Following my recent post about Orla Guerin’s Middle East reporting, here is an article in today’s New York Times which appears to show that it is possible to report on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict without totally vindicating either side. A couple of relevant extracts:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged Israel on Tuesday to allow Palestinians to carry out their legislative elections in January without Israeli interference, implicitly criticizing Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister.

During a visit to New York last week, Mr. Sharon said he would withhold cooperation with the Palestinian legislative elections if candidates from the militant group Hamas took part. Both he and Palestinian leaders said elections could not be held without Israeli cooperation.

[...] Mr. Sharon said Israel would pursue the peace effort “in accordance with the sequence of the road map,” as the peace plan that the United States and its allies proposed in 2003 is called.

But the day after Mr. Sharon gave that speech, he seemed to belie that pledge when he made a new pronouncement on West Bank settlements. He declared that Israel would not freeze growth in any of those settlements until the very end of the peace effort, years from now. The road map calls on Israel to freeze growth in the settlements as one of the first Israeli actions in its sequence of prescribed steps.

The Palestinians have still to take the first step outlined for them in the road map: ending violence and disarming militant groups. The quartet urged them “to maintain law and order and dismantle terrorist capabilities and infrastructure.”

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, has invited Hamas and Islamic Jihad, a similar group, to take part in the elections, saying participation in the political process could serve to moderate their behavior. Hamas is fielding candidates in the election, but there seems to be little evidence yet that the group has moderated its behavior.

In a speech to the General Assembly on Tuesday, Silvan Shalom, the Israeli foreign minister, noted that “two days ago in Gaza, the terrorist organization Hamas held a rally of 10,000 armed men dedicated to a holy war against Israel.”

Hamas has claimed responsibility for some of the deadliest suicide bombings in Israel that have killed hundreds of civilians over the last few years, and its charter calls for the elimination of Israel.

Maybe it’s not quite as emotional as Orla’s:

Palestinians can still see the limits of their freedom. It stops at the glittering edge of the Mediterranean Sea. Israel still controls their coastline, their airspace and official border crossings. The Palestinians of Gaza are afraid the world will forget this small print, and believe they are now truly free.

But it’s a lot more valuable.

I have just finished listening to Orla Guerin’s report on the Gaza pullout on one of my favorite BBC programmes and my blood is about to boil. The following are extracts from the programme, broadcast on From Our Own Correspondent, and resplendent with bias. I have no problem with Orla reporting from the Middle East. But I do have a problem with her reports being broadcast by an institution which allegedly prides itself on fair and balanced reporting. Reports like this should come with a health warning:

Most Palestinians had never set foot in the settlements that sat on their doorstep.

No Orla, they hadn’t. Neither had most of the settlers set foot in the Palestinian towns and villages that sat on their doorstep. The only Israelis or Palestinians that set foot in either place were carrying weapons.

To many Palestinians, the Israeli pullout is proof of one thing – that the militants are the best hope of getting a state, that violence succeeds where politics fails.

And the future here will not be written without the involvement of the gunmen.

Why do I get the feeling that Orla has some sympathy for this view? I will return to it later.

We had to guide our driver along the way…He has lived in Gaza all his life – it is a tiny area. But this was his first trip along the smooth asphalt roads that had been reserved for the settlers.”

Gaza is a tiny area. Israel is a tiny area. I think she is trying to say that despite how small Gaza is, the driver had never been along this smooth asphalt road “that had been reserved for the settlers”. Could the road have been smooth and asphalty because the Israelis built it and looked after it? And could the road have been “reserved for settlers” because otherwise it would have been a great place for militants to launch attacks?

After 38 years of occupation, Palestinians were taking what they could from the wreckage of the settlements, driven by poverty, or rage.

Aha, so the only two reasons why Palestinians looted the settlements were poverty—no doubt caused by Israel—and rage—also caused by Israel. So the looting was Israel’s fault.

A Palestinian colleague looked on, without surprise.

“We just got our land back,” he said.

“What else can anyone expect?”

Not much I suppose. We should expect nothing…

But a well-dressed passer-by beseeched us – in perfect English – to stop filming.

“Our people have nothing,” he said.

