CNN in Bilin: Blames the Victim

In a report airing this morning on CNN, reporter Cal Perry produced a story on the weekly demonstrations in the Palestinian village of Bilin. The demonstrations include large numbers of villagers from Bilin and internationals (including Israelis), who make a statement against Israel’s so called “security fence” which Israel is building on Palestinian land.

He never mentions that the wall/fence
–steals enormous swaths of Palestinian land,
–separates Palestinians from each other
–the wall/fence has been declared illegal by the International Court of Justice at the Hague.

Nor does he mention the three injuries suffered by the victims of the army’s violence as reported by The International Solidarity Movement

The segment was introduced as a piece on “violent vacations”, referring of course to the internationals, especially US residents who travel to the West Bank to support Palestinians in their normally peaceful protests against a policy of ethnic cleansing by the state of Israel. The usual motivating factor as stated by one of the protestors is the fact that Israel is the highest recipient of US foreign aid in the world.

The same demonstration was filmed by the protestors. It shows clearly that there were a large number of Palestinians present which contradicts the impression given by CNN that the protest was organized by internationals looking for a thrill.

It also shows clearly that much of the Israeli fire was unprovoked, contadicting the assertion that the fire was in response to stone throwing. At one point the tear gas lands right in front of the camera.

CNN for its part focused on the internationals and the stone throwers. It has been proven on many occasions that stone throwing is discouraged by the Palestinians and by the internationals. In fact it has also been established that the Israeli army sends in undercover Israeli soldiers or agents of the prison service to provoke Palestinian children to throw stones.

According to Amnesty International, in one highly publicized case,

Several masked mistaravim (a Hebrew term meaning ‘those who pretend to be Arabs’), undercover agents belonging to the Israeli Prison Service started to behave aggressively and threw stones at the soldiers. When the Palestinian villagers called on them to stop using violence and to leave the demonstration, they revealed their identity, pulled out their weapons, and arrested two Palestinian and four Israeli demonstrators.

CNN also states that each stone is responded to with a shot of tear gas. In fact the tear gas and the rubber bullets are fired whether stones are thrown or not. As you can see from this video, the Israeli army does not need to be provoked.

Finally, without the presence of internationals, it is highly likely that the bullets used by the army would not be rubber. In fact Israeli novelist Yitzhak Laor, writing in “Counterpunch” the amount of force used by the Israeli army at the beginning of the intifada before any Palestinian picked up a gun.

A month after the Intifada began, four years ago, Major General Amos Malka, by then No. 3 in the military hierarchy, and until 2001 the head of Israeli military Intelligence (MI), asked one of his officers (Major Kuperwasser) how many 5.56 bullets the Central Command had fired during that month (that is, only in the West Bank). Three years later Malka talked about these horrific figures. This is what he said to Ha’aretz’s diplomatic commentator, Akiva Eldar about the first month of the Intifada, 30 days of unrest, no terrorist attacks yet, no Palestinian shooting:

Kuperwasser got back to me with the number, 850,000 bullets. My figure was 1.3 million bullets in the West Bank and Gaza. This is a strategic figure that says that our soldiers are shooting and shooting and shooting. I asked: “Is this what you intended in your preparations?” and he replied in the negative. I said: “Then the significance is that we are determining the height of the flames.” (HaAretz, 11.6.2004).

It was a bullet for every Palestinian child, said one of the officers in that meeting, or at least this is what the Israeli daily Maariv revealed two years ago, when the horrible figures were first leaked.

Approximately 300 Palestinians were killed during those non violent demonstrations. The international community did nothing.