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 Europe's
Problem with Ariel Sharon
The spread of anti-Zionism...
[Suzanne
Gershowitz and Emanuele Ottolenghi] 8/17/05
The death
of Palestinian Authority chairman Yasir Arafat together with
Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon's commitment to withdraw
from the Gaza Strip may have injected new momentum into Israeli-Palestinian
diplomacy, but European attitudes toward Israel continue to
deteriorate. This antagonism has many causes—anti-Americanism,
media antipathy toward the Jewish state, a perception that
Israel is an outgrowth of colonialism, and anti-Semitism. An
almost irrational hatred of Sharon, though, has catalyzed many
of them, channeling anti-Zionism to new levels. The European
obsession with Sharon increasingly makes its involvement in
Arab-Israeli diplomacy more a hindrance than a help.
Many Europeans doubt that Israelis want peace, yet they believe
Palestinians do.[1] In
November 2003, for example, a European Union-commissioned survey
found that an average of 59 percent of Europeans saw Israel as
posing a threat to world peace, more than felt the Islamic Republic
of Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, or Pakistan to be dangers.[2] Some
35 percent of Europeans believe that the Israel Defense Forces
intentionally target Palestinian civilians.[3] Almost
half of Frenchmen and Germans surveyed recently believe the White
House should exert more pressure on Israel; less than one fifth
want to see more pressure on the Palestinians. (American attitudes
are nearly the opposite).[4] In
another European poll, 39 percent agreed that "Israel's treatment
of Palestinians is similar to South Africa's treatment of blacks
during the apartheid regime."[5] Fourteen
percent felt Palestinian terrorism to be justified, and even
those who did not agree believed Israel's response to terrorism
to be "excessive."[6] Almost
half felt that Israel was not an "open and democratic society."[7]
The European antipathy toward Israel informs policies. Western
European diplomats privately vilify Sharon and argue that the
onus should be upon Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians,[8] often
without regard to Israel's security needs or right to exist as
a Jewish state. European obsession of Sharon permeates public
opinion, the press, and diplomacy. The consequences of Europe's
problem with Sharon extend beyond academic debate and image.
The demonization of Sharon has translated into a further decline
of European support not only for Israel's security, but also
for its legitimacy as a Jewish state. With media animosity toward
Sharon shaping European public opinion, European diplomats have
staked out positions that have undercut the efficacy of their
diplomacy and international efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict.
The New Anti-Zionism
Anti-Zionism was not
always so palpable in Europe. Jewish nationalism was born in
Western Europe. Israel came into being in 1948 due
to a United Nations partition plan supported by all European
states with the exception of Greece, which voted against it,
and the United Kingdom and Yugoslavia, which abstained. While
the Soviet bloc subsequently withdrew its support from Israel,
it was only after the 1967 Six-Day war that a Western European
country—France—decided to downplay its relationship with the
Jewish state in order to better ingratiate itself to the Arab
bloc.[9]
Nevertheless, much of Western Europe remained firm in its support
for Israel. Europeans mourned the Israeli athletes murdered by
Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Munich Olympics. The Netherlands
backed Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur war and was, along with
the United States, a target of the Arab League oil embargo. Two
years later, Western European governments stood up to the majority
of the Muslim and developing worlds to oppose the 1975 United
Nations' resolution equating Zionism with racism.[10] The
tide began to turn in 1980 against the backdrop of rising oil
prices and the Islamic Revolution in Iran when the nine members
of the European community issued their Venice declaration, which
demanded an end to "territorial occupation which [Israel] has
maintained since 1967," and called for self-determination for
the Palestinians, negotiations for which the Palestine Liberation
Organization (PLO) should have a role.[11]
The Israeli invasion
of Lebanon in 1982 and the subsequent massacre by a Lebanese
Phalangist militia of Palestinian residents at
the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps was a turning point in European
public opinion. One British Labor parliamentarian wrote that
the invasion produced "more criticism of Israel than anything
since the state was founded in 1948."[12] The
European press began to depict Israel less as a haven for the
Jews and more as an aggressor state akin to apartheid South Africa
or French-colonized Algeria. Looking through the lens of anti-colonialism,
the European Left began to depict the Palestinians rather than
the Jews as the chief victims of racism and oppression. Sharon,
then defense minister, became a symbol of the invasion and the
Sabra and Shatila tragedy.[13] In
a February 2004 interview, French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut,
author of the 1981 book The Imaginary Jew,[14] described
the atmosphere in France. "The loathing of Israel today is so
thick you could cut it with a knife. There is a consistent Nazification
of the Jewish state … Of course, Sharon is an extraordinary alibi."[15]
In 2004 more than half of Europeans viewed Sharon unfavorably,
more than viewed Arafat negatively.[16] Despite
his exoneration of direct responsibility by the 1983 Kahan Commission,
European reporters and columnists often incorrectly describe
Sharon as responsible for the 1982 massacre by Lebanese Phalangists
of roughly 800 Palestinians in the Lebanese refugee camps of
Sabra and Shatila, an event many journalists recalled in the
aftermath of Sharon's September 2000 visit to the Temple Mount.
