Coverage of the PLO Police Involvement in the Riots

 
 
	Sipress consistently failed to make it clear that the PLO 
police who turned their guns on the Israelis were the aggressors.  
There were "firefights between Palestian police and Israeli soldiers" 
(9/30) or "Palestinian police exchanged fired with Israeli troops" 
(10/1), Sipress reported, as if both sides were equally culpable.  
Even when noting that Israel urged the PLO to punish the 
offending policemen, Sipress put it this way: "Israeli officials are 
demanding punishment for Palestinian police who exchanged 
gunfire with Israeli soldiers in the recent flareup" (10/7) --as if Israel 
was irrationally demanding punishment for policemen whose actions 
were no more criminal than those of the Israeli soldiers who took 
part in the "exchanges." 
 
	Sipress repeatedly offered "reasons" that seemed to justify 
the PLO police shootings.  The policemen were acting in self-
defense, he suggested: "They responded to the Israelis with 
automatic weapons fire of their own" 
(9/27).  More:  "Enraged by the sight of fellow Arabs under fire, 
taunted and egged on by the crowd, Palestinian police opened fire" 
(10/3).  They were simply defending civilians under Israeli attack: 
"Palestinian officers opened fire after they saw Israeli troops shoot 
at civilian protesters" (9/28).  "As wounded civilian protesters fell, 
Palestinian police abandoned any effort to control the 
crowd and returned fire," Sipress reiterated on October 4.   
 
	Significant information about the actions of the PLO police 
never made it into Sipress's reports:  On September 27, Israel Radio 
revealed that Arafat himself personally ordered PLO policemen at 
the Erez junction to shoot at an Israeli television crew to prevent 
them from filming the PLO's actions.  On October 2, the Israeli 
daily Yediot Ahronot reported that an Israeli Army investigation 
found the PLO made advance preparations to have police officers 
shoot at the Israelis, including the stationing of PLO sharpshooters, 
with telescopic sights on their rifles, on key rooftops in areas where 
violence was planned.  And on October 4, the Israeli daily Ha'aretz 
reported that General Oren Shahor, the chief Army officer for the 
territories, said that "not only Palestinian police participated in 
shooting Israeli soldiers, but also members of the Palestinian 
Intelligence services."   
 

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