AP tries to put “wipe Israel off the map” into Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal’s mouth

Ali Abunimah Media Watch 11 December 2012

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal is driven to the Rafah border crossing by Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh at the end of Meshaal’s first ever visit to Gaza, on 10 December 2012.

Mohammed Ostaz APA images

After the Observer mistranslated a section from Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal’s speech during his historic visit to Gaza last week, to falsely insert the words “kill Jews,” a report from Josef Federman of the Associated Press (AP) includes this:

Making his first trip to the Hamas-ruled territory over the weekend, Mashaal delivered a series of speeches to throngs of supporters vowing to wipe Israel off the map.

Although Federman does not attribute the words directly to Meshaal, who did not say them, the phrase “wipe Israel off the map” is notorious and provocative since it is the phrase controversially attributed to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and used to falsely claim that Ahmedinejad or Iran had threatened to attack Israel unprovoked to destroy it, which neither has ever done, or would do so if they had the chance.

The phrase has been used emotively by Israel and its propagandists to stir up war fever against Iran under the pretext of stopping Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. In no way can this phrase be seen as a neutral or descriptive term.

Listening to the speech

In his speech, Meshaal did restate a refusal to recognize the legitimacy of Israel, spoke about liberating all of historic Palestine and praised resistance. Does that amount to “wiping Israel off the map”?

“Liberation” of course can mean many things, especially ending a racist and oppressive system and freeing the people who live under it.

As I pointed out previously, Meshaal talked about resistance as a means, not an end, and a necessity for an occupied people who are offered no other path to regaining their rights.

Meshaal was also very clear in his speech that he accepted all forms of struggle, including political and diplomatic, but argued that in light of recent events armed resistance provided a base of strength that no other form of struggle could match at the present time.

It is an arguable point of view, but undoubtedly strengthened by the fact that the only serious negotiations Israel has conducted with Palestinians in recent years have been with Hamas, over the prisoner swap last year, and the Gaza ceasefire last month.

Meshaal and other Hamas leaders view it as a “victory” that they forced Israel to negotiate and reach an agreement closer to their terms. They are under no illusion that they can achieve their goals by strictly military means.

Meshaal’s comments about historic Palestine, meanwhile, should be understood as a direct rebuttal to recent and wildly unpopular remarks by Mahmoud Abbas claiming that only the West Bank and Gaza Strip were “Palestine”.

Double standards

Of course Zionists and Israelis are free to interpret Meshaal’s words according to their wildest fantasies and fears, but supposedly impartial news organizations like the AP never claim that by attacking Gaza and killing and injuring thousands of people, and destroying public buildings and infrastructure, that Israel is “wiping Gaza off the map.”

I’ve never seen an AP report that matter-of-factly states that Israel is “wiping Palestine off the map” by continuing its construction of settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Nor have I ever seen a news organization use the phrase “wiping Palestine off the map” even though it would be a pretty accurate description of the Nakba, the 1947-48 ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

Look at schoolroom maps and atlases from before 1948 and they all say “Palestine.” That word was erased from most maps after 1948.

More recently, Israel has begun stamping passports of visitors to areas nominally controlled by the Palestinian Authority with the words “Judea and Samaria,” a nomenclature intended to assert Jewish nationalist claims to the land and, well, wipe Palestine off the map – or ensure it doesn’t get back on to any maps.

Yet no AP writer would dare use the phrase “wipe Palestine off the map” in a manner similar to how Federman used “wipe Israel off the map.”

Meshaal and the 1967 borders: missing context

AP’s report highlights the broader problem of the media’s refusal to put Meshaal’s speech, or indeed any Palestinian politics, into a broader and Palestinian context, and the insistence, instead, on sticking to simply storylines.

Although Meshaal did not talk about it in his Gaza speech, he and other Hamas leaders have a long record of implicitly edging toward the so-called “two-state solution.” In 2009, for example, Meshaal told the New York Times:

We are with a state on the 1967 borders, based on a long-term truce. This includes East Jerusalem, the dismantling of settlements and the right of return of the Palestinian refugees.

As The New York Times noted:

Apart from the time restriction and the refusal to accept Israel’s existence, Mr. Meshal’s terms approximate the Arab League peace plan and what the Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas says it is seeking. Israel rejects a full return to the 1967 borders, as well as a Palestinian right of return to Israel itself.

Meshaal’s interview with The New York Times was part of a concerted effort to build a bridge to the new Obama administration and mark Hamas’ way into the international political fold.

Yet these openings by Hamas were completely rejected, and the Obama administration maintained and even increased its support for Israel’s siege on Gaza, where Hamas has its stronghold.

So given that context there was absolutely no reason to expect Meshaal, in Gaza of all places, in the wake of Israel’s recent savage attack, to reiterate far-reaching concessions that had gotten him no credit or reciprocation previously.

If Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were making what media would typically call a “hardline” speech, you’d expect all sorts of excuses and justifications about how he needed to shore up his base, or appeal to his right-wing. Palestinians, apparently, don’t have politics.

The AP’s eagerness to paint Meshaal with the same brush as Ahmedinejad and replicate the wild misreporting and fear-mongering about Iran suggests the organization’s Jerusalem bureau is more interested in churning out propaganda than helping readers understand the world.

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Comments

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Steve Feldman replied on

There's a quote-- apropos to news coverage of Palestine-- ascribed to (but perhaps not said by) Mark Twain: "If you don't read the newspapers, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspapers, you are misinformed."

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Anthony F. Shaker replied on

Israel needs no one to wipe it off the map. So far, it has been doing a great job on its own, piecemeal! believe me, no state bent on genocide has any chance of survival in its current form. South Africa could not. How likely is Israel?

The attribution of those words may be wrong, but then again, maps have never been Israel's strong point. "Israel" has now been exposed as a tribal fiction, nothing more, and it and its sponsors will pay the full price, eventually, for the historic blunder of creating their little Zionist race colony...a modern chimera.

I have no doubt about Israel's approaching demise in its present form...whatever the Middle East's comatose leaders or blood-swilling Salafists utter, and whatever happens in Syria.

Lest I be misconstrued: No need call for Israel's destruction. It is simply the fate of all murderers and thieves.

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ajamu chaminuka replied on

I certainly, for one, don't expect mainstream media to tell it like it is whether it's about Palestine or anything else.

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Antoine Raffoul replied on

What Federman should refer to about Israel is "Regime Change" as the US and its allies did in Iraq, Libya and now trying to do in Syria. Let us not play with words.

Ali Abunimah

Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of The Battle for Justice in Palestine, now out from Haymarket Books.

Also wrote One Country: A Bold-Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. Opinions are mine alone.