From: leahgreen@aol.com
Sent: Wednesday, December 13, 2000 12:40 AM
Subject: CAMERA Column: "Excessive force and hypocrisy"
Shalom CAMERA E-Mail Team:
During Pope's visit, CNN and NY Times report as Fact Syria's Quneitra Hoax
Please immediately call CNN and NY Times about their reporting as fact Syria's bogus claim that Israel destroyed Quneitra shortly before handing it over to Syria in 1974.
CNN: 404-827-1500 Ask for the News Desk. Urge CNN to revise and correct their website references to the church in Quneitra being "sacked" by the Israelis and to issue an on-air correction for their earlier inaccurate stories reported on CNN Headline News.
If you can't call, write an e-mail to: community@cnn.com or eason.jordan@turner.com
NY Times: Ask for a correction. 888-698-6397 nytnews@nytimes.com
Quneitra is a town in the Golan Heights which was captured by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War, suffering heavy damage in the process. Between the 1967 war and the Yom Kippur War in 1973, Syria did not hesitate to shell Israeli forces stationed in Quneitra, further contributing to the destruction of the town. And during the 1973 war, Quneitra was repeatedly attacked by Arab forces. As part of the disengagement agreement that followed the 1973 war, control of Quneitra was on June 7, 1974 handed over to Syria, which has ever since wrongly charged that Israel maliciously destroyed the town with bulldozers and dynamite just before the hand over.
Rather than repairing the damage (caused from both sides firing at each other during the wars, as well as damage caused by Syrian shelling alone between the wars) and allowing Quneitra's residents to return as called for in the disengagement agreement, Syria has instead left the town in ruins and put up billboards and a museum to expose what it charges are "Zionist crimes."
Many media outlets have gullibly repeated the Syrian charges at face value. This has been especially true during the Pope's visit to Syria, which the Syrian regime has cynically used to garner the maximum audience for its anti-Israel and anti-Semitic rantings. On May 6 for instance, CNN broadcast a report from Quneitra by Brent Sadler, who repeated to the network's worldwide audience every fabricated element of Syria's Quneitra fable. Another CNN Headline News TV report on Monday, May 7, repeated Syria's false claim that Israel had maliciously damaged a church in Quneitra just before handing the area back over to Syria. Additionally, on their website (www.cnn.com), in an article entitled "Highlights of Pope's Visit to Syria," CNN writes, "The pope will make the 65-kilometer (40.6-mile) journey by road from Damascus to the town of Quneitra on the Golan Heights to say a prayer for peace in the church. The Syrians say the church was sacked by Israeli troops before they returned the town to them in 1974. The Greek Orthodox church is essentially a concrete shell with nothing inside."
CNN did not ask for any rebuttal at all from Israel on these shocking accusations, nor obviously did they do any fact checking before reporting the bogus tales.
In Monday's May 7th New York Times article, "Pope, in Damascus, Goes to a Mosque In Move for Unity," journalist Alessandra Stanley also reported as true Syria's bogus charges: "On Monday the pope plans to deliver a prayer for peace at Quneitra, a city on the Golan Heights that was captured by Israel during the June 1967 Arab-Israeli war and destroyed just before the area was returned under a 1974 agreement. Syria has left it ruined as a museum of Israeli aggression." While the reporter did include a one sentence response from Israeli President Moshe Katsav about other, unrelated hateful comments from Syrian President Bashar Assad, no response or explanation was provided for the above paragraph. Also, it was not presented as a Syrian allegation, but as undisputed fact. Basic fact checking at the Times should have prevented this serious error.
Merely by checking old news clippings it's easy to disprove the Syrian claims, and Sadler's report. For instance, a Los Angeles Times article of June 12, 1967, had a sub-head which referred to Al Koneytra (ie Quneitra) as the "ruins of [a] captured town." The article went on to report that "Al Koneytra was a town of smoldering ruins. Heavily armed convoys patrolled the debris-covered streets," and that "Life was at a virtual standstill, with all shops closed or wrecked." All this was just days after the Six Day War and years before the Israelis supposedly destroyed the town out of spite just before turning it over to Syria.
The damage described in this article occurred even before Syria had much of a chance to shell Quneitra, a task they soon took up with regularity. For instance, a New York Times dispatch of June 25, 1970 headlined "Fighting Flares in Golan Heights as Syrian Tanks Attack Israelis," reported that Syria had shelled Israeli positions in the Golan for three hours, hitting "El Quneitra, Nahal Gesher and Ein Zivan."
And a Times story on September 2, 1972 referred to one inhabited street in the town and Israeli soldiers training "a block or two of ruins away." Yet another Times story, this one on November 26, 1972 was headlined "Syria Shells Israeli Bases in Occupied Golan Heights," and reported Damascus radio's announcement that Syrian artillery had shelled "Kafr Naffakh and El Quneitra."
On October 11, 1973, during the Yom Kippur War, another Times' report told of a Moroccan brigade that had been sent to Syria "taking part in an attack on El Quneitra."
And in a report on October 21, 1973, the Times referred to Quneitra as "a bombed-out military town the Syrians lost to the Israelis ..."
These reports prove beyond any doubt that the damage to Quneitra happened as a consequence of warfare (in attacks started by Syria, not Israel), as well as from Syrian shelling between the wars --- and not from an alleged spiteful act of Israel just before the 1974 withdrawal.
Please contact CNN and the New York Times. And if you notice similar false allegations against Israel being reported by others, please contact them as well.
With thanks,
Lee Green
Director, National Letter-Writing Group
CAMERA