Coming
in October
From AK Press
Today's
Stories
September
19, 2003
Ilan Pappe
The
Hole in the Road Map
Bill Glahn
RIAA is Full of Bunk, So is the New York Times
Dave Lindorff
General Hysteria: the Clark Bandwagon
Robert Fisk
New Guard is Saddam's Old
Jeff Halper
Preparing
for a Struggle Against Israeli Apartheid
Brian J. Foley
Power to the Purse
Clare
Brandabur
Hitchens
Smears Edward Said
Website of the Day
Live from Palestine
September
18, 2003
Mona Baker
and Lawrence Davidson
In
Defense of the Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions
Wayne
Madsen
Wesley
Clark for President? Another Neo-Con Con Job
Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Wesley Clark and Waco
Muqtedar Khan
The Pakistan Squeeze
Dominique
de Villepin
The
Reconstruction of Iraq: This Approach is Leading Nowhere
Angus Wright
Brazilian Land Reform Offers Hope
Elaine
Cassel
Payback is Hell
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Leavitt
for EPA Head? He's Much Worse Than You Thought
Website
of the Day
ALA Responds to Ashcroft's Smear
Recent
Stories
September 17, 2003
Timothy J. Freeman
The
Terrible Truth About Iraq
St. Clair / Cockburn
A
Vain, Pompous Brown-noser:
Meet the Real Wesley Clark
Terry Lodge
An Open Letter to Michael Moore on Gen. Wesley Clark
Mitchel Cohen
Don't Be Fooled Again: Gen. Wesley Clark, War Criminal
Norman Madarasz
Targeting Arafat
Richard Forno
High Tech Heroin
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Website of the Day
The Ultimate Palestine Resource Site!
September 16, 2003
Rosemary and Walt Brasch
An
Ill Wind: Hurricane Isabel and the Lack of Homeland Security
Robert Fisk
Powell
in Baghdad
Kurt Nimmo
Imperial Sociopaths
M. Shahid Alam
The Dialectics
of Terror
Ron Jacobs
Exile at Gunpoint
Christopher Brauchli
Bush's War on Wages
Al Krebs
Stop Calling Them "Farm Subsidies"; It's Corporate
Welfare
Patrick Cockburn
The
Iraq Wreck
Website of the Day
From Occupied Palestine
September 15, 2003
Stan Goff
It Was
the Oil; It Is Like Vietnam
Robert Fisk
A Hail of Bullets, a Trail of Dead
Writers Bloc
We
Are Winning: a Report from Cancun
James T. Phillips
Does George Bush Cry?
Elaine Cassel
The Troublesome Bill of Rights
Cynthia McKinney
A Message to the People of New York City
Matthew Behrens
Sunday Morning Coming Down: Reflections on Johnny Cash
Uri Avnery
Assassinating
Arafat
Hammond Guthrie
Celling Out the Alarm
Website of the Day
Arnold and the Egg
September 13 / 14, 2003
Michael Neumann
Anti-Americanism:
Too Much of a Good Thing?
Jeffrey St. Clair
Anatomy of a Swindle
Gary Leupp
The Matrix of Ignorance
Ron Jacobs
Reagan's America
Brian Cloughley
Up to a Point, Lord Rumsfeld
William S. Lind
Making Mesopotamia a Terrorist Magnet
Werther
A Modest Proposal for the Pentagon
Dave Lindorff
Friendly Fire Will Doom the Occupation
Toni Solo
Fiction and Reality in Colombia: The Trial of the Bogota Three
Elaine Cassel
Juries and the Death Penalty
Mickey Z.
A Parable for Cancun
Jeffrey Sommers
Issam Nashashibi: a Life Dedicated to the Palestinian Cause
David Vest
Driving in No Direction (with a Glimpse of Johnny Cash)
Michael Yates
The Minstrel Show
Jesse Walker
Adios, Johnny Cash
Adam Engel
Something Killer
Poets' Basement
Cash, Albert, Curtis, Linhart
Website of the Weekend
Local Harvest
The Great Alejandro Escavedo Needs Your Help!
