Reporter-centric An anonymous person forwarded me this email exchange with Reporters Without Frontiers about their report which ranked the Palestinian Authority's respect for press freedoms higher than those of Israel.

To: Reporters Without Frontiers

Just 1 or 2 questions: is it possible that some countries are nice to journalists (and receive a high score) because they are generally getting good press?

And that these same countries would be much more repressive if they were getting bad press, or in the middle of a war?

Or that these same countries leave media intimidation to freelance groups (eg. Lebanon and Hezbollah)?


From: RSF - Afrique [mailto:afrique@rsf.org]
Sent: Wed, October 23, 2002 6:10 PM
Subject: Re: World Press Freedom Survey
Hi,

I dont think countries like Benin or Senegal (more than 1000 people recently died in a ferry accident and a war is dividing the country for more than ten years) are getting a good press. And there is a real press freedom there. They have a good rank in our index.

On the other hand, when there is a war in a country of course journalists are often victims of it.

4 more families have returned to Khirbat Yanoun (report)

Please inform me of any European media reports on Shimon Peres' European Parliament speech ....

The NYC Transit Commissioner thinks/fears that suicide bombings will eventually take place in New York (report via Alis)

I agree with Gil and Imshin, that there is now a disturbing sense of fatigue and jadedness about these terror attacks. A tabloid paper today had the headline "Fiery Deathtrap" accompanied with pictures of the bus and victims. But how upset or outraged can you be when you've seen it so many times?

Some OK analysis pieces on the attack by Ze'ev Schiff and Gerald Steinberg.

RibbityFrog informed me that he is busy now with Wisdom and Eschatology, but hopes to blog more soon.

I was in the elevator with a co-worker who lives in the settlement of Beit Horon. I asked him if any of the teenagers in his locale had been camping out in Havat Gilad. He smiled as he said dismissively "No, our settlement is close to Jerusalem".

Much of what Palestinians think about Israelis comes from imagination and rumor-mongering. Today's Yediot Ahronot included a letter to the editor by a Palestinian from the town of Dura near Hebron. He wrote that we wanted to inform Israelis of what is happening in Hebron (here I paraphrase): "Every few days Israeli soldiers gather up a group of men and take them away, supposedly to be questioned. In fact they are taken into a settlement, where the soldiers force them to work for the settlers. They ask each man how old he his and force him to do an amount of building work according to his age. Then they free them without questioning."

Israeli companies are continuing layoffs, including some companies that are doing comparatively well (report)

Palestinian Satellite TV's English broadcast just announced that the IDF has circled Jenin anew - but without any mention whatsoever of today's bus bombing at Karkur that was launched from Jenin.

They just go on and on about how oppressed they are and talk like the IDF just acts at random.

A car bomb hit a bus north - word now is at least 7 dead and 30 injured (report).

Update: Now 12 dead + the 2 bombers.

Iyad Sawalhe of the Jenin branch of Islamic Jihad is almost certainly behind the bombing (report). Israel is in a bit of a bind - responding to the attack could displease the Iraq-minded Americans; not responding sends a message.

Ehud Yaari on Channel 2 said that there were something like 45 "specific warnings" in the past 2 weeks, and also numerous arrests and several foiled attacks. He also said that there is discussion among Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and some other groups to renew the intifada in a way that is arm's length from the PA. Fatah is largely quiet for now.

Near Nablus, mosques have been fancifully broadcasting that settlers killed a Palestinian, and this set off riots. Settlers harrassed olive harvesters and some settlers were arrested. (report). Oh and there was yet another terrorist infiltration attempt besides.

Settlers write to Jpost to describe their side of the olive-harvest/warning-shot mess (here).

The IDF is exiting Hebron today. The conventional wisdom is that this and other moves are connected to the imminent US attack on Iraq. But why exactly? These measures won't make Israel or the US more beloved to the Arab or Muslim world. Are they part of some conditions being imposed by Qatar (where the US is setting up bases) or other Arab/European allies? Maybe the US is planning for something to get a lot of attention on al-Jazeera.

Here's an article from the AP on Kfar Yanoun. It's written in that antiseptic wire service tone, but the allegations are more imaginative:

Groups of masked Jewish settlers have charged into the village, coming at night with dogs and horses, stealing sheep, hurling stones through windows and beating the men with fists and rifle butts, Palestinian residents said.

The Itamar settlement has a web page.

Palestinian Satellite TV just a minute ago claimed that (approximately) "the settlers are continuing their ethnic cleansing that they have been talking about for the past 6 months and have forced the entire 160-person population of El Yanun from their homes".

Now, they just said that today Israeli forces shelled a residential neighborhood in Khan Yunis, injuring 4; and that settlers from Neve Dekalim fired artillery randomly.

All of the above is fabricated, in case you didn't know. The 10 residents of Yanun who were harassed while harvesting olives have returned to their homes. The shelling, 6 months of ethnic cleansing threats, and artillery stuff is totally made up.

