HA'ARETZ LIES By: Hichem Karoui (in Paris) Sunday, June 23, 2002 Have you people read the « full exclusive interview with Yasser Arafat" headlined on the front page of Ha'aretz, this Sunday June 23? For my part, I tried. But I could hardly find a "full interview"! All what I read is a long story written by the assumed interviewer of the Palestinian leader, Akiva Eldar! Inside the story, were slyly scattered hither and thither some extracts from Arafat's assumed declarations. But of a "full interview", I have seen none! So what's all that fuss about? Since last Friday, you can read and hear everywhere in the Israeli and the mainstream media - even in the Arab press! - that Arafat is now accepting Clinton's plan, which he had refused previously! Personally, when I read the information for the first time on Al Arab's weekend issue, I was struck with surprise and anger. Surprise, because though we are used to the sudden changes in the Arab leaders' mood, such a shift in Arafat's position was not expected even under great pressures. I concede that Arafat has not been always coherent, that the Oslo agreement itself was quite unexpected for almost everybody...Yet, nothing in his behavior or in the declarations of his close entourage prepared us to such an unexpected "shift"! And anger, because since the failure of the peace negotiations, we were quite numerous in the media who tried to argue that the plan presented by Barak and adopted by Clinton was unacceptable for the Palestinians, mainly because it consecrated the partition of the territory and made any control over it impossible. Moreover, many of us believed that the way the negotiations were conducted in Camp David was not fair. The conclusion is that the Palestinian rejection of Clinton's deal was justified. Those who defended that approach are not necessarily Arabs, for we find among them Israelis, Americans, and Europeans. I can cite for example the excellent essay of Dr. Ron Pundak: "From Oslo to Taba: What Went Wrong?" Or the articles published by Mr. Uri Avnery, or even Akiva Eldar (otherwise the interviewer!) who under the headline "What went wrong at Camp David" wrote an "official PLO version"! (: Ha'aretz, 24/07/01) In that story, A.Eldar wrote for instance: "the issue is not of percentages- the issue is one of viability and independence". We cannot put it better! Among the Americans, how can we omit the article signed by Robert Malley (Clinton's special assistant for Arab-Israeli affairs) and Hussein Agha, in the New York Review Of Books, which has become also a reference for so many observers? I can also cite the "Quest for Mideast Peace: How and Why it failed" of Deborah Sontag in The New York Times (Jul, 26,01), or Kathleen Christison's "Mythology of a summit", or Robert Fisk's stories, etc. The point is that if these observers come from different horizons, and if they did not agree on charging one party for the failure of the negotiations, nobody of them, to my knowledge, singled out Arafat as the responsible of their collapse. A position that was mainly supported by Clinton, Barak, and the mainstream media. The dilemma that a new, unexpected position of Arafat put to us consists in the following questions: Now that we have gone so far in supporting the stance of the Palestinian negotiators, is it possible that Arafat himself, giving up to the pressure, claims that he was wrong in rejecting Clinton's deal? In shifting his position at 180 degree, would he not point out at all who supported him as liars or naïve or both? So, we were all wrong, and now he is discovering it? Then, what are we supposed to do? To shift our position too in order to adapt it to the new vision of the old leader? Is that only possible? If I can do it, because I wrote just some articles hither and thither, what about Robert Malley or Ron Pundak? What about all those people in the USA, Europe, and in Israel itself who stood to claim that Clinton-Barak plan was unfair and unacceptable, and that it is wrong to charge the Palestinians of all the evil? This is not a little affair. We are not here negotiating about buying or selling an oriental carpet, but it is about the future of millions of people in that region of the world that we are talking. And the future of those people deserves more respect and consideration. Unfortunately, despite Haaretz is one of the most important media in Israel, it does not take its job seriously, as it sounds. About a month ago, the administration of this newspaper was harassing the journalist Amira Hass, because (naturally!) some of its stories were re-published in the Arab press! For the administration of Haaretz, that was the "proof" that Amira Hass has been bought by Arafat, for she had lived for a while in the Palestinian controlled territories! A petition circulated everywhere on the web asking for stopping harassment against the Israeli journalist who was threatened by her boss, as it seems! Today, I am glad to see that A. Hass has not been fired. But Haaretz has found other ways to violate the ethic of journalism. The "full exclusive interview with Yasser Arafat" illustrates this bizarre endeavor. How? On Friday June 21, the newspaper headlined a short story written by Akiva Eldar: "Arafat to Ha'aretz: I accept Clinton's plan"! The journalist wrote: " Yesterday's interview was the first time Arafat has declared his acceptance of the Clinton proposal. The plan does not mention the right of return of Palestinian refugees...etc" But that was only a very concise summary of the interview, as it sounds. Despite this, the "information" (we can now say the disinformation) circulated widely on all the wires. As I previously said, even some Arab media announced it without checking its veracity. This Sunday June 23, I was still amazed by the "event". I started by logging in the PA site, to check up whether there was any commentary about the so-called interview. I found nothing. I went to visit the Ministry of Information's site, then the Office of the President (Y. Arafat's site). Still nothing! So what? Is this to mean that they endorse the Israeli report? Are they playing on the ambiguity? This can be quite a dangerous game. Nothing is more important than the credibility of the leadership. At this moment precisely, there is not much credibility concerning the PA. I am not talking only of the American and Israeli official positions towards Arafat. It is expected. But just read for instance what some Palestinian opponents think of Arafat's last reshuffle. It is not really brilliant! So, if you add to this loss of popularity- have you watched the demonstrations of the jobless people in Gaza this weekend?