Shaping an Anti-Israel Agenda
Why does media coverage matter? On both sides of the Atlantic,
media molds perception of international events. While much of
the public turns to television for information,[17] print
journalism shapes the news. More Europeans than Americans get
their information from newspapers.[18] Newspapers
hold a particular influence, especially among the intellectual
elite who drive public policy. European morning news shows, for
example, will feature segments discussing that day's newspaper
headlines. The printed word is also lasting; television sound
bites are fleeting.
Studies suggest that, in Europe, unfavorable views toward Israel
are proportional to the closeness with which citizens follow
media coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict.[19] The
European media has embraced the Palestinian narrative. In the
United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Denmark, and Germany, anti-Israel
sentiment was far greater among those who said they learned about
the conflict through the media. In the United Kingdom, for example,
sympathy for the Palestinians registered 30 percent but rose
to 41 percent among those who followed the media coverage "a
good amount" or a "great amount."[20]
While independent institutes ensure a broad debate in U.S. newspapers
and on U.S. news channels, increasingly, European media outlets
do not tolerate analysis deemed favorable to Israel in general
and Sharon in particular. In an interview with the British left-of-center Guardian daily,
Martin Newland, editor of the conservative The Daily Telegraph,
revealed that he fired editorialists Dean Godson and Barbara
Amiel for being too pro-Israel. "It's OK to be pro-Israel but
not unbelievably pro-Likud Israel," he said.[21] The
French press has embraced more extreme positions. In 2002, the
French daily of record, Le Monde, published a comment
likening Israel to a cancer. In April 2005, a French court found Le
Monde's publisher and the article's authors guilty of racist
defamation. The verdict, now under appeal, went largely uncovered
by the French press.[22]
The anti-Israel bias has extended to television news. In October
2000, a journalist from the Italian television network RAI wrote
a letter of apology in the Palestinian daily newspaper Al-Hayat
al-Jadida for its broadcast earlier that month of Palestinian
police and civilians lynching Israeli reservists dragged from
a Palestinian police station. In the letter, he promised that
in the future RAI would obey the media rules of the Palestinian
Authority and prevent such images from being shown.[23]
The unwillingness to consider the Israeli government's perspective
has stilted European understanding of the conflict and enabled
conventional acceptance of politicized and false analogies. Several
assumptions underlie the European media's bias against Israel.
Many reporters, for example, suggest that Palestinian terrorism,
while unfortunate, is an understandable expression of grievance
by a weak party while Israel's use of force is excessive, counterproductive,
and the product of a more sinister agenda.[24]
The result is often simplistic analysis. BBC Middle East correspondent
Orla Guerin has likened Israel's government to Zimbabwe's.[25] In
one story, she described how "the Israelis stole Christmas."[26] Her
overdramatic reportage has won plaudits from her colleagues[27] and
Guerin later won the 2002 Broadcaster of the Year Award from
the London Press Club. The following year, she received the News
and Factual Award by Women in Film and Television UK.[28]
A more disturbing theme in European media coverage of Israel
is an analogy equating the Israeli government with Nazi Germany.
The Italian daily Il Corriere della Sera conducted a survey
to ascertain anti-Semitic attitudes and public opinion on the
Israeli conflict. The survey found that close to 40 percent of
respondents agreed with the statement that "the Israeli government
is perpetrating a full-fledged genocide and is acting with the
Palestinians the way the Nazis did with the Jews."[29] Israel-Nazi
equations are even greater in Germany where, according to a December
2004 survey quoted in The Jerusalem Post, 51 percent of
respondents felt Israel's treatment of Palestinians "was not
so different" from the Nazis' treatment of the Jews during the
Holocaust. The same poll found an even broader segment of the
German public, 68 percent, agreeing with the proposition that "Israel
is waging a war of extermination against the Palestinians."[30] European
journalists had a major role in transmitting such views to their
audiences.
