There's been a lot of talk recently about the PA's use of language that incites people to violence towards the Israelis. What about the involvement of our own media, in the United States, as a vehicle to incite this violence and murder as well? Joseph Farah recently wrote about CNN and the biased reporting of that media outlet. If you would like more information about exactly why CNN is perceived by many today to be biased, I'd recommend getting on an e-list called "CNN-WATCH." They track the CNN reports and explain why they are biased against Israel, and what is the real truth behind some of the news stories that are being presented (in the '60s when the Communists did this kind of thing it was called propaganda, today we call it "media bias").

In addition there is a concerted effort going on to encourage AOL customers to find for themselves another Internet Service Provider. This is because AOL is now the proud owner of the CNN news outlet, and they have not said anything publicly about trying to solve the problem of this perceived bias against Israel. This campaign is called a "MASS EXODUS" of people from using AOL Services.

Now I'd like to explain a very specific example of this perceived bias, which is causing "incitement" to violence and murder, that's going on in the western media (CNN being only one example). The land area that is called the "occupied territories" was first occupied by Jordan after taking this land during the 1948-49 War of Independence, when Israel became a state under the British Mandate of Palestine. But the land is really and more fairly called "disputed territory" (it is disputed between Israel and the Arab nations that surround her) because the Arabs have never accepted the State of Israel in their midst. People seem to forget this history! The modern day states of Jordan (originally called Trans-Jordanian Palestine), Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Lebanon were all carved out of the Ottoman Empire after they lost WWI with Germany. But, no one today disputes those nations having been created out of the ex-Ottoman Empire.

Under the British Mandate of Palestine (these documents can all be read for yourself), the land that was called Palestine was divided between the land on the eastern side (which was originally called Trans-Jordanian Palestine) and the land on the western side (which was to be Israel, a homeland for the Jews). But because the Arab nations never agreed to this Biblical land going back to the Jews, the British pulled out before implementing the British Mandate, and left the Jews to themselves in creating the State of Israel in 1948.

In 1948-49, there were two kinds of "refugees" created out of the war, Arab and Jewish, of about the same number (estimated at between 630,000 to 800,000 people). About an equal number of Jews were forced to leave Arab lands (due to Arab hatred) and those Jews were fully absorbed into the state of Israel at that time. But one seldom hears in today's media about the "Jewish refugees" from Arab lands or any compensation due to them for being forced to leave their homes.

The Arab "refugees" were not forced to leave Israel by the Jewish people, they were told to do so by the Arab nations (who assumed the war with Israel would be quickly won and the people could go back to their homes). Many of those so-called "refugees" (they are really emigrants from Israel proper) were settled in initially squalid "refugee" camps (in some cases on the West Bank of Jordan) and kept in the poorest of conditions to provoke hatred for Israel and the hope of being allowed to go back to a land they had willingly left. So the Arab population of Judea, Samaria and Gaza are as much "settlers" as the Jews who live there now.

According to an e-mail on the CNN-WATCH newsgroup, since 1967, Israel has built 144 settlements in the "disputed" territories, while the Arabs have built 262 settlements. But only the Israeli towns are called "settlements" in the media, and the Palestinian towns are called "refugee camps" (even though they now include stores, casinos, factories, hospitals, and a university). Under International law, these "disputed territories" are open for settlement by all groups, and Israel under U.N. Resolutions 242 & 338 is supposed to administer these territories (having captured them in a war against Israel started by Egypt in 1967, and joined by Jordan) until a peace agreement can be reached. So another objective term that could be used is "administered territories" rather than the inflammatory "occupied territories.

It seems to me that by calling these territories "occupied" the U.S. (and also other Western) media are contributing to the hatred of the Israelis by the Palestinian people. The Israelis are called "occupying forces" and this is another distortion of the truth. All of this is then helping to inflame the Palestinians into using violence and murder as a means to force the Israelis out of Judea, Samaria and Gaza, rather than to negotiate a compromise to this issue of the disputed lands.

So what's to prevent the Arab world from forcing the Israelis out of the remainder of the State of Israel once the Palestinians have acquired by force the so-called "occupied territories"? Nothing! And that is the true goal of the "intifada." Not peace, but a negotiated temporary cease-fire until they can gain enough strength (and additional ground) from which to fight their final war, in order to eliminate all the Jews (and later all the Christians) from the Biblical land of Israel.