A Jewish conspiracy? p.10

By: Tony Case IN THE WESTERN world, it's considered offensive to speak of a Jewish conspiracy to control business, the banks, the media. But Imad Musa of the Jerusalem Media and Communication Center said it's undeniable that American news organizations employ a larger proportion of Jews than other industries.
"It's not a conspiracy theory," he said. "We've seen it . . . the New York Times, the Washington Post."
Added Saida Hamad of the news agency Quds Press: "You talk lots and lots about freedom of the press, but how can [a news operation] be so unbiased if its Jerusalem bureau chief is a Jew and he is covering a Jewish-Palestinian conflict?"
When asked whether reporters weren't supposed to be objective, regardless of their ethnicity or nationality, Musa replied: "That's in Utopia."
On a recent United Nations-sponsored visit here, the Palestinian journalists expressed harsh criticism about American press coverage of the Nov. 4 assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
"You would have thought that Rabin was the president of the United States," Hamad said. "It's unbelievable. I know Israel is important and the Middle East is important . . . but it was given too much coverage, and it was very, very biased."
The media, she charged, made Rabin out to be a hero, without playing up his role as an officer in the Israeli army.
"He's a hero, a hero of peace, but he has a history," Hamad said, calling Rabin "a terrorist," guilty of leading massacres against Palestinians.
Musa said news reports made it seem as though Rabin had died for peace, when "he died for Israel."
Meanwhile, if Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat were slain, the journalist maintained, newspapers wouldn't balk at referring to him as a terrorist.