Hamas’s Lies And Their French Enablers

On January 5th, the French public channel, France 2, broadcast a video of an explosion allegedly caused by an Israeli air raid on Gaza. The video, however, was not footage of an air raid, but rather four-year old amateur footage showing the accidental explosion of a truck carrying rockets. Yet, the France 2 comment which accompanied the video claimed that: “this would be an explosion as a result of a missile strike on January 1st”. Moreover, the subject of the France 2 broadcast during which the footage was aired was not the conflict itself but the “media war” and the video was presented as an example of the Arab media’s coverage of the conflict.  Later, when the facts were revealed, France 2 was forced to apologize to the audience.

Sometimes, apologizing over details diverts attention from larger problems. Since 2000, France 2 has continued to allow Charles Enderlin, from the infamous al-Dura incident, to report from Israel.  Although the public channel lost a defamation suit against a French website on that issue, they have yet to admit any error in the matter.  Enderlin will retire someday. Talal Abu Rama, the Palestinian cameraman, will get out of the picture one way or another, and France 2 will be able to put the blame on someone relatively quietly. It has been eight years since Enderlin’s involvement in the incident and so France 2 can merely wait until the story is forgotten. In the meantime though, they probably want to avoid adding to their troublesÑ hence, the quick apology in the matter of the misrepresented “air raid” footage.

But despite the apology over the misleading footage, more generally, the quality of TV war reporting remains poor. The absence of political neutrality is only one of the reasons for this sad state of things. Since 2000, there have generally been more journalists in Israel and the Palestinian territories than in the whole African continent.  The region has become to journalism what India is to tourism. Going there is no longer an individual adventure, but an organized trip. There is a local infrastructure to take care of reporters and to provide them with material and stories, and it is a Palestinian infrastructure, not an Israeli one. It is extremely easy to use the local infrastructure and just as difficult and dangerous to go and get information without it.

Since the 2006 Lebanon war, TV channels have probably learned to be more careful about the sequences they use, as no one wants to be caught using incorrect footage. But that does not mean that the quality of the information is much better. Local correspondents still have to use the images and the stories they can find. In a fluid situation like Operation Cast Lead, reporters are compelled to provide updates, despite the difficulties in gathering facts and confirming reports on the ground.  Honesty might compel them to admit they know little and report little, but that is unlikely. Reporters have to report, and so they use what they have.  Although the attention from the false air raid video should make reporters more careful in selecting video footage, there are still no checks on the substance of what they report.

This raises an interesting question: should Israel work harder to provide stories and material to foreign TV reporters in order to compete with the Palestinian propaganda machine? I don’t believe that is necessary.  For starters, it is already easy to find news in Israel. Soldiers constantly use their mobile phones to keep in touch with family and friends.  And Israel is a small country: anyone who knows a few people in Israel could certify that no massacre was taking place in Jenin in 2002. I did, and I was in Paris. In 1982, Israeli soldiers spread word of the Sabra & Chatila massacres.  And they didn’t even have cellular phones. Reporters don’t need a sophisticated Israeli information department to collect interesting and true stories.  In an open, democratic state, the information infrastructure is already there.  The larger problem is that foreign reporters are often not interested in the Israeli side.

While the France 2 incident may not be intentional pro-Palestinian propaganda, it is safe to assume that most France 2 journalists are not pro-Israel and do not do the work needed to present the Israeli perspective on the conflict.  The controversy over the latest France 2 footage from Gaza just illustrates the difficulty in presenting neutral television coverage of the conflict. In the end, the only effective media strategy is military victory. If Israel succeeds in Gaza, their problems with the media will be solved.  Israel would be better served by concentrating on winning the war and less on winning over reporters.