http://www.independent.co.uk/news/World/Middle_East/2000-10/fisk021000.shtml
Where 'caught in the crossfire' can leave no room for doubt
By Robert Fisk, 2 October 2000
When I read the word "crossfire", I reach for my pen. In the Middle
East, it almost always means that the Israelis have killed an innocent
person. When the Israelis fired shells into the United Nations
compound at Qana in southern Lebanon in 1996, Time magazine printed a
photograph of a dead baby with a caption saying it had been killed in
"crossfire". This was untrue. The baby had been killed in the Israeli
bombardment along with 105 other civilians - which started after
Hizbollah guerrillas opened fire on an Israeli army unit that was
laying booby-trap mines inside the UN zone.
So when 12-year-old Mohammed al-Durah was killed in Gaza on Saturday
and I read on the Associated Press wire that the child was "caught in
the crossfire", I knew at once who had killed him. Sure enough,
reporters investigating the killing said the boy was shot by Israeli
troops. So was his father - who survived - and so was the ambulance
driver who was killed trying to rescue the boy. Yet BBC World Service
Television was still saying yesterday morning that Mohammed al-Durah
was "caught in the crossfire of a battle that has left hundreds
wounded and killed many others". I knew what this meant.
True, the Israeli soldiers who killed the boy may not have known whom
they hit. They were apparently firing through a wall. But why the
reluctance on the part of journalists to tell the truth? Why was it
that in its report from Jerusalem on Saturday, the AP only mentioned -
in paragraph 17, for heaven's sake - that Israeli troops, on the word
of their own officer, fired anti-tank missiles during the
confrontation? What was the Israeli army doing using missiles against
rioters?
By yesterday afternoon, the story had been transformed into a "blame"
conflict. The Israelis blamed the Palestinian authority for organising
riots. BBC World Service radio ran a tape of an Israeli official
stating that rioters were "shooting [sic] Molotov cocktails and
stones" which "kill people". A listener might have been forgiven for
thinking that 22 Israelis had been killed - rather than 22
Palestinians - in the previous 72 hours. The BBC then ran a tape of
Nabil Shaath, the Palestinian spokesman, saying that the Israelis, not
the Palestinians, had been shooting.
Truth is a hard bullet to bite. Palestinian policemen had also opened
fire on the Israelis. Ironically, the Arab press in Beirut had no
hesitation in saying this. The press in Lebanon showed photographs of
Palestinian policemen firing Kalashnikov rifles at Israeli troops.
But, given the fact that they did not kill Israelis - one of them was
hit while firing - was it not worth mentioning that the Palestinians
were the victims, not the Israelis?
When BBC Television got round to mentioning Ariel Sharon's flagrantly
provocative visit to the Haram as-Sharif/Temple Mount on Thursday,
they yesterday called him an "Israeli leader" when - for Palestinians
- he was the man who bore indirect responsibility (according to
Israel's own inquiry) for the massacre of up to 2,000 Palestinian
civilians in the Sabra and Chatila refugee camps in Beirut 18 years
ago. The BBC correspondent, Paul Adams, was one of the very few who
bravely drew attention to Sharon's appalling record, pointing out
Sharon had "an extraordinary capacity to leave... destruction in his
wake."
And so, by last night, the story had changed. No longer did Israeli
soldiers and policemen kill at least 22 Palestinians in three days;
now the question was whether the Palestinian Authority organised the
riots that "led" [sic] to their deaths. The Israeli soldiers, who
disobeyed every human rights commitment by firing on rioters with live
rounds, were respectfully called the "Israeli security forces",
disregarding the fact that "security" was the one thing Israeli
soldiers were clearly unable to provide.
On CNN and the BBC and other satellite chains, reporters were asked if
the killings would upset the "peace process", with no willingness to
explain that it was the collapse of the peace process which lay at the
heart of the riots. The Muslim holy areas of Jerusalem were "disputed"
- although UN Security Council resolution 242, upon which the "peace
process" is supposedly based, demands the withdrawal of Israeli
forces from territories captured during the 1967 war, including east
Jerusalem.
What lies behind this - apart from the sheep-like inability of many
journalists to call a spade a spade - was the continuing belief that
Palestinians are, by nature, violent and riotous.
The United States called for an end to the "violence" - this courtesy
of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright - without making any
reference to Sharon's grotesque visit to the mosque grounds of east
Jerusalem. By yesterday afternoon, the BBC were at it again, reporting
that "Israeli authorities were bracing themselves for what may lie
ahead". Weren't the Palestinians also doing that?