They had a British woman call in and talk about how horrible the Israelis are. Then she said something about how if there's a criminal hiding somewhere they should send in troops and go house-to-house "which is what any other country would do". This left the program's hosts speechless, since they couldn't say they agreed that Israel should actually attempt to apprehend their beloved resisters.

Update: davidbak provides this NYtimes link about Yanun which restates Palestinian allegations, but with less inflammatory language and more nuance than Palestinian TV. Last night's Haaretz bulletins said that the 10 residents described had returned.

Joel Greenberg's NYTimes article claims that 140 other residents were harassed into leaving over "recent years", but I can't find any record of this. Greenberg writes:

But settlers have also made violent forays into Khirbat Yanun itself, coming with increasing frequency over the past year, especially on the Jewish sabbath and holidays, villagers said. The settlers would threaten residents at gunpoint, hurl stones from rooftops, smash windows and vandalize property, according to the villagers. They described huddling in their homes with frightened children as settlers pounded on doors.

This statement is suspect. Itamar is a religious community: while it's unfortunately conceivable that some residents could flout Jewish law's prohibition of threats, vandalism etc. it's not conceivable that they would travel 6 miles to do so on the Sabbath and holidays.

Update: An August article by Mathew Gutman in Jpost describes the Itamar/Yanoun situation and quotes an Itamar resident who seems to acknowledge the generator incident. Today's Maariv has a long article also. Again, what actually happened was obscured by Palestinian TV's brief and lurid account of "ethnic cleansing" etc.

Zeev Schiff lists the "humanitarian" issues that the US is bringing up with Sharon (here). Schiff says that there will probably soon be a change in the IDF's rules of engagement in Gaza - prohibiting firing from tanks and mandating use of small forces instead.

Friday's Yediot has a very interesting long article on how the chaos at the Havat Gilad outpost this week illustrates a generation gap in the settler movement.

This article about the Hezbollah TV station al-Manar (in Lebanon) is the usual about the exhortations towards martyrdom etc. But it mentions that the Lebanese subsidiaries of Pepsi and Proctor & Gamble advertise on it.

More on Rafiah

On Channel 2 news, the announcer asked the military analyst (Moshe Nussbaum I think) "Was this a case of light fingers on the trigger? or is it an unavoidable result [of the circumstance]?". The analyst very quickly said "a bit of both I guess" and then went on to describe the IDF's initial findings: The IDF fence/tower builders were fired upon (no mention of RPGs or anything) from an area where Palestinians try to dig tunnels for smuggling arms and people in and out of Egypt.. Shooting from this area, which is directly adjacent to private homes, is commonplace.

The IDF responded with gunfire towards the source of the shooting. Additionally, the tank fired at the area next to the source of the shooting and also fired several shells rather than one. Nussbaum said that these last 2 points (ie. about the tank's behaviour) will be investigated further by the IDF.

Channel 2 also had some Palestinian spokesman saying approximately (in English): "Everytime we try to revive the peace process, Israel strikes us again with all this firepower". Oh if only the world were a place where people would see this statement for what it really is ....

Interestingly, Haaretz said from the beginning that the IDF had encountered gunfire - unlike the other papers they said nothing about an anti-tank weapon.

Jpost reporter describes a meeting with the IDF's primary spokewoman here. He says that the "broad inoffensiveness of [the interview] dissuades me from publishing the transcript", and follows with a good description of the need for more transparency from the IDF and examples of where transparency has been employed (here). He mentions in passing that Palestinian allegations that an IDF helicopter fired into a group of people in Khan Yunis last week have been disproved.

Rafah incident:

Currently Ynet has the most details. 7 Palestinians dead from gunfire from an IDF tank. Palestinians say the tank spontaneously opened fire on houses after some rock/Molotov throwing at an under-construction lookout tower. The IDF says that they were fired on with an anti-tank missile.

Ynet quotes "sources" within the PA as saying: "this is the immediate consequence of the meeting between Ariel Sharon and Pres. Bush yesterday".

Maariv says that the tank fired 5 shells, adds that "exchanges of gunfire" are continuing.

The always maddening UN envoy Terje Roed-Larsen wrote an op-ed in Today's Haaretz. Here's a partial fisking:

To understand this better, consider two competing views found on both sides of the conflict - the constructionist and the destructionist. In simple terms, the constructionists believe in a two-state solution and the destructionists do not.

Israeli and Palestinian constructionists have similar outlooks. They say the best way to foster peace, security and prosperity for both sides is through the creation of a democratic Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This state would work for the benefit of its people, and in the process control and stop violence against Israel. In this scenario, both sides win.

Israeli and Palestinian destructionists both seek total control of the land at the expense of their adversaries, and are in a kind of unholy embrace that is fueling today's downward spiral. For them, only one state can emerge west of the Jordan River: Israel or Palestine. It is a zero-sum game.

So Larsen's sees (or claims to see) two distinct groups of people: the "constructionists" and the "destructionists". Of course he then sides with the "constructionists". This is a nice, neat, view of the situation (and the basis of his whole argument). Do Europeans really see things that way?

