http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=91992
CNN caves in to Israel over its references to illegal
settlements
By Robert Fisk, Middle East Correspondent,
03 September 2001
Just as the BBC last month ordered its reporters to use the phrase
"targeted killings'' for Israel's assassination of Palestinians, CNN
-- under constant attack from right-wing Jewish pro-settler lobby
groups -- has instructed its journalists to stop referring to Gilo as
a "Jewish settlement''. Instead, they must call the settlement, built
illegally on occupied Arab land outside Jerusalem, "a Jewish
neighbourhood".
Arabs have long protested over CNN's reporting of the Middle East --
especially its pejorative use of the word "terrorist'' -- but they are
likely to be outraged by this latest "softening" of the station's
reporting in Israel's favour. Some of the land on which Gilo is built
was taken from the Palestinians of Beit Jala -- Gilo is Hebrew for
Jala -- but no hint of this historical background will be permitted on
CNN. Israeli soldiers in Gilo have been involved in nightly battles
with Palestinian gunmen in Beit Jala.
The instruction from CNN's headquarters in Atlanta is straightforward.
"We refer to Gilo as 'a Jewish neighbourhood on the outskirts of
Jerusalem, built on land occupied by Israel in 1967','' the order
states. "We don't refer to it as a settlement.''
This extraordinary climbdown in favour of the Israelis follows months
of internal debate in CNN, which has been constantly criticised by CNN
Watch, honestreporting.com and other pro-Israeli pressure groups in
the United States which monitor all its reports on the Middle East.
Many journalists at CNN headquarters are angered by the new
instruction. "There's a feeling by some people here that what we are
doing is searching for euphemisms for what is really happening," one
of them told The Independent yesterday. "We've managed to eliminate
the word 'terrorism' -- we now talk about 'militants' -- because we
know that the word 'terrorist' is used by one side or another to
damage the other side. But now there's pressure on us not to use the
word 'settler' in any context -- but to just refer to the settlers as
'Israelis'."
In the past, CNN used "terrorist" only about Arabs -- the Israeli
settler who murdered 29 Palestinians in a Hebron mosque in 1994 was
always called an "extremist" on CNN -- and at one point described Arab
protests at the illegal settlements built by Jews on Palestinian land
as "conflicting heritage" claims.
However, by censoring the word "settlement" for Gilo, CNN is
perpetrating a lie. Gilo was illegally annexed by Israel after the
1967 war -- not just "occupied" as CNN wishes its viewers to believe
-- and far from being a "neighbourhood on the outskirts of Jerusalem",
it was built on land which Israel -- again illegally -- used to extend
the boundaries of Jerusalem.
"There has been an intense internal debate over the use of words," the
CNN reporter said. "And sometimes we still do use the word
'settlement' about Gilo. In fact, we don't necessarily say all that
stuff about 'occupied by Israel in 1967'. But we're having problems.
There are many small pro-settler Jewish groups who're trying to win
the war of words."
A CNN spokesman in Atlanta said last night: "We have no response to
make to you. We don't want to get into a discussion on this ... In
fact we'd rather not say anything about this at all."
* Israeli soldiers killed two Palestinians in gun battles in the West
Bank city of Hebron yesterday, creating a violent backdrop for the
arrival of the European Union's foreign policy representative, Javier
Solana. He was due to help lay the groundwork for a meeting between
the Palestinian President, Yasser Arafat, and Israel's Foreign
Minister, Shimon Peres, which might be held in Italy at the end of the
week.
