The Anderson-Hanna Lie Machines
By Daniel Doron
The Jerusalem Post
June, 21 2001

    (June 21) - Scene 1: We see a pile of skulls as the BBC's Hillary Anderson intones: "Deep underground in Bethlehem are the remnants of an atrocity so vile, so far back in history King Herod's slaughter of the innocents."

   This is how the BBC opened its segment on the deaths of Palestinian children during the recent intifada. Herod's alleged massacre was evoked to remind the viewer that Jews, who tried to kill the infant Christ, are again busy killing innocent children. The BBC revived an ancient anti-Semitic blood libel and presented it as fact supported by archeological remains (See the skulls? So what if they are adults'?). When it comes to charging Jews with child murder, the BBC will easily peddle lies.

    Scene 2: CNN's Mike Hanna faces the camera. Behind him, an Israeli jeep hit by a firebomb thrown by Arab rioters (whom Hanna insists on calling "protesters" or "demonstrators") catches fire and withdraws. The Arab crowd surges forward and cheers. With a straight face, Hanna reports that the Israelis have just thrown a concussion bomb at the "demonstrators" and they cry out in outrage! Since a lens cannot blush, Hanna's lie sticks.

    It is not often that you catch those journalists who have been doing their best to tar a democratic Israel and whitewash a repressive Arab regime uttering outright lies. A cunning bunch, accomplished spin doctors, they usually deploy a far more sophisticated arsenal of half-truths, distortions, evasions and omissions to undermine Israel by portraying it as an aggressive colonialist occupier and the corrupt Palestinian Authority as its innocent victim.

    Careful, selective editing obscures the fact that it is Arafat's "Authority" that initiates all the violence. By showing only stone throwing kids, not the armed Palestinian soldiers (masked as police) using the children as human shields, Israeli troops are made to look as though they are using excessive force. This is the image projected even when they act with unparalleled restraint facing huge armed mobs, as the small proportion of casualties to attackers affirms.

    The BBC and CNN constantly launder language, always speaking of violence "erupting," as if from nowhere. They seldom mention Arab aggression, but always blame Israel, even when it is clearly acting in self-defense. They report false Arab allegations, including preposterous "historical" claims as fact, without examination or question, thus undermining Israel's legitimate claims to the land that were sanctioned by the international community. Israeli reports, even of facts, are always treated as allegations.

    Extremist Arab spokesmen get wide exposure, their obvious falsehoods and lies never challenged. Israel is always "represented" by a few handpicked radical leftist anti-Zionists, who support the Arab cause. The few defenders of Israel are treated with undisguised hostility.

    Broadcasts always open - even after dramatic attacks on a Jewish neighborhood - with a recount of Arab casualties, with allegations about Israeli atrocities, about "children shot in the head," even though the sources are known Arab propagandists.

    Altogether, the BBC and CNN have done their best to fan flames of hatred and violence against Israel, with false reports and allegations and with inflammatory rhetoric.

    They assiduously promoted the lie that Israelis kill children in cold blood, ceaselessly repeating pictures of the child accidentally killed in an exchange of fire near Gaza without ever bothering to inquire what really happened. They kept it up despite the fact that they knew these false charges were inflaming atavistic anti-Semitic hatred that resulted in Jews being attacked in Europe and synagogues torched.

    It is, therefore, surprising that the State of Israel has waited for the latest calumny, the attempt to portray Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as war criminal, before realizing that it faces two determined enemies that, out of ideological conviction and plain anti-Semitism, are trying to undermine Israel's legitimacy and are giving aid and comfort to terrorist regimes attacking it, while doing their best to inhibit Israel's ability to defend itself by whitewashing and justifying its attackers.

    At the least, Israel should have demanded a public apology and the disciplining of the rogue editors and reporters who endanger lives by promoting violence, or ask them to leave the country. Let them peddle their lies from the territories of their friends, the Arab military dictatorships whose anti-Israel cause they so passionately promote.

(c) Jerusalem Post

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