As clashes at a level unseen since the September 1996 Clashes once again swept the landscape of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in September 2000, I wrote to CNN from London concerning their use of the term "rubber bullets", a diminutive term that misleads about the nature of these heavy steel cylinders covered with a mm or two of rubber coating.
(Correspondents Walter Rodgers, Jerrold Kessel, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.)
"At the mosque, one of Islam's holiest sites, Israeli soldiers said they fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse thousands of Palestinians who were throwing stones at them. The security forces had been deployed to maintain order during Friday prayers." [Reference: http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9609/27/israel.update/index.html]
(Correspondent Jerrold Kessel and The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
"Israeli troops fired rubber bullets Tuesday on the fourth day of clashes with Palestinian protesters. At least 17 demonstrators were hurt, three ..." [Reference: http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9706/17/israel.violence/]
(Correspondent Jerrold Kessel and Reuters contributed to this report.)
"Palestinians, claiming the land was privately owned, began throwing stones, and soldiers responded with live rounds and rubber bullets... Four Palestinians, including a 12-year-old boy, were wounded by live fire in the legs, and 13 were hit by rubber bullets." [Reference: http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9707/02/israel.palestinians/index.html]
(The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.)
"Shortly after the shooting, Palestinian protesters threw rocks and bottles at Israeli troops, who responded with rubber bullets and tear gas." [Reference: http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/meast/9910/25/palestinian.shot/]
This misterming has not always been consistant, with uses of both terms in past articles:
(Jerusalem Bureau Chief Walter Rodgers, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.)
"Helmeted soldiers in riot gear fired bullets, rubber-coated steel pellets and tear gas as Palestinians stoned Israeli troops and motorists in the most widespread West Bank clashes in months...At least 67 Palestinians were hurt by rubber bullets and three by live rounds. Three Israeli civilians and two Israeli soldiers were injured by stones." [Reference: http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/meast/9812/09/israel.02/index.html]
Greetings all,
Listen, it's painful to keep having to go over this, but the ammunition that the Israelis are using cannot continue to be described by CNN as "rubber bullets".
In the report:
http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/meast/09/29/israel.violence.01/index.htmlthis phrase crops up several times.
It is misleading to use this phrase as it conveys a sense that these munitions are benign when it is clear that they are not.
In addition, are we talking about rubber or metal-coated [sic] plastic bullets? Which ones are the IDF/Israeli Police using in the case above? There is a huge difference in terms of the damage they can do dependant on the range from which they are deployed.
More information about both can be found in the B'Tselem report "A Death Foretold: Firing of "Rubber" Bullets to Disperse Demonstrations in the Occupied Territories," November 1998, available on the Web at http://www.btselem.org/Files/ERubber.rtf or by phone request to B'Tselem at 02-5617271/4.
From what I hear from human rights contacts inside the territories and from the wires, is the Al-Aqsa compound shootings saw live ammunition used which is not reported on the website.
I do not understand the reasons for CNN's reports continually failing to meet this basic factual requirement.
If CNN is using these wire service reports in addition to Jerrold Kessel's material as the report above cites, then why is there a discrepancy? Reuters has (almost) correctly termed the munitions and has also reported the live ammunition:
A recent wire service report:
> JERUSALEM, Sept 29 (Reuters) - A Palestinian was killed in clashes withAnd another from earlier this morning:
> Israeli police at a holy site in Jerusalem's walled old city on Friday, a
> hospital official said. "We have received 30 cases. Four were critically
> injured. One man died after arrival at the hospital," Doctor Tawifiq Nasser,
> head of East Jerusalem's Augusta Victoria Hospital, told Reuters. Nasser
> said he believed some of the injured had been hit by live ammunition.
> Israeli police said they stormed the al-Aqsa mosque compound in the old city
> and fired rubber-coated bullets during clashes with Palestinian youths
> throwing stones at Jewish worshippers.
> JERUSALEM, Sept 29 (Reuters) - Israeli police fired rubber-coated metal
> bullets at stone-throwing Palestinians at a holy site in Jerusalem's walled
> old city on Friday, an Israeli police spokesman said. He said several police
> were wounded in the clashes. A Palestinian witness said a number of
> Palestinians were also hurt. Shmuel Ben-Ruby, the Jerusalem police spokesman,
> said Palestinian youths rained stones down on Jews praying at the Western Wall
> shortly after the Muslim afternoon prayers finished in the mosque compound
> above. He said paramilitary police entered the mosque compound and fired
> rubber-coated metal bullets at the stone-thowers. The future status of holy
> site is one of the biggest obstacles to an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.
Surely, if I as an individual can get hold of this information in a few minutes, a multi-million dollar news network has the capacity to get this right.
All this does is reinforce the widely-held perspective among those professionally interested in the Middle East, both outside and based there, that this is a purposeful bias on the part of CNN. This is a view I do not personally hold*, yet the longer these mistakes are repeated, the more difficult it is to argue credibly against it.
