One side of the story

No story gets such extensive coverage on global TV, radio, print and Internet as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But how fair and unbiased...

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No story gets such extensive coverage on global TV, radio, print and Internet as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But how fair and unbiased is the coverage? Do journalists have equal access on both sides of the divide? I was horrified to learn from Nabil Sha’ath, foreign minister of the Palestinian Authority, that avenues into the Palestinian areas for foreign journalists have been choked off by the Israelis. Journalists simply cannot report from the Palestinian end.

Surely this cannot be true. After all we do see images of crowded funerals, boys pelting stones at Israeli tanks, women running for cover. Well, there are some Palestinian TV crews and reporters stringing for a series of networks and publications, Sha’ath says. No independent, foreign journalist or TV crew can enter the Palestinian areas.

Is it true? This is one of the questions one would like to ask Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon when he arrives next week.

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Let me quote, verbatim, what I asked Sha’ath and what he said in response. ‘‘Suppose I wish to visit Palestine-Gaza, Ramallah — how does one get there? How does one visit the foreign minister of the Palestinian Authority?’’

He replied: ‘‘You probably will not be allowed into Gaza anyway. Israelis have stopped all foreigners from going into Gaza, have prevented foreigners from leaving Gaza, have warned foreign residents of Gaza that if they leave, they will not be allowed in again. The reason is that they don’t want anybody to see for himself what’s going on in Gaza, they don’t want any human rights activists to go and put their bodies between Israeli bulldozers and Palestinian houses. Therefore it is going to be extremely difficult for you to go to Gaza. It will probably be less difficult to go to

Ramallah, Nablus or Jenin. The Israelis are creating many hurdles to prevent foreigners from coming to Gaza — to see, to help, to support.’’

I asked him how he manages to travel? ‘‘It took me seven and a half hours to cover 90 km between Gaza and river Jordan. You get stopped everywhere, you get stopped at the junction going to Israel, you get stopped again going into the West Bank, you get stopped for quite long trying to go over the bridge from Jericho to Jordan. It’s a difficult time. Israel is besieging every Palestinian town and village.’’

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Since I was talking to the Palestinian foreign minister, I heard all this in a state of shock. But gradually, upon reflection, I was surprised at my own amnesia. After all, just a few months ago we were treated to live images of Yasser Arafat peering out of a window of his Ramallah headquarters as Israeli bulldozers smashed every room except the one he was occupying.

The mind wanders in other directions. I was in Libya when President Reagan ordered the bombing of Tripoli and Benghazi. Qaddafi escaped, but his daughter was killed. That was much before the post-9/11 war on terror became a universal incantation. More recently, Saddam Hussein’s sons were rocketed out of existence by helicopter gunships. They were nasties. But Saddam’s grandson was killed too. The world was expected to stand up and applaud.

These simple, human observations place you on the wrong side of the global divide in the war against terror.

It is against this general backdrop that Sharon arrives here. As an itinerant journalist, it has been my fortune to have interviewed most Israeli prime ministers — Shamir, Rabin, Peres, Netanyahu — and a host of other leaders. In those days the Israelis themselves facilitated my passage to Gaza and the West Bank. The quest for peace on both sides was serious — halting, but earnest, at least on the face of it. Since the coming of Sharon, the Middle East landscape has changed beyond recognition.

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At one stage it seemed the military success in the Iraq war (now in doubt) was compelling the Americans to invest in peace on the Israeli-Palestinian track. With supreme confidence Terje Larsen, the UN secretary general’s special representative in the Middle East, told me, ‘‘The quartet consisting of the US, Russia, EU and the UN would monitor every stage of the roadmap.’’ Has anyone heard of that quartet in recent months?

By Sha’ath’s testimony that multilateral approach has now been shelved. So why should one place any more credence on US professions of leaning on the UN in managing Iraq? In fact there is concern at policy-making levels in New Delhi at the singular absence of a coherent US gameplan in any of its major international involvements. Sha’ath said that at the end of the two Gulf Wars, Washington had taken up Middle East peace with some promise. ‘‘What better place to invest in peace than the holy lands!’’

According to him the weakening of President Bush because of the grim turn of events in Iraq has caused Washington to take its eyes off the Middle East roadmap and during this time Sharon is bulldozing his way to few know where.

It promises to be a lively exchange with Sharon next week. And for the media that question of access to the story — on both sides.