Inject Ariel Sharon into the already volatile mix, and anything
goes. Hatred and distrust of Sharon has become so ingrained that
journalists accept dubious spin and questionable facts uncritically,
all of which contribute to a false conventional wisdom. Within
the European press, hatred of Sharon and its reflection on Israel
often trump accuracy. The catalyzing effect of this hatred for
Sharon to anti-Zionism has been laid bare by three events in
recent years: Sharon's September 2000 visit to the Temple Mount;
Israel's Operation Defensive Shield, launched in late March 2002
to root out terror cells in the West Bank and Gaza; and Israel's
targeted killing of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in March
2004.
1. Sharon's Visit to the Temple Mount
On September 28, 2000, Sharon toured Jerusalem's Temple Mount,
known to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif (noble sanctuary). The
next day, following Friday prayers, riots erupted. Both the European
and U.S. media blamed Sharon's visit for the riots. Free access
to Jerusalem's holy sites has long been central to Israel's religious
freedom policy, though Sharon, then leader of the opposition,
no doubt used his visit to make a political statement. But to
ascribe Sharon's actions as the only cause ignores both context
and fact. More than a month before the outbreak of the second intifada,
Palestinian police commissioner Ghazi Jabali told the Palestinian
Authority's official newspaper, "The Palestinian police will
be leading, together with all other noble sons of the Palestinian
people when the hour of confrontation arrives."[31] On
the one month anniversary of the collapse of Camp David II, Palestinian
Authority justice minister Freih Abu Middein declared, "Violence
is near, and the Palestinian people are willing to sacrifice
even 5,000 casualties."[32] The
day before Sharon's visit, a remote-controlled bomb detonated
beside an Israeli convoy in Gaza, killing one.[33] Palestinian
leaders openly endorsed the violence. Marwan Barghouti, for example,
admitted that the "explosion of violence would have happened
anyway," that "it was necessary in order to protect Palestinian
rights, but Sharon provided a good excuse."[34] The
Palestinian communications minister, Imad al-Faluji, told a Palestinian
radio program on December 5 that "Arafat ordered preparations
for the current intifada immediately after the Camp David
summit, as part of the negotiating process with Israel."[35]
While Sharon's visit may have been a factor in the timing of
the Palestinian uprising, the fact that the European media focused
on Sharon as the instigator tarnished Israel's image. In the
five days following Sharon's visit, of the twenty-eight stories
in the four major British broadsheets about the onslaught of
the intifada, only six of them mentioned Palestinian incitement
as a possible cause for the outbreak of violence. One of those
six discussed the brewing Palestinian violence by glorifying
a Palestinian terrorist. Most of the others suggested that a
Palestinian uprising might have been imminent but that blame
for the escalation of violence should still be ascribed to Israel
generally and Sharon specifically.[36]
The European media almost uniformly blamed Sharon for sparking
the intifada. The Independent's Jerusalem correspondent,
Phil Reeves, opined that Sharon "made himself look ludicrous
with his reckless visit to the Temple Mount earlier this week." In
the same story, he declared that "Mr. [Ehud] Barak has yet to
deliver on the promise of peace that led to his landslide victory
in May last year." He made no mention of unfulfilled Palestinian
promises that undercut the previous summer's Camp David II summit.[37] The
London Guardian labeled Sharon's visit a "blatant display
of Israel's iron grip on the heart of Muslim Jerusalem."[38]
The European press exaggerated Sharon's role in the Sabra and
Shatila massacres and used it as original sin to cast blame upon
Sharon and, by extension, Israel for subsequent events regardless
of fact. In an October 2 editorial, the French establishment
daily Le Monde declared that Sharon's "provocation" was "enormous," and
cited his role in covering up "the massacre by his Lebanese allies
of a thousand [sic] women, children, and old Palestinian
men in the camps of Sabra and Shatila."[39] Von
Heiko Flottau of the German Sueddeutsche Zeitung described
how Sharon's troops "watched" as the massacre unfolded. Alexandra
Schwartzbrod of the French Libération declared Sharon
to be "responsible" for the massacres.[40] Seldom
is any other detail of Sharon's career, such as his coordination
of the dismantling of the Sinai settlement of Yamit, mentioned.
