Dear HonestReporting Member,
What do Seattle, Las Vegas, San Jose, Pittsburgh, Dallas, Houston, Fort Lauderdale, and Fargo all have in common?
Last week, newspapers in those cities carried a nasty opinion column by an anti-Israel activist, Edmund Hanauer.
The column entitled, “Mideast Policy Counterproductive,” is highly critical of the Bush Administration’s Middle East policy. (He writes: “Does Bush understand this? Does he care?”) In addition, Hanauer accuses Israel of “state terrorism” and “war crimes,” and he calls for the arrest and prosecution of Israeli soldiers.
The Boston-based propagandist claims, “All the Jewish settlements are in violation of international law” — a position at odds with official U.S. legal rulings, as repeated by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in 1997.
http://secretary.state.gov/www/statements/971001.html
In a week that Palestinian terrorists launched murderous attacks on both sides of the “Green Line” and killed six women, including an 11-year-old handicapped girl and a 79-year-old woman, Hanauer waits till the final paragraph to devote just a single sentence to Palestinian terrorism: “Washington should insist that the Palestinian Authority end violence and encourage those Palestinians who are already engaged in non-violent resistance.”
Can anyone find a non-violent Palestinian resistance today amongst the Palestinian mortars, car bombs, shootings, rockets, suicide bombs, stabbings, and sniper attacks? In fact, Arafat and his forces are encouraging terror attacks, not halting them.
Hanauer’s bias and loose facts are no surprise. On July 26, 2000 Hanauer published in “USA Today” a defense of Yasir Arafat’s rejection of the far-reaching, historic concessions offered by Israel. In that column, Hanauer called for the right of return of Palestinians to Israel and claimed that UN Resolution 242 “requires Israel to withdraw from all Arab lands occupied in 1967.” The British and American drafters of the resolution, of course, explained on numerous occasions that the resolution specifically avoided calling for Israel’s “total” withdrawal.
What is perhaps most interesting about Hanauer’s column is an e-mail appeal to friends and supporters that followed its publication: “If you live in those cities (listed above), thank the editors for the article,” Hanauer wrote. Then he continued: “As we would like to get the article in other papers, let me know ASAP whether your papers carried anti-Palestinian opinion pieces in the last 3 to 5 days by Safire, Cohen, Friedman, Krauthammer, Thomas or others. Then we can encourage editors to take my piece — or someone else’s — to give their readers a different view.”
In defense of the columnists mentioned by Hanauer (Safire et al), their columns are consistently “anti-terror,” not “anti-Palestinian.” Hanauer, on the other hand, is clearly “anti-Israel,” recommending steps, such as opening the gates to Palestinian refugees, that would destroy Israel.
HonestReporting encourages newspapers to present a full spectrum of opinion, but we question editors who publish columns that distort the truth, misrepresent facts, and defend murder.
Read the full text of the Hanauer column at any of these sites:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/57294_hanop.shtml
http://www.post-gazette.com/forum/20020206edhan06p4.asp
If you wish to respond to the Hanauer column, write to:
1. South Florida Sun-Sentinel
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/sfl-letterseditor.customform
or the Sun-Sentinel’s Editorial Page Editor Kingsley Guy –
[email protected]
2. Dallas Morning News
http://www.dallasnews.com/cgi-bin/feedback.cgi>
3. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
[email protected]
4. Pittsburgh Post Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/contact/comments_form.asp?Mtype=NEWSletters
The most effective method is to write a letter in your own words, using the points above as a basis.
Thank you for your ongoing involvement in the battle against media bias.
HonestReporting.com
======= JIHAD FOR KIDS =========
Kudos to Glenn Selig of Tampa Bay’s Fox affiliate, WTVT-13, for an investigative piece on the “Jihad for Kids”
Comments to: [email protected]
======= BBC CORRECTION =========
On January 28, a Palestinian rampaged in stolen cars for 3 hours, driving over police, soldiers and pedestrians, before finally being shot. Karl, an alert HonestReporting reader, spotted the following botched headline on BBC online:
“PALESTINIAN DRIVER SHOT”
He e-mailed a complaint to BBC, and they quickly changed the headline to:
“HIT-AND-RUN PALESTINIAN SHOT DEAD”
