http://www.adc.org/action/2000/28march2000.htm
CBS's Coverage of Israel's Occupation of Southern Lebanon
Letter from ADC Communications
Director Hussein Ibish to CBS News:
3/28/00 Mr. Andrew Heyward President, CBS News 524 West
57th Street New York, NY 10019
Dear Mr. Heyward:
Bob Simon's report on 60 Minutes II (March 27, 2000), "The
Killing Zone" about the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon
constitutes one of the most shameless pieces of propaganda
broadcast on American network television in recent years. The
story is an astonishing catalogue of misrepresentations, Israeli
official rhetoric and omissions so glaring as to constitute outright
falsehoods. This is journalism at its very sloppiest and shoddiest,
and there can truly be no excuse for it.
The focus of the piece is to emphasize the pain and suffering of
occupying Israeli army and its mercenary militia, the so-called
South Lebanon Army (SLA). As a result, the story paints the
most misleading possible picture of the human costs, consequences
and moral issues involved in the Israeli occupation of Lebanon.
The perspective of the real victims of the 22 year ordeal of
occupation - the people of Lebanon, especially in the south, is
almost completely excluded. Indeed, there is no mention of the
tens of thousands of Lebanese civilians killed by Israel during the
occupation, no mention of the hundreds of thousands made
homeless, no mention of the destroyed villages and cities, and no
mention of the numerous ghastly massacres for which the Israelis
have been responsible in Lebanon, including the massacres at
Sabra and Shatila and at Qana. Nor is there any mention of
Lebanese kidnaped and held hostage to this day in Israeli prisons,
nor of the hundreds of Lebanese men, women and children held
prisoner and tortured at the notorious El-Khiam detention and
torture center run by the Israelis and their SLA employees.
(Instead it is the Israeli occupation troops which are portrayed as
"hunkered down in Lebanon, prisoners in their own bases.")
Incredibly, only mention of the effect of the occupation on the
people of south Lebanon is to the supposedly "90,000
[SLA-connected] people in the zone [who] have remained loyal
to Israel, and have benefitted from its occupation."
The Israeli occupation is reduced in Bob Simon's report from the
naked aggression it has clearly been to a futile quest for security in
a hostile region. Naturally, 60 Minutes II fails to mention UN
Security Council Resolution 425 which in 1978 ordered Israel to
withdraw from Lebanon "forthwith," or any of the other
countless UN Security Council resolutions which condemned the
Israeli occupation as an illegal aggression and ordered Israel to
withdraw. Presumably, they were not mentioned because they do
not fit with the mantra which runs throughout the piece that
Israel is merely seeking to protect its northern borders.
Moreover, a constant double-standard applies in the piece:
Lebanese who film the military activities of the resistance are
ominously referred to as "[Hezbollah] propaganda teams," while
an Israeli filming the military activities of the Israeli occupation
troops inside Lebanon is innocently just "an Israeli cameraman."
The SLA is absurdly referred to as "Israel's loyal allies in the
zone," when in fact the SLA is nothing more than a creation and
creature of Israel. The SLA is to all intents and purposes a part of
the Israeli army, paid, provisioned and armed by Israel,
commanded by Israeli officers, and with leaders who in many
cases have been made citizens of Israel. And while the SLA are
"Israel's loyal allies in the zone," the Lebanese resistance, a hugely
popular movement arising from the virtually unanimous
opposition to Israel's occupation, are called "Hezbollah, the
Islamic guerillas largely controlled by Syria." This is not only a
ridiculous double-standard, it is getting things exactly the wrong
way around.
Bob Simon's report is driven by an extended analogy comparing
Israel's occupation of south Lebanon with the United States'
experience in Vietnam. The effect, of course, is to promote
identification of American viewers with the Israelis and their
"own boys in the line of fire," to subjectify and humanize the
army which has conducted this extended outrage in defiance of
countless orders from the UN to withdraw and committed
countless unspeakable atrocities, none of which merit mention, of
course. These "boys" are identified, humanized and lauded by Bob
Simon, like "Aaron Barnea's son Noam [who] was one of Israel's
best and brightest." These Israeli "best and brightest" "boys,"
according to 60 Minutes II, face "Hezbollah fighters," nameless,
faceless "men" who "are not thought of as casualties," by their
grieving relatives since " they are martyrs." The clear implication
is that Lebanese families whose members sacrifice themselves to
resist foreign occupation have less feelings than Israeli families
whose sons charge off to occupy neighboring countries. Israelis, we
are told for good measure, are "becoming more and more like
Americans," and implicitly unlike the Lebanese who are
unmoved by the loss of their children in war. These implications
are absurd, insulting and degrading. They are, in fact, racist.
Bob Simon has a golden opportunity to speak to the relative of a
fallen Lebanese resistance fighter when he interviewed Sheikh
Hassan Nassrallah, whose son Hady was killed by Israeli soldiers.
His body was included in a prisoner exchange and the scene of
Nassrallah receiving the body of his slain son with grief but
enormous dignity moved the entire Lebanese nation. But, of
course, there was no space for this reality on 60 Minutes II, where
only Israeli parents grieve, Israeli occupation soldiers are the
principal victims of their own brutal occupation of another
country and Israeli aggression is merely a quest for peace in a
hostile region.
The omissions and distortions in this report, coupled with its
exhaustive emphasis on the suffering of the poor Israeli soldiers
who conduct this vicious occupation and their families, make it an
exercise in the most misleading propaganda. It bears no relation
whatever to ethical, responsible or even minimally professional
journalism. It is a disgrace and an outrage. No apology can undo
the damage done, but a retraction and correction is clearly in
order. Moreover, whatever quality control standards exist at CBS
News have clearly failed in the extreme in this instance. Given
that a story this badly flawed, this ludicrous and unfair, made it
onto 60 Minutes II, a thorough review and new procedures are
probably needed.
We look forward to hearing from you soon on this urgent matter.
Yours, Hussein Ibish Communications Director, ADC
cc: Phillip Scheffler, Executive Editor, 60 Minutes
