The following article appeared in the Israeli magazine "Jerusalem Report" on June 18, 2001

The Jerusalem Report
June 18, 2001

by Hanan Sher

ANY DIASPORA JEW WILL TELL YOU HOW Israel is losing the propaganda war and how the Palestinians are using the international media to turn themselves into, you should pardon the expression, modern-day Davids unfairly matched up against the Israeli Goliath.

The Electronic Intifada (www.electronicintifada.net), puts the shoe on the other foot. Describing itself as "a resource for countering myth, distortion and spin from the Israeli media war machine," it contends, surprisingly, that the Palestinians get the short end of the media stick.

The Electronic Intifada is worth looking at, if only because it's much slicker than the crude hate disseminated by other anti-Israel sites. It's produced by one Nigel Parry, who once worked at Bir Zeit University and says he spent four years from 1994 to 1998 "on the frontlines" of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Parry is now in Minnesota, where he's part of a pop-rock band and is about to release "This Side of Paradise," a CD of his songs.

There's no need to engage in thrust-and-Parry name-calling, though some of his statements are very contentious. For example, he claims that Israel has captured the moral high ground by getting international media to use the word "retaliation" when describing its military operations, "regardless of what preceded the events." As a case in point, he mentions the early-May rocket and helicopter raid against Gaza, after Palestinian mortar shells fell near the Israeli town of Sderot. He asks if the Palestinian mortar attacks therefore not also be termed "retaliation" for Israeli operations in Gaza the previous day, failing to make any distinction between the fact that Israel demolished buildings that had been used by Palestinian snipers and the 5,000 non-belligerent citizens of Sderot. And then he gives himself away by justifying all Palestinian attacks, apparently including car bombs in the middle of cities and suicide bombs at shopping malls, as a reaction to "the 1947-1950 ethnic cleansing of Palestine and the 33-year-old military occupation."

On the other hand, the site offers some interesting tips that can be used on both sides of the divide. Particularly interesting is the Media Activism Advice by Ali Abunimah of Chicago. "It is very important," he writes, "to realize that directing hostility towards the media or approaching them with anger will not bring about positive change... bad reporting is the result of media organizations not having access to good information and to alternative viewpoints." Abunimah suggests that activists, rather than moan and groan, can point out media inaccuracies and educate the media with "facts." His six-page guidelines, are clear, concise, unemotional - exactly the kind of guide the Israeli side should have put out, but hasn't.

Hanan Sher