In reality most Israelis today are - using Larsen's terms - "constructionists who realized, post-Camp David, that there's no partner for construction on the Palestinian side".

If Larsen has the opportunity to express himself in an Israeli paper, he should at least spend a few lines to try to convince Israelis that peace along the 1967 borders is possible - after all, not even the Palestinian Authority will say so.

The fourth trend is perhaps the most significant of all: Israel's continued expansion of West Bank settlements, and the land confiscation that goes with it. Even as the world repeatedly calls for a freeze to all such activity, it continues apace. The settlements, and the highways that serve them, could soon envelop East Jerusalem, cutting it off from the rest of the West Bank, which would then also be split in half. Other settlement projects will bisect the northern West Bank and encircle Bethlehem and Hebron to the south.

Larsen's alarming description conjures images of vast gov't-sponsored building projects surrounding and isolating Palestinian enclaves and snapping up all the land. On the ground however, we have settlers stealthily setting groups of mobile homes on hilltops. Yesterday the IDF cleared one "illegal outpost" called Havat Gilad which consisted of scattered mobile homes; and another one called "Nofei Nehemia" which consisted of 6 families.

Netanyahu started building Har Homa (which Israelis regard as part of Jerusalem) because Bethlehem and Arab neighbourhoods in Jerusalem are growing towards each other. When they meet it will be impossible to draw a border between them.

Why does Larsen think the settlements are "most significant of all" as a cause of the unresolvability of the situation? More significant than the PA's insistence that millions of Palestinians be permitted to move into pre-1967 Israel? More significant than the PA's acceptance of murdering Israelis as an acceptable pressure tactic? More significant than the IDF's return to the Palestinian cities?

A good question is: does the Palestinian media mostly castigate Israel for building Har Homa and permitting 6 caravan hilltop outposts? Or do they instead focus on their casualties, imagined offenses against Islam, and real and imagined humiliation?

Focusing attention on the settlements is done primarily because it facilitates blaming Israel for absolutely everything...

Why is Lebanon is drawing 10 million cubic meters/year from the little Wazzani rather than the mighty Litani? Or rather ... what's the reason given by the Lebanese? According to PM Rafic Hariri's official website, the UN and US suggested using the Litani ....:

But the Prime Minister added, from "day one," he made it clear that the Litani River hardly satisfies the demands of the region and the Wazzani waters are needed for vital projects. Mr. Hariri said while Lebanon entrusted the United Nations with the issue, the country has also been in contact with the United States, the European Union, and the international community, to counter Israeli claims.

Haririi says the Litani "hardly satisfies the demands of the region", but the Litani discharges about 700-900 million cubic meters per year into the Mediterranean Sea (source).

Palestinians often seem to convince themselves that Israeli defensive (or retaliatory) actions are actually acts of unilateral aggression .... but they can't beat this statement from an Iranian newspaper:

"It's worth pointing out that, contrary to what the Nobel Peace Committee announced about Carter's pacifism, he launched a military attack against Iran on the pretext of liberating the U.S. hostages," the paper said.

(via Moira Breen)

The Arrow is the Israeli successor to the Patriot missile. It has been deployed in 2 secret locations in Israel and is said to work, but less than perfectly (report).

More on the Wazzani River Dispute

This AM on the radio, Prof. Dan Zaslavsky described the impact of the Lebanese diversion of the Wazzani River. The Wazzani provides about 10% of the inflow to Lake Kinneret, and that amount is endangered as Lebanon drains progressively more water.

Zaslavsky says: Reducing the flow of the Wazzani will increase the already-high salinity of the Kinneret by a third. The Lebanese can easily use the Litani River for their domestic needs, but they are testing us and our response. Egypt is hypothetically vulnerable to a similar move by Sudan on the Nile, and much of Syria's water comes from Turkey - so other Arab countries are largely staying quiet on this.

Here's a 1996 article from a legal journal on water disputes in the Middle East. According to it, the 1994 Draft Articles of the International Law Commission "have a significant de facto impact" on water disputes.

According to Article 7, a state must "exercise due diligence to prevent causing significant harm" to a downstream state, where "significant harm" is defined as "“real impairment of use”. I am not a lawyer, but "due diligence" in this context apparently means that the issue must be resolved through negotiations.

As an aside, it's interesting that lawyers speak of "theories" for these things rather than "proposals".

Note the way this AP article takes a few words from Zaslavsky to make him sound like a warmonger while this pious 1997 NPR report portrays him as an environmentalist.

Update: Report on the official opening of the pumping station.

People are talking about: Iraq, the civil servant strike, the Labor/Likud committee elections, and Bali.

This Hebrew article says that an Israeli woman was visiting Bali 2 months ago and alerted authorities because she was certain that she saw Osama Bin L... Right...

The IDF is planning to withdraw from Hebron by the end of the week. Due to intense American pressure?