Simshalom Responds to STAR TRIBUNE DISCOVERS TERROR (& Subsequent Follow-Up)
From: Honest Reporting
action@honestreporting.com
To: simshalom@att.net
Subject: Star Tribune Discovers Terror
Dear HonestReporting Subscriber,

For the past three years, no matter how monstrous the Palestinian attack on Israeli civilians, the Minneapolis Star Tribune has consistently refused to apply the word 'terrorism.' One of the paper's editors explained their 'evenhanded' position in February, 2002:

In the case of the term 'terrorist,' other words ¯ 'gunman,' 'separatist' and 'rebel,' for example ¯ may be more precise and less likely to be viewed as judgmental.

We also take extra care to avoid the term 'terrorist' in articles about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because of the emotional and heated nature of that dispute.

Now, suddenly, the largest paper in Minnesota has discovered 'terrorism' in the Mideast.

No, it wasn't the horrific murder of 11 men, women and children on a Jerusalem bus on Jan. 29. That was described yet again in Star Tribune wire reports as the work of a 'militant group'.

Here were the rule-breakers:

1) On Jan. 31, the Star Tribune ran a profile of a local priest, Michael Ovikian, who grew up in Jerusalem. The reporter describes Ovikian surviving the 1946 Irgun bombing of the King David Hotel (emphasis added):

It was midday July 22, 1946. Ovikian was eating in the basement of the King David Hotel when Zionist terrorists struck... The Brits had fortified the hotel's eight-story southern wing with barbed wire and tanks. But the terrorists sneaked in the northern end dressed as delivery people, their milk cans filled with TNT.

So the Star Tribune, which has maintained a 'non-judgmental' refusal to call Palestinian terror by name, determined that the King David bombing was, in fact, 'Zionist terror'. This, despite the fact that (unlike any Palestinian terror) the Irgun issued specific warnings of the impending strike against the British command at the hotel, and that civilians were not intentionally targeted.

2) The Jan. 21 edition of the Star Tribune carried an AP article on IDF anti-Hezbollah actions, accompanied by a photo of the IDF dismantling a West Bank outpost and synagogue. The photo caption was careful to point out that the "synagogue was dedicated to the memory and teachings of American-Israeli Meir Kahane, whose anti-Arab Kach movement is on the U.S. State Department list of terror organizations," but the article describes Hezbollah (which is on that same State Department list) as mere "guerrillas." Moreover, the Star Tribune edited out the following passage from the original AP article, which described American support for the Israeli reprisal:

The United States blamed Hezbollah guerrillas for the escalation and cautioned Syria against giving support to the Lebanese militant group.

It seems that all the talk by the Star Tribune of sophisticated editorial policy was just a lot of hot air ¯ masking what is genuinely an anti-Israel double-standard.

A further indication of the double standard: The Star Tribune has a special section of its online edition devoted to world terrorism, which includes archived articles on terror threats and attacks in the US, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan - even Nigeria. But blowing up a Jerusalem commuter bus didn't qualify.

These latest blunders extend the Star Tribune's history of distorting the conflict. In 2002, after being caught red-handed, Star Tribune editors publicly admitted that the newspaper re-wrote wire service stories in a manner which radically distorted the meaning of a Human Rights Watch report on casualties in the Jenin refugee camp. The Star Tribune's own ombudsman called this an "embarrassing wart."

In response to the latest events, Minnesotans Against Terrorism clarified to HonestReporting that the issue is not whether Kach or the Irgun committed terrorist acts:
MAT's primary concern is that when innocent civilians are specifically targeted for death and terror, that conduct and its perpetrators be accurately and objectively referred to as "terrorism" regardless of the cause, and regardless of the nationality of the victims. The Star Tribune should be honest with its readers and call all attacks specifically targeted against innocent men, women and children by its proper name, "terrorism", and not play favorites with specific groups or causes.

HonestReporting encourages subscribers to send comments to Star Tribune through their online form, by clicking here.


SIMSHALOM'S RESPONSE AND LETTER TO THE EDITOR:

Dear Editors,
Having come across and read your comments about the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem by the Jewish Irgun in 1946 (one of very few such ISOLATED acts, that were condemned by all the mainstream leading Jewish organizations including Ben Gurion's para-military Haganah that was working with the British overlords, at a time when the British army was sending Jewish Holocaust survivors to concentration camps in Cyprus), you call the "Irgun" bombers "terrorists" whereas you adamantly refuse to apply that label to Palestinian's who have blown up more than ONE HUNDRED BUSES all over Israel, killing almost ONE THOUSAND civilians, and wounding about FIVE THOUSAND.

This defies all standards of logic, objectivity, and fairness in reporting the news and comparing the facts of history.

Please make this clear in your MIND and NEWSPAPER: That Arabs or Moslems are TERRORISTS, repeat TERRORISTS, when they commit the following acts of TERROR: Target and kill thousands of innocent civilians ANYWHERE: be it the Twin Towers in New York; the UN and Red Cross Headquarters in Iraq; synagogues in Turkey; civilian airliners over Scotland; kidnap theater patrons in Moscow; and blow up civilian buses, shops and restaurents in Israel.

Those Arab and Moslem "organizations",such as Al Quada; PLO; Hamas; Hizbala, and Islamic Jihad, that recruit, train, and sponsor their own bombers-terrorists are, by the definition of what they do, TERRORIST organizations. Governments that sponsor them are also by definition "TERRORIST REGIMES".

So please quit picking on the long defunct Irgun (1946/7 !!! gone for almost 60 years) by holding it up as an "example" of anything to do with current Israel, and instead focus your journalistic lense on the monstrous PRESENT realities of what Arab and Moslem genuine TERRORISTS are planning and doing in the HERE AND NOW.

FOLLOW UP:

----- Original Message -----
From: Honest Reporting
To: simshalom@att.net
Sent: Thursday, February 05, 2004 9:51 AM

-- STAR TRIBUNE APOLOGIZES --

HonestReporting's latest communique noted the double standard of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, which broke their policy against using the term 'terrorism' when they found 'Zionist terror'.

Star Tribune editors have recognized the problem with both articles critiqued by HonestReporting, and apologized.

Regarding the January 21 article in which the Kach movement was described as a terrorist organization, but Hezbollah was not, Star Tribune deputy managing editor Roger Buoen said:

I agree with your point that referring to the organizations in this way gave readers and unfair and unbalanced description of the two groups... That was a mistake because it created an imbalance in the portrayal of the two organizations. We have talked to the editor involved, and she understands the balance and fairness problem that the editing created.

And regarding the January 31 story which referred to 'Zionist Terrorists', editor Paul Walsh said:

Quite simply, that was an oversight. A sharp-eyed editor should have changed that word.

The Wall Street Journal's popular daily weblog, Best of the Web Today, quoted HonestReporting's research, bringing it to the attention of many thousands of new readers.

Thank you for your ongoing involvement in the battle against media bias.
HonestReporting.com
- posted by Izak @ 4:57 PM