Opinion Editorials, October 2003, www.aljazeerah.info
Human Price of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine
Israeli daily aggression on the Palestinian people
Mission and meaning of Al-Jazeerah
Cities, localities, and tourist attractions
50 Years of Silence, Qibya II
By Eric Ridenour
Al-Jzeerah, 10/26/03
Last week has certainly been a learning experience for me.
Two weeks ago, I wrote an article on the 50th anniversary of Ariel Sharon's massacre of civilians in the Jordanian town of Qibya on October 14, 1953. I'd spent weeks doing research for this article; mainly reading through minutes of old UN Security Council meetings in an attempt to learn as much as possible about what happened in Qibya. The article refuted all the main excuses made by Sharon sympathizers and showed how he willfully killed 69 civilians.
Two days before the anniversary, I emailed the article to 83 newspapers throughout the United States.(1) I also sent it to four internet publications.(2) All four internet sites published the article, but not one of the newspapers printed it. I wasn't surprised or disappointed by this, but I was curious what the newspapers did print about Qibya in observance of its 50th anniversary. Over the next few days, I searched the websites of those newspapers and was stunned at what I found. Only one of the 83 newspapers printed anything at all about the 50th anniversary of Qibya - and that paper printed it three days after the fact.
The paper, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, seemed to realize that they missed the 50th anniversary on October 14, so they stated that October 17 marked the anniversary of Jordanian soldiers moving to the Israeli frontier as retaliation for Qibya. The one sentence that they devoted to Qibya had numberous faults. It neglected to state that the victims were civilians, listed the incorrect number of deaths, mentioned nothing about the town being virtually destroyed and failed to even state that Ariel Sharon was there.
That is hardly a fitting memorial to the 50th anniversary of this tragedy, yet it's the only one that any newspaper in the United States could muster.
In disbelief, I began wondering how often the mainstream press has mentioned Qibya in the past. Unfortunately, the answer is almost never. Since Ariel Sharon's inauguration as Prime Minister of Israel in March 2001, there have been a grand total of 17 instances of the word "Qibya" used in all the mainstream newspapers in the United States.(3) That means, that on average, the word "Qibya" has shown up somewhere in the US only once every two months.
Of the 17 instances, none contained more than three sentences about Qibya. In fact, most simply listed Qibya along with a one sentence description. Five of the instances were found in letters to the editor, while three were simply reprints of an article that had originally appeared in another newspaper.(4)
The list of newspapers that have actually mentioned Qibya since March 2001 is so small that a footnote isn't needed to list them. They are: Austin-American Statesman 4/27/2002, Baltimore Sun 4/16/2002 and 4/22/2001, Detroit News 9/21/2001, Lexington Herald-Leader 5/20/2002, Newark Star-Ledger 10/10/2003, Newsday 4/21/2002, New York Times 6/1/2003 and 4/15/2002, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 10/17/2003 and 4/15/2002, Sacramento Bee 1/25/2003, Seattle Post-Intelligencer 2/13/2002 and 12/22/2001, Seattle Times 6/1/2003, St Louis Post Dispatch 3/8/2001 and Washington Times 9/5/2003.
Considering the fact that there have been literally thousands of articles written about this conflict in the US media since 2001, it's shameful that Qibya has not been brought up more often. Mere mention of Qibya seems to be virtually taboo in this country, as evidenced by the fact that its 50th anniversary was almost totally ignored. What is the reason for this nonexistent coverage?
Although it's possible that some of the editors might have never heard of Qibya, they all should have been aware of its 50th anniversary because they had just been sent an article about it. It is also doubtful that they deemed the story not important enough to print. Certainly it's newsworthy that the sitting Prime Minister of a country, that was awarded an additional $9 billion in US aid earlier this year, massacred scores of civilians exactly 50 years ago.(5)
It's not difficult to come to the conclusion that this clearly is a newsworthy story that no mainstream newspaper wants to touch. In rejecting the article, an editor at the Washington Post wished me "luck in trying to place it." He knew and, by the time I'd gotten his email, I knew that no mainstream newspaper would cover this story.
I eventually realized that there was a story within this story. The massacre in Qibya is certainly a tragedy in its own right, however the fact that it has been smothered under a cloak of silence is another terrible tragedy. The survivors of this massacre have had to relive the horrible events of that night for the last 50 years. They have also had to watch the man responsible for this massacre rise to political prominence as he continues to successfully avoid accountability for his actions. We should not compound their grief by either forgetting or ignoring what happened at Qibya.
Eric Ridenour lives in Georgia. He can be reached at erickaoru@hotmail.com
(1) - Akron Beacon Journal, Albuquerque Journal, Anchorage Daily News, Arizona Republic, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Augusta Chronicle, Austin-American Statesman, Baltimore Sun, Birmingham News, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Buffalo News, Charleston Daily Mail, Charlotte Observer, Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, Chronicle Forum, Cincinnati Enquirer, Clarion-Ledger, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Columbus Dispatch, Daily News, Daily Oklahoman, Daily Telegraph, Dallas Morning News, Darien News-Review, The Day, Dayton Daily News, Denver Post, Des Moines Register, Detroit Free Press, Detroit News, The Forum, Hartford Courant, Idaho News, Indianapolis Star, Kansas City Star, Knoxville News, Lexington Herald-Leader, Los Angeles Times, Louisville Courier-Journal, Miami Herald, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, New Haven Register, New York Times, News & Observer, Newsday, News Sentinel, Omaha World Herald, Orange County Register, Oregonian, Orlando Sentinel, Palm Beach Post, Pensacola News Journal, Pensacola News Journal, Philadelphia Daily News, Philadelphia Inquirer, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Portland Press Herald, Providence Journal, Register Guard, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Rocky Mountain News, Sacramento Bee, San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Seattle Times, St Louis Post-Dispatch, St Petersburg Times, Star Tribune, Star-Ledger, The State, Sun Sentinel, Tampa Tribune, Tennessean, Times-Picayune, USA Today, Washington Post, Washington Times.
(2) - aljazeerah.info, counterpunch.org, electronicintifada.com and palestinechronicle.com
(3) - Nine of the newspapers' websites didn't have search capabilities back to March 2001.
(4) - Seattle Times 6/1/2003, Baltimore Sun 4/16/2002, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 4/15/2002
(5) - The $9 billion in loan guarantees were approved on 8/21/2003. This amount is in addition to the $3 billion Israel receives each year from the US.
 |
| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
 |
| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
 |
| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
 |