Viewpoint: Media responses to Israeli blamelessness

Carmel Gould
Just Journalism
05 August '10

The Lebanon border clashes have provided us with an unusual case study opportunity: how do hostile elements of the media cope when Israel’s version of events is thoroughly vindicated? The answer seems to be: some better than others.

After the heated exchange of fire on Tuesday, four people were left dead: an Israeli colonel, two Lebanese soldiers and a Lebanese journalist. Lebanon claimed Israel had violated its territory and that its army fired warning shots which were answered with direct Israeli fire. Israel claimed that it had been carrying out maintenance on its own territory in co-ordination with UNIFIL and that the LAF opened fire at its soldiers first.

The following day, UNIFIL confirmed that Israel had been operating on its own side of the international border and the Lebanese army admitted opening fire at the Israelis first "to defend Lebanon's sovereignty."

In the straight news reporting, some publications took the bull by the horns. The New York Times’ ‘U.N. Supports Israeli Account of Border Clash’ led:

‘The United Nations peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, Unifil, said Wednesday that it had concluded that Israeli forces were cutting trees that lay within their own territory before a lethal exchange of fire with Lebanese Army troops, largely vindicating Israel’s account of how the fighting started.’

(Read full report)

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