Sharon was defense
minister during the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. But he
was not at the camps during the raid, nor
did he order the Lebanese troops to wage such an atrocity. The
Israeli army ordered the Lebanese Phalangists out of the camps
as soon as they heard that the massacre took place. While the
Kahan Commission found Sharon one of the persons "indirectly
responsible" for the massacre because he did not foresee the
possibility that Lebanese troops might wage a massacre, it labeled "baseless
libel" the accusation that Israeli troops were in the camps at
the time of the massacre.[41]
Both the fundamental
bias and ignorance of the European media is exposed by the
fact that few raised concerns that Elie Hobeika,
the Phalangist leader who ordered the massacre, subsequently
became a minister in the Syrian-dominated Lebanese government
in which capacity he met with a number of EU officials. Karen
Coleman, foreign affairs editor for Dublin's NewsTalk 106 FM
radio, condemned Sharon for perpetrating the massacre but had
not heard of "allegations" of Hobeika's involvement.[42] Hobeika
subsequently held several Lebanese ministerial positions under
pro-Syrian governments[43] in
which capacity he met with European officials and journalists
who did not mention his past. For example, in February 1998,
a German news agency covered a pan-Mediterranean energy conference
in Beirut opened by the head of the European Commission and featuring
then minister of water and electricity Hobeika; it made no mention
of his past.[44]
Whereas before his Temple Mount visit European journalists criticized
the Likud leader, the European press increasingly demonized Sharon
following the outbreak of the second intifada. The
Guardian's October 3, 2000 editorial suggested that Sharon's
provocation was "only to be expected from a man reviled in the
Arab world and beyond," and suggested that he had "clearly learned
nothing over the years about the ultimate futility of racial
and religious hatred."[45] Opinion
pieces in major French, German, and British papers conveyed strongly
the message that Sharon, the great provocateur in the conflict,
is a warmonger without desire for peace.[46] European
editorialists portrayed Sharon as pugnacious[47] and
warmongering.[48] Such
criticism eased the conflation of Israel with Nazi Germany. One
cartoon showed Sharon as a Nazi officer;[49] another
showed the prime minister as a Christ-killer.[50]
When Sharon was elected prime minister in February 2001, the
European press saw the victory for Sharon as a loss for the process
of peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. A Le Monde article
published the day after Sharon's election headlined: "Quand on
me dit qu'il peut faire la paix, je rigole" (When it is said
to me that he can make peace, I laugh).[51]
2. Operation Defensive Shield and the Jenin Incursion
Sharon has also been vilified for his decision to launch Operation
Defensive Shield, an antiterrorism operation that began on March
29, 2002, during which the Israeli army reoccupied areas of the
West Bank for the first time since conceding portions to Palestinian
Authority control under the Oslo accords.
Despite a terrorist bombing campaign that killed sixty-three
and injured over 400 Israelis in the month before Operation Defensive
Shield,[52] the
Western European media ignored the casus belli and cast
blame on Sharon's actions, nourishing the chimera that the operation
was unprovoked. It gave little context in reporting Israel's
action—most egregiously in reporting the Israeli incursion into
Jenin, which was widely recognized as a hotbed of Palestinian
terrorist organization.[53] European
papers spoke of Israeli atrocities and of Sharon's "talent for
wanton destruction."[54] While
the Israeli Defense Force acknowledged destruction of 130 out
of 1,896 buildings in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern
West Bank,[55] some
of this was the result of booby-trapped buildings. Even Palestinian
terrorists acknowledged that some of the damage was due to their
actions. An Islamic Jihad bomb maker, for example, acknowledged
rigging civilian homes with explosives in an interview with an
Egyptian newspaper.[56]
Worse, the European media never hesitated to portray the incursion
as a slaughter of Palestinian innocents. In many instances, European
papers reported that Israeli forces had murdered hundreds of
Palestinians. The Spanish paper El Pais headlined, "500
Palestinians Have Died in 12 Days According to the Government
of Arafat," without acknowledging estimates—in retrospect far
more accurate—by Israeli officials.[57] "More
than 200" Palestinians had died, according to Germany's Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung, which also did not offer any other estimates.[58] The
U.S. media, in contrast, was more balanced. A 14-year-old member
of Islamic Jihad who was in Jenin during the incursion told a
reporter from the Boston Globe that this "was a massacre
of the Jews, not of us." The reporter wrote that, after being
prompted by bystanders, the teen "revised" his statement saying, "I
think there was a massacre here—maybe 100 people."[59] The
final United Nations report found that 52 Palestinians died in
the Jenin fighting, approximately half of whom were civilians.
