Posted on 06/28/2002 1:44:31 AM PDT by Stultis
While successful television and radio shows succeed even more when they go into re-runs, Yasser Arafat has now demonstrated again that he can succeed by re-running his cancellations.
After a big build-up in the Israeli media that Arafat would issue a clear and televised condemnation of suicide bombers on Thursday (June 20), Arafat did what he has done several times before: he got the high ratings and then cancelled the show: March 1996 at Sharm al-Sheikh, Taba and Sharm al-Sheikh July and October 2001, and many, many more.
It was a show that had been performed for Bill Clinton, Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Ehud Barak, but now the re-run of the cancelled tv appearance was playing for George Bush and Ariel Sharon.
Once again the Israeli media—particularly the publicly-financed Israeli radio and television—fell for Arafat’s media blitz, also reporting throughout Wednesday evening that Arafat’s Palestinian Authority had already condemned the two human bomb attacks in Jerusalem that murdered 26 people.
In fact, Arafat did exactly the opposite: his news service, WAFA, published a headline that spoke of condemning attacks against civilians of “both sides,” but Arafat’s personal statement was really a virtuoso example of what Arafat does better than anyone else: talking out of both sides of his mouth at the same time.
The tortuously ungrammatical sentence that follows is an exact translation into English of the Arabic text as published (see: http://www.wafa.pna.net/AraText/19-06-2002/page038.htm.):
“In keeping with my position and my national and Pan-Arab responsibility and in cognizance of the dangerous circumstances locally, regionally and internationally that expose our people and our cities and our land and our being and our national future to Israeli aggression and military escalation,” said the statement, “I announce, out of concern for our people for our land and for our future, my complete condemnation for all operations that target Israeli civilians, but notwithstanding this, there can be no infringement of our legitimate right in our legitimate resistance to the Israeli occupation and to our right to defend our existence and our holy places and our land in the face of the (Israeli) settlement danger.”
Arafat’s statement was merely a re-issuing of official Palestinian policy for several weeks: attacking Israelis is kosher when any of the following conditions apply:
*--Soldiers are involved;
*--“settlers” are involved;
*--the attacks occur in Gaza, the West Bank or Jerusalem.
This is why the Voice of Palestine’s number one anchorman, Nizar Al-Ghul stressed on Tuesday that bus bomb that killed 19 in southern Jerusalem was aimed at “colonists” from the “settlement” of Gilo.
That is also why all major Palestinian daily newspapers that are strongly influenced or controlled by Arafat (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Al-Ayyam and Al-Quds) described the Gilo attack and the attack on French Hill in northern Jerusalem, where seven were murdered, as “an explosive operation” (amaliyya tafjiriyya) or “Jerusalem operation” (amaliyyat al-Quds) or even “heroic martyrdom operation” (amaliyyat istish-haad).
That is why the 55 so-called Palestinian “moderates”—including Hanan Ashrawi and Sari Nusseibeh—made it clear in their much-ballyhooed “call” (Arabic: nidaa) against certain attacks that they did not include “legitimate resistance”—meaning attacks on any Jew in the West Bank, Gaza or parts of Jerusalem once ruled by Jordan.
None of the Palestinian media used the term terror (Arabic: irhaab) to describe either one of the human bomb attacks in Jerusalem that killed 26 and wounded about 100, many of them children and the elderly.
Similarly, the terms “cold-blooded murder” (maktal fi-dam baarid) or “war crimes” (ijramat harbiyya) or “massacre” (majzara) have indeed appeared regularly in the Palestinian broadcast media and the printed press within the last five days—to describe Israeli actions, including the destruction of several Palestinian bomb factories and the killing of the commander of the Arab suicide bombers in the West Bank town of Qaqlqilya.
© 2002 Michael Widlanski
Michael Widlanski is senior analyst at The Media Line and lecturer at The Rothberg School of the Hebrew University.
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By The Media Line Staff on Tuesday, June 25, 2002 |
Bush chooses none of these. He backs the creation of a PA state, but only one not tainted by terrorism. He makes Arafat a non-entity and in the process cuts off Hamas from its role as lady in waiting. Who devised this plan? Condi? Rummy?
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