Please can we sort this out for once and all? It's just embarassing to have to keep bringing these issues up as I know from previous communications with many of you, that you already know all this and have made it clear that CNN's position is not to misname the munitions.
Thank you,
Nigel Parry
To: [same recipients]
A few minutes after I sent the last mail, the website report was updated, which means that last e-mail won't make a whole lot of sense now.
The date and time, however, remained the same:
September 29, 2000
Web posted at: 8:21 a.m. EDT (1221 GMT)
Nigel Parry
>> THOUSANDS OF PALESTINIANS CLASH WITH ISRAELI TROOPS
>
> Dozens of people were injured on Saturday after new clashes erupted between
> Israelis and Palestinians -- on a day of mourning for the Palestinians and
> celebrations marking the Jewish New Year. Israeli soldiers, crouching behind
> walls and vehicles, fired steel-coated rubber bullets and some live rounds
> at the crowd. At least four people have died and about 200 more have been
> injured in the three days of fighting. Israeli soldiers, crouching behind
> walls and vehicles, fired steel-coated rubber bullets and some live rounds at
> the crowd. At least four people have died and about 200 more have been injured
> in the three days of fighting.
Looks like a panic correction, based on my typo in my previous e-mail. Oh dear. Considering the two Reuters reports I cited had it the right way round, it was a pretty avoidable error.
Strangely, in an article a couple of days later, "Peace yields to war over the Mount," by the generally unimpeachable Phil Reeves in Jerusalem, writing for the Independent newspaper (London) on 1 October 2000, this strange error was repeated:
> Twenty people were injured by Israeli steel-coated rubber bullets and stun
> grenades during trouble that broke out as the ceremony unfolded, though this
> was small fry compared to the wave of violence that swept through the rest of
> the occupied territories.
It's pretty standard that most journalists get at least some of their news from other news sources, but this was a very strange error to see picked up and repeated. I wrote to CNN again, and as by this time it was clear that clashes were ongoing, brought up some other matters that had always been bothering me.
To: [same recipients]
Re: THOUSANDS OF PALESTINIANS CLASH WITH ISRAELI TROOPS
Although I was glad to see that today's CNN reports (attached at the end of this e-mail [note: above on this page]) had removed the diminutive "rubber bullets" terminology, I must say that we now have a second problem in CNN's newly adopted terminology, "steel-coated rubber bullets".
As it is the rubber (or plastic in the case of plastic-coated steel bullets) that surrounds the steel and not vice versa, we still have the problem that the ammunition continues to be erroneously described, although I would expect Israelis would have a greater problem with the description than people like myself who generally find themselves having to endure the opposite kind of terming practice.
Please see the following URL for a photograph of plastic-covered metal bullets that should serve as a useful visual cue to remembering which way round the coating and center are: http://nigelparry.com/diary/war/13.html (opens in new window, image appears below for the purposes of this page)
I was encouraged to see the beginnings of a description of what actually goes on at these clashes, cf. "Israeli soldiers, crouching behind walls and vehicles..."
Surely we could have more of this? Perhaps CNN's journalists could describe the actual passage of events at clashes rather than merely giving the scores at the end of each match and some vague details about how play progressed.
I witnessed around 20 clashes at first hand in the West Bank between 1994 and 1998. Collectively these events accounted for the deaths of about 10 and injuries of about 300 Palestinians). These experiences left me forced to make three conclusions, which I have yet to see noted in any CNN report to date:
1) Israelis often use live ammunition and rubber/plastic coated ammunition simultaneously. This would seem to be an admission that the two are pretty much as effective as one other and do not fulfil different functions as one might be tempted to deduce from their name.
How about a CNN report on that? With CNN reporting for several years Israeli use of "rubber" and "plastic" bullets, it would be nice to see an in-depth rectification of what they actually are, when they are used, and what they can do.
My most poignant memory of the latter was meeting an unconscious child in Al-Maqassad Hospital in August 1989, and having his doctor show us x-rays of his brain, which contained two rubber-coated metal bullets. These are steel cylinders slightly narrower than the diameter of an American quarter, and about 2 cm long. The penetration of these heavy slugs is quite profound. To get two of these (which scatter quicker than the plastic variety) into someone's head, you have to be standing at only a few meters away.
2) In almost all cases I witnessed, Palestinians who were shot and injured by live ammunition were located out of stone throwing range.
I have discussed this in depth at http://nigelparry.com/diary/abughnaim/martyr2.html (opens in new browser window)
This would strike me as *non* "life-threatening", a definition which IDF open fire regulations demand before permitting the use of live ammunition. Is this not worth reporting?
Soldiers at clashes can usually be easily spotted by the large number of journalists standing *behind* them. This would seem to be a practical admission by members of the media that it's somewhat safer to be located on one side rather than the other. Here are two classic examples.
