. Gutmann confirms that Israel is treated as a Very Important nation. And a Dangerous one. She says that the coverage of the war against it sometimes seems to be only of Israel, as if the Arabs were some sort of undefined "amoebic force." And she tells of the American Colony Hotel, which is a sort of propaganda headquarters for what I consider the War Against Human Rights. In this war, the media have, as the author points out, gone from being observers to participants. And I think the majority of them are fighting against human rights. There is a fine chapter on the ghastly misreporting of the Jenin battle of April, 2002. And there is a discussion of the reaction to the confinement of Arafat to Ramallah. By the way, in my opinion, the failure of the international community to bring a thug like Arafat to justice is a great crime against humanity. But the adoration of Arafat that the media showed is even more sickening and surrea

This highly readable book takes one behind the media scenes and agendas of the conflict in the Holy Land. In a most engaging fashion, the author explains how journalism works in practice whilst exposing the gross bias against the Israeli side. She names the worst culprits, both individuals and organisations. The latter include the BBC, National Public Radio, The Guardian, The Independent, CNN, Associated Press and that old grey harlot, The New York Times. Using examples like the death of the 12 year old Palestinian boy Mohammed Ad-Dura, the gruesome lynching of two Israeli reservists in Ramallah and the so-called Jenin Massacre that was later debunked by a United Nations investigation, Gutmann provides plenty of detail on how the anti-Israel propagandists operate. Truth be told, some of the blame rests on the Israeli side where the media war was not handled correctly. For example, Israeli spokespeople have not always received adequate resources or been proficient enough in English. This situation is now being improved. One of the most glaring examples of media hypocrisy is the way in which Israel's security fence has been portrayed, with false analogies to the Berlin Wall. This while the EU intends to erect a barrier on its eastern borders and there are similar fences or walls between Turkey and Syria, and between Yemen and Saudi Arabia, to mention just a few. Gutmann reports that the situation is improving but I think much damage has already been done if one considers recent opinion polls conducted in several countries of Old Europe where alarming percentages of the population see Israel as the greatest threat to world peace. Then again, this might just be a resurgence of the old European Anti-Semitism now surfacing again under the guise of Anti-Zionism. In this regard, I refer the reader to Bat Ye'or's magisterial work Eurabia. There are also brave Arab reporters, like the Israeli citizen Khalid Abu Toameh of the Jerusalem Post. A whole chapter looks at his work, a refreshing example of objective journalism. Gutmann's revelations are indeed disturbing because not all news consumers are willing to think for themselves, let alone investigate other angles. It seems that the real roots of the Anti-Israel bias derive from Israel's victory in the 1967 war when the old Soviet propaganda apparatus started the demonization campaign. It gained further momentum during the First and Second Intifadas. Now Israel is routinely scapegoated by the leftist media and by dominant sectors in academia. This ideologically based bias has reached alarming proportions in Europe and only a few principled voices are reacting against it, like Oriana Fallaci in her books The Rage And The Pride, and The Force Of Reason. The Other War is a brilliantly researched book, full of verifiable facts and expert analyses, and at the same time a gripping read. Highly recommended for those who are interested in the Middle East conflict or who would like to get an inside look a