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CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, NORTHRIDGE
THE PALESTINIAN GUERRILLAS' IMAGE
IN THE NEVv YORK TIMES
DURING THE JORDAN CRISIS, 1970
A thesis submitted in partial satisfaction of the
requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in
Mass Communication
by
Salwa Shtieh Rifai
January, 1987 The Thesis of Salwa Shtieh Rifai is approved:
California State University, Northridge.
ii Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my advisor, Professor Kenneth s.
Devol, for his invaluable guidance and encouragement throughout. I would also like to thank Professor Michael c. Emery for allowing this study to come to life during two years by bridging the difficulties that are encountered by foreign students. I wish to express my gratitude to my friend, Hugh Rhys, for his help in editing this work.
iii ABSTRACT
THE PALESTINIAN GUERRILLAS' IMAGE
IN THE NEW YORK TIMES
DURING THE JORDAN CRISIS, 1970
by
Salwa Shtieh Rifai
Master of Arts in Mass Communication
In September 1970, King Hussein of Jordan decided to put an end to the state-within-a-state situation through
strong military operations that ended in the expulsion of
the military forces of the Palestinian Liberation
Organization from Jordan. This situation had started to develope after the Israeli occupation of the rest of
Palestine--West Bank and Gaza Strip--in June 1967.
Accordingly, Jordan had become the base for the Palestinian resistance movement.
The ten-day Jordan Crisis that lasted from September
17 to September 27, 1970 received extensive coverage from the U.S. press, yet this very coverage has not been studied
vi in terms of its objectivity and impartiality.
By means of content analysis, this study explored how
a representative of the u.s. prestige press--The New York
Times--presented and portrayed the Palestinian guerrillas
as they were fighting against their Arab brothers, the
Jordanian army. Toward this goal, the role of the prestige press as a source of public opinion and as an image con-
structor was examined. The following research questions
raised by the study were:
1. What main themes attracted the press' attention?
2. What were the sources of the news?
3. How did the press treat groups/nations for whom there was no American recognition?
4. What was the role of the press in stereotyping and constructing images of guerrilla groups?
5. Did the press use the method of cause and effect in terms of historical and social background portrayal of these groups?
To answer these questions, unsigned editorials were analyzed regarding their favorable, unfavorable or neutral direction. Hard news stories and feature stories were each analyzed according to their theme unit, and this unit's relationship with the referent, the Palestinian guerrillas.
This analysis revealed that the news reports' portrayal during the Jordan Crisis was conflict-oriented and the editorials' portrayal was predisposed not to accept the role of the Palestinian Liberation Organization as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people in
vii ' .
peace negotiation. The New York Times editorials were consistent with the official policy of the u.s. government
in sharp contrast to the field reports which were mostly neutral, except to the extent that they were fragmented and
tended to omit background information favorable to the PLO, which would allow the reader to form an objective and complete picture of the situation.
viii TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION ...... 1 Research Topic...... 1 Footnotes...... 15
CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY ••••••••••••• 18
Importance of the Study. 18 Purpose of the Study...... 20 A Hypothetical Framework. 23
Objectives of the Research. 25 Thesis Design...... 27 Definitions. 31 ·Bias ...... 32
Methodological Weaknesses. 34 Footnotes...... 36
CHAPTER III: LITERATURE REVIEW ••••••••••••••••••••••• 38
The Arab Image •••••••••••••••••••••••••• 38
Jordan Crisis Coverage. 44 The New York Times ••••• ...... 48 Conclusion. 50 Footnotes •• ...... 52
CHAPTER IV: HISTORICAL BACKGROUND ••••••••••••••••••• 56
Footnotes...... 64
iv CHAPTER V: ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION ••••••••••••••••• 65
The Referent: Nomenclature for the Palestinian Guerrillas •••••••••••••••• 67
The Palestinian Guerrillas' Relationships with Others •• 73
Palestinian Guerrillas' Contexts of Relationships •••••• 84 Kind of Relationships ••• ...... 90 Attributions •• 95
Direction •••• 100
News Sources. 115
Editorial Analysis. 121 Conclusion •• ...... 124 Footnotes ••• ...... 127
CHAPTER VI: GENERAL CONCLUSIONS ••••••••••••••••• 128 APPENDIX: Charts ••••• ...... 139 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 146
v CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Research Topic
Americans, like most people, get images of the world from their newspapers, magazines, radio, television, books, and movies. The mass media become the authority for what is true and what is false, what is a reality and what is fantasy. There is no greater force in shaping the public 1 mind.
