RAMALLAH, West Bank, Oct. 21 – When Israel unleashed a retaliatory rocket barrage nearly two weeks ago against the police station here, where two of its soldiers were killed by an angry mob, the helicopters took out a second target as well: the transmitters of the Voice of Palestine, the Palestinian Authority’s official radio network, which Israel contends has deliberately incited mass violence and ethnic hatred.

“This was the voice of the intifada, and people could express their feelings without censorship,” said Ibrahim Milhem, the host of “Good Morning Palestine,” a popular call-in talk show. “The only way Israel could stop it was to bomb it.”

But the Voice of Palestine was back on the air by nightfall, its signal switched to transmitters loaned by private stations.

Now, with simultaneous broadcasting on several FM frequencies giving it a bigger audience than ever, the network’s news bulletins, commentaries and martial music have become the ubiquitous soundtrack to life in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

As with the two television stations owned by the Palestinian Authority, programs are regularly interrupted by live coverage of clashes with Israeli troops and eulogies for each Palestinian killed in the violence that has claimed more than 100 lives in three weeks.

Israeli military commanders said this sort of coverage has directly provoked attacks against its forces, including the killing of the two soldiers here on Oct. 12.

“They call us murderers, and they show pictures of Israeli soldiers shooting Palestinian children, day and night,” said Tsionit Kuperwasser, an Israeli colonel who monitors Palestinian news coverage.

Israel tried leveling another weapon against Palestinian broadcasters: the truce agreement brokered by President Clinton in Egypt.

The pact expressly called for a halt to incitement, a provision read by Israelis as a requirement that official Palestinian news outlets cease their depictions of all Palestinian killed as heroes and all Israeli soldiers and settlers as villains.

But while senior Palestinian officials urged local news media to stress their commitment to the cease-fire, radio and television news directors said they were not asked and have not volunteered to change the basic tenor of their broadcasts.

“Every word the Israelis hear on the Voice of Palestine they think is incitement,” Mr. Milhem said. “But what they are hearing is Palestinians demanding our rights.”

A 43-year-old former newspaper editor, Mr. Milhem is also the West Bank news anchor and editorial director for Palestine Satellite Television, one of the Palestinian Authority’s two channels.

Because the incidents represent instances of the authority’s “losing control,” he said, his network has never televised the two images that now define the Israeli view of the conflict: that of the Palestinian mob torching and destroying a site known as Joseph’s tomb, which is venerated by Orthodox Jews, and the killings of the two Israeli soldiers here.

But Palestinian television has repeatedly shown the furious Israeli responses – including the seven missiles fired at the radio station.

Israeli officials said the air strike against Voice of Palestine was justified, citing NATO attacks on state television studios in Yugoslavia, where official media were accused of promoting violence in Kosovo.

Israelis cite as one egregious example a televised sermon that defended the killing of the two soldiers. “Whether Likud or Labor, Jews are Jews,” proclaimed Sheik Ahmad Abu Halabaya in a live broadcast from a Gaza City mosque the day after the killings.

Of greater concern to Israelis, said military officials and media monitors dispatched by the government to brief journalists and diplomats, is the Palestinians’ unapologetically nationalistic coverage. Radio talk shows praise Palestinian “resistance” and excoriate Israeli “war criminals.” Televised funeral processions are replayed in slow motion with video overlays of Israeli soldiers firing their weapons.

A line of text appears at the foot of the screen during a talk show, announcing not an incoming storm front but the latest confirmed death of another “martyr,” a category applied equally to rock-throwing children, innocent bystanders and Kalashnikov-firing militias.

Israeli spokesmen also cite as examples of “incitement” the standard recitation of long-standing Palestinian political demands by Palestinian cabinet ministers – among them their claim to East Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees’ “right of return” to their former homeland.

Mr. Milhem says Israel is asking Palestinians to stop broadcasting incidents that are shown globally by the BBC and CNN, and on Israeli news shows as well. “We are covering the story here, we are reporting the facts,” he said. “We have no fabricated pictures, and no fabricated stories.”

Israeli news media present a distorted view of the conflict to its own public, Mr. Milhem said. Israeli television’s constant showing of the burning of Joseph’s Tomb and the killing of the soldiers here inspires hatred of Palestinians, he said.

“They don’t show the Palestinian hospitals with the dead and the wounded,” Mr. Milhem said, “they don’t show the Palestinian trucks that have been burned by Jewish settlers, they don’t show the Palestinian ambulances being shot at by Israeli soldiers. They don’t show Palestinian mothers crying. They show Israeli mothers crying.”