-political ambiguity and hasty declarations, you would obtain at the end a weathercock in Ramallah rather than a wise and lucid leadership! The question will be then: who would trust Arafat in the future among those who were supporting him all along the last months? I pretend that this is exactly the goal Ha'aretz's manipulated interview aimed at. Manipulated? Of course, it is. First, you announce the "news" you want to be widespread in the world: "Arafat to Ha'aretz: I accept Clinton's plan"! During 48 hours, this disinformation goes everywhere on the wires. It is the weekend, and it is a bloody one. People in the PA as it seems do not even have time to read what is published in the papers and posted on the web...what is already the "news of the day"! Nobody denied! Sunday morning, the expected "full exclusive interview" is published. But it is neither full nor perhaps even exclusive! Here we have a long introduction, and we wonder: where is the interview? Then we think that maybe it would follow the preamble, as it is the usage in the press. But you would dream of it! You are not going to find any interview, but only extracts...I well say: extracts from declarations that perhaps Arafat issued to the interviewer! Everybody can check what I say. This is not what we, people of the press, call an interview. This is only a story written about Yasser Arafat, using some of his sayings, so that, in definitive the journalist (or the newspaper, or both) can dispose of the Palestinian leader's declarations as he thinks it useful for the Israeli aims. When you read the "full exclusive interview" however, you perceive that what has been announced 48 hours prior to the publication of this stuff, was definitely misleading. For if you consider it without reading the "full exclusive, etc!» you will find that either Arafat turned schizophrenic or he has become, his age helping, a driveller! In both cases, you would not recognize the man who did not yield to Clinton-Barak pressure. And if you were one of those people who thought him right, you would be struck with stupefaction and indignation. The old Arab adage says: " He who praised then disparaged, lied twice"! We can also say that he who disparaged (which Arafat did concerning the deal with Clinton and Barak) then praised, lied twice. Curiously enough, Akiva Eldar writes in the same story: " He (Arafat) calmly absorbs even a direct question about his reputation as a liar that has been spread about"! But as Eldar has not actually published the "full exclusive interview" promised and expected, we are in the right to wonder whether he has really put such a question! What proves whatever he said anyway? We only read what Ha'aretz wanted to air from the interview. Where is the rest? And if the published story contained really all what Arafat declared, then why not to publish it after the introduction of the interviewer as a whole, which is the behavior dictated by the ethic of journalism? As that did not happen, we read actually a commentary of Akiva Eldar about Arafat, not an interview of the latter. I do not discuss the competence of the journalist. I say only that the way the whole thing has been done was neither clear nor honest. Was A.Eldar also under the pressure of the boss? This is another problem. We are not going to speculate. Here are the facts. Has Arafat really denied his own position vis-à-vis Clinton-Barak plan? We read in "an interview with Arafat" that Nabil Shaath was sent to present a plan to the American administration. According to A. Eldar " Arafat confirms in the interview that he sent Sha'ath with the plan that partially resembles the Clinton plan of December 2000 that also covered the right of return"(I have emphasized). Partially resembles! It is Akiva Eldar himself who writes it. So, all this clamor in the world media is only about what partially resembles? The Israelis have made a fuss about nothing! Then, go ahead and read on the so-called interview. At the question: " You are ready for a deal based on the Clinton plan - 1967 borders with adjustments, exchange of territory, division of Jerusalem into Jewish and Arab neighborhoods, application of the right of return to the Palestinian state", Yasser Arafat answered: "Yes, of course, including exchange of territory". That was all! But when did Arafat ever pretend that he was against such a deal? What A.Eldar mentioned here was exactly what the Palestinians were (and remain) claiming. Whether you call this also Clinton Plan or not does change nothing in the affair. In fact, Clinton did not agree to go to the end of this deal, neither did Barak. Another question Of the Israeli journalist makes Arafat's position even more clear. He wrote: " It was more than apparent from Arafat's response that it was not the first time he has heard that Barak convinced many in the Israeli left that he (Arafat) had rejected Israel's very generous proposals at Camp David. He had a prepared answer to any question. [Israeli control of air space and the borders with Egypt and with Jordan. Is this independence?]" I s that not enough clear? Here's another question and its answer: "Q: How then do you explain that Clinton put on you all the blame for the failure? A: I am satisfied with the things said by Robert Malley (...) Malley has all the information from Clinton and Barak". These extracts from the "full exclusive interview" (that we will probably never read!) prove that Arafat has not denied himself as Friday's story on Ha'aretz let everybody believe. If he stays committed to a vision based on a negotiated settlement, he is by no means calling Clinton and Barak to rescue or regretting bitterly not to have accepted a plan he had denunciated as biased and unfair. So, unless the PA now confirms what has been published on the Israeli newspaper, we are in the right to wonder whether this is a journalistic work or a part of Sharon's nerve war. See Hichem Karoui homepage: http://www.hichemkaroui.com/