Two incidents occurred this past weekend: 1) a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 19 innocent civilians, five of them children, at a crowded restaurant in Haifa, Israel, and 2) the Israel Defense Force responded, bombing a terrorist training camp in Syria, used by Islamic Jihad, the very group that claimed responsibility for the Haifa attack. President Bush phoned Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to offer condolences and to deliver the following message: "Israel's got a right to defend herself. Israel must not feel constrained in defending the homeland." Kudos to the president.
A desire to simplify a complicated situation combined with a tendency to root for the underdog drives most media sources to throw moral clarity out the window when covering the Middle East. It's in vogue to give equal credibility to and to cast equal blame on Israelis and Palestinians, regardless of the details. The "cycle of violence," a common term used to describe the situation, suggests that both sides are equally responsible for the perpetuation of bloodshed, and that both sides are equally culpable when they carry out attacks. Such an evaluation is both misleading and inaccurate.
When a situation is not evenhanded, treating both sides equally -- failing to point out fallacies that exist -- is not good journalism. It is intellectual dishonesty. Israel has consistently acted to end the violence, to fight terrorism and to make peace. An examination of the conflict's recent history puts things in perspective.
At the Camp David summit in July 2000, then-Israeli Prime Minster Ehud Barak went further than anyone expected to achieve peace. He made an unprecedented offer: a Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem, control of the Temple Mount, 95 percent of the West Bank and the entire Gaza Strip.
Yasser Arafat rejected this offer. He did not make a counteroffer. He responded not with negotiations, but with violence and terrorism. His goal was not to create a Palestinian state; it was to destroy the Jewish one.
Israel's objective, on the other hand, is peace and security. Calls for both sides to "show restraint" draw faulty moral equivalencies, equating despicable Palestinian terrorist attacks with Israel's targeted responses. All civilized societies distinguish between premeditated murder and unintentional murder. When it comes to the Middle East, why does the press contrive artificial symmetries between the two?
Palestinian terrorists engage in the morally despicable -- bus bombings, attacks at restaurants and malls, deliberately killing innocent civilians. Israel responds by tightening security, targeting terrorist leaders, razing the houses of suicide bombers and engaging in other deterrence tactics. Sometimes, innocent Palestinians are inadvertently killed. But don't forget that Israeli soldiers constantly risk their lives in an effort to reduce these indiscriminate killings.
The media, in its attempt to be "fair," write with the underlying assumption that all sides have good intentions. Suicide bombings are often portrayed as spontaneous reactions taken by desperate individuals who have no other recourse. In reality, such attacks are cold, calculated measures planned by terrorist network leaders to derail any plan for peace. A bombing near the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv, for example, occurred on the very day that Mahmoud Abbas, who publicly condemned terrorism, was sworn in as prime minister of the Palestinian Authority.
Nevertheless, Palestinian terror tactics even manage to turn public opinion against Israel. How could this be? When the Israeli government takes action to deter future terrorist attacks, the media capitalizes on the collateral damage wrought by the counterterrorism measures.
The media is quick to report, in terms sympathetic to Palestinians, that Israeli forces destroyed the home of a terrorist, or that Israeli helicopter gunfire (aimed at terrorists hiding among the civilian population) killed Palestinian children.
The loss of any innocent life is tragic. But there is cause for outrage when the same media outlet reduces Israeli casualties -- civilians intentionally killed in a terrorist attack -- down to mere statistics.
Israel is criticized for responding to violence with more violence. Yet their counterterrorism tactics have proven effective. The number of successful attacks since the IDF went into the West Bank in April 2002 has fallen.
In a recent interview on CNN, an Islamic Jihad leader explained that they have stepped up efforts because it's much harder to get past the Israelis right now as a result of tight security in the territories. The effectiveness of Israeli incursions and strikes against terrorists is not in question.
We quickly forget our outrage after the 9/11 attacks, when thousands of American lives were disrupted -- children lost their fathers and mothers, parents mourned for their children and spouses. The terrorism that we experienced on that one day is felt on a regular basis across the state of Israel. Israeli citizens cannot go to a restaurant or a mall or a supermarket without fearing that the trip will be their last.
It's time to get rid of the double standard. We went into Afghanistan to find the terrorists that perpetrated crimes against us. Surely, the actions of the 19 hijackers were not morally equivalent to the U.S. soldiers who targeted terrorist infrastructures in Afghanistan.
"The decisions [Israel] makes to defend her people are valid decisions," Bush said yesterday. "We would be doing the same thing." How could we ask anyone to do otherwise?
Sarah Eskreis-Winkler is a College sophomore from Wynnewood, Pa.
