Good article Daniel. though you mention that there is much incitement rhetoric within Israel against the Palestinians you should also have stressed that this is subject that the NY Times and the rest of the MSM in the US does not cover.

After 911 I began to look for international news in papers overseas and discovered Haaretz. It was amazing. The Israeli press was routinely covering stories I had no idea were out there. While here in the US the NYT routinely covered the worst actions occurring among the Palestinians there was no, or very little mention of routine things going on in Israel. Things like real estate covenants that prevent Arabs from living in Jewish neighborhoods, separate schools for Jews and Arabs, Arabs being excluded from Israeli government positions (though they make up 20% of the population), school books for Israeli school children that do not recognize the green line borders and the racist opinions of wide sectors of Israeli society. I learned about this in Haaretz, while the NYT spends its time documenting the ugly antisemitic tendencies within the Arab world.

Thanks for this well thought out and nuanced take on the situation, Daniel. In all of this, it's crucial to remember that the sooner the conflict is resolved, the sooner all those young Palestinians will be given hope for the future and reasons to turn away from these sorts of incitements to violence and hatred.

SourceWatch has some interesting information on MEMRI:

History

According to its website, founded in February 1998 "to inform the debate over U.S. policy in the Middle East, MEMRI is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit, 501(c)(3) organization. MEMRI's headquarters is located in Washington, DC with branch offices in Berlin, London, and Jerusalem, where MEMRI also maintains its Media Center. MEMRI research is translated to English, German, Hebrew, Italian, French, Spanish, Turkish, and Russian."

MEMRI's stance is that it is opposed to Islamic fundamentalism, not Islam itself, although the integrity of this position may be questioned because of links on MEMRI's website to certain evangelical Christian organizations who take a harder line on Islam. Yigal Carmon, MEMRI's founder, is a former advisor on terrorism to the Israeli Prime Ministers, Yitzhak Shamir and Yitzhak Rabin, so he actually worked for both Labor and Likud governments. Praise for MEMRI should be taken with a grain of salt since it is almost always motivated by politics, not the quantity or quality of MEMRI's work.

MEMRI has gained currency with most pro-Israel writers, as well as right-wing publications. For example, New York Times writer Thomas Friedman, a influential foreign affairs columnist, has used MEMRI translations a number of times in his columns.
The entire article is worth reading. Here's the link: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=MEMRI The thing that's scary is that, as the SourceWatch article notes, MEMRI translations and articles are thought of as unbiased and quoted by a number of prominent news sources.

SourceWatch apparently has not yet researched Palestinian Media Watch. They ought to do so, and I plan to write them a note about the omission. Perhaps others who worry about the one-sided coverage of Israeli-Palestinian issues might consider doing the same.

Thank you too, syvanen, for your comments.

Can you end hate by closing a TV channel, newspaper or mosque but maintaining a siege on Gaza, 580 obstacles to movement in the West Bank, 121 settlements, and at least 130 Palestinian civilians killed in 2007 (plus the deaths of 53 Palestinian minors)?

Daniel Levy: Be careful, this criticism of Israel might be considered to be anti-Semitic by the US State Dept.

"The distinguishing feature of the new anti-Semitism is criticism of Zionism or Israeli policy that—whether intentionally or unintentionally—has the effect of promoting prejudice against all Jews by demonizing Israel and Israelis and attributing Israel’s perceived faults to its Jewish character."
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/102301.pdf

Daniel is careful to preface his piece with pious protestations of his concern. Such incitement cannot be "easily dismissed," nor are there "excuses" for it, he writes, before proceeding first to dismiss the significance of this rhetoric and then to excuse it.

There are three lines of attack in this piece. Let's take them in turn.

First, Daniel points to a handful of hateful and incendiary statements made by Israelis, targeting Arabs. It's tough to know what to make of this. Are hateful things said within Israel, including by prominent Israelis, some of whom profit politically by inciting hatred? Certainly. Is the content of the Israeli media even vaguely comparable to the vitriol in Hamas-controlled outlets? I'm unaware of any responsible observer who would make that claim. But that clearly evident disparity hardly excuses those Israelis who engage in such speech, any more than the existence of hateful rhetoric among Israelis can excuse Hamas.

