The sins of the media

Op-ed: New Year a good time for changing bad habits, such as flawed anti-Israel reporting

Gilead Ini
Israel Opinion/Ynet
28 September '10

The start of the Jewish New Year is an especially fitting time to evaluate the news media’s coverage of the Middle East conflict. In many traditions, the New Year is a time for resolving to changes bad habits.

In the Jewish tradition, it’s also a time to repent for transgressions of the past year. Yom Kippur’s Al Chet prayer, for example, begs forgiveness for a long list of sins, ranging from hard-heartedness to improper speech to lying.

Because a number of influential media organizations committed the journalistic equivalent of such egregious sins, perhaps an alternate version of Al Chet would be appropriate. This prayer might involve asking the public, whom journalists are meant to serve, to grant forgiveness for the following:

For the sin of whitewashing terrorist groups

CNN’s Fareed Zakaria last month suggested that Americans should look to Hezbollah as a model of religious tolerance. That’s because the terrorist group “respects” the Jews, and is merely opposed to “Israel’s occupation of Arab lands.” So said Hezbollah’s PR chief, and so Zakaria unquestioningly relayed to his trusting viewers.

But Zakaria, who is considered an expert on international affairs, should surely know that Hezbollah’s leader insists the Holocaust is a “myth,” and was quoted in a Lebanese newspaper saying that if Jews all gather in Israel “it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.” How by any definition is this “respect” for the Jews?

Zakaria should also realize that, despite any euphemistic references to opposing Israeli “occupation,” Hezbollah isn’t shy about announcing, as its leader did, that “‘Israel’ is an illegal presence (and) a cancerous gland, and must be wiped out of existence.”

The Economist likewise twisted reality to whitewash a terror group. In July, the magazine reported that Hamas “implies that recognition (of Israel) would come at the end of negotiations....” Never mind that just days earlier, Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar explained his group continues to plan for Israel’s destruction: “Our plan for this stage is to liberate any inch of Palestinian land, and to establish a state on it. Our ultimate plan is (to have) Palestine in its entirety. I say this loud and clear so that nobody will accuse me of employing political tactics. We will not recognize the Israeli enemy.”

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