September 12, 2003
Writers Block
Todos
Somos Lee: Protest and Death in Cancun
Laura Carlsen
A Knife to the Heart: WTO Kills Farmers
Dave Lindorff
The Meaning of Sept. 11
Elaine Cassel
Bush at Quantico
Linda S. Heard
British
Entrance Exams
John Chuckman
The First Two Years of Insanity
Doug Giebel
Ending America as We Know It
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Blank Check Military
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Website of the Day
A Woman in Baghdad
September 11, 2003
Robert Fisk
A Grandiose
Folly
Roger Burbach
State Terrorism and 9/11: 1973 and 2001
Jonathan Franklin
The Pinochet Files
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Postcards to the President
Norman Solomon
The Political Capital of 9/11
Saul Landau
The Chilean Coup: the Other, Almost Forgotten 9/11
Stew Albert
What Goes Around
Website of the Day
The Sights and Sounds of a Coup
September 10, 2003
John Ross
Cancun
Reality Show: Will It Turn Into a Tropical Seattle?
Zoltan Grossman
The General Who Would be President: Was Wesley Clark Also Unprepared
for the Postwar Bloodbath?
Tim Llewellyn
At the Gates of Hell
Christopher Brauchli
Turn the Paige: the Bush Education Deception
Lee Sustar
Bring the Troops Home, Now!
Elaine Cassel
McCain-Feingold in Trouble: Scalia Hogs the Debate
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Hammond Guthrie
When All Was Said and Done
Website of the Day
Fact Checking Colin Powell
Hot Stories
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
William Blum
Myth
and Denial in the War on Terrorism
Standard Schaefer
Experimental Casinos: DARPA and the War Economy
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
|
September
20, 2003
Mother Jones Smears
Rachel Corrie
Specious
Journalism in Defense of Killers
By PHAN NGUYEN
Mother Jones demonstrated how low it could set
its standards for investigative journalism when it hired Newsweek
reporter Joshua Hammer to surf the web and write a 7000-word
feature story on Rachel Corrie and the International Solidarity
Movement ("The
Death of Rachel Corrie", Sept/Oct 2003). It appears
that fact-checking and verification was not a priority in the
production of this article. Before I had even finished reading
the Hammer's smear job I had already discovered that the writer
had no shame in culling information from indiscriminate websurfing.
Take, for instance, Hammer's description of a memorial service
held for Corrie in Rafah soon after she was killed:
Days after Corrie's death, Arafat's Fatah
Party sponsored a memorial service for her in Rafah, attended
by representatives of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs
Brigades as well as ordinary Palestinians. Midway through the
service, an Israeli tank pulled up beside the mourners and sprayed
them with tear gas. Peace activists chased the tank and tossed
flowers, and the Israeli soldiers inside threatened, in return,
to run them down. After 15 minutes of cat and mouse, Israeli
bulldozers and APCs rolled in, firing guns and percussion bombs
and putting a quick end to the memorial.
What struck me as I read it was that
I had seen the exact same phrasing before. So I looked it up
and found an article by Sandra
Jordan in the UK Observer from March 23:
In Rafah, Arafat's political party Fatah
held a wake for "Retchell Corie", attended by representatives
of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs brigade, among
others. These are the militant Islamic fronts condemned by Rachel's
government as terrorists. Their people mingled with secular organisations
and droves of ordinary Palestinians who came to pay their respects...
Later in the article, Jordan writes about
another memorial service:
As the memorial service got under way,
the Israeli army sent its own representative. A tank pulled up
beside the mourners and sprayed them with tear gas. A bizarre
game of cat-and-mouse began as the peace activists chased the
tank around to throw flowers on it, and the Israeli soldiers
inside threatened, in return, to run them down. The game ended
when the Israeli bulldozers came out, accompanied by more APCs,
firing guns and percussion bombs. The insult was as clear as
the danger of the situation and the people went home, the service
halted.
We can break down the sentences to reveal
how Hammer slightly restructured Jordan's words. Selections from
Jordan's article (in italics) are followed by Hammer's sentences
in his own chronology.
In Rafah, Arafat's political party
Fatah held a wake...attended by representatives of Hamas, Islamic
Jihad and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs brigade, among others... Their
people mingled with secular organisations and droves of ordinary
Palestinians...
Days after Corrie's death, Arafat's Fatah
Party sponsored a memorial service for her in Rafah, attended
by representatives of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs
Brigades as well as ordinary Palestinians.
As the memorial service got under
way...A tank pulled up beside the mourners and sprayed them with
tear gas.
Midway through the service, an Israeli
tank pulled up beside the mourners and sprayed them with tear
gas.
...the peace activists chased the
tank around to throw flowers on it, and the Israeli soldiers
inside threatened, in return, to run them down.
Peace activists chased the tank and tossed
flowers, and the Israeli soldiers inside threatened, in return,
to run them down.
A bizarre game of cat-and-mouse began...
After 15 minutes of cat and mouse...
The game ended when the Israeli bulldozers
came out, accompanied by more APCs, firing guns and percussion
bombs.
...Israeli bulldozers and APCs rolled
in, firing guns and percussion bombs and putting a quick end
to the memorial.
Hammer reproduced the Jordan's eloquently
but with one major flaw. Because he had so casually swiped three
paragraphs from the Observer and subtly restructured it, he incorrectly
combined the "Fatah-sponsored wake" with the separate
memorial service that was held at the site of her killing. Sandra
Jordan did not make it clear in her article that the two were
separate, and so Hammer misinterprets the article as he steals
from it. Once we realize this, it is not surprising to find other
discrepancies in Hammer's article. Such is the case in Hammer's
description of the International Solidarity Movement. According
to Hammer,
the ISM upholds the right of Palestinians
to carry out "armed struggle" and seeks "to establish
divestment campaigns in the U.S. and Europe to put economic pressure
on Israel the same way the international community put pressure
[on] South Africa during the apartheid regimes."
And curiously, according to Myles
Kantor in an article written for David Horowitz's Front Page
Magazine last April:
ISM refers to a "right" of
Palestinian "armed struggle" and seeks "to establish
divestment campaigns in the US and Europe to put economic pressure
on Israel the same way the international community put pressure
[on] South Africa during the apartheid regimes."
Somehow, Hammer managed to selectively
extract and distort the exact same 32 words from ISM's
900-word mission statement as did an extreme right-wing website.
Indeed both articles selected the least significant aspects from
the mission statement, which least described ISM's activities.
The mission statement had been drafted in the early days of ISM
(as it is clearly dated "December 2001"), when ISM's
focus was envisioned to be broader than it currently is. Thus
the reference to divestment campaigns is obsolete, as there are
no ISM-coordinated divestment campaigns. Yet Hammer still felt
it was significant enough to single out as a definitive aspect
of ISM, simply because his right-wing web source had already
done so. The other portion of ISM's mission statement which Hammer
cites is the reference to "armed struggle."
However, if Hammer will ever decide to
read ISM's mission statement, he will learn that it refers to
armed struggle only in the context of clearing the misperceptions
that such is the only method of resistance and that all Palestinians
engage in it. In contrast, the mission statement declares that
ISM exclusively engages in "the proactive tactics of non-violent
direct action epitomized by Gandhi, Archbishop Tutu, Dr. Martin
Luther King, and other practitioners of creative non-violent
resistance." If Hammer reads further, he will find that
while armed struggle is mentioned only once--and only in the
context just described--the bulk of the mission statement refers
to nonviolent resistance--that is, the only form of resistance
practiced by ISM.
Ironically while Kantor's article stated
that "ISM refers to a 'right' of Palestinian 'armed struggle,'"
Hammer altered it to read that ISM "upholds" the right,
which is even more misleading. He does not explain how ISM "upholds"
this right. ISM
explicitly states that it acknowledges the right of Palestinians
to resist occupation in accordance with international laws. This
is not a blanket "uphold[ing]" of "armed struggle,"
as Hammer seems to claim. And of all the right-wing articles
Hammer could choose to swipe from, he chose to swipe from Kantor's
article, which is full of false statements, such as the outrageous
allegation that ISM activist Susan Barclay was working for Hamas
and Islamic Jihad. Kantor even falsely attributes a quote to
Rachel Corrie:
"More Martyrs are ready to defend
the honor of Palestine." None of this seems to trouble Hammer,
who still finds Kantor credible enough to sample. While Hammer
doesn't always bother to cite his sources when he takes from
them, he is just as capable of misleading when he does mention
his sources. In describing The Evergreen State College, the school
that Rachel Corrie attended, Hammer references only one quote:
"The radical ideologies espoused
every day at Evergreen State College are of every nasty branch
of extremism," one columnist recently wrote. "Anti-Americanism.
Anti-God. Anti-life. Anti-Israel. Anti-capitalism. Anti-tradition."
And yet who is this single "columnist"
that Hammer chooses to quote? Hammer doesn't say, but a simple
Google search reveals his source: A young ultraconservative named
Hans Zeiger. Zeiger, who is 18 years old, has never attended
The Evergreen State College. In fact, in
the article from which Hammer quoted, Zeiger cites only two
visits to Evergreen--one of which was when he was in the seventh
grade!
Interestingly Hammer does not bother
to quote Zeiger's homophobic statement in the same article. Nor
does Hammer note Zeiger's suggestion that Evergreen may have
connections to "terrorist organizations," or his ridiculous
claim that Corrie "had stood guard outside of Yasser Arafat's
compound", when in fact she had never even set foot in Ramallah.
Hammer conveniently ignores all these revelatory tidbits because
that would destroy the credibility of the man whom Hammer selectively
quotes and refers to simply as a "columnist."
Of course credibility is something that
Hammer has trouble judging. He finds contradiction in the testimony
of Joe "Smith," who witnessed Corrie's killing. "Smith"
insists that the bulldozer driver saw Corrie as he approached
her, and saw her when she climbed atop the dirt pile that he
was pushing, while elsewhere "Smith" "acknowledged
that the bulldozer operator could well have lost sight of Corrie
after she tumbled down the dirt pile" that he was pushing--that
is, the driver eventually lost sight of her as he was driving
over her. That would seem to be common sense, and Hammer fails
to explain where the contradiction lay.
Hammer also implies that ISM activists
intentionally misrepresented the photos taken during the day
of Corrie's killing, that the activists merely "claimed"
that the news wires had miscaptioned the photos. His baseless
conclusion is that the activists were "probably just too
young and inexperienced to know" not to "burn"
the media. Of course he merely speculates when he says "probably,"
but that seems to be good enough for his style of journalism.
Instead of seeking the truth, Hammer is satisfied with his own
speculation and moves on.
This type of shallow skepticism is reserved
for the activists, while Israeli military claims are treated
with respect by Hammer and often go unquestioned, even when the
statements are clearly disputable and even laughable. While ISM
activists "claimed" their versions of the story, Hammer
trusts IDF spokesperson Sharon Feingold as having "assured"
and "explained" to him the facts. Feingold "assured"
him that the IDF "do[es] not target civilians," that
Tom Hurndall was shot in the head simply because he was too close
to a Palestinian gunman. Feingold "explained" that
reporter James Miller was killed because he was caught in some
crossfire. Hammer questions neither of Feingold's claims, despite
numerous witnesses to both killings who all contradict the claims.
In the case of James Miller, the Israeli military even evolved
its explanation, since the autopsy report contradicted the earlier
IDF claims that Miller was killed by Palestinians. Indeed, video
footage of the Miller shooting, filmed by a fellow journalist
and also clearly contradicting IDF claims, is publicly
available.
Hammer gives no indication that he has
viewed the footage of his fellow Middle East journalists. However
he admits to having viewed an Israeli propaganda video that was
produced specifically to absolve the military of any responsiblity
in Rachel Corrie's death. The video, along with a PowerPoint
slideshow that was distributed to US Congress members, was produced
prior to the conclusion of the Israeli investigation.
This does not keep Hammer from finding
that the propaganda video--which featured the inside of a D9
bulldozer--made "a credible case" of innocence for
the Israelis. Nor does he wonder why the Israeli investigation,
which he states was supposed to be "transparent," has
not been made public. And nor does he mention that according
to the Israeli investigation, at no point did the bulldozer even
drive over Corrie's body, clearly contradicting the tread marks
that appear in the photo reproduced in the Mother Jones article,
not to mention contradicting the Israeli autopsy report and all
the eyewitnesses who were interviewed for the investigation.
And when Feingold informs Hammer that
"Palestinian terrorists are using the [Palestinian] civilians
to hide behind," he finds it worthy to quote but not to
question, despite the fact that there is no clear documentation
to corroborate Feingold's accusation. Conversely, there is a
wealth of documentation of Israeli soldiers using Palestinian
civilians as human shields--what the IDF refers to as the "neighbor
procedure"--as can be found in the mainstream Israeli press,
in accounts of ISM activists, and in the work of several human
rights groups, such as Human Rights Watch. In fact Hammer extensively
interviewed and quoted Miranda Sissons, a researcher for Human
Rights Watch, but somehow failed to ask her about this use of
human shields, as if Feingold's "assurances" were adequate
enough.
As well, Hammer informs us that when
the Israeli military conducts home demolitions, "residents
can gather their belongings; and each house is searched for occupants
before it is demolished." There have been numerous cases
that prove otherwise. We can read one such Human Rights Watch
report from Rafah in late 2002: "At least 20 people were
injured, nine of them children, when the Israeli Defense Forces
(IDF) prevented residents from evacuating their home while the
IDF was demolishing the next-door house..." Just two weeks
before Corrie was killed, a pregnant Palestinian woman, Nuha
Sweidan, was killed in the process of an Israeli-conducted house
demolition. And in the cases where residents are actually allowed
to "gather their belongings," Hammer fails to mention
that such accomodations are often afforded fifteen minutes or
less. Again, Hammer saw fit to print the Israeli claims and felt
no need to question them in the face of documented facts.
But Hammer already proves that he is
too willing to document and judge things he knows nothing about.
For example, he revealed that "some of [Rachel Corrie's]
causes verged on New Age parody." But he provided only one
example--one that reveals his own ignorance: "She paraded
through Olympia dressed as a dove in the 'Procession of the Species,'
billed as an 'environmentally aware celebration of the earth
and life.'" Rather than being "New Age parody,"
the Procession of the Species is actually a large annual family
event in Corrie's hometown that attracts tens of thousands of
locals of all backgrounds. Last year Corrie organized scores
of Olympia residents, young and old, to participate as doves
for the event. Hammer does not bother to research the event before
dismissing it as "New Age parody." Based on this single
false assumption, Hammer concluded that "some of her causes
verged on New Age parody." Was this Hammer's attempt to
make his story more colorful?
This kind of generalization also enables
him to mysteriously state that the photo of Corrie burning a
paper American flag "prompted anti-war protesters and other
likely allies to distance themselves from her." Once again,
he makes a generalization and provides no elaboration. Just how
many "anti-war protesters and other likely allies"
did he find before he was satisfied enough to make a generalization?
(Incidentally, the caption of the photo of Corrie with the burning
paper flag incorrectly states that it occurred during a mock
trial of the Bush administration. Actually it occurred during
the worldwide protests against a pending US war on Iraq on February
15, in which Corrie was one of over 10 million protesters. The
mock trial happened a few weeks later. There are several minor
errors such as this throughout the article.)
He extends his generalizations with misleading
accusations about the nature of ISM. In addition to misquoting
ISM's mission statement via Front Page Magazine, Hammer stereotypes
ISM as "a motley collection of anti-globalization and animal-rights
activists, self-described anarchists and seekers, most in their
20s." The truth is ISM activists range in age from 18 to
77, and they come from all backgrounds, from college students
to soccer moms to white collar professionals, and they have come
from all over the world. Hammer merely demonstrates his limited
experience and knowledge of ISM by applying a cliche. Out of
the hundreds of internationals who have participated in ISM campaigns,
how many ISM activists has Hammer met personally?
He goes on to falsely claim that ISM
"embrac[es] Palestinian militants, even suicide bombers,
as freedom fighters," a baseless accusation commonly alleged
and left unsubstantiated by right-wing pundits. As usual he proclaims
and elaborates no further. Perhaps next time he should provide
us with the website link.
In a move to show he prefers the Israeli
military's point of view, he claims that ISM "has adopted
a risky policy of 'direct action'--entering military zones..."
What Hammer refers to as "military zones" are actually
Palestinian cities and villages, residential neighborhoods where
ISM is invited by the inhabitants. Only the Israeli military
refers to them as military zones. Hamas may regard Tel Aviv as
a "military zone," but I doubt Hammer would consequently
label Tel Aviv as such. Indeed, quite often the Israeli military
declares a city to be a "military zone" after ISM activists
have settled in.
What's amazing is that in Hammer's 7000-word
article, he spends very little time explaining what ISM really
is. He makes no mention of its purely nonviolent tactics or even
its most basic activities, such as accompanying ambulances, assisting
farmers in reaching their crops, clearing roadblocks, and walking
children to school, perhaps because they're not sensationalist
enough to merit his attention. He does not even explain ISM's
goal, except for the misleading claim that ISM "upholds"
the right to "armed resistance." In truth ISM's goal
is to nonviolently resist the Israeli occupation. That simple
objective is mentioned nowhere in his article. Instead, if we
are to envision ISM according to Hammer's description, we would
have to imagine that it is a group of animal-rights activists
in their 20s who enter military zones and establish divestment
campaigns.
Hammer's article freely quotes IDF spokesperson
Sharon Feingold as she excuses the actions of the Israeli military.
But when Hammer wishes to explain ISM, he selectively quotes
from third parties who have limited experience with ISM, such
as an anonymous "human-rights observer in Jerusalem"
and Miranda Sissons, and he does so blatantly out-of-context.
The anonymous human-rights observer is quoted immediately after
Hammer incorrectly recounts two sensationalized ISM actions,
while Sissons criticizes ISM in the context of what she admits
are "unsubstantiated allegations."
Hammer himself describes the "recklessness"
of ISM but in the process once again exposes his own recklessness
and low standard of journalism. He attempts to recount the case
of a young Palestinian, Shadi Sukiya, who was captured by Israeli
forces in the ISM office in Jenin. According to Hammer, "ISM
insists he was an innocent, terrified teenager who'd asked for
refuge during an Israeli sweep." Here, Hammer resorts to
fabrication. ISM
issued a press release soon after Sukiya's capture, which
shows the extent of ISM's "insistence":
One of the volunteers went into the hallway
to see what was happening and met a young man coming up the stairs.
He looked terrified, was soaking wet and appeared to be in pain.
Concerned about his welfare--under Israeli military curfew, Palestinians
spotted in the streets are shot on site--he was brought into
the apartment. He spoke only Arabic, which none of the ISM volunteers
present understood. He was given a change of clothes, a hot drink
and a blanket... Eventually the military knocked on the ISM door
and 30 soldiers entered with their machine guns trained. They
arrested the young man, claiming he was "wanted." The
two women were not able to prevent the soldiers from taking the
young man, whose name they did not even know, but requested that
he be treated humanely.
ISM reported only the events as they
happened. ISM "insisted" nothing else. The question,
as always, is where did Hammer come up with his claim? And where
was the "recklessness?" Hammer appropriately recounts
the IDF's claim that Sukiya "was a 'senior militant' who'd
sent four suicide attackers into Israel." And yet he doesn't
follow up to reveal that Sukiya was subsequently held under administrative
detention--that is, he was held indefinitely without charges.
Hammer made no attempt to verify the IDF's accusations. Hammer
also doesn't bother to note that the IDF additionally claimed
they found either a pistol or two rifles in the ISM Jenin office
when they apprehended Sukiya, a
blatant lie which both the IDF and consequently the Associated
Press were forced to retract.
Apparently Hammer didn't feel too "burned"
by the IDF lies. (Incidentally, one of Hammer's valued sources,
Front Page Magazine, has
not retracted its own claim that "a pistol and a cache of
Kalashnikov rifles" were found in the Jenin office,
and they have twice
claimed
that ISM volunteer Susan Barclay was hiding Sukiya in the Jenin
office. In reality Barclay was in the United States at the time
of the Sukiya "incident.") It is revealing that Hammer
would apparently concoct an ISM claim that undermines the actual
testimony of the activists, while he conveniently omits the proven
lies of the IDF and his right-wing sources, which would reasonably
undermine their own claims.
The other instance of supposed "recklessness"
occurred when two Britons briefly visited the ISM Rafah office.
One of the Britons later committed a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv.
Hammer claims that they were "posing as activists,"
although he doesn't bother to mention exactly how they posed
as activists, because his allegation is false.
Soon after the Tel Aviv bombing, ISM
activist Raphael
Cohen testified at a press conference about his brief encounter
with the two:
Shortly before noon on Friday, the 25th
of April, about 15 people came to the ISM apartment in Rafah,
the Gaza Strip. They were in three groups: 4 British citizens
from London who were looking to prepare a summer camp in Gaza
in conjunction with local Palestinians from Rafah; three Italians
and two Britons. The last two have been accused of perpetrating
the attack in Tel Aviv early last Wednesday morning.
Our group of 5 offered all of them tea.
I asked them general questions like who they were? were they
with any group? and what they were doing in Rafah? The two accused
Britons answered that they weren't with any particular organization
but that they came with "alternative tourism"...We
stayed in the apartment for approximately 15 minutes, before
we went down to the place where Rachel Corrie was killed by an
Israeli Occupation Force bulldozer on March 16. Owing to the
presence and approach of an Israeli army tank, we were only able
to spend a few minutes at the site where Rachel was killed. We
placed a flower on the place in the dirt where Rachel was run
over. Our ISM group then went to the house of Dr. Samir Nasrallah,
the house that Rachel died defending, while everybody else, including
the group that had visited us, went their own way.
ISM neither harbored nor provided any
assistance to the two. When the bombing happended, ISM activists
stated upfront that they had briefly met the two. Again, Hammer
fails to explain exactly what ISM did that was reckless--only
that it was. He is always willing to list the charges, but as
a journalist is unwilling to investigate them.
What's more, even if the two Britons
had posed as activists, it is unclear how that would make ISM
in any way responsible. Last May, a man disguised as an observant
Jew boarded a bus in the French Hill settlement and detonated
the explosives strapped to his body. Would that make observant
Jews reckless? Would that make the bus driver who allowed him
to board reckless?
However, that is enough for Hammer to
label the ISM "reckless." Hammer goes on to write,
"Still, the perception has lingered that the group is a
sympathizer--and even a harborer--of terrorists." Hammer
doesn't say among whom this "perception has lingered,"
only that it has. Nor does he investigate the validity of his
unattributed claim. For Hammer, reporting hearsay is enough.
Such unsubstantiated allegations are best left to the gossip
columns, if left anywhere at all--not in writing that purports
to be investigative journalism.
But Hammer is too caught up in artistic
license to report accurately, as when he claims, "Corrie
had come to Rafah a paper radical, primed for outrage, but with
little real-world experience. That changed immediately."
The truth is that Rachel was not "primed for outrage."
Her primary interest was in establishing a sister city relationship,
so she was more "primed" for exchanging pen pal letters.
That didn't sound too exciting to Hammer, who took the opportunity
to read Corrie's mind.
Hammer concludes the article with his
thesis that Rachel Corrie died for nothing. He claims that "momentum
has faded for a U.S. congressional investigation," which
is incorrect. House Concurrent Resolution 111 started out with
11 sponsors and has grown to 49 sponsors in the House, with the
latest two having signed on September 3 (Congress was out of
session in August), so the resolution is still gaining sponsors.
And on September 9, the Berkeley City Council voted to endorse
Resolution 111. The reason the resolution has not moved is not
because "momentum has faded," but because action is
required by the House Committee on International Relations, which,
under control of Henry Hyde, is failing to address it.
Hammer continues: "Corrie herself
has faded into obscurity, a subject of debate in Internet chat
rooms and practically nowhere else." Once again, reality
contradicts Hammer's world-view. Her letters from Rafah have
now been published in mainstream English-language media such
as Harper's and The Guardian. They have been translated into
numerous other languages and have been reprinted in publications
throughout the world. In the Arab world, her name continues to
resonate as a reminder that not all Americans support the policies
of their president. Documentaries have been made about her in
the US, Japan, the Middle East, and elsewhere. Around the world,
including in Israel, songs and poems have been written about
her. Participation in ISM has risen as a reaction to her killing.
Memorials, scholarship funds, and humanitarian centers are being
established in her name and in her honor. ISM has even been nominated
for a Nobel Peace Prize, with special recognition of Corrie,
Brian Avery, and Tom Hurndall. Arab parents are naming their
children after her. Veterans for Peace has awarded her with a
posthumous membership. Susan Sontag recognized her as she presented
the Rothko Chapel Oscar Romero Award to Ishai Menuchin of Yesh
Gvul, and Israeli conscientious objectors have evoked her name
when they explain their refusal to serve in the Occupied Territories.
But perhaps Hammer is too busy debating
on Internet chat rooms to notice. Or worse, Hammer merely wanted
to add some melodrama to his story: "And that, perhaps,
is what is saddest."
The article is littered with other errors,
many are of peripheral significance, but taken together, along
with all of Hammer's proclivities as described above, add up
to a shoddy piece of work: Corrie did not "propose an independent-study
program in which she would travel to Gaza", she did not
fly to Israel from Seattle, the friend who returned from five
months in Gaza was not involved in ISM and thus did not "talk
enthusiasically to Corrie about the International Solidarity
Movement," the Red Cross did not ask ISM to vacate its Jenin
office, the Arabic sentence in the article was translated to
English incorrectly, and the list goes on.
Hammer's style of investigative reporting
utilizes unattributed sourcing, indiscriminate surfing of right-wing
websites, unquestioning reliance on hearsay and authority figures,
skimpy fact-checking, misinformed speculation, artistic license,
and a contrived melodramatic thesis. What's most amazing is how
he is able to consolidate all these flaws into a single article.
Ironically the cover story of this Mother Jones issue deals with
environmental protection. Perhaps Mother Jones could have spared
a few trees by omitting the Joshua Hammer article, and instead
providing us with links to the websites where Hammer took his
information from. Then we could judge the credibility of his
sources ourselves.
Phan Nguyen
lives in Olympia, Washington and can be reached at: nguyenp@evergreen.edu
[Please take the time to write to Mother
Jones and express your outrage at Hammer's shoddy reporting.
Send your letters to Backtalk, Mother Jones, 731 Market Street,
Suite 600, San Francisco, CA 94103; fax: (415) 665-6696; or email
backtalk@motherjones.com.]
Weekend
Edition Features for Sept. 13 / 14, 2003
Michael Neumann
Anti-Americanism:
Too Much of a Good Thing?
Jeffrey St. Clair
Anatomy of a Swindle
Gary Leupp
The Matrix of Ignorance
Ron Jacobs
Reagan's America
Brian Cloughley
Up to a Point, Lord Rumsfeld
William S. Lind
Making Mesopotamia a Terrorist Magnet
Werther
A Modest Proposal for the Pentagon
Dave Lindorff
Friendly Fire Will Doom the Occupation
Toni Solo
Fiction and Reality in Colombia: The Trial of the Bogota Three
Elaine Cassel
Juries and the Death Penalty
Mickey Z.
A Parable for Cancun
Jeffrey Sommers
Issam Nashashibi: a Life Dedicated to the Palestinian Cause
David Vest
Driving in No Direction (with a Glimpse of Johnny Cash)
Michael Yates
The Minstrel Show
Jesse Walker
Adios, Johnny Cash
Adam Engel
Something Killer
Poets' Basement
Cash, Albert, Curtis, Linhart
Website of the Weekend
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