Killings of dozens once again called "period of calm" by US media

Many US media reports were quick to declare that two suicide bombings in Israel on September 18 and 19, in which eight Israelis were killed, had brought an end to a period of "calm" simply because there had been no similar attacks for six weeks and few Israelis had been victims of Palestinian violence. In fact, the bombings came at the end of a particularly bloody period in which dozens of Palestinians, most of them unarmed civilians, and a large number of them children, had been killed and injured by Israeli occupation forces. In effect, the definition of "calm" or a "lull in violence" inherent in these reports is 'only Palestinians are being killed.'

The Chicago Tribune ran a prominent headline above a report about the September 18 bombing in which one Israeli police officer was killed, declaring "Bomb breaks 6-week calm" (September 19). The Washington Post called the bombings a "flare-up in violence" which broke the "relative calm in the Middle East." ("Violent reminder of a simmering issue," September 20).

The Baltimore Sun ran a continuation headline reading "Bombs shatter 6 weeks of relative calm" and asserted "a six-week lull in violence had given both Israelis and palestinians hope that two years of violence might be ending." ("Tel Aviv bus bomb kills five, injures 50," September 20).

NBC news anchor Brian Williams told viewers that,
"After six weeks of relative calm today, a second straight day of violence in the Middle East. Another suicide bombing, this time on a crowded Tel Aviv bus, that killed five people, injured more than 50. As a result, Israeli tanks are once again surrounding Yasir Arafat's compound in Ramallah in the West Bank."

Following that introduction, NBC reporter in Tel Aviv, Jim Maceda, declared,

"Well, after those six weeks with no suicide bombings either in Israel proper or the West Bank or the Gaza Strip, some observers here believed that they actually saw Palestinians and Israelis inching towards a truce, even a peace. But all that was shattered today." (The News with Brian Williams, CNBC, September 19, 2002)

In other words, according to NBC, only suicide bombings, and nothing else, fit the definition of violence and if there are no suicide bombings, then peace may be at hand. Similarly, on CNN's morning news on September 19, Mike Hanna informed viewers that the bombings had ended a period of "comparative calm."

The Los Angeles Times declared that the September 19 bomb in Tel Aviv "seemed to burst any illusion that the relative calm of the last six weeks was a precursor to peace." Contradicting and making a nonsense of its own characterization of the situation, while revealing the underlying reality, the same report stated later

"Not that the lull has been without violence. Several dozen people - soldiers and civilians - have died on both sides, with the heavier toll falling on the Palestinians. Most of the violence has been in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, where Palestinians are living under Israeli military authority." ("Blast kills Israeli, Ends a lull in suicide bombings," September 19, 2002)

The last few weeks have been anything but a period of "calm" relative or otherwise for Palestinians. On September 19, Abdul Salam Sumerin, a 9-year-old Palestinian school boy was shot dead when, according to Haaretz, Israeli occupation forces "used live fire to disperse a crowd of school children challenging the army's attempt to impose a curfew on the El Amari refugee camp, in El-Bireh" near Ramallah. (IDF kills 9-year old boy in El-Bireh, September 20, 2002). According to other reports Israeli forces fired at the children using heavy machine guns mounted on armored vehicles.