A regular gathering in May 1998:
http://nigelparry.com/diary/ramallah/images/50soff2.jpg (image appears below for the purposes of this page)
A close up of a similar gathering in Spring 1997, below left (with a 2nd closer photo, below right):
http://nigelparry.com/diary/abughnaim/images/n71-25.jpg
http://www.nigelparry.com/diary/abughnaim/images/n71-25b.jpg
Amazing how relaxed they look, isn't it? In fact at this demonstration, student Abdullah Saleh was shot dead by a single round of live ammunition through the heart, one of only a couple of live rounds fired that day. The moral of this story is that just because people die, doesn't mean the situation was life threatening.
The point I am making is that the Palestinians at these clashes are usually poorly-armed civillians, the Israelis, the opposite. The Israelis regularly shoot people out of range and give the impression that it was just for the hell of it, cf. the September 1996 Clashes when they shot demonstrators, shouted "I got one!", danced, and gave each other high fives. And your people on the ground know very well that this does go on because, as I said, they're usually standing right behind the soldiers. Tell us about it.
3) Finally, although it's been said already in many ways, real human beings die at these events. I know that CNN reports the figures and sometimes a few details, but it would be nice to see in-depth investigations of these events. Also, some footage of the actual consequences. Intensive care units in nearby hospitals are good locations to collect this kind of footage, if you can find a hospital where the Israelis aren't stopping the wounded from being admitted, as I heard from friends was happening today in Jerusalem.
I know it's hard to ask your senior journalists to do difficult things like that (never mind actually live in the West Bank) as they generally seem to prefer to collect their news either by standing behind Israeli soldiers or from the frontline of the American Colony Hotel Bar.
However, the fact remains that this conflict is going to roll on for another 50 years as long as the viewing public do not understand that real people, just like them who watch the Superbowl and want to visit Disneyland, are dying and getting maimed as a pretty direct result of their tax dollars.
The Israelis only get away with this because the American government stands with them. And the American government only gets away with that because the American public don't know what the hell's going on.
After living in the US for two years, I was totally amazed to discover that Joe and Jane American actually do care about what's going on, when someone bothers to tell them. Outside the country, in the realm of media projection, we generally have little alternative evidence to work with.
We had OJ 24/7, Monica rammed down our throat (pardon the pun) for the best part of a year by the American media, including CNN, and were unbelievably hypnotised by those pretty video game patterns in Iraq at both ends of the last decade.
So how about breaking the mould for the new millenium and broadcasting reality at ground zero for Ahmad and Samira Palestinian?
I understand that when you're running a huge news agency that there are a million things to consider. I also imagine that you're all rightly proud of working for such an effective and well-known news collection and distribution network. And I am aware that I probably I fall into the fly-in-the-ointment category when set against other issues throughout your day.
But the problem for me is that this is not a distant conflict. I lived in Ramallah for four years. I saw how the media operates on the ground working in Birzeit University's public relations office.
The people on your screens are often people I know. This is therefore not something that is a intellectual or political issue of contention for me. It is a matter of friendship.
And it's only because I respect CNN that I approach you on this matter. Most people in my position believe you are irrevocably part of the system that perpetrates the conflict, whereas I prefer to maintain the hope that things might still actually change before we see the inevitable manifestation of Lebanon-scale terminal violence across the West Bank and Gaza Strip.*
Thank you,
Nigel Parry
Editor's Note:
*After thinking long and hard about media coverage in the West Bank based on 11 years of reading it, 8 years of seeing and learning about how working journalists collect news, and 4 years of seeing how news networks are organised on the ground, I have come to conclude that a lot of what we would put down to political bias is actually the result of structural bias. This thought will be explained in depth in a coming article.
So, far (as of 4 October 2000) CNN's reporting of the ongoing clashes has been very careful to note that the munitions in question are "rubber-coated steel bullets", and other munitions have been described with a similar and commendable degree of precision.
It's too early to say, but the signs so far are encouraging. In general, CNN's coverage of the September 2000 Clashes has been very good at opening up the Palestinian side of things by offering considerable explanation for why the Palestinians are protesting, and questioning Israeli military statements relating to the deaths of demonstrators.
"Rubber bullets" vs. "rubber coated metal bullets" has somewhat ceased to be a main focus since Israel escalated the current conflict with widespread use of live ammunition; Cobra helicopter gunships firing 20mm explosive ammunition, flares, and rockets; and Israeli troops have been reported to have used hand-held M72 LAW rocket launchers on several occasions. Tanks have also been brought into the clashes, but so far do not appear to have been used. A report of the use of a fragmentation/cluster bomb was also made in Gaza, but I have so far not seen any confirmation of this.
For reference. These reports can be obtained by ringing +972 (2) 561-7271/4 or clicking on the links below where available. B'Tselem's website can be accessed at www.btselem.org.