U.S. Press Can Learn from Israeli Press

By: Suzanne Rosenberg The American press has been reluctant to criticize Israel?s role in the economic collapse and civilian humanitarian disaster in Lebanon resulting from the latest border conflict between Hezbollah and Israel. A possible explanation for this: Israel is viewed as an ally of the United States, regardless of one's political orientation. But this conflict, as with most in the Middle East, also comes with some confusing variables.

One is that we are used to seeing Israel in the role of the underdog. Although she definitely has the greater military force, she has been on the receiving end of sporadic attacks aimed at civilian targets during the last six years which have transgressed United Nations resolution #1559, which in this case is a resolution Israel wants upheld.

Secondly, perhaps in this country's subconscious is the guilty knowledge that having ignored the Arab-Israeli crisis, by taking our eye off the ball during the last six years, the United States has indirectly helped to spur on this latest military situation. And finally, this latest military conflagration only points up the difficulty of judging proportionality -- and just what a painful and puzzling equation it is. Israel is fighting a war against a legitimate member of the Lebanese government and yet it is not fighting a war against Lebanon. Hezbollah is a non-state actor, which has a larger military and more force and funding available to it than the Lebanese military.

Still another problem exists in light of the fact that Hamas and Hezbollah, not to mention Al Qaeda and other "terror" groups, often utilize civilian abodes to both hide and fire their extremely mobile rocket weaponry. These are moral and ethical questions, which will continue to plague all disputes, which are fought between legitimate
governments and non-state actors.

Although the American and the Jewish press in the U.S. have, for the most part, failed to be critical of Israel during the most recent actions, it is important to point out that in the Israeli press and in Israeli society this is not the case at all. In Israel there has been vigorous discussion and debate in the press and on the streets regarding the government's actions since the conflict began. Unfortunately, that too has not been pointed out in the American press, left or right.

The war and its impact on hundreds of thousands, the call up of the civilian army, the fact that more than one million people from the north of the country have been evacuated from their homes and are refugees in the south, and the standstill to which the economy has arrived, are all byproducts of the war at home for Israel. In addition, Israeli civilians are being killed by the untargeted rocket attacks, and of course military casualties are being taken as well. In spite or perhaps because of all of the above, the latest polls find the Israeli public still overwhelmingly supporting the government. This is a result of plain old-fashioned citizen fear which is overwhelming concerns about longterm ?blowback? or other political or tactical considerations.

In Tel Aviv, on the third day of the fighting a peace rally with over 5000 people was held. Op-eds and editorial opinions which have been critical of the government's actions since the conflict began have been appearing frequently in all the Israeli newspapers regardless of where they fall on the political spectrum. Akiva Eldar, a columnist and writer for Ha?aretz, has been particularly critical of this Israeli government for falling into a trap in responding to the Hezbollah action crossing the blue line into Israel which began this latest conflict. His criticism is particularly pointed in that he states that Israeli intelligence had information which indicated that the Iranian Hezbollah axis was baiting Israel in an attempt to take the attention away from international focus on Iran's nuclear ambitions during the G8 meeting.

Yossi Sarid, another columnist for Ha?aretz, has also been critical of any sort of foray into Lebanon given the history of Israel's past activities in the country. Sarid in particular points out the disastrous public relations backlash from which Israel is likely to suffer as a result of the extent of the country's military actions at this time.

These are only two of many pieces which make up a very lively and vigorous internal domestic debate within Israel about their own country's military preparedness and military actions in Lebanon. Increasingly a moral element of doubt has crept in to the dialogue, especially given the collateral civilian damage of the fighting as well as the fact that the military and political goals of the conflict are beginning to diverge.

The pages of Ha'aretz today continue to reflect the intensity of domestic political disagreements regarding Israeli policies during the Lebanese Campaign. A very public debate is reported extensively in the newspaper about the efficacy of reaching the Litani River before a ceasefire. Also, the head of the ultra-orthodox Lithuanian Jewish community and prominent leader of the Israeli religious party Degel HaTora publicly broke with the government this week and called for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon. A columnist, Doron Rosenblum praised Ariel Sharon's notion of "restraint is strength," and condemned current leaders for "the excessive ease - lightheartedness, really - with which they ignited the flames of a major war."

But regardless of one?s opinion about Israel?s actions, the American press can learn from the puzzling fact that Israel's press, which is in the middle of the muddle, appears to be exercising its rights of self-criticism regarding its own country's actions. This is not surprising when one notes that an openly skeptical press is critical to keeping a public dialogue, and therefore a functioning democracy, going -- something which the U.S. wasn't treated to very often during the period prior to, or in the early years, of our own ongoing military adventures in Iraq, and now in regards to the Israel/Hezbollah conflict.