This week, Israel State Television (Channel One) and the Voice of Israel (Reshet Bet) fell victim (Wednesday) to a new variation of the “bait and switch” trick played by Yasser Arafat’s media machine.

Arafat’s media team first applauded the act, and, later, as pressure for a denunciation built up, carried out a particularly cynical display of media manipulation—issuing a statement labeled a “condemnation” (see text in English, Arabic and Hebrew below) which was really a condemnation of Israel.

Israel State Television and Israel State Radio only bothered to check the headline and reported that Arafat and the Palestinian leadership had condemned the latest terror act.

In fact, the opposite was true.

The Palestinian state media, particularly the Voice of Palestine (Sawt Felasteen) radio, embraced the terror attacks Tuesday and Wednesday against targets in Israel, referring to the men who committed them as “heroic martyrs” -mustash-hedeen in Arabic.

[Note: The use of the tenth form, “istash-hada” and “Mustash-hedeen”, rather than the simpler first form “shuhada”, martyrs — “shahada”, “giving witness” or “becoming a martyr” lends a clear heroic connotation to the act of giving up one’s life. Suicide in Arabic is a negative or pjorative term, “antahara” and “muntaheer”. Not surprisingly it is almost never applied to suicide bombers who kill Israelis.]

After an Arab man murdered seven Israelis this morning, several of them Arabs, by blowing himself up inside the 823 bus from Tel Aviv to Nazareth on Wednesday morning (about 7:25 a.m., Israel time, March 20), Palestinian state radio in its 8 a.m. newscast used only positive terms to describe the suicide bomber.

V.O.P. described him as “an Arab youth” who had “isstash-hada”, become a heroic martyr.

“The operation took place despite the security measures taken by Israeli security forces inside the Green Line (i.e. the term V.O.P. uses to describe “Israel”),” asserted V.O.P. anchorman Muhammad Sanouri.

Later broadcasts tried to justify the attack by saying that four of the seven people murdered inside the Israeli bus were soldiers.

The perpetrators of the other terror atacks in the last 48 hours were also described as “musallaheen”, armed men, or “munafizeen”, people who carried out the operation. None of the men were described as “terrorists”, irhabiyeen, even though most of the targets were civilian in nature and inside the pre-1967 borders of Israel.

Arafat’s radio outlet also used the term “heroic martyrs” to describe the two Arab terrorists who attacked Israeli civilians inside the Israeli moshav of Aviezer in the Eilah Valley Tuesday night. By two p.m., six hours after the attack– Palestinian radio was already quoting the official statement of “a Palestinian spokesman”, not Arafat or any other PA official by name.

Unlike the Israeli media, which celebrated the headline but ignored the content, the Palestinian media ignored the headline but emphasized the content, in other words, the whole statement.

As a service to its customers, The Media Line is furnishing the official Palestinian statement, with headline, as it appears on the official Palestinian web site, WAFA (Wikalat al-Anba al-Filasteeniyya).
[Note: The English, Arabic and Hebrew texts are quite similar, so that if your computer does not get one of the languages, you’re not losing out. MW].

© 2002 Michael Widlanski

Text of Palestinian statement:

“The Palestinian leadership have condemned and rejected the operation against civilians near Um Al Fahem.

Ramallah, March 20, 2002 – WAFA :
Following the attack against Israeli civilians near the town of Um Al Fahem this morning, the Palestinian leadership issued this statement:

  • “The international community and the whole world who have stood firm with our people in the face of the Israeli attacks against Palestinian civilians, cities and refugee camps does not accept any Palestinians to target Israeli civilians inside Israel.”
  • “In spite of the Israeli continuation of their siege, assignations and killing of civilians, there are honest efforts by Gen Zinni and other international parties after the UN resolution 1397 to end this war against our people and put an end to the Israeli occupation.”
  • “The Palestinian leadership’s efforts are concentrated right now on ending the Israeli aggression and lifting the siege and putting an end to the collective punishment. This requires from all not to do any military operations against civilians inside Israel, specially operations like this one in Um Al Fahem which the Palestinian leadership have condemned and rejected.”
  • “Such operations may delay the implementation of the ceasefire and the implementation of tenet and Mitchell’s plans.”
  • “The Palestinian leadership calls on all the Palestinian people to work hard to achieve the Palestinian national interest and not to give the Israeli extreme forces an excuse by these operations to cover its attacks against our Palestinian people.”

© 2002 Michael Widlanski, with citations from WAFA

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