Norman Solomon
One
phrase — "security zone" — sums up an entire era of media spin about
Israel’s 22-year occupation of southern Lebanon.
When
Israel completed its pullout in late May, most U.S. news outlets remained in
sync with the kind of coverage that they’ve provided for more than two decades.
In March 1978, the U.N. Security Council demanded unconditional Israeli
withdrawal from Lebanon. Ever since, the flagrantly illegal — and brutal —
military occupation has been shrouded by a thick media haze in the United
States.
All
through history, of course, occupiers have come up with benign-sounding
buzzwords to put a lofty gloss on their iron boots. But journalists aren’t
supposed to adopt the lexicon of propaganda as their own.
Unfortunately,
dozens of major American newspapers and networks have continued to
matter-of-factly use the preferred Israeli fog words — "security
zone," "buffer zone" and "buffer strip" — to identify
the area in Lebanon long occupied by Israel.
"The
center of Israel’s buffer zone in southern Lebanon has abruptly collapsed,"
a front-page story in The New York Times began on May 23. Meanwhile, USA Today
utilized a murky passive voice while referring to Israel’s imminent
"pullout from its 10-mile wide ‘security zone’ that had been set up as a
buffer between Lebanon and northern Israeli towns."
The
next day, The Chicago Tribune was reporting on events in "Israel’s former
Lebanon ‘security zone.’" The first sentence of The Boston Globe’s page-one
article put it this way: "Blowing up five military outposts before dawn
today, including a Crusades-era castle that served as a command center, Israeli
troops completed their pullout from Israel’s crumbling southern Lebanon
‘security zone,’ leaving the land to their Shiite Muslim guerrilla
enemies."
And
so it went — as it has gone for decades — with journalistic language routinely
draped over the Israeli line. Consider these front-page headlines. The San
Francisco Chronicle: "Israel Losing Control Over South Lebanon Security
Zone." The Chicago Tribune: "Israel Reels As Buffer Collapses."
The New York Times: "Israel’s Buffer Strip in South Lebanon
Collapsing."
Major
TV networks were in step. On "NBC Nightly News," Tom Brokaw started
his report this way: "The Middle East peace process is in chaos again
tonight as Israel withdraws from the security zones it’s occupied in southern
Lebanon for 22 years." On ABC’s "World News This Morning," the
anchor explained that Israel "hopes to end two decades of bloody
confrontations over territory it has occupied as a security zone."
CBS
reported: "Troops are headed back to their homeland, leaving what was
Israel’s security zone to Lebanese guerrillas. The zone was established in
1985." There’s that handy passive voice again, dodging the matter of who
"established" the zone on Lebanese territory.
You
might expect something better from National Public Radio. If so, you’re sadly
mistaken.
NPR’s
newscasts repeatedly used the "security zone" mantra as though it were
a journalistic term. On the night of May 23, for instance, the top-of-the-hour
news announcer referred to the area "that Israel has occupied as a security
zone." The next morning, the NPR News verbiage was in the same groove,
again flatly reporting on Israel’s "security zone."
I
asked NPR officials for an explanation.
The
network’s ombudsman, Jeffrey Dvorkin, responded promptly. And defensively.
"The aim of NPR’s reporting is clarity, and the use of the term ‘security
zone’ is understood broadly," he replied.
In
contrast, NPR foreign news editor Loren Jenkins said: "I basically don’t
think that we should be talking about a ‘security zone.’" But he added that
his foreign-desk post does not have oversight of newscasts.
Perhaps
the most light on the "security zone" tic came from Greg Peppers, the
supervising senior producer of NPR’s newscast unit. "We were rewriting the
wire copy from Associated Press and Reuters," he told me. "That’s
probably where it came from." In other words: Other news outlets do it. So,
we do it, too.
The
dismal American news coverage of the Israeli occupation of Lebanon is an apt
metaphor for the overall reporting on conflicts that involve Israel. Harmonizing
with the tenor of Washington’s official policies toward the Middle East, the
U.S. press corps winks and nods as Israel — annually receiving a few billion
dollars in aid from Uncle Sam — continues to suppress the human rights of
Palestinians.
On
some issues, it is possible to argue for wider debate in America’s mainstream
news media. But on the subject of Israel, how does one widen a debate that
doesn’t really even exist?
Norman
Solomon is a syndicated columnist. His latest book is "The Habits of
Highly Deceptive Media."