Tim Thompson

World/National

U.S. media coverage of the Israeli army's two-week-old military incursion into Palestinian cities throughout the West Bank has been marked by a noticeable silence on what Palestinians are suffering as a result of the operations. While mainstream news sources such as CNN have tended to report on the events of the conflict from the perspective of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), a flood of eyewitness accounts of the extent of the Israeli army's violence has filled e-mail inboxes in the last week. One widely circulated account, from an American student named Tzaporah Ryter, who is in Ramallah, detailed the terrorist nature of the Israeli operation.

``People are making phone calls and saying that these soldiers and militia have come in and are shooting people and then the line cuts off. The numbers of these killings I fear are much greater than the numbers confirmed in the press, because the human rights offices and the media centers have been stormed, and everything is shut down. No one can move without almost certain chance of being shot by the Israeli snipers, who are everywhere,'' Ryter reported.

On Monday, when Israeli helicopters began firing rockets into the refugee camp near the northern West Bank city of Jenin, eyewitness reports about the nature of the attacks testified to blatant violations of human rights, including destruction of homes to make way for tanks on the streets and attacks by the IDF on ambulances and medical personnel. The British paper The Independent filed a candid report on the attacks on the refugee camp and quoted one eyewitness, Abu Hussein, a 55-year-old resident of the camp, as saying, ``[The IDF] used women and old men as human shields. They were walking in front of the tanks and a bulldozer was destroying the houses on both sides.''

Calvin history Professor Bert de Vries, who makes regular trips to the West Bank and Jordan and continues to work on a water resources project in the area, testified to the discrepancy between American media coverage and daily eyewitness accounts that he has been receiving from friends and colleagues.

``What people are reporting and experiencing on the ground is quite a lot more graphic and bloody than what the American media is publishing and than what American government officials are expressing in their comments on the situation,'' he said.

In the last week, however, some signs of greater objectivity have arisen, as journalists have found themselves on the receiving end of Israeli violence.

On April 5, the same day that President Bush announced his decision to send Secretary of State Colin Powell to the region, Israel soldiers threw stun grenades at a convoy of journalists attempting to report on a meeting between U.S. envoy Anthony Zinni and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasir Arafat. Last Friday, Israel banned foreign reporters from entering ``closed military zones.''

Ann Cooper, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists was quoted in the British paper The Guardian as saying, ``We are deeply disturbed by Israel's evident desire to prevent journalists from witnessing its current activities on the West Bank''

De Vries, citing a Jordanian friend's comments on the situation, stated, ``The whole thing has become such a critical mass of destruction and death that nobody can avoid it anymore.''

De Vries also cited columnist Robert Fisk, who, writing on April 5 for The Independent, criticized President Bush for his lop-sided construal of the situation. Fisk referred specifically to Bush's speech on April 4, wherein he announced that he would send Secretary of State Colin Powell to the region this week.

``Ariel Sharon could not have done better,'' Fisk observed. ``The heaping of blame upon an occupied people, the obsessive use of the word `terror' -- by my rough count there were 50 references in just 10 minutes -- and the brief, frightened remarks about `occupation' and (one mention only) to Jewish settlements and the need for Israeli `compassion' at the end were proof enough that President Bush had totally failed to understand the tragedy he is supposedly trying to solve.''

Powell arrived in Morocco on Monday, only to be greeted by Morocco's King Mohammed VI with a question as to why Powell was not already on site in Israel and the occupied territories. Powell's trip includes at least five stops before his scheduled arrival in Jerusalem at the end of the week. Powell, as quoted in The Washington Post, called his roundabout itinerary ``appropriate preparation'' for renewed peace talks between the two parties. Powell expressed his desire that Arab leaders pressure Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasir Arafat into taking forceful action against groups responsible for suicide bombings.

Powell also met on Monday in Casablanca with Saudi Crown Prince Abudullah, architect of the peace initiative approved at the recent Arab League Summit in Beirut, and sought to push the Crown Prince to exert his influence on Arafat.

``I spoke to his majesty today about the kind of statements we want Arab leaders to make with respect to this kind of terrorist activity. His majesty is in touch with Chairman Arafat, and we had an opportunity to discuss the kind of messages that should be going back and forth between Arab leaders and Chairman Arafat,'' The Post quoted Powell as saying.

Many Arab critics, however, as evidenced by King Mohammed's comment, view the Bush administration's arm-twisting as a display of U.S. arrogance and insensitivity to the magnitude of the suffering in Palestinian communities as a result of Israel's reoccupation -- and Powell's apparent stalling as a concession to Israel, allowing it to continue its ``anti-terror'' operations under an extended deadline.