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The US media's biased coverage of the
crisis in Lebanon should come as no surprise. While the White
House and Congress claim a "special relationship" with
Israel, our news outlets are not supposed to have a "special
relationship" with anyone. Their job is to fairly reports
on matters; anything less is a disservice to those watching their
news programs and reading their newspapers.
Shockingly, Larry King Live
has been "fair" in its coverage of the conflict consuming
Lebanon in contrast to Fox News' O'Reilly Factor, MSNBC's Scarborough
Country and yes, CNN's darling Anderson Cooper 360. There is,
however, much criticism to be doled out to CNN's "longest-running
interview program." One need look no further than Larry
King Live's first two guests, Republican Senator George Allen
and Democratic Senator Evan Bayh. It was nice to see-in this
nine minute segment-two senators putting their congressional
partisan politics aside to stand together in solidarity with
the state of Israel. When Larry King asked Senator Allen if the
US should be a true broker in the region, Allen replied, "We
support Israel, you're right Larry. Israel is a wellspring in
the wilderness in the Middle East and we do support them and
their right to protect themselves."
The next guest on the show
was positioned as the "Lebanese side." Larry King Live
passed off the nearly four minute interview with Chibli Mallat-one
of the leaders of the Cedar Revolution, deep critic of Hezbollah
and candidate for President-as the voice of the Lebanese people.
When Larry King asked Mallat about Nassrallah's remark that the
conflict is an Israeli/American plot to control the Middle East,
Mallat responded, "I'm afraid that I do agree with the senators.
He [Nassrallah] initiated the conflict, and all this talk about
a great plot between Israel and America is out of place. The
conflict was initiatedby [Hezbollah's] reckless action through
the Blue Line that separates Lebanon from Israel. That was a
grave violation of international law and I think also a grave
violation of Lebanese law." Like a true patriot, Mallat
later urged "restraint" from Israel, echoing comments
made by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice weeks earlier.
Now that the "Lebanese
people" were heard, it was necessary to bring on the Israeli
side, Israeli Consul General Ehud Danoch, to counter any "Lebanese"
propaganda. For nearly four minutes, Danoch defended Israel and
extensively illustrated its commitment to root out "terrorism."
As icing on the cake, Danoch took softball emails from viewers
and general questions from Larry King such as, "Why do you
oppose a cease-fire now?" and "Are you optimistic?"
One would think that after
Larry King Live came back from break, the show would cut to the
carnage in Lebanon, the destruction of its infrastructure, or
an analyst discussing the humanitarian implications the siege
on Lebanon presents. Not exactly. When the program returned from
the break, Larry King cut to Anderson Cooper in Northern Israel,
who-given the amount of reporting he's doing in the North-may
as well be looking for a second home. Larry King then cut to
Dr. Sanjay Gupta in Haifa. While Gupta spoke of the horror Katyusha
rockets exact (thousands have been fired, inflicting very little
damage relative to Israel's 500 pound bombs and artillery shells),
pictures crossed the screen of injured Israeli women and children.
The producers, however, were still unsatisfied. Before going
to commercial, Anderson Cooper needed another six minutes explaining
that the "terrorist group," Hezbollah, is hiding within
the civilian population. Cooper makes no mention of the fact
that Hezbollah formed as a resistance group to fight off an Israeli
military that slaughtered nearly twenty thousand innocent Lebanese
and Palestinian civilians in 1982. To justify the mass murder
of the Lebanese population today, Cooper makes clear to the viewer
that while Israel is trying to be as accurate as possible, even
"the most moral military in the world" can only be
so precise. It's ironic that Cooper always has the exact number
of Katushya rockets fired on Israel, but the exact number of
cluster bombs, artillery shells, and missiles used against the
civilian population of Lebanon seems to evade his statistical
charts.
A simple cut to commercial
would not suffice; the producers of program realized that any
decent show must have a good outro. Larry King Live eased into
commercial with a "balanced" set of pictures: first,
a young Muslim girl holding a picture of Hassan Nassrallah, followed
by what is assumed to be a group of Lebanese burning American
and Israeli flags, followed by a man carrying a blanket-covered
lifeless body, succeeded by two young covered Muslim girls (one
of them is in tears), and the sequence ended with three injured
Lebanese boys (one of the boys is in tears). Apparently, when
showing pictures of injured Israelis (they'd show dead ones,
but it doesn't happen often) and "heroic" Israelis,
the producers of Larry King Live misplaced the Associated Press
pictures of little Israeli girls writing messages on missiles
that were about to be fired on the civilian population of Lebanon.
Ironically, the only person killed the day of this particular
episode was a Palestinian-Israeli girl.
Estimates of dead Lebanese
civilians surpassed 900, while the Israeli civilian death toll
is at 27. Although thirty three Lebanese civilians die for every
one Israeli, the US media deems it necessary to give the Israeli
agenda ten minutes of airtime for every minute allotted to the
Lebanese voice. The war crimes being carried out against the
Lebanese and the Palestinian people by Israel should be newsworthy
enough to receive proper coverage. As the conflict drags on,
thanks to the US administration's "green light," the
coverage is becoming ever more skewed, compounded with additional
justifications for Israel's actions, the further villainizing
of Hezbollah and now that the Lebanese-American community has
been evacuated, the silence of the Lebanese voice. One civilian
is one death too many; yet it looks as though thousands more
will perish at the hands of Israeli forces, and once again, the
US media will be out to lunch.
Remi Kanazi is the primary writer for the political
website www.PoeticInjustice.net
He lives in New York City as a Palestinian American freelance
writer, poet and performer and can reached via email at remroum@gmail.com
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