In our era of globalization and mass media communication, wars are not only waged on the physical battlefield but are increasingly fought out in the arena of public opinion and "international law." Victory and defeat are no longer cut-and-dried matters. Current events in the Middle East and the Gulf region have made it overwhelmingly clear that a nation's military triumph no longer guarantees a victory of lasting duration.

The ultimate victory may go to whichever side is better skilled in the art of propaganda warfare, and can more effectively manipulate world opinion in its favor.

Consider this: Ten years ago, Saddam Hussein looked every inch a finished man. After a 43-day air and land war in the Gulf region, the Iraqi ruler's occupation forces were in headlong retreat, 50,000 of his troops dead, his military and intelligence infrastructure reduced to rubble, his leadership utterly discredited.

Then-President Bush could have ordered American forces to press on to Baghdad to finish off the Iraqi ruler but he chose not to. Instead, the plan was to allow Hussein's regime to fall of its own dead weight, its power eroded by U.N. sanctions, and Hussein, himself, rejected by the army and the population.

Squeezing Victory From Defeat

What actually happened was a far different scenario. Despite his crushing defeat, Hussein managed to hold onto the reins of power. In the decade since the war, he has proved that military triumph for one side does not necessarily spell defeat for the other.

In fact, by defying the sanctions, by refusing to bow to the United States, by remaining in power long after his Gulf War adversaries have retired, or died, Saddam Hussein has wrung a victory of his own from the very defeat that was intended to permanently topple him.

One aspect of his victory lies in his having brazenly violated the terms of his country's surrender with impunity, successfully resisting any United Nations inspection of his suspected effort to develop chemical, biological and nuclear weapons since December 1998.

Most cleverly, he and his supporters have launched an effective propaganda war against the U.N. sanctions, calling for their repeal for having caused widespread death in Iraq through disease and malnutrition. Children go begging in the streets, hospitals are without medicines or life-support facilities, infant mortality is skyrocketing. Yet, all the while, lavish government spending continues on a massive military buildup, on the regimes' magnificent palaces and state guesthouses and giant statues of Saddam Hussein.

Iraqi propaganda artists have succeeded in deflecting international attention away from government corruption and egregious misallocation of funds. They have done this by persistently focusing world attention on the wretched situation of the Iraqi masses, blaming their impoverishment and destitution on the U.N. sanctions. Thus, a backlash of sympathy and breast-beating has been stirred up among U.N member-states, for the cruel consequences of the sanctions thrust on an innocent civilian population.

Humanitarianism can be a tricky affair. Harnessed a certain way, it can be used to release corrupt leaders from responsibility for gross injustice to their own people. Let us not forget the aim of the sanctions: they were meant to prevent, or at least inhibit, Iraq-a militant state run by a dangerous, ruthless despot-from developing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Iraq's military resurgence could spell disaster not only for Israel and neighboring Gulf states, but for the entire world.

Due to a groundswell of opposition toward continuing the sanctions-for humanitarian reasons, of course-led by countries that see lucrative business opportunities in Iraq, the United States has been reduced to pleading for support in the U.N. for a weakened version of the sanctions that most of the world body wants to dump.

Putting aside Iraq's propaganda war, for the moment, let us turn to the Palestinian version of the same game.

Sanitizing And Distorting Techniques

Supporters of the Palestinian cause-among them a good percentage of the world media-have become highly skilled at promoting a cause that requires a steady process of sanitizing, whitewashing and distorting of the true facts. The result is that the Palestinian cause has gained, not only broad grassroots support in this country, but considerable legitimacy in government circles as well.

A few examples:

Today, months after the violence started, media outlets still consistently refer to the intifada as being "sparked by Ariel Sharon's provocative visit to the Temple Mount." However, Palestinian Minister of Communications Imad el-Falouji has testified on numerous occasions to the contrary-admitting that the Palestinian Authority initiated the violence that began in September 2000.

A report from Al-Ayyam, the Palestinian Authority daily newspaper (December 6, 2000) could not have been more blunt:

"Speaking at a symposium in Gaza, Palestinian Minister of Communications Imad el-Falouji confirmed that the Palestinian Authority had began preparations for the outbreak of the current intifada from the moment the Camp David talks concluded, in accordance with instructions given by Chairman Arafat himself.

Mr. Falouji went on to state that Arafat launched this intifada as a follow-up to the Palestinian stance in the negotiations, and not merely as a protest to Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount.