In addition, 23 Israelis died in the town.[60] By
comparison, roughly 1,200 Iraqi insurgents and 50 U.S. servicemen
were killed in the November 2004 battle for Fallujah.[61]
The British press
was particularly virulent regarding Defensive Shield. Jenin
was "The Camp that Became a Slaughterhouse," according
to an Independent headline.[62] The
lead Guardian editorial emphasized "the stench of decaying
flesh" that pervaded Jenin.[63] The
British Broadcasting Corporation, for example, reported, "Jenin ‘Massacre
Evidence Growing,'" comparing the slaughter to massacres in Bosnia
and Kosovo in which tens of thousands died.[64] Janine
di Giovanni of the London Times wrote that "rarely in
more than a decade of war reporting from Bosnia, Chechnya, Sierra
Leone, Kosovo, have I seen such deliberate destruction, such
disrespect for human life."[65] Two
American reporters pointed out the irresponsible journalism of
four British broadsheets, which relied on the same Palestinian
eyewitness in order to depict the events.[66]
Editorial commentary during Operation Defensive Shield was venomous.
On April 1, 2002, the largest selling Greek paper, Ta Nea,
printed a cartoon depicting an Israeli soldier pointing a gun
at the head of a kneeling Arab and saying, "I'm not sorry that
what we are doing to you is what the Nazis did to us."[67] During
April 2002, anti-Semitic articles, caricatures, and letters to
the editor pervaded the Greek press. They often portrayed the
Jews as "global conspirators" responsible for the world's evils
and compared Sharon to Hitler, Israeli soldiers to Nazi storm
troopers, and Palestinians to Jewish Holocaust victims.[68]
What was true of the Greek press was true elsewhere in Europe.
On March 31, 2002, the Italian daily Corriere della Sera published
a front-page cartoon of Sharon with a rifle in his hand sitting
on a casket in order to keep it closed. Written on a haloed angel
in the background is "he will not resurrect."[69] On
April 2, 2002, as the Jenin incursion was coming to a close,
the popular Italian daily La Stampa published on its front
page a cartoon depicting a large tank adorned with the Star of
David pointing at a frightened baby Jesus who asks, "What? They
want to kill me a second time?"[70] In
April, Le Monde published a cartoon that pictured almost
identical sketches of a person crying over piles of rubble. One
frame says "Warsaw 1945"; the other says "Jenin Today." While
the comparative death toll was off by several orders of magnitude,
the bubble reads: "History has a strange way of repeating itself."[71]
3. The Targeted Killing of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin
A third incident under Sharon's governance further rallied European
press antipathy toward Israel. In the early hours of March 22,
2004, an Israeli helicopter gunship fired several missiles at
the leader of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, while he was returning
home from morning prayers in Gaza. The Israeli government believed
Yassin was the driving force behind Hamas's terror campaign that
had killed more than 225 Israelis since January 2002.[72]
The European media generally eschewed objectivity and did not
report Israel's justification for the assassination. Rather,
it denounced the event, embracing a narrative that suggested
the assassination was a futile gesture that threatened peace
negotiations and risked a backlash.[73] Britain's Daily
Mirror, the third-largest circulation English-language newspaper,
declared—ignoring evidence to the contrary—that "[t]errorism
can never be defeated by force and violence. An eye for an eye
simply does not work in dealing with fanatics."[74] The
personal animus toward Sharon permeated; according to the Daily
Mirror, "Sharon's ruthless decision to exterminate [Yassin]
was a terrible miscalculation."[75]
Cartoons published after the assassination depicted it as an
act of uncommon cruelty, given that the sheikh, a quadriplegic
since his teenage days, was confined to a wheelchair. They combined
Yassin's wheelchair and his status as a religious leader to solicit
sympathy for the terrorist leader and to depict Sharon's decision
as a deranged act of gratuitous brutality against a harmless
spiritual leader. These cartoons reflect a uniform theme: Yassin's
assassination was an act of madness which would only lead to
further deaths, the responsibility for which would lie with Ariel
Sharon. The Guardian's cartoonist Steve Bell set the tone
for this interpretation of events. In a March 23, 2004 cartoon,
he depicted a grotesquely fat and thuggish-looking Sharon throwing
a Molotov cocktail. The bottle, already on fire, has the shape
of Yassin's face. On the same day, Petar Pismestrovic, cartoonist
for Austria's daily Kleine Zeitung, showed Sharon sitting
on a gunpowder barrel. Having just shot at a target bearing the
name of Yassin, a fire is leading back to the barrel while Sharon,
unaware, blows smoke from his pistol. Julius Hansen, in the pages
of Denmark's Horsen Volkeblad goes even further: his March
23 cartoon shows a charred wheelchair, symbolizing Yassin, surrounded
by a Star of David made of blood. The message is clear: Israel
is to blame for future attacks by Palestinian terrorists on its
citizens—not the terrorists themselves.
