Full Circle

When Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, there was a news “greyout.” Reporters were prevented by the IDF from entering large areas, and were restricted in a variety of ways. The journalists, therefore, turned to the PLO for “news,” resulting in wails of “massacres,” of tens of thousands of Palestinians and hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing. None of it was true, but all of it made the headlines, and enormous moral and political damage was done to Israel.

When Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, there was a news “greyout.” Reporters were prevented by the IDF from entering large areas, and were restricted in a variety of ways. The journalists, therefore, turned to the PLO for “news,” resulting in wails of “massacres,” of tens of thousands of Palestinians and hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing. None of it was true, but all of it made the headlines, and enormous moral and political damage was done to Israel.

That was the year of the first JINSA Flag and General Officers Trip to Israel. One of our guests steeped in the political ramifications of bad press from his Vietnam experiences, asked the then-Israeli Chief of Staff, “Why don’t you just censor everything? Then the worst they can accuse you of is censorship.” The COS replied, “Israel is a democratic country and we can’t do that. We just have to do our job and expect that the press will do its job and report fairly.”

OK, so he hadn’t had much experience with the press.

In 1989, at the height of the mass demonstrations of the intifada, and the height of claims that Israel was indiscriminately killing women and children, the 8th JINSA Flag and General Officers Trip was in Israel. Deja vu. A participant asked the then-Chief of Staff why Israel didn’t censor the media. He replied, “I can’t do that. My job is to do my job and the press has to do its job and report fairly.”

In 2001, as the Palestinian war against Israel that followed the Camp David summit continued, the 19th JINSA Flag and General Officers Trip visited. No one asked the question about censorship, but in their post-trip report, the group noted, “If Israel fails to develop a proper public relations organization and system, she is destined to continue losing in the court of world opinion. This, in turn, places the future existence of Israel at totally unnecessary levels of risk.”

As the 2002 JINSA Flag and General Officers Trip departs, Israel finds itself on the losing end of the media battle over the “massacres” in Jenin.

There were no massacres there. And if we weren’t sure just because we’re sure, we’re sure because UN envoy Larsen is wailing about houses (often demolished by Palestinian booby-traps) and the fact that the population of the camp fled (and thus couldn’t be massacred) and was now homeless, not about massacres.

Yes, Palestinians died in Jenin. Yes, under normal circumstances some of them would have been non-combatants. But when 10-year-old children are strapped with explosives and used to lure soldiers, when homes are booby trapped to keep people in as well as soldiers out, when “fighters” hide in churches and behind their grandmothers, the circumstances are far from “normal.”