Point Austin: Oppel vs. Chomsky
Michael King
The Austin Chronicle News, August 11, 2006
As my headline inevitably suggests an unarmed man charging into a
battle of wits, I briefly considered leaving it at that, knowing that
regular Statesman readers would understand it immediately, enjoy a
quick laugh, and move on. But those of you who aren't blessed with such
strong stomachs might just be puzzled, so I'll try to fill in the
blanks. Not once, but twice during recent weeks Our Hometown Editor
decided to demonstrate he knows more about the Middle East than Noam
Chomsky. The results were predictable.
The exchange actually began with a letter from local
Palestinian-American and activist Sylvia Shihadeh, who wrote to Oppel
with the complaint that reporting from the Middle East in the U.S.
press in general and the Statesman in particular tends unfairly to
favor Israel. Oppel reduced the charge to a claim of "censorship" of
reporting and stoutly denied the charge: "We don't put a pro-Israeli
slant on things." ("Tracking down claims of bias in Middle East
reporting," July 23, Austin American-Statesman) In his heart of hearts,
I'm sure Oppel believes that, because he conceives of "slant" as
something carefully slathered on copy during the production process,
like oil-based paint. Yet anyone looking for evidence that mainstream
editors (and too many reporters) see the Middle East exclusively
through U.S./Israeli foreign-policy spectacles will be able to cite
these two Oppel columns as undeniable evidence.
Oppel's direct dispute with Shihadeh focused on whether Cox Newspapers'
Middle East bureau reporters experience editorial "censorship" when
their reports are too critical of Israeli policies. Satisfied by the
reporters (notably Larry Kaplow) that they experience no such thing -
only that "space is not inexhaustible" - Oppel rejected the charge of
censorship as well. That is, if there's no direct censorship, there's
no bias.
Chomsky entered the argument secondhand, as Shihadeh cited his
statement (on the Democracy Now! radio and television program, July 14)
that the latest violence in Gaza (and subsequently Lebanon) was not
simply - as it has been largely portrayed in the U.S. press - a
righteous, defensive Israeli response to the June 25 abduction of an
Israeli soldier, Cpl. Gilad Shalit, by Gaza militants, followed two
weeks later by a similar capture on the Lebanese border of two Israeli
soldiers by Hezbollah. Chomsky noted in the radio interview that the
situation has been especially volatile since the January democratic
election of a Hamas majority to the Palestinian parliament and the
violent U.S./Israeli rejection of that outcome. And then he pointed out
something more specific: that the capture (or "kidnapping," as it's
usually described) of Shalit was in fact preceded the day before by the
quite literal kidnapping of two Gaza civilians by Israeli soldiers.
As reported briefly in the Israeli press, the IDF announced the Gaza
abduction that day, calling it an "arrest" of suspected "Hamas
militants" who were allegedly "planning a major terror attack in the
coming days." (No evidence needed or supplied.) Yet it was the first
such incursion into Gaza by Israeli forces in months, and Chomsky cited
it primarily for the Western media response - effectively none.
"Israel abducted two Gaza civilians, a doctor and his brother. We don't
know their names. You don't know the names of victims. They were taken
to Israel, presumably, and nobody knows their fate.
"The next day, something happened, which we do know about, a lot.
Militants in Gaza, probably Islamic Jihad, abducted an Israeli soldier
across the border. That's Corporal Gilad Shalit. And that's well known;
first abduction is not. Then followed the escalation of Israeli attacks
on Gaza, which I don't have to repeat. It's reported on adequately."
That is, there had been a few passing press mentions of the IDF
abduction, unquestioning of the Israeli justification; by contrast, the
capture of Shalit and the other soldiers has been a major story for
weeks, and (until the subsequent Hezbollah missile barrages) seen as
explaining and justifying the entire Israeli military offensive against
Lebanon.
Chomsky's simple point, virtually a truism, is that military actions by
Israel are generally treated by Western sources as self-explanatory and
self-justifying, indeed barely worth mentioning; similar actions by
Israel's enemies (even military captures of uniformed soldiers) are
unspeakable outrages justifying unlimited Israeli offensive response.
"Cynical Fraud"
Oppel asked Chomsky for his sources on the Gaza episode, and Chomsky
supplied them. Oppel's response was stunning. In his July 23 editorial,
he suggested the event never happened, dismissing what he called
"commentary articles on leftist web sites," though the published
sources he acknowledged include Israeli dailies, The Baltimore Sun, and
The Los Angeles Times. And he called Chomsky's "acknowledgment" that
some reports were "marginal, understated and brief" as somehow
confirming that the kidnapping was not worth reporting. (As Oppel put
it with a shrug, "Israeli intelligence and armed forces have made it a
practice to abduct Palestinians from their homes and from the street
without warrant or probable cause in the way that we understand these
things.") Chomsky's point was precisely the opposite, of course, as he
wrote Oppel in demanding a retraction: "It is not an 'acknowledgment,'
but a condemnation. I assumed it would be so obvious that I would not
have to spell it out to you."