Conclusion
Israel is a controversial nation and Sharon a controversial
figure. But the European media's demonization of Sharon has become
irrational. This bias has become so customary that, within Europe,
the legitimacy of Israel-bashing and Sharon-baiting has enabled
a mainstream airing of conspiracies. Recently, for example, a Guardian column
suggested Israeli rather than Syrian responsibility for the assassination
of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.[76]
Hatred of Sharon and
condemnation of Israel have also made anti-Zionism mainstream.
In a May 2001 European parliament session, Paul Marie
Coûteaux, a French deputy, said Europe "must consider giving
the Arab side a large enough force, including a large enough
nuclear force, to persuade Israel that it cannot simply do whatever
it wants."[77] The
president of the British Humanist Association, Claire Rayner,
said in April 2002 that the idea of a homeland for the Jewish
people was a "load of crap."[78] In
a 2004 lecture in Alexandria, Egypt, former French prime minister
Michel Rocard called the Balfour Declaration, which allowed for
Israel's creation, a "historic mistake."[79]
The growing legitimacy of anti-Zionism has contributed to a
resurgence of European anti-Semitism, again often wrapped with
and, in many European eyes, legitimized by the caricature of
Sharon. Violent anti-Semitic incidents in Europe have risen in
proportion to the violence between Israel and the Palestinians,
which suggest a relationship between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.[80] In
Dublin, there were banners of swastikas over stars of David which
read "Stop the Palestinian Holocaust"; in Paris, posters read "Hitler
Has a Son: Sharon"; in Berlin, they read, "Stop the Genocide
in Palestine" and "Sharon Is a Child Murderer."[81] The
European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia has shown
that during the second Palestinian uprising, anti-Semitic incidents
increased by more than 600 percent in France alone.[82]
Israel has often been isolated. Pilloried in the United Nations,
both European and U.S. media put the Jewish state's actions under
a magnifying glass. Media influences public opinion, and its
bias in Europe has encouraged prominent Europeans to speak out
openly against Israel. This in turn colors European policy already
ambivalent about Israel. A vicious cycle ensues.
The monomaniacal criticism
has taken a new edge under Sharon that threatens to undercut
the productiveness of any European
contribution to regional peace. Many European officials, diplomats,
and journalists translate their hatred of Sharon into skepticism
for any position he takes. They dismiss the security fence because
Sharon implemented it, even if it was Nobel Laureate Yitzhak
Rabin who first declared, "We have to decide on separation as
a philosophy."[83] Likewise,
while Sharon pursues unilateral disengagement from Gaza, a concession
more significant than Menachem Begin's decision to withdraw from
the Sinai, European commentators cast doubt upon Sharon's motives.
As the Israeli government begins to face other issues—such as
the future of Jerusalem, defensible borders, the Iranian nuclear
bomb, and demographic requirements to remain a Jewish state—Europe's
media-driven hatred of Sharon has emboldened forces questioning
Israel's legitimacy and, in the process, both undercuts peaceful
solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and jeopardizes
the lives of Israel's six million citizens.tOR
Suzanne Gershowitz is a research assistant at the American
Enterprise Institute. Emanuele Ottolenghi teaches Israel
studies at the Middle East Centre of St. Antony's College,
Oxford University.
[1] "Attitudes
toward Jews, Israel, and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict
in Ten European Countries," Anti-Defamation League, Apr. 2004,
p. 32.
[2] "Flash Eurobarometer
151," European Commission, Nov. 2003, p. 81.
