Israel Complaining About Setbacks in Propaganda War

by Ferry Biedermann

The Israeli army asserts its soldiers fired back when they were shot at and says the matter is under investigation. The Palestinians have a different view, and international rights group have strongly condemned his killing.

Jenin is at the center of the biggest propaganda battle of the second intifada. Israeli foreign relations experts and anti-terrorism experts are still trying to figure out what hit them over the now-notorious operation known as Operation Defensive Shield in April.

They see that as crucial because talk of a massacre in Jenin is seen as having increased the pressure on Israel to end that operation prematurely. A United Nations report found there was no massacre.

The Israelis have been used to outmaneuvering the Palestinians and the wider Arab world not just on the battlefield but on the propaganda front. But during the second intifada the Palestinians have become visibly more adept at wooing the media. The Israelis are losing much of the credit they had built up with their seemingly open and cooperative ways.

Take the recent bombing that killed Hamas commander Salah Shehadah in Gaza. Apart from him and his bodyguard, 14 civilians died in the air attack, including his wife and daughter. Israeli attempts to manage the media were confused and ineffective. Its statement in the end that a "mistake" had been made sounded unconvincing.

Israelis blame these image problems on their own shortcomings. But lately, they also blame more and more what they see as skewed reporting by the foreign media. "The playing field is not level," says Danny Seaman, director of Israel's Government Press Office (GPO). "We play by democratic rules and have open access and freedom of expression, while the other side does not."

Seaman is unapologetic about restrictions such as closing Palestinian towns to reporters. The GPO no longer offers accreditation to Palestinian journalists working for the foreign media in the West Bank and the Gaza strip. Foreign journalists often depend on these journalists for translations, contacts and sometimes even for interpretation of events. They are called fixers, and Imad Abu Zahra was mainly in that business during this Intifada.

"The Palestinian reporters are proud to announce that their brother and colleague Imad Abu Zahra has become a reporter-martyr," says a poster that came up after Imad's death. It is standard practice now to put up posters to honor the victim of a conflict, whether or not the person was involved in armed struggle.

The reporter-martyr poster illustrates the almost total mobilization of Palestinian society behind the struggle against Israel, at least in word if not in deed. Journalists, human rights activists, doctors, taxi drivers, butchers -- almost everybody advances the nationalist narrative at the expense of facts, if that seems appropriate. There is a high degree of awareness of the profile of the struggle, and of the buttons that push international coverage.

The case of Imad Abu Zahra shows how acutely aware Palestinians are now of what will make a story stand out in the international media. And they have played up those issues.

There is clear discrepancy in the Palestinian stories about Imad. Said Dahlah, a photographer with the Palestinian news agency Wafa, and a friend of Imad's, says the shooting went on "a long time." He says nobody could reach Imad, and it took him 20 minutes to crawl out of the street where he was shot. According to his account, Imad then took shelter in a doorway another 10 minutes, and then was helped into a taxi that took him to hospital.

According to another version by Said's father Shawki, an ambulance tried to reach Imad but it was held up by the shooting. Later Shawki changed the story to say that he tried to call an ambulance but could not get through.

A driver with the ambulance service in Jenin says no ambulances were available when the call came that Imad had been wounded. But five to 10 minutes after the call he saw Imad at the municipal hospital, he says. A doctor at the hospital says Imad could not have bled for 30 minutes. He says Imad was wounded 10 to 20 minutes before he was brought to hospital.

Foreign observers on a solidarity mission with the Palestinians in Jenin arrived at the spot just before Imad was helped into a taxi. They say they heard no firing when they approached the area, and they had no idea Imad had been hit before they arrived.

Said Dahlah says Imad was wearing markings to identify him as a journalist. His father says he cannot confirm that. Pictures after the shooting show Imad wearing a yellow T-shirt.

There is a further question whether Imad was working as a journalist that day. Curfew had been lifted. His mother says Imad left to do some shopping, with his camera bag in hand. Later he called to say he was returning soon. That was just before he was shot. Some photographers say he had gone to take pictures of new Israeli roadblocks around the town.

It is the job of reporters to untangle these tales, but it is becoming harder all the time to get the story straight.

All this does not change the fact that Israeli soldiers almost certainly shot an unarmed man who did not pose a threat to them. But stories have been built around the story. On those depend the world's perception of Israel, and of Palestinians.