Authorities have therefore recognized that to control the public they must control information. The initial possessor of news and ideas possesses the political power too--the power to disclose or conceal, to predetermine the interpretation of what is revealed. Controlling media is 2 as controlling armies, using words instead of arms. The degree of control by the possessor of news in the u.s. is increasing with time. In 1984, there were 1,730 daily 3 newspapers with a total circulation of 61 million.
1 2
This mass production is a product of human beings.
The human beings are the primary agents of the media who form and inform, who sell and profit; therefore, the media have a tendency to form negative or positive images and bias is not unexpected.
In the case of the Palestinian issue, negative image 4 and bias go beyond the expected human failure • This expected failure is based on several studies of the atti- tudes of the u.s. press toward the Arab world in general and toward the Palestinians in particular. Some of the important studies are Michael Suleiman's survey of seven news magazines, and the New York Times, from July to
December, 1956; the special report by the American Insti- tute for political communication on the coverage of the 5 June war 1967; a content analysis of American newspapers, including the New York Times, by Janice Terry covering from 6 1948 to 1968; and Issam Suleiman Mousa's survey in 1982 of the Arab image in the u.s. press in the New York Times, 7 between 1917 to 1948. There are also some recent studies on the 1973 October war coverage and the Lebanon Crisis in
Lebanon. These studies concluded that the u.s. press coverage of the Arab world has generally been biased in 8 favor of Israel.
In order to estimate the importance of image construe- tion in the u.s. press we have to define the meaning of images and give some examples. Image is perhaps the key J
word in this study. It is not an easy term to define in
this context and in fact no one definition comprehensively
fits the meaning intended.
Boulding (1956) was concerned with "images of 9 nations" and suggested that it was the image~ that were
real and that reality, however defined, was actually an
image. Images were the basis on which nations communi-
cated, be they hostile or friendly. He saw them as
constantly changing in their elements and therefore in
their meanings. History was very much part of image.
Scott (1965) described the social and psychological
correlation of image as representing the totality of attri-
butes that a person recognized or imagined for that country 10 rather than people of that specific country. This is an
important aspect of imagery because it underscores the concept that people tend to accept other people as reflec-
tions of themselves but they tend to identify other
countries as reflections of different (and perhaps
unlikely) cultural or political structures to those of
their own.
Gerbner and Manvanyi (1977) explored the similarities
and differences in the image of the "outside world" that 11 each society projects for its members. The study con-
eluded in one of its findings that the media focus on areas of immediate u.s. interest which in practice covers only two-thirds of the world, namely Western Europe, Asia, the 4
u.s., and particularly the Middle East. Specific consideration of the role images played in the presentation of the Palestinians in reporting the
Middle East conflict was of a biased nature.
Daugherty and Warden (1979) compared the editorials of the New York Times, washington Post, Christian Science
Monitor and The Wall Street Journal with respect to their
treatment of Israel and the Arab states including the
Palestinians from 1957 to 1977, to determine extent and 12 nature of biases in the construction of images. overall,
Israel was pictured as a besieged state surrounded by hostile Arabs. The predominant theme appeared to be that of urging peaceful solutions between the Israelis and the
Arabs.
In 1980, Rachty contributed to the understanding of 13 the many faceted aspects of an image. Her concern was the "negative image" of the Arabs in the u.s. media. She conceptualized image as "subjective knowledge" and stressed
that the "historical baggage" carried by the Arab states prevented the emergence of a more contemporary situation relevant image. She identified five factors that
influenced the image of the Arabs: (1) historical aspects of religion, the Crusaders, the crude peasantry and the
immorality of the sultans and their harems; (2) Arab nationalism and communism, stemming from Nasser and the arms deal with the Soviet Union, a piece of recent history 5
seen as an anti-Western act; {3) Arab internal conflict and
bickering born of longstanding feuds and rivalries buried
in the events of the past; {4) blackmailing the West
through OPEC as a memory still fresh in people's minds; {5)
uncritical acceptance of the Israeli version of events in
the Middle East. She judged the New York Times to be the
most pro-Israel and the Los Angeles Times the most pro- 14 Arab.
