Fateful Triangle

Peace for Galilee495standards that we are permitted to invoke in the case of others, is atonce undercut. There is, then, good reason on all sides to maintain thepretense. As I have documented extensively elsewhere, the device offeigned dissent has made an impressive contribution to indoctrination inthe democratic societies. See TNCW and references cited for discussion.There was, in fact, another study of the media and the Lebanon warby a different anti-defamation group, namely, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), written by Eric Hooglund of the ADCResearch Institute. Hooglund presents evidence of “a consistent pro-Israeli bias” in press coverage of the Lebanon war, shown by suchphenomena as reference to the invasion as a “reprisal” (New York Times,June 5; obviously false); emphasis on Israel’s right to protect its bordertowns from being “indiscriminately shelled” (Washington Post, June 7;recall the facts concerning the cease-fire and the violations of it);dehumanization of the Palestinians, including racist cartoons that wouldarouse charges of a revival of Nazism if the targets were Jews; and soon.I noticed no comment in the press apart from a column by WashingtonPost Ombudsman Robert J. McCloskey (Oct. 6, 1982), who referred tothe study, ignoring its contents while noting the symmetry of the chargesfrom the Jewish and Arab communities, from which the reader is tounderstand that “We must be doing our job,” in the words of “cynicaleditors.”Still another study, this time of both print and TV media coverage,was carried out by Roger Morris. His conclusion is that there is noevidence to establish the charges of a “double standard” levelled againstthe media—referring to the charges by Norman Podhoretz, MartinPeretz, the ADL, and the like. This conclusion he establishes with ease.The material he presents does, however, support the conclusion thatthere was a rather different double standard; namely, the overwhelmingtendency, from the first day, to adopt the point of view and the generalClassics in Politics: The Fateful TriangleNoam Chomsky