"News in Brief", Inquirer-Style

    A daily newspaper's "news briefs" section is supposed to be used for news items which merit mention, but are of lesser importance and thus deserving of lesser space and fewer details. In the case of the Philadelphia Inquirer, however, Middle East-related news that is of considerable importance is often relegated to the "News in Brief" section--and all too often, it is the news that makes the Arabs look bad that the Inquirer's editors prefer to bury in the "briefs" section.

   On November 23, 1997, for example, Muslim terrorist forces in Lebanon killed at least nine Lebanese civilians, and wounded six others, by shelling a village near the Israeli border. If Israel had carried out the shelling, it surely would have been a major news story in the Inquirer, probably accompanied by a large photograph of the wreckage or the dead bodies. There might even by an angry op-ed by Trudy Rubin, or one of her unsigned editorials, denouncing Israel and demanding that Israel withdraw its forces from southern Lebanon. And the Inquirer's correspondent in Israel, Barbara Demick, would soon be ready with a lengthy feature story about the shelling had stimulated many Israelis to support a unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon.

   But when Muslim terrorists were the guilty party, where did the Inquirer choose to place the story? "News in Brief." No photo, no headline, no angry editorials, no Barbara Demick investigation--just three brief sentences in the "briefs" column. And the third sentence emphasized that the shells "may have hit the village by mistake." If Israel had fired the shells, would the Inquirer have rushed to stress that point?

   The following week, the editors of the Inquirer again used the "News in Brief" section to bury a story that might have made the Arabs look bad. This time it was the news of Yasir Arafat's declaration that "the state of Palestine exists." Such declarations are a severe violation of the Oslo accords. The accords require that all sovereignty-related issues must be postponed until the "final status" negotiations between Israel and the PLO. Yet Arafat's violation is confined to the Inquirer's "News in Brief" section. If Israel had violated the sovereignty-related provisions of the Oslo accords, would the Inquirer keep that news in the "briefs" column?

   Not only did the Inquirer hide Arafat's declaration in the news briefs, but it even managed to distort the tiny story. After noting Arafat's statement, the Inquirer added that Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, "their peace moves at an impasse, have locked horns rhetorically." There's the classic moral equivalency for which the Inquirer --and much of the major media-- are infamous. Both Arafat and Netanyahu have undertaken "peace moves," but now both of them are at an "impasse," and both of them are equally quilty of "locking horns rhetorically."

   The truth, of course, is quite different. Israel has undertaken many "peace moves"; Arafat has undertaken none. Israel has surrendered strategically vital territory, historically sacred sites (such as Hebron), and released numerous dangerous terrorists from prison, in the hope of facilitating peace. Arafat has made no concessions whatsoever, and has not even fulfilled his minimum obligations in the Oslo accords, such as disarming and extraditing terrorists and changing the PLO Covenant. If the Oslo process is indeed at an "impasse," that is not because of Israel, but because Arafat continues to violate every provision of the accords.

   As for "locking horns rhetorically," the Inquirer editors only need to compare the rhetorical records of Arafat and Netanyahu to see whether they are comparable. Arafat regularly calls for jihad, or Islamic holy war, against Israel; Netanyahu has never called for war against the Palestinian Arabs. Arafat regularly praises the killers of Jews as "heroes" and "martyrs"; Netanyahu has never praised any killers of Arabs. Arafat has repeatedly denied the validity of Jewish holy sites--for example, he recently declared that the Western Wall in Jerusalem is actually "the Al Buraq Wall," to which the Jews have no rights. Netanyahu, by contrast, has never questioned the authenticity of any Muslim religious site. Arafat and other PLO officials have repeatedly compared Israel to the Nazis. Netanyahu has never compared the Palestinian Arabs or their leaders to Nazis, although such a comparison would necessarily be unjustified in view of the number of Jews slaughtered by the Palestinian Arabs as well as the active collaboration of Palestinian Arab leaders with the Nazis during the Holocaust.