Bostonian Chomsky might be forgiven for overestimating Our Hometown
Editor, but alas, Oppel wasn't finished. In his second column,
("Agreeing on the facts of the story, but not on the conclusions," Aug.
3), he apologized for misinterpreting Chomsky's "acknowledgment" -
and then did it again. In response to Chomsky noting that the IDF
routinely describe the abducted civilians as "terrorists" is not
self-confirming ("Reports by armies engaged in military actions,"
Chomsky wrote, "do not become 'True' because they are on 'our side'"),
Oppel responded, "I see that as an attack by Chomsky on the credibility
of the sources that he chooses to cite." The IDF says they're
"terrorists," reporters write that down, and if that's not good enough
for Chomsky, he's acknowledging that his "sources" are weak. (Longtime
Austinites will recognize that familiar circular logic from the
opposite side of the editorial page.)
Finally, while explicitly justifying Israeli military responses to
Hamas' "provocations," Oppel attributed arguments to Chomsky that he
didn't make, specifically that "the Israeli abduction of the two
civilians touched off the Hamas attack." Other observers have suggested
that possibility, but Chomsky specifically was reacting only to the
Western media response to the two parallel events, and in his angry
letter to Oppel he characterized that response quite bluntly. "What all
of this reveals, clearly, is utter lack of concern over kidnapping when
it is carried out by a U.S. client," Chomsky wrote. "Some gave it
marginal, understated, and brief mention, again revealing the same lack
of concern.
"The conclusions are obvious," Chomsky continued. "Whether suppression
of the undisputed facts or casual concession, the performance
demonstrates that the pretended outrage over capture of soldiers is
pure, cynical fraud. Those who suppressed the story, and those who gave
it marginal mention, are telling us, loud and clear, that they care
nothing about even the far more serious crime of kidnapping civilians.
The timing is particularly dramatic and impossible to miss: IDF
kidnapping of civilians on June 24, Hamas capture of a soldier the next
day, then the huge U.S.-Israeli escalation of attacks on Gaza ... then
the kidnapping of soldiers by Hezbollah, then the U.S.-Israeli
destruction of most of Lebanon, justified by the pretense of outrage
over kidnapping, which is - to repeat - is demonstrated,
conclusively, to be cynical fraud."
Terrorists vs. Surgeons
Oppel is clearly stung by Chomsky's harsh charges against the U.S.
media - "moral depravity" really sticks in his craw - but Chomsky
is only characterizing, in quite traditional moral terms, a very old
lesson. I'll cite just the classic source on double standards: "Thou
hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt
thou see clearly to cast the mote out of thy brother's eye" (Matthew
7:5). The broad pattern of U.S. media coverage of the Middle East, from
Iraq to Palestine, is institutionally hypocritical in just this way. If
"their" side attacks, it's a ("terrorist") outrage deserving any
extreme of military response; if "our" side attacks, it's a regrettable
but necessary ("surgical") response to unbearable provocations.
Oppel's own editorials are squarely in this tradition. Consider his
inability even to conceive (let alone admit) the possibility that the
Israeli military perspective on events might not be the only credible
version. He can't (or won't) understand Shihadeh's and then Chomsky's
complaints, because that would require him, if only for a moment, to
see the Israeli Defense Forces as they might be seen from the wrong end
of the gun. Even more striking is his lachrymose but unreflective
adoption of the Bush administration's imperial perspective as his own:
"U.S. influence in the Middle East has declined as our efforts to build
a democracy in Iraq have disintegrated into sectarian violence" (my
emphasis). When this insane Iraq adventure began, the Statesman (like
virtually all U.S. papers) enthusiastically endorsed the colossally
criminal "shock and awe" hunt for "WMD." Now, when that always
transparent rationale has been repeatedly exposed as a massive fraud,
Oppel adopts the ludicrous alternative of "democracy-building," which
has somehow, passively, "disintegrated" - due, of course, to those
unmanageably "sectarian" Iraqis.
Since he's abundantly earned it, I'll give Chomsky the last word,
summing up Oppel's most recent performance. "This is not just awful
journalism. It's real cowardice."
http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/20060811.htm
.
|