The writer is a correspondent for the New York Times bureau in Israel

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“The Jews came here to sweep away the presence our people to transfer our people.” (Ahmad Abdul-Rahman, cabinet secretary of the Palestinian Authority, in Oct 23 first morning news interview)

DETAIL AND HEADLINES

Top item in details from 7am news:

“President Yaser Arafat returned to his headquarters in Gaza yesterday from Cairo, and his excellency said the Israeli escalation against the sons of our people are a sinful plot. His excellency considered results of the Arab summit to be positive and important, especially the stances of the Arab states and their steadfastness-politically and financially– with our people’s struggle.

His Excellency (Arafat) said our people are turning their destiny to Jerusalem, our independent and eternal capital.”

SUMMARY

In its broadcasts of Oct 23, VOP escalated the tone of its rhetoric, highlighting the need to fight for Jerusalem while reminding listeners of “the original sin” Zionism as an expansionist movement aimed at throwing the Arabs off their land. The toughest remarks came from Ahmad Abdul-Rahman, one of Arafat’s two closest advisors who seemed to be echoing Arafat’s remarks of Oct 22 that Barak could “go to hell.” Abdul-Rahman, the PA cabinet secretary used the term “Jews” and insisted that their intention hadalways been to evict the Arabs. The “subtext” of this message is not repealing the “aggression of ’67” or even the “calamity of ’48” nor even the Balfour Declaration of 1917. Rather it is a reference to “arrival of the Zionists” that originally appears in the earliest 1964 version of the Palestinian Covenant. That document says that Jews who arrived “before the Zionist invasion” may stay in Palestine. Abdul-Rahman’s rhetoric is basically a recurrence of such dialectic. It is no accident. It follows and even upgrades Arafat’s speech at the Arab Summit that spoke of UN resolutions 191 and 184 calling for the resettlement of refugees and implementation of the 1947 partition lines.

In its early morning news, VOP highlighted the fighting in Beit Jallah as a dangerous escalation involving Israeli helicopters, featuring a report from its local reporter, Sayid Ayad, who head Israel had employed missiles, artillery, tanks and helicopters in its attack on the homes of Beit Jallah. Ayad said Israel had hit several homes, destroyed a fire engine and and almost hit a school.

VOP said the Palestinian Authority “welcomed” the decisions of the Arab summit in Cairo, stressing Tunisia’s decision to cut off official ties with Israel.

In its afternoon and evening broadcasts (Oct 22) the Voice of Palestine stressed that Israel was using internationally banned “dumdum”bullets. VOP placed great emphasis on Israel’s use of “live ammunition all the time,” going into great detail into the kinds of ammunition and casualties in a variety of localities: Jenin, Ramallah, Hebron and several smaller towns. This came well before the late evening fighting in Gilo/Beit Jallah.

SONG OF THE DAY

Ya al-Qudsi Arabi, Arabi. Ya al-Quds Sumudi Sumudi:
O Jerusalem is Arab, Arab
O Jerusalem my steadfastness, my steadfastness.

VOP has switched to a total package of martial music to introduce its news and feature programming-always using patriotic/Islamic songs that highlight the terms “Allahu Akbar” (God is Great: a phrase frequently employed as a battle cry for Islamic fighters.

The spirit of the songs is best summed up by a verse that repeats itself constantly during the daily programming:

“Namutu, Namutu Jamian
Wa-Yehi al-Watan”

It means: “We will die, we will die–all of us, and the homeland will live.”

INTERVIEW

Cabinet Secretary Ahmad Abdul-Rahman (in top-featured prime drive-time morning interview 7:10 AM): This government (Barak) sees it as its right to open fire on Palestinians, to kill Palestinians, to wound Palestinians. If one Palestinian throws a rock or a gasoline bomb-woe unto all the Palestinians and their houses, their lives and farms. We say the Israelis are to blame. The Israelis built the settlements. The Jews came here to sweep away the presence of our people, to build the movement to transfer our people, to expel our people. Well any people has the right to defend itself and to defend its land”.

There was an important shift in recent days in the content and tone of broadcasts, best signified by what was left out as by what was left in.

The lead-up to the Sharm al-Sheikh summit was marked by a sharp decline in the use of direct calls for violence on the part of Palestinian Arabs. This trend seemed to shift once again on the morning of October 17.

The pre-summit period also witnessed less use of inflammatory poetry and the use of martial music and fiery rhetoric by reporters and studio announcers-elements which characterized the period between Oct 1-Oct. 11 (e.g. comments by Palestinian minister Hassan Asfour: “We regard settlers as terrorists and as targets for our bullets).