“And they have suffered so much. But when the world sees these pictures, it will not understand.”

What a wonderful quote, Orla. I have no doubt that the man said it, but doesn’t it work so well. By including this well-dressed man (obviously some sort of intellectual) who tells us how the Palestinians have suffered and how they have nothing we can understand why they would do it.

The looting and scavenging were part of the day.

So too, the burning and destruction. Some tore at bricks and mortar as if this was a way to erase the past.

Jewish holy buildings were attacked, as Israel knew they would be, when it decided to leave them behind.

So the destruction was “a way to erase the past.” And the leaving behind of synagogues was a cynical ploy by the Israelis to make the Palestinians look even worse. I thought the synagogues were left behind because rabbis advised that it was against Jewish law for Jews to destroy synagogues. I wonder what you would have said if Israelis had done the same to a mosque?

There are many Palestinians who believe the Israeli prime minister has rid himself of Gaza with the sole aim of tightening his grip on the West Bank.

So this is not really a victory. It’s a defeat of sorts. Remember those gunmen who may or may not have forced Israel to withdraw? Now, not only did they force Sharon to withdraw BUT Sharon did it as a cunning ploy to TIGHTEN HIS GRIP on other Palestinian land.

This was the worry washing over Palestinians this week – that Gaza is all they are ever going to get.

Thanks Orla. So they’re celebrating and they’re worrying.

Palestinians can still see the limits of their freedom.

It stops at the glittering edge of the Mediterranean Sea.

Israel still controls their coastline, their airspace and official border crossings.

The Palestinians of Gaza are afraid the world will forget this small print, and believe they are now truly free.

No they won’t. the world knows that the withdrawal from Gaza is one small step towards a Palestinian homeland. I have not heard or read one word that would suggest otherwise.

As for Israel controlling the air, sea and border crossings. Could that possibly be because these are the routes through which the weapons used against Israel would flow? In the one area where the Palestinians do now control the border with Egypt, this week has seen thousands of weapons flow into Gaza.

Since the Israelis have gone, they can at least enjoy Gaza’s best beach. Israeli restrictions had kept it off limits for years.

In recent days they have been flocking to the cool waters to escape the scorching sun.

But there have been drownings.

Some of the youngsters rushing to the shore had never learned to swim.

Perhaps I am being paranoid here, but I think the implication is that the kids drowned because the Israelis did not allow them near the water, which meant that they never learned to swim. (Unless it’s because the sense of liberation after years of cruel Israel subjugation forced those Palestinian children who couldn’t swim to forget the fact and they jumped in the water anyway. Whatever, this seems like a very strange way to end.) Nevertheless, yet again, it’s Israel’s fault. Never mind how the thousands of kids who didn’t drown learned to swim. Never mind that all over the world children drown in lakes, rivers, and beaches, on hot sunny days. Never mind that those children had friends, parents, relatives who could have looked after them or stopped them from going in the water. Nope, it’s the evil Israeli’s wot did it.

So let’s recap:

The Gaza pullout was simultaneously a victory for Palestinian violence and a cunning plan by the evil mastermind Sharon to tighten his grip on the West Bank.

Palestinians were driven by poverty and rage and a desire to eradicate the past to loot and destroy Jewish synagogues cynically left there by the Israelis to be looted and destroyed in front of the world’s media.

Although thousands of weapons have flowed into Gaza from Egypt in the past week, and although the militants are claiming the pullout is a victory for their campaign of violence, Israel should open up all borders, air space etc to the Palestinian militants who would no doubt use these routes to bring even more weapons in.

Despite all of the talk of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and the need for a Palestinian homeland the world will somehow think that following the Gaza withdrawal Palestinians are free.

The Israelis are responsible for the deaths of children who drowned during the celebrations because they never let them learn to swim.

Thanks Orla. Thanks a bunch. Your reports will go a long way towards healing the massive rift between Israelis and Palestinians. It will go a long way towards helping people on both sides of the world on either side of the debate come together and rationally discuss what can be done to bring peace in the Middle East. Your report is a beacon of light in the field of reporting. It is not only a fair and honest and accurate portrayal of what happened last week, but it is a penetrating insight into the minds of the Palestinian people. Thank you.