[3] "Attitudes
toward Jews," Anti-Defamation League, Apr. 2004, p. 23.
[4] "After the U.S. Election:
A Survey of Public Opinion in France, Germany, and the United
States," German Marshall Fund of the United States, Feb. 7,
2005, p. 5.
[5] "Attitudes
toward Jews," Anti-Defamation League, p. 23.
[6] Ibid., p.13.
[7] Ibid., pp. 23-4.
[8] See for example, speech
by Christopher
Patten, EU external affairs coordinator, Strasbourg, Apr.
9, 2002.
[9] See Olivier Guitta, "The
Chirac Doctrine," Middle East Quarterly, Fall 2005,
pp. 43-53.
[10] U.N. General Assembly Resolution
3379, Nov. 10, 1975.
[11] "Venice
Declaration of the Middle East," Venice European Council,
June 13, 1980.
[12] The Guardian,
Sept. 14, 1984.
[13] The Guardian,
Nov. 14, 1985.
[14] Paris: Seuil, 1981.
[15] Fernanda Eberstadt, "A
Frenchman or a Jew?" The New York Times Magazine, Feb.
29, 2004.
[16] "Attitudes
toward Jews," Anti-Defamation League, p. 24.
[17] "Global Attitudes:
44-Nation Major Survey (2002)," The Pew Global Attitudes Project,
T-96.
[18] Ibid.
[19] "Attitudes
toward Jews," Anti-Defamation League, p. 34.
[20] "European
Attitudes toward Jews, Israel, and the Palestinian-Israeli
Conflict," Anti-Defamation League, June 27, 2002, p. 18.
[21] The Guardian.
Nov. 15, 2004.
[22] Tom Gross, "J'Accuse:
Anti-Semitism at ‘Le Monde' and Beyond," The Wall Street
Journal Europe, June 2, 2005; Ha'aretz, July 1,
2005.
[23] Fiamma Nirenstein, "The
Journalists and the Palestinians," Commentary, Jan.
1, 2001, pp. 55-8.
[24] Justin Huggler, "Middle
East: The Crisis Continues: The Refugee Camp: Families Scrabble
in the Dust to Find their Dead," The Independent (London),
Apr. 18, 2002; David Pilditch, "The Lucky One," The Mirror (London),
Apr. 19, 2002.
[25] David Rowan, "I Don't
Believe in Ceasefires," The Evening Standard, Dec. 10,
2003
[26] Orla Guerin, "Christmas ‘Stolen'
From Bethlehem," BBC News, Dec. 21, 2002.
[27] Quentin Letts, "The
Woman with a Bias towards Bloodshed: Orla Guerin's Poignant
BBC Reports from the Middle East Have Won Her Enemies in Israel,
but Only Admiration from her colleagues," The Evening Standard,
Apr. 10, 2002.
[28] "Orla
Guerin," BBC NewsWatch profile, Nov. 24, 2003.
[29] Il Corriere della
Sera (Milan), Jan. 26, 2004.
[30] The Jerusalem
Post, Dec. 7, 2004.
[31] Al-Hayat al-Jadida (Gaza),
Aug. 11, 2000.
[32] Al-Hayat al-Jadida,
Aug. 24, 2000.
[33] Agence France-Presse,
Sept. 28, 2000.
[34] The New Yorker, Jan.
29, 2001; Joshua Muravchik, Covering the Intifada: How the
Media Reported the Palestinian Uprising (Washington, D.C.:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2003), pp. 9-10.
[35] The Jerusalem
Post, Dec. 12, 2000.
[36] The twenty-eight
articles appeared in the Financial Times, The Guardian, The
Independent, and The Observer and contained the
words "Ariel Sharon." Of the four newspapers surveyed and based
on the twenty-eight articles, the Financial Times coverage
was the most balanced.
[37] The Independent,
Sept. 30, 2000.
[38] The Guardian,
Sept. 29, 2000.
[39] "À Jerusalem," Le
Monde, Oct. 2, 2000.
[40] Alexandra Schwartzbrod, "Violents
Affrontements à Jerusalem," Liberation (Paris), Sept.
29, 2000.
[41] "Report of the Commission
of Inquiry into the Events at the Refugee Camps in Beirut (The Kahan
Commission)," Feb.7, 1983; The New York Times, Feb.
9, 1983.
[42] Author interview
with Michael Rubin, American Enterprise Institute, Washington,
D.C., summer 2004.