Daniel proceeds to question the agendas of the two institutions on which Erlanger evidently relied for much of his material; these groups are devoted to scouring Palestinian media outlets and translating the most hateful and incendiary things they can find. Daniel claims that the article would have been more credible had Erlanger resisted "the temptation to use sources such as" MEMRI and PMW. I don't see why that's so. Let's cede up front that the groups have an agenda; most groups do. That doesn't necessarily make them wrong - after all, if official Palestinian and Hamas outlets didn't say hateful things, they'd be out of business. Not even Daniel bothers to challenge the accuracy of their translations. Everything Erlanger quotes in the article was actually said. Moreover, Erlanger was transparent in telling readers how he'd assembled his information. And, as Daniel cedes, he quite responsibly interviewed numerous Palestinians, verifying that this sort of speech is the rule, not the exception. Would that reporters had been so responsible in their coverage of Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Let's pause, for a moment, to consider the implications of Daniel's argument. We can't trust Israelis who are single-mindedly devoted to tracking incitement, he writes, because they have an agenda. We can't trust Palestinians tied to Fatah who criticize Hamas, because they also have an agenda. (Also, bizzarely, because they're guilty of incitement themselves, so who are they to point fingers?) So who can we trust? Presumably not the independent Palestinian political scientist quoted in the piece, because Daniel does not mention him. Presumably not Hamas either - Daniel omits the Hamas officials interviewed in the piece, who feed Erlanger quotes like "brothers of apes and pigs."

But the real objection Daniel voices is that Erlanger has devoted an entire article to Hamas' incitement, without presenting readers with the broader picture. And what's the broader picture? That Israeli occupation is the evil that shapes every aspect of Palestinian lives, and that Israeli oppressions "etch a more powerful image into a young Palestinian conscience than words occasionally heard on unpopular TV stations or on a mosque on a Friday." Clearly, he writes, the solution is for Israel to end the occupation, because "reconciliation and occupation do not make happy bedfellows."

And so we arrive at the crux of his beef. Daniel makes a simple argument about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The problem is Israeli occupation and oppression, which has in turn spawned Palestinian resistance, and fed extremism and hatred. End the occupation, and its ill effects can be addressed. Maintain the occupation, and no effort to address its consequences can be effective.

Would that life were so simple. The most important problem that Daniel fails to address is the definition of "occupation." As Hamas defines the term, it encompasses all the land from the Jordan to the Mediterranean, or to quote from the piece, the key point is to tell young children that "your original city is Jaffa, your capital is Jerusalem and that the Jews took your land and closed your borders and are killing your friends and family." Hamas doesn't seek withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders, but rather, an end to the State of Israel. Its political power is predicated on cultivating a sense of grievance and maintaining a state of conflict. The destruction of Israel is enshrined in its governing documents, and none of its leaders have given the slightest indication of a willingness to compromise on that point - the most they've ceded is that temporary ceasefires may be possible. None of which, of course, has any bearing on the wisdom or justice of Israel's presence in the West Bank or its actions in Gaza - but it does suggest that it may take more to end the conflict than a withdrawal to the '67 borders.

What Daniel is really missing, of course, is the power of ideas. He would have us believe that material interests trump other motivations; that extremism is an artifact solely of circumstances and not of ideology; that altering incentives alters conduct. I beg to differ. There is a role for material interests, of course, but we must also acknowledge the power of beliefs, of ideas, of rhetoric. It's simply absurd to suggest that what Hamas says in its mosques is trivial in its impact, that it's just somethind heard in passing on Fridays. That's why the Deputy Minister of Culture expresses his alarm that Hamas is inculcating "children with a culture of hatred, of closed minds, a culture of sickness." It's why a politically-independent professor of political science notes that "everyone has to listen to the imam whether you believe him or not. By saying the same thing over and over, you find a lot of people believing it, especially when he cites the Koran or hadith." It's their culture, it's their own children, and they're appalled by what they're hearing and seeing. They're well aware that these beliefs are likely to outlast the material conditions that set the stage for their adoption - that incitement undermines the potential for real and lasting peace.

There's an oddly patronizing tone to Daniel's column. Palestinians end up deprived of agency; their actions and even their thoughts are byproducts of Israeli policies. They have no freedom of choice in his construction. That's distressing to me. He posits that "ending the the occupation may be a precondition for reconciliation." I don't see why one necessarily has to follow the other. Indeed, it seems likely to me that actions on either side are likely to be mutually reinforcing - and that inaction on either side shouldn't serve as an excuse for reprehensible conduct. But that's not a message Daniel wants to hear. It's simpler to believe that responsibility rests entirely with one party, specifically, with the nation with which Daniel identifies and which he has served. It gives him the illusion of control - if only he could change the minds of his compatriots, he could solve the problem. If only Israel could be brought to act, everything would be better. It's tough to concede that your opponent actually exerts equal control over your own destiny; that your actions may be an important first step, but that their efficacy ultimately rests on the decisions of others. And, given the deplorable state of internal politics within the Palestinian territories, recognizing that Israel's fate is ultimately entwined with the prospects for those territories transforming themselves into a viable political entity is more than a little depressing. But it does little good to hide from that fact, however inconvenient it may be.

There's an oddly patronizing tone to Daniel's column. Palestinians end up deprived of agency; their actions and even their thoughts are byproducts of Israeli policies. They have no freedom of choice in his construction.

1. There is lots of anger among Palestinians against their oppressors, and aggrieved people often say ugly things (Rev Wright, for instance).