The Palestinian Minister reiterated his remarks in Newsday (March 4, 2001):

"In remarks reported by the Associated Press, Falouji said it was a mistake to think that [Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount] was the cause for the uprising. Instead, he said, it was planned after the failure of last summer's d peace summit at Camp David, MDÉHe said the uprising 'had been planned since Chairmen Arafat's return from Camp David, when heÉrejected' American pressure for Palestinian concessions as part of a peace deal."

Trading Human Lives For World Sympathy

When the truth has been suppressed by the media, its impact tends to be blunted once it finally emerges. First of all, the news outlets tend to play it down, since it exposes flawed or biased reporting, and what self-respecting journalist or news agency wants to admit to that shortcoming? Furthermore, the newly disclosed truth may bring other realizations in its wake that are even more incriminating. Might it not be more prudent to tactfully shrug it all aside, than open a Pandora's box?

Take the case of Falouji's admission that the intifada was pre-planned. The problem with serving this up to the masses is obvious. How are readers supposed to integrate that information with the vision of a Palestinian leader supposedly dedicated to his compatriots, sending stone-throwing children to the front lines to be shot at?

Arafat did that by a) closing the schools and bringing teenagers into the streets b) making a holy duty out of martyrdom c) branding as disloyal those parents who opposed involving their children in the clashes with Israeli police and soldiers.

Once the Palestinian uprising is known to be an orchestrated affair, the equation changes drastically. The loss of human life, one is forced to conclude, was pre-calculated and accepted by Arafat as part of the anticipated cost/benefit ratio of his "popular" uprising. (400 lives lost are not that many, after all, to a leadership that sees human life as commodities to trade in for world sympathy.)

How are readers, fed a steady diet about heartless Israeli soldiers shooting unarmed civilians, supposed to reconcile that view with the fact that Palestinian gunmen -responding to orders from Arafat, we now know-crouched among the stone-throwers as they fired their guns, using children and unarmed civilians as human camouflage?

The propaganda artists have a tried-and-proven technique for dealing with these unpleasant facts; they pretend they don't exist. In general, when referring to the violence in the Middle East, the propaganda artists have become adept at sanitizing the Palestinian profile to erase any hint that Palestinians might be responsible for that violence.

Victims, One And All

The approach is simple enough. The Palestinians are uniformly cast as victims-the terrorists and the gun-wielders along with the stone-throwers-never perpetrators. Terrorists blow the legs off children, maim and kill the innocent? Gunmen murder the humanitarian Dr. Gillis, elderly men and women, families with children? Let us not be too harsh with the murderers. After all, it was their frustration over the wretchedness of their lives that drove them to the edge. It was Israel's "use of excessive force" that provoked them.

The following examples taken from the lead story in the December issue of the American Bar Association Journal, illustrate the subtle distortion and sanitization process at work at the hands of propaganda craftsmen. The ABA, arguably a good barometer for measuring public opinion, published a five thousand word article, "Where Will They Go?" arguing the case for the Palestinian "right of return."

"This fall, after Israeli right-wing leader Ariel Sharon's visit to a site holy to Jews and Muslims, several Palestinian protesters died when Israeli troops fired on them. Funerals led to more clashes with Israeli soldiers, who fired to the head and chest, and more deaths. (my italics)

Note the passive language when describing Palestinian fighters: "Protesters died when Israeli troops fired on them." Not "angry gangs of Palestinians stoned Israeli troops who then retaliated." They were merely protesters -one might even imagine they were conducting a peaceful, harmless protest when they "were fired upon."

"Israeli soldiers fired to the head and chest." Where in this part of the world would any army being viciously stoned and attacked not shoot the perpetrators dead on the spot?

The article continues: "With no end to deadly clashes, the violence expanded to include sniper fire on Jewish settlements, Israeli rocket attacks on Palestinian National Authority sites and Islamic extremist car bombers." Notice the sanitization process again at work in the lack of a human subject in "the violence expanded to include sniper fireÉ" What do you know, "violence," is up to his old tricks again. This time "he's" shooting into Jewish living rooms. Ah well, can't be helped. What else can you expect from "violence?" Must be the nature of the beast.

Right Of Return Would Endanger Israel

In addition to citing the hackneyed arguments of international law acknowledging the refugee's right of return, the article goes on to admit that most of the refugees reject the offer to become citizens in a Palestinian state in Gaza or the West Bank, just as years ago, in the post 1948 era, they turned down U.N. efforts to resettle them in Arab lands. (Not that their Arab neighbors were ready to welcome them. With the exception of Jordan, the surrounding Arab governments have heartlessly kept the refugees in squalid camps all these years, refusing to integrate them and grant them citizenship)

The ABA article maintains that since the refugees will accept no other option outside of returning to their abandoned property in Israel, they must be allowed to return there. "Without a resolution that refugees will accept, their camps will continue to be flash points for militancy in the Middle East fueled by a sense of injustice," the author concludes.