[43] Gary C. Gambill and
Bassam Endrawos, "The
Assassination of Elie Hobeika," Middle East Intelligence
Bulletin, Jan. 2002.
[44] Deutsche Presse-Agentur,
Feb. 13, 1998.
[45] "The Price of Failure:
Enemies of Peace Fill the Middle East Void," The Guardian,
Oct. 3, 2000.
[46] See, for example,
Schwartzbrod, "Violents Affrontements à Jerusalem."
[47] Le Figaro (Paris),
Oct. 14, 2000.
[48] "Ariel Sharon Lacks
a Conscience," The Daily Mirror (London), Nov. 14, 2004.
[49] Eleftherotypia (Greece),
Mar. 24, 2004, reproduced in "Anti-Semitic
Caricatures in Greece Following Yassin Operation," Anti-Defamation
League, Mar. 30, 2004.
[50] Emilio Giannelli, "Pasqua
2002," Il Corriere della Sera, Mar. 31, 2002.
[51] Le Monde,
Feb. 8, 2001.
[52] "Suicide
and Other Bombings in Israel Since the Declaration of Principles
(Sept. 1993)," Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, accessed
June 22, 2005.
[53] "What
Really Happened in Jenin?" Jerusalem Issue Brief,
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, May 2, 2002.
[54] The Guardian,
Apr. 17, 2002.
[55] "What
Really Happened in Jenin?" May 2, 2002.
[56] Al-Ahram Weekly (Cairo),
Apr. 18-24, 2002; "Report of the Secretary-General A/ES-10/186," United
Nations General Assembly, July 30, 2002, p. 8.
[57] El Pais (Madrid),
Apr. 11, 2002.
[58] Frankfurter Allgemeine
Zeitung (Frankfurt), Apr. 10, 2002.
[59] The Boston Globe,
Apr. 29, 2002.
[60] "Report of the Secretary-General
A/ES-10/186," p. 11. Other sources, including official Israeli
sources, declare that far more than half were combatants.
[61] The New York Times,
Nov. 28, 2004.
[62] The Independent,
Apr. 14, 2002.
[63] "The Battle for the
Truth: What Really Happened in Jenin Camp?" The Guardian,
Apr. 17, 2002.
[64] BBC News, Apr.
18, 2002.
[65] The Times (London),
Apr. 16, 2002.
[66] NationalReviewOnline, May
13, 2002; Martin Sieff, "Part One: Documenting
the Myth," United Press International, May 20, 2002.
[67] "Examples of Anti-Semitic
and Problematic Cartoons (concerning the Middle East conflict)
in the Western Media," www.honestly-concerned.org, accessed
June 21, 2005.
[68] "Twenty
Months of Anti-Semitic Invective in Greece: Mar. 2002-Oct.
2003," The Simon Wiesenthal Center, New York, Oct. 14,
2003.
[69] Giannelli, "Pasqua
2002."
[70]"Examples of Anti-Semitic
and Problematic Cartoons."
[71] Simon Wiesenthal
Center, news release, May
2, 2002.
[72] "Suicide
and Other Bombing Attacks in Israel," Israeli Ministry
of Foreign Affairs, accessed June 22, 2005.
[73] "Futile
Killing Will Come Back to Haunt Us All," The Daily Mirror,
Mar. 23, 2004.
[74] Ibid.
[75] Ibid.
[76] Patrick Seale, "Who
Killed Rafik Hariri?" The Guardian, Feb. 23, 2005.
[77] Paul Marie Coûteaux, "Situation
au Moyen-Orient," Débats du Parlement européen, May 16,
2001.
[78] The Independent,
Apr. 21, 2002.
[79] Manfred Gernstenfeld, "Are
European Socialists Tilting against Israel?" The Jerusalem
Post, Feb. 13, 2005.
[80] "France," Manifestations
of Anti-Semitism in the EU 2002-2003 (Vienna: European
Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia, 2004), p. 98.
[81] Gabriel Schoenfeld, "Israel
and the Anti-Semites," Commentary, June 2002, pp. 14-5.
[82] "Executive Summary," Manifestations
of Anti-Semitism in the EU 2002-2003, p. 16; Agence
France-Presse, Mar. 21, 2005.
[83] David Makovsky, "How
to Build a Fence," Foreign Affairs, Mar./Apr. 2004,
p. 52.
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