A False Sense of Balance

When addressing contentious issues, it seems common for the press and for laypersons to attempt to achieve "balance" by criticizing both sides. The worst examples of this seem to be in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, where (outside of the Israei press) it is difficult to find an article that simply hones in on a troublesome issue without providng some sort of allusion to dubious conduct by the "other side". This perhaps is understandable, in the sense that the western media is accused of bias pretty much any time it touches that particular conflict (whatever the merit of the charge), but it's ultimately a cop-out.

Given the superficial understanding of the conflict possessed by most Americans, and presumably by most of the reporters who author the news coverage, perhaps it shouldn't be surprising that we get facile, superficial analysis of the so-called "cycle of violence", without any hard look at whether either side (or both sides) is acting unwisely. "The Palestinians" are treated as a monolithic whole, such that the individual act of the most extremist nutjob is attributed to "The Palestinians" without thought or explanation. The Israelis don't fare much better, being associated with the often dubious judgment of the Sharon Administration - an elected administration, but under a system of government which results in often fragile coalition governments with government decision-making sometimes more influenced by the need to appease a tiny extremist political party (with just enough MK's to make or break a coalition majority) as opposed to the will of the people. We rarely hear that the majority of Isralies have long been willing to abandon most of the settlements in the occupied territories as part of the peace process, nor how that contrasts and conflicts with Sharon's long-standing plan to annex huge portions of the occupied West Bank.

The ignorance of the western media is frequently exploited in the conflict, as was the case with propaganda about Palestinians using children as "human shields" early in the Intifada. An investigation by the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem established this claim as anti-Palestinian propaganda:

In response to Israeli "misrepresentation," leading Israeli publicist Dan Margalit advocates a strategy "to reduce the gap between the cold logic on Israel's side and the bloody photograph giving Palestinians the edge.… A planned and creative PR campaign would attack Arafat from an unexpected direction—that he sacrifices children.… If all officials repeated this contention, some of those graphic photos would work against Arafat."

Over the past few weeks, the Israeli media—and Israel's supporters worldwide—have adopted this strategy. Newspapers tell of mothers who raise their children to be martyrs. Mass emails assert that Palestinian gunmen are using children as human shields. So, precisely as Margalit intended, the discourse has shifted from the soldiers who kill children to a critique of Palestinian society, a pagan society (according to one controversial article) that practices child sacrifice.

Hanan Ashrawi rightly has labeled these accusations a classic case of racist demonization, achieved by blaming the victim and dehumanizing Palestinians and their culture. Seventy-four percent of Palestinians in a recent Birzeit University survey opposed the participation of children under age eighteen in the confrontations. The Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem has found no evidence of organized exploitation of children.

That's certainly not to say that more could not be done on the Palestinian side to keep young kids out of harm's way, and to discourage them from participating in demonstrations or stone-throwing which might culminate in Israel's use of deadly force, but that's a much lesser charge. Early in the Intifada the Israeli military issued cameras to its troops hoping to catch some footage of gunmen hiding behind children. Not one frame of footage has been released to support the anti-Palestinian propaganda, and ultimately the cameras were recalled.

The sort of faux "balance" I describe is also not alien to the blogging world. In this example, a dogmatically pro-Israeli blogger is actually criticizing Israel, but you can only learn that if you follow the link:

Inexcusable

Palestinian fighters routinely use children as human shields, but that doesn't excuse this. Those responsible deserve to be punished.

Posted by Gene at April 24, 2004 03:31 AM

The linked Ha'aretz article is a pretty good overview of allegations and actual use of "human shields" during the conflict, and it does present a similar claim to Gene's - but with two important differences: "Security forces insist they do their utmost to avoid civilian casualties and accuse Palestinian militants of routinely using non-combatants for cover." - first, the accusation of "routine use" is properly depicted as an undocumented allegation. While there are likely isolated incidents which could be documented, there does not seem to be any evidence of anything approaching the security forces' claim. Second, the claim is general, not about children. Arguably, even this line was included to minimize accusations of imbalance, which are frequently directed at Ha'aretz, but apparently Ha'aretz has a thick enough skin that it is willing to adhere to the known facts. Given the pressures they face, that's pretty commendable.

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