However, even during this more recent period there was also no clear message-whether in the name of Yasser Arafat himself or in the name of “al qiyadah-al-filastiniyya” (the Palestinian leadership) to avoid violence or even to “remain calm.” Indeed, there were still many secondary-level uses of incitement such as rapid-fire, on-the-scene reports from battle zones of Intifadat al-Aqsa (the al Al-Aqsa Intifada). This is especially true of Hebron, Nablus and Bethlehem where breathless reports of injuries sustained by citizens were juxtaposed to calls to listeners come out and help and defend Palestinian rights.

The change in tone and content does not appear to have any connection to the Israeli helicopter gunship attack on Palestinian transmitters after which VOP broadcasts moved from 657medium wave (AM) to 103.4 FM. Rather, the change seems to be connected with a political decision by the Palestinian Authority based on the perception that the fiery rhetoric and some of the fiery actions (such as the burning of the Tomb of Joseph in Nablus) were “irresponsible” (to use VOP’s own term) or counter-productive.

Moreover, there has been no official condemnation or even public pronouncement of disapproval of any single act or sets of actions carried out by Palestinian forces or civilians. These include the attacks on Israeli soldiers by Palestinian police who were members of the same joint Palestinian-Israeli patrol units in Gaza, the mob killings in Ramallah or the shootings into Israeli settlements and neighborhoods.

BACKGROUND

The Voice of Palestine has for more than five years been the official voice of the Palestinian Authority, particularly its leader, Yasser Arafat. It has broadcast almost exclusively in Arabic from its headquarters in Ramallah, but in the last two weeks, VOP has added several daily news bulletins in Hebrew, English and French to its daily menu.

VOP’s message has almost always been more modulated, sophisticated and moderate than PA television or newspaper outlets.

For purposes of this survey, news broadcasts have been monitored at peak listening hours and news round-up shows (7AM,8AM, 12-Noon, 2PM, 4PM and 7 or 9 PM).

ELEMENTS OF REPORTING

Israeli Arabs

VOP has continued its stepped up attention to “Arabs within the Green Line,” highlighting Israeli Arab members of Knesset (MK’s) far beyond the level employed before the current crisis. Similarly, Israeli Arab casualties have been given equal billing with Palestinian casualties. The term “Israel” is almost never used in connection to Arab citizens of Israel, and it is apparent that the PA is consciously using its radio to woo and influence this community.

Here are some concrete examples:

Oct 5-Several news reports referred to Israeli police operating against riots in Nazareth and Um al-Fahem as “junuud al-ihtilal” (occupation soldiers. This was the first referral to Israeli security forces operating inside Israel (the Green Line) as “junuud al-ihtilal”

Oct 6-In clashes between Jews and Arabs,VOP used, for the first time, the term “mustawtaneen” (settlers or colonists) to refer toJewish citizens of Israel.

The United States

In recent days, VOP has been pushing the PA position that the US is tilting strongly in Israel’s favor, particularly on security positions as well as Israel refusal to accept an international inquiry into the recent violence..

Ceasefire

VOP reported (7AM, Oct. 17) that PA General Abdel-Raziq al-Mujaida said the Israeli taking over of international border checkpoints in Rafah was the end of the ceasefire agreement reached several days earlier because of “criminal Israeli terrorism.”

Interviewee Dr. Manuel Hassasian (7:13 AM): “The summit is one thing and the blessed intifada is another thing. The blessed intifada has is part of a historical process and it has pushed forward the Palestinian cause”

Rhetorical Elements

The tough and even direct incitement showed signs of beginning to return on October 17 as the results (or lack thereof, according toVOP’smorning reports) of the Sharm al-Sheikh summit became clearer.

A. Muhammad Dahalan, head of PA security in Gaza, during 7AM interview show: “The intifada will continue. We will not arrest members of Hamas and we will not take away their arms.”

B. 9:55 AM October 17, Senior commentator Youssef al-Kazaz (during lead-up to a telephone call-in show with listeners):

“We will defend ourselves. We will defend our land. We will defend our history. We will defend our holy places.”
(Note: the call to “defend holy sites” and “come out and defend al-Aqsa” was used on VOP broadcasts on September 27 and September 28 in the prelude to the visit of Ariel Sharon to the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif areas.)

Muhammad Jabber (caller, speaking to al-Kazaz): “The blood of the Palestinians will continue to flow. Onward to Jihad.”

Kazaz: “Thank you Muhammad, and blessings on you and on all Palestinian homes.”