Rachty's suggestions and points, although valid, are
incomplete. She did not mention the Palestinian problem
which recently has inflicted so much suffering on the Arab
world. This problem is the core issue in the image con IS struction of the Arabs.
The bias found by Rachty and others could be attri-
buted to the Jewish influence of the media in the U.S., and
to ideological, religious, or racial factors. The fact
remains that, by and large, the u.s. press is anti-Arab and 16 pro-Israeli in varying degrees.
In light of this perceived bias, this analysis
examines the New York Times' portrayal of the image of the
Palestinian guerrillas during the Jordan Crisis in 1970.
The analysis attempts to explain the portrayal of the
Palestinian guerrillas through their activities of conflict
and cooperation--in war and peace--among themselves and with others; and to show whether this coverage was
favorable, unfavorable or neutral. 6
Balkaoui in 1978 combined an "attributional" compari-
son in the Arab-Israeli images in weekly magazines and
Sunday New York Times with an analysis of Gallup Polls 17 (1964-1974). She noted that, while striking differences appeared in the Arab image between the Nasser leadership of
strong nationalism and Sadat approach toward peace which became less biased, the Israeli attributional shift on
image remained almost the same positive image. Balkaoui correlated image change with changes in public opinion over 18 the same period of time. Balkaoui's study also showed
that the Arab image is correlated with the Arab relation- ship with Israel. When that relationship is fairly harmonious, that is when Israel finds minimal fault with the Arab position, then the Arab image is presented positively by the media. When Israel is displeased with the Arab position, the media present the Arab image nega- tively. In other words, the Arab image in the u.s. press is based according to Israel's perspective and not judged 19 on its own intrinsic merits.
How, then, did the New York Times present the
Palestinian guerrillas' image during the Jordan Crisis in
1970 when they were fighting with the Jordanian Army? The answer lies in the molding of public perception by those sources of information available to the public. The Gallup
Polls show that media are considered the predominant 20 influence in the formation of public opinion In both 7
the professional and academic worlds, media coverage is a primary source of material for persons active in business and government as well as for scholars.
Since this study is concerned about the portrayal of the Palestinian guerrillas' image, a brief background of the Palestinian peoples, their cause, and their struggle to maintain their identity and cultural integrity is appro- priate. How did the Palestinians come to be an issue? The 21 Palestinians now have a voice at the United Nations.
There is general consensus except on the part of Israel that the Palestinian question is central to a Middle East 22 settlement.
The Palestinian issue evolved out of the so-called
Sikes-Picot Agreement, concluded in May 1916, between 23 Britain and France. This secret pact provided for the division of the Arab Fertile Crescent between the Allies, followed by the Balfour Declaration in 1917 which stated that Britain favored the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people. On May 14, 1948, the
Jewish Agency, under the leadership of David Ben Gurion, proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel in place of the Arab Palestine.
One result of the establishment of Israel and the ensuing war was the exodus of large numbers of Arab
Palestinians, some dislodged by the hostilities, some fearing for their safety in a Jewish state, some allegedly 8
24 forced to leave by extremist groups on both sides. A small portion of these Palestinian refugees was gradually integrated into the neighboring Arab states, but the majority of them, unable or unwilling to assimilate, were lodged in camps, particularly in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip and--with their descendents--they have created a festering sore in the Middle East within the Arab 25 world.
After the six-day June war of 1967 and the Israeli occupation of the rest of Palestine, the level of well- being amongst the Palestinians steadily fell as the burning sense of injustice rose. This served to precipitate a climate receptive to new leadership. This Palestinian leadership under Al Fatah's group had gained control of the
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1969, and Yasser
Arafat was named Chairman of the PLO Executive Committee-- an umbrella organization for ten Palestinian Arab guerrilla groups including radical and moderate Fedayeen--that seek to liberate all or part of Palestine from Israel occupation 26 and control. (See Appendix, p. 139)
The PLO chief territorial base of operations against
Israel was Jordan, because of the one million inhabitants of the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza strip and of the one million in the East Bank of the Jordan under 27 the Hashemite rule. However, when the PLO's power as a
"state within a state" became too great, civil war broke 9
out between the Syrian-supported PLO and the Jordanian army in 1970. By the end of September, a cease-fire agreement was signed and the PLO armed forces had to leave to southern Lebanon.
