World

Mideast 'Air War'

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

October 13, 2000 / 9:00 PM EDT / CBS

It was no coincidence that when Israel rocketed Palestinian government buildings for the first time during a wave of violent street clashes, official Palestinian radio was a prime target.

Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority says it's simply keeping its people informed - and getting the Palestinian message out to the world.

But as far as Israel is concerned, the Voice of Palestine radio and television are as much a weapon as a firebomb or an assault rifle, serving up a nonstop diet of nationalistic songs, commentary and flowery tributes to what it calls the glorious martyrs of Palestine - those killed in battles with Israeli troops.

Israel has long accused Palestinian media of incitement. But amid the current spasm of violence, it has sharply stepped up its denunciations.

With the confrontation entering its third week, Israeli officials blamed Palestinian media for whipping up the mob that killed and mutilated two Israeli reservists Thursday after the soldiers took a wrong turn and wound up in the middle of Ramallah, one of the West Bank's worst flashpoints.

"The mob lynched them because the mob was incited for the last 10 days by the Palestinian Authority in newspapers, television, radio," said Israeli army spokesman Lt. Col. Ranaan Gissim, explaining why Palestinian transmitting facilities were targeted in rocket attacks launched from Israeli combat helicopters in retaliation.

The Israeli rocketing of the Voice of Palestine radio transmitter in Ramallah was reminiscent of NATO's airstrikes on Serbia in the spring of 1999 that took repeated aim at Slobodan Milosevic's official broadcast outlets.

Within hours of being knocked off the air by the Israeli attacks, the Voice of Palestine's programming was being carried on the FM band by private Palestinian stations across the West Bank.

"Look, when there's peace, I'll broadcast that," said Radwan Abu Ayyash, chairman of the Palestinian Broadcasting Corp., the Voice of Palestine's parent group. "But when they make war on us, that's what will be on the air. I'm not inventing all this."

Mahi Adwan, a young video editor with Voice of Palestine said she saw her job as part of the struggle for a homeland.

"With my task here," she said, "I feel I complete the work of those who throw the stones."

Throughout the course of the conflict, both sides have been acutely aware of the power of TV images. Viewers around the world were shocked by footage shot Sept. 30 of a terrified 12-year-old Palestinian boy caught in a hail of gunfire in the Gaza Strip as his desperate father tried to shield him.

Sympathy for the Israelis, on the other hand, was boosted by horrifying TV footage of the mob in Ramallah that killed the reservists. An Italian film crew captured graphic images of the Israelis' limp bodies being dumped from the second-floor window of the Palestinian police station in Ramallah while the mob rejoiced wildly and then converged on one copse to beat it with bricks and bars.

These TV pictures have become defining symbols of the conflict for those on each side, reports CBS News Correspondent Richard Roth. They are two indelible images that, in the battle for public opinion, comprise a tragic symmetry.