When will Israel learn?

Editorial

What will it take for Israel to learn? What will it take to see a rational, calm reaction from the Israeli side of a debate about the Middle East conflict? How many "trained" spokespeople have to come across as over-emotional or even maniacal before some serious media training is warranted. Is it no wonder that Israel is losing a media war?

Once again this past weekend, thousands of TV viewers tuned in to CBC's current affairs show CBC News: Sunday to hear a discussion about the Middle East and were given a debate between the ubiquitous Hannan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Counsel and a well-known spokesperson for Palestinian causes, and Raanan Gissin, a senior official in the Israeli Foreign Ministry. The topic was the use, or lack there of, of the word "terrorism" by the news media.

As many people know, a debate on the use of that word has been raging in Canadian newspapers between Norman Spector, a newspaper columnist and former ambassador to Israel, and Tony Berman, CBC's editor in chief of news and current affairs. The two were supposed to meet last Sunday on the morning current affairs show. However, because of a disagreement on format, that discussion was temporarily shelved and, instead, viewers were offered the standard fare of Ashrawi making minced meat out of yet another Israeli pundit.
The two spokespeople were each offered a chance to explain when they thought the word "terrorism" should be used by the media.

Ashrawi came across as calm, thoughtful about her remarks and even sensitive about the notion of labelling people, calling the term terrorist "loaded." She added that it would be all right for the media to use the word terrorism for a suicide bombing if they also used it to describe Israeli activities, such as bulldozing houses or moving tanks into the West Bank. Well-spoken, well-prepared, Ashrawi was a perfect blend of sagacity and sympathy.

Gissin, on the other hand, completely ignored the question and got suckered in to Ashrawi's sly manoeuvre. He maintained a neutral voice for about five seconds before he started raising the level of his speech and waving his hand.

"The word terrorism is loaded but it's loaded with bullets and with explosive belts strung around young people's bodies," Gissen clamored. "Terrorism is terrorism. There's no good or bad terrorism. We did not invent it." What that had to do with the question, who knows?

When Gissen started pulling history out of his hat with "When my great grandfather came to settle here...." Ashrawi started smiling, knowing Gissin was losing his audience and she had bested yet another opponent.

Gissin had an opportunity handed to him on a silver platter but, unfathomably, opted to disregard it. He should have offered up to the CBC and its viewers a definition of terrorism that could have been accepted as an objective term and, perhaps, might have started to make its way into the lexicon of reporters and broadcasters.

For example, he could have said that, when a violent act occurs, without any advance warning, that targets civilians and that is perpetrated with the intent of killing or injuring as many innocent people as possible, that's a terrorist act and that's when a media outlet should use the word "terrorist." That, in objective terms, would include all the suicide and sniper attacks committed by Palestinians on Israeli soil, as well as the al-Qaida attack on the World Trade Centre. But it would exclude Israel's assassination of senior terrorists (where the aim is to target just one individual), it would exclude Israel's demolitions of homes (where advance warning is given) and it would pretty well exclude anything Israel does in the West Bank or Gaza, since the aim of those activities is not to cause harm to the most people possible.

Thus, in one swoop, Gissin could have given a fair definition for the media to grasp, while drawing similarities between Palestinian and other world terrorism and taking away the possibility of applying moral equivalency between Palestinian acts of terrorism and Israeli acts of self defence.

Yet, in 45 seconds of uninterrupted speech (a rather long time in TV debates), not a single word of definition was offered by Gissin.

For the remainder of the debate, Gissin continued his invectives, often outshouting the host. At times he smiled or laughed out loud at some of Ashrawi's comments and he ended up coming across as somewhat maniacal. Eventually he calmed down, but the damage was done.

Israel must stop supplying media outlets, and especially national ones, with spokespeople who cannot maintain a level of calmness and rationality in all circumstances, no matter how angry they might be. They are losing debates, they are losing chances to dispel ignorance and, most importantly, they are losing support for Israel.

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