However, the Palestinian political force was not defeated. The political emergence of the Palestinian
Resistance Movement after 1967 was an event of revolutionary importance in the Arab world which led numerous observers, including Israelis and Americans, to 28 acknowledge their power. They were able to apply important political and psychological pressures and fears from the growing Palestinian identity on the Middle East s1't uat1on. . 29
In the initial stage following the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, the u.s. press started to recognize the Palestinians as a peop 1 e w1t. h a separate 1'd ent1ty,. 30 h owever, t h e1r . cause and endeavors continued to be reported in an unfavorable light. Gradually, there emerged a growing realization that, regardless of the justness of their cause, they were a credible political entity and a significant military force and therefore their existence 31 had to be acknowledged. Being recognized as a cohesive group instead of a fragmented rabble of desperate refugees with no clear political purpose is the first step to the creation of a more positive image. By the early '70's there is evidence that the Palestinians had achieved such a 10
step along that lengthy and difficult road. We may quote three sources in support of this. Mark 0. Hatfield said on
June 16, 1970 that "We must squarely confront the third rising force in the Middle East, the Palestinian Movement.
The issue of Palestine must be understood and its meaning in the eyes of all the Arab world must be grasped. Our viewpoints must become sensitive to the injustice that the
Palestinians feel so deeply, and our policies must be 32 constructed to deal with this sense of injustice."
At about the same time, former Middle East correspon- dent for Th~ Guardian, Michael Adams, said, "Since 1967, the press has not inspired this process of reassessment of the Palestinian image, but it has reflected, hesitantly and reluctantly, the success of the Palestinians in creating for themselves a new image in the eyes of the world: the image, not a nation of refugees, but of people bent on liberating themselves from alien domination. And that is an image to which none of us in what we like to call the 33 free world can remain indifferent."
Furthermore, a third source, James A. McClure, a
United States Senator from Idaho, said, "Before October
1973, the majority of Americans thought of Palestinians as either refugees or terrorists--if they ever thought of them at all. Many Americans, I know, thought that the
Palestinians really no longer existed as a people. Now that the American people are learning about the basis for 11
the Palestinian demands for justice, the word justice needs to be defined and it must come from the Palestinians--but 34 there are limits."
Despite the increasing pace of complexity of events in the Middle East, the central conflict continues to be the 35 one between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs. On the one hand, Israel is now firmly established in its right to exist in a manner which it sees fit, even though it feels itself to be under constant threat and therefore justified in its military activity for security reasons. On the other hand, the Palestinians have not established their right to a homeland in a manner which they see fit since to do so would upset the status quo which is presently in favor of Israel. Since the two peoples claim the same land, it is axiomatic that the propitiation of the one denies the right of existence of the other, but denial of right does not suppress national aspirations; so the 36 struggle goes on.
In examining the image of each, however, one vital difference is clear. Israel is presented as a cohesive entity which only wants to dwell in peace within secure borders. The Palestinians, on the other hand, even during the period of 1959-70 under the seemingly unifying influence of Yasser Arafat, the PLO leader, have been widely pictured by the press as an uneasy alliance of fragmented forces held in fragile coalescence by their 12
desire for a homeland. These, as established by the u.s. media, are fundamental images! Regardless of the rights or
wrongs of the issue, the image of cohesion is positive and 37 that of fragmentation is negative. This is a human
perspective.
All other images of Israel and the Palestinians
proceed from these fundamentals, thus the conversion of the
Palestinian image to a positive aspect would be difficult
enough in the most favorable environment, but when the
subject of objectivity and impartiality is damned by the
press, the coverage should be studied.
It is therefore necessary to study the coverage of
this central conflict between the Arab Palestinians and the
Israelis which, in September 1970, eventually led the
Jordanian Arab army to confront the Palestinian armed
forces who were centered in Jordan since the Arab-Israeli 38 war in 1967. The rest of Palestine was occupied by
Israel, and Jordan received more frustrated Palestinian
refugees from the West Bank who were driven out by Israel.
They brought with them instability to the Hashemite kingdom which finally ended in a military confrontation. The large new influx of another 500,000 Palestinian refugees into
Jordan after 1967 were not the usual helpless and disorganized type of refugees but a cohesive national entity with cultural, social, and military structure. They were not absorbed into the local population to become lJ
Jordanians because they were determined to maintain their identity and preserve their goals of returning to their homeland supported by the Palestinian Liberation
Organization. This development inevitably created a de 39 facto state-within-a-state situation in Jordan.
Even though Hussein regarded Arafat as an ally, he realized that the PLO Chairman did not have full control over all Palestinian guerrilla factions. There were groups ranging from moderates to militant radicals.
The Palestinian enclave in Jordan could have become a base for raids against Israel by the militant and the
Israeli retribution which this would bring upon Jordan would have created a serious threat. Hussein perceived that neither Arafat nor he had the situation under control.
The hijacking of four international airline flights to
Jordan by the Popular Front of the Liberation of
Palestine--a radical faction--on 6th and 7th September 1970 40 flamed the situation in Jordan. The hijacking was a pro- test against the consent of Jordan on the Rogers' Plan that did not include the Palestinian rights for self determination in the Middle East settlement. Finally, King
Hussein resolved to end the chaotic situation. On
September 16th, he formed a military government and the next morning ordered his army troops to end the military existence of the PLO in Jordan.
The confrontation which recorded victory for King 14
Hussein and defeat for the Palestinian armed forces averted the threat of a direct superpower confrontation between the
United States supporting King Hussein and the Soviets supporting the Syrian-Palestinian group. The Jordan Crisis also motivated the u.s. press. Its coverage of the war was extensive and it is important to analyze the coverage of this Arab vs. Arab conflict in the u.s. press.
As far as the Israeli image and the Arabic image of the Palestinian guerrillas are concerned, the matter is simplistic. Israelis identify the Palestinian guerrillas as terrorists and murderers while the Arabs hold them up as heroes and freedom fighters. The issue is one of black and white. Obviously, the choice depends upon one's sympathies. In the matter of the so-called neutral nations, there is room for various shades of grey in the
image evaluation by the press. Therefore, this study will test in the u.s. press how neutrally grey these images really are. 15
FOOTNOTES
1. Ben H. Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly (Boston: Beacon Press, 1983), p. xiv, Introduction.
2. Ibid., p. xiv.
3. Ibid., p. xv.
4. Elias Sam'o, "The Arab-Israeli Conflict as Reported by the Kalb Brothers," in Arabs in America, Myths and Realities, edited by Baha Abu-Laban and Faith T. Zeady (Wilmette, Illinois: Medina University Press Inter national, 1975), p. 45. 5. See Michael w. Suleiman, "An Evaluation of Middle East News Coverage in Seven American News Magazines, July December 1956, "Middle East Forum, Vol. XLI (Autumn 1965): pp. 5-30; American Institute for Political Communication, "Domestic Communications Aspects of the Middle East Crisis, A Special Report" (Washington D.C.: APIC, July 1967); See also Leslie Farmer, "All We Know Is What We Read in the Papers," "Middle East Newsletter (February, 1968): pp. 1-5.
6o Janice Terry, "A Content Analysis of American Newspapers," The Arab World from Nationalism to Revolu tion, edited by Abdeen Jabara and Janice Terry. (Wilmette, Illinois: The Medina University Press International, 1971): p. 94.
7. Issam Suleiman Mousa, The Arab Image in the U.S. Press (New York: Peter Lang Publishing Inc., 1984).
8. Terry, p. 95. 9. Alex s. Edelstein, Comparative Communication Research (Beverly Hills: Sage Publishing Inc., 1982): p. 77.
10. Ibid., p. 77.
11. Ibid., p. 86.
12. Ibid., p. 87.
13. Ibid., p. 88.
14. Ibid., p. 88. 16
15. Edward w. Said, "A Palestinian Perspective," from The Arab world from Nationalism to Revolution, edited by Abdeen Jabara and Janice Terry (Wilmette, Illinois: Medina University Press International, 1971): