Images of Gaza plunged in darkness alongside pictures of
Palestinians streaming across the border to Egypt provided Hamas with a
significant public relations victory last week. It wouldn't have been possible
without the complicity of major media, all too happy to invoke the usual
narrative of Israel as the "bad guy" and the Palestinians as "the victims."
While Israel's image undoubtedly took a mauling, the bigger
picture is starting to emerge - one that shows how Hamas was able to pull off a
sophisticated operation before the eyes of the mainstream media (MSM).
A 'cycle of
violence'?
Most media presented the Gaza crisis in a manner similar to
the AP:
It started last week with what Israel says was the inadvertent
killing of a son of Gaza strongman Mahmoud Zahar in an Israeli arrest raid.
Hamas retaliated with rocket barrages on Israel, and Israel struck back by
sealing Gaza hermetically and cutting off fuel shipments. Several days later,
Gaza militants blew down the border wall with Egypt, effectively ending the
Israeli blockade, which had been tacitly backed by Egypt.
Why did the media fail to add the vital context? Since
Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in mid-June 2007 until the end of December 2007,
475 missiles and 631 mortars were fired at Sderot and the surrounding region.
Since January 16, 2008, well
over 200 Qassams and mortars have been fired by Palestinian terrorists from
Gaza.
Despite this, most media chose to attribute Israeli
security measures as the cause of the Gaza situation rather than the continuous
Palestinian terror that necessitated an Israeli response.
Who turned off the
lights?
Were the power cuts and Palestinian demonstrations staged
by Hamas in coordination with the Arab media? Calev
Ben David of the Jerusalem Post wonders:
Indeed, so ready was Al-Jazeera with live coverage of
candle-bearing Palestinian children and immediate reaction from across the Arab
world, that Israeli officials said Tuesday they strongly suspect the Arab news
network had coordinated its coverage in advance with the Hamas leadership.
"They were so prepared, it's hard to believe they didn't know
this was going to happen," said the official. "Although it's already dark in
Gaza by 6 p.m., they waited two hours to shut their generator down so that the
lights going out in Gaza could be carried live on Al-Jazeeera during prime-time
viewing."
Writing in the same paper, Amir
Mizroch notes:
The footage was powerful and unforgettable: thousands of people
gathered to light candles in a Gaza City plunged into darkness. The possibility
that Hamas itself had switched off the lights in the densely populated city to
create the impression of an urgent humanitarian crisis was likely not considered
by many watching the broadcast.
Naturally, he continued, many viewers associated the
darkness with Israel's decision to reduce fuel shipments. But the media
downplayed the fact that Israel's Ruttenberg power station in Ashkelon was still
streaming electricity into Gaza and that there had been no Israeli action that
shut the city's lights off.
Hamas continued to manipulate a compliant media for its
own ends. As the Jerusalem
Post reported:
On at least two occasions this week, Hamas
staged scenes of darkness as part of its campaign to end the political and
economic sanctions against the Gaza Strip, Palestinian journalists said
Wednesday.
In the first case, journalists who were
invited to cover the Hamas government meeting were surprised to see Prime
Minister Ismail Haniyeh and his ministers sitting around a table with burning
candles.
In the second case on Tuesday, journalists noticed that Hamas
legislators who were meeting in Gaza City also sat in front of burning candles.
But some of the journalists noticed that there was actually no
need for the candles because both meetings were being held in
daylight.
Clearly visible in the background are drawn curtains blocking
the sunlight. This, however, didn't stop Reuters spinning a different story
with photo captions such as the one below:
If some journalists saw that they were being manipulated, why
was it only the Jerusalem Post that reported this? Were these journalists
really so lacking in integrity that they preferred to play along with the
deception?
A 'spontaneous
breakout'?
Typical of many media's explanation of events was The
Daily Telegraph's:
The wall fell after a nearly week-long Israeli blockade of fuel
and humanitarian aid into Gaza, a response to a week of heavy Qassam rocket
attacks on Israeli towns after Israeli air strikes killed the son of a senior
Hamas leader and 18 other people.
In fact, as McClatchy
News discovered:
They had apparently been planning the attack for weeks.
With the knowledge of locals, militants had spent weeks methodically using blow
torches to cut along the bottom of the 30-foot-tall corrugated iron wall along
the Egyptian border.
A Palestinian guard also told The
Times of London that he saw people surreptitiously working to undermine the
wall "for months."
'Starving' Palestinians and a
humanitarian crisis?
Hamas and the media conveyed the distinct impression of
a humanitarian crisis as Gaza's Palestinians 'starved'. Many media reported the
closure of bakeries due to shortages of power and supplies. However, a
Palestinian Authority official interviewed by the Jerusalem
Post:
accused Hamas of ordering owners of bakeries to keep their
businesses closed for the second day running to create a humanitarian crisis in
the Gaza Strip. "Hamas is preventing people from buying bread," he said. "They
want to deepen the crisis so as to serve their own interests."
The official said that contrary to Hamas's claims, there is
enough fuel and flour to keep the bakeries in the Gaza Strip operating for
another two months. "Hamas members have stolen most of the fuel in the Gaza
Strip to fill their vehicles," he said.
In addition, hospitals were said to be dangerously low
on fuel, putting patients' lives at risk. Was this also a result of Hamas
actions? CAMERA
quotes the independent Palestinian news agency Maan
report of Dec 6, 2007:
The Palestinian health ministry of the Ramallah-based
caretaker government said on Thursday that "Hamas militias" have looted the fuel
stores destined for hospital vehicles in the Gaza Strip.
A statement released by the health ministry said that
fuel from the European hospital in the Gaza Strip had been stolen by the
director of the hospital drivers to supply the Hamas-affiliated Executive
Force.
The statement explained that the fuel reserve had been
supplied by the ministry to enable the hospital to continue working for as long
as possible.
McClatchy News Jerusalem bureau chief Dion
Nissenbaum even states:
Israel is pumping in some fuel for Gaza's only power plant and
offering some diesel, but Palestinians are actually refusing to accept the small
shipments of diesel to protest Israel's policies.
The Christian Science
Monitor comments on Gazan 'hunger':
While starvation has not been a problem there – most of the
strip's residents receive food aid from the UN – it's proved a powerful idea in
the propaganda war over Gaza's fate.
Will the media
relent?
Some media will not admit that they have been
manipulated by Hamas. Others prefer to stick to their
rigid analysis where Israel bears sole responsibility for the plight of the
Palestinians and any related crises.
Are the cracks starting to appear however? The Washington
Post, for example, recognizes the new reality:
In fact, as Mr. Mubarak well knows, no one is starving
in Gaza -- though food, fuel and cigarettes are much cheaper across the
border.... Hamas took advantage of the blockade first by arranging for
sympathetic Arab media to document the "humanitarian crisis," then by daring
Egypt to use force against Palestinian civilians portrayed as Israel's
victims.
Its ultimate goal, stated publicly yesterday by
Damascus-based leader Khaled Meshal, is to force Egypt to permanently reopen the
border in cooperation with Hamas; that would greatly diminish Israel's ability
to respond to rocket attacks with economic sanctions, and it would undermine the
rival Palestinian leadership of Mahmoud Abbas.
Sadly, as is so often the case, the damage to Israel
has already been done as a result of the media's willingness to buy into the
Hamas propaganda. As Amir
Mizroch says:
What is obvious is that Hamas was thinking on its feet,
being proactive, initiating campaigns tailor-made for powerful media images and
taking full advantage of the opportunities that presented
themselves.
Please start the fightback to restore some credibility
to the reporting of the situation in Gaza. Write to your local media - point out
how Hamas has propagandized for its own ends at the expense of its own people
and remind the media of the continued suffering of Sderot.
Full contact details of many media outlets can be found
on HonestReporting's website.
