| USA Today Gets it Right Dave Alpern 13 Jan 2003 To the Editor - USA Today I wish to thank and compliment you and USA TODAY most warmly for the objectivity, accuracy and moral integrity you showed by publishing a cartoon and two stories about Arab terrorism in the Mideast. It's unfortunate, even dangerous, that such practice seems noteworthy, but noteworthy it is. For the benefit of those who don't know about this refreshing change in western media Mideast coverage, please allow me to elaborate. Pictorial Bullseye Your January 7 editorial cartoon is truly a picture worth a thousand words. Cartoonist Scott Stantis, whose work usually appears in The Birmingham News (Alabama), labeled a dark heap of mangled bodies "Terror Victims." Atop the pyramid of human sacrifice stand two figures, one resembling Yasser Arafat, wearing a kefiyeh and labeled "PLO." The second is a death-eyed suicide bomber complete with explosive belt, his thumb over the trigger. "Be patient," says the first, "we're building a nation here, remember ..." Replies the second, "... Rome wasn't bombed in a day!" There it is, in one stark panel: the duplicitous and heinous "good cop-bad cop" relationship between the Palestinian Authority and the Islamic extremists of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade of Arafat's own Fatah movement; their murdered victims; the Palestinian Arabs' political cult of nihilism and death; and the rejection of Jewish statehood that lies beneath slogans of Palestinian state-building. You got the vocabulary right, too! In the January 6 issue, USA TODAY published not one but two stories with the straightforward descriptions "terrorist group" and "supporting terrorism" in association with Palestinian organizations and Arafat. Too straightforward, most of the time, for many major news outlets. In "Suicide bombers kill 23 in Tel Aviv; Attacks come weeks before Israeli election," a front page story by special correspondent Michele Chabin, one reads "The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a terrorist group affiliated with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction, claimed responsibility." This was neither a quote from an Israeli source nor a paraphrase of Israeli news coverage. It was an accurate, precise description by Chabin. Later in the article, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is paraphrased, telling a gathering of Jewish youth visiting from overseas "that one answer to terrorism is Jewish immigration." Not an indirect quote altering and euphemizing Sharon's words to refer to Palestinian "militancy" or "activism," or "extremism," but to pure, savage TERRORISM. In the page 10 story, "Fear grows even greater for immigrants in Israel," by Hazel Ward of Agence France-Presse, readers again learn that "Two Palestinian terrorist groups -- Islamic Jihad and Hamas -- claimed responsibility for the blasts, as did the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, an offshoot of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement." Again, we see the direct, unflinching description of Islamic Jihad and Hamas as what their twisted, genocidal actions reveal them to be: terrorists. Simple, honest, accurate. And unfortunately, given routine news media practice, a refreshing and long overdue exception to the rule. We hope this trend of fair and honest reporting continues and spreads. The prevailing media policy of "neutral reporting" and "moral equivalence" must stop. Such neutrality and equivalence are thoroughly dishonest. Thank you so much, and keep up the good work! Gratefully, Dave Alpern Petach Tikva, ISRAEL Tel. 972/53/697 660 mailto:daveyboy@urbis.net.il |
The Case Agianst Israel's Enemies by Alan Dershowitz 
Coming from England and particularly from the BBC, MUST BE SEEN VIDEO! ANOTHER MUST SEE VIDEO |