The implication is that Israel, by refusing to admit millions of hostile Arabs into its midst, must carry the responsibility for terrorism and militancy in the Middle East.

With a million Israeli Arabs already bitterly resentful toward the Jews, imagine adding another 3 million to 5 million to Israel's population. With fewer than 5 million Jews in Israel, that move would be suicidal. It means the end of Israel as a Jewish state. Within weeks, such a state would be absorbed by Arafat's Palestine, with a majority of hostile Arabs surrounding a Jewish community stripped of its power and the means of self-defense.

These facts apparently pose no difficulty for the article's author, Jeffrey Ghannam. He takes no account of the demographic problem, affecting naivetZ, as well, about Palestinian hatred of Israel and the desire for revenge that animates the refugee camps, of which we have seen countless tragic examples in recent weeks.

Media-Bias Panel Takes NY Times To Task

A few weeks ago, accusations of media-bias against Israel were aired before a panel of senior journalists, including New York Times representative Clyde Haberman, at a well-attended conference in Manhattan. Haberman, The New York Times' former Jerusalem bureau chief, was confronted by questions from the audience charging the NY Times with one-sided pro-Palestinian coverage.

One questioner summed up the sentiments of the crowd as well as a sizeable segment of American Jewry when he accused the media of "seeking to demonize Israel." New York Post's Sidney Zion went on to make the point that the media is biased in favor of the peace-supporting left, "and in Israel you're considered right wing if you don't want your kids blown up on a bus." Other questioners criticized the press for being excessively concerned with "symmetry" in their reporting, to the point of foregoing all moral perspective.

Although Haberman tried to defend his paper-saying reporters did the best they could under very trying circumstances-what emerged from the two-hour discussion was the confirmation of what is already well-known-that the media bias against Israel is indeed far-ranging and ubiquitous.

In the discussion that spilled over afterward about specific writers guilty of slanted coverage, NY Times writer Deborah Sontag was singled out as one of the worst offenders. Sontag was criticized for opinion-shaping articles that are pointedly sympathetic to the Palestinians, and unfairly lay the current spiral of Middle East violence at Israel's doorstep.

Sontag, Unmasked

Sontag's biased reporting has gone past all acceptable bounds for a paper that takes pride in its professionalism. A recent Sontag article quoting a U.N. official, attempted to guide readers to the conclusion that Israel will have only itself to blame if the Palestinian Authority collapses, producing a state of anarchy that will make "a difficult security situation" [read: "escalation in Palestinian terror"].

In choosing to pin responsibility on Israel for a "series of interlinking crises" arising from Israel's delinquency in its payment to the PA of $50 million in tax and customs revenues, Sontag made an audacious insinuation. Israel will be held responsible, she implied, for violence flowing from the "loss of faith Palestinians have suffered, not only in the peace process, but in any dialogue with Israel. [That loss of faith] is fueling a support for and participation in violence."

Sontag's convoluted thinking ignores the manifest absurdity of an Israel continuing to support the PA while Arafat continues to promote a mini-war, stockpiling weapons and building up his military arsenal. The NY Times writer is so blinded by her sympathy for the Palestinian cause, that she stops a hairsbreadth short of legitimizing Palestinian terrorism arising from "a loss of faith" in dialogue with Israel.

A more recent Sontag article appears to have gone too far even for the New York Times. The article ran the following headline: "Suicide Bomber Kills 3 Israelis After Deaths of 6 Palestinians"

Even for a recognized propagandist, Sontag's implication that the bombing of Jewish civilians is justified as retaliation was so outrageous, that the Times felt compelled to print this lukewarm correction:

A front-page headline yesterday about the killing of three Israelis by a suicide bomber referred incorrectly in some editions to the timing of six Palestinian deaths. The six were killed by Israelis during incidents on Friday and Saturday, not all on Saturday. The headline also referred imprecisely to the relationship between the suicide bombing and the deaths of the Palestinians.

A More Human Portrayal?

At one point during the media bias conference, Haberman of the Times insisted that the press treats Israel more sympathetically than it does the Palestinians. As an example of media favor, he singled out the press's treatment of Israeli victims, calling it "a more human portrayal," in contrast to the coverage of Palestinian victims, who largely remain nameless statistics.

He either did not hear or chose not to respond to a voice in the audience that broke in-"Why is it Jews have to be terror victims -preferably dead ones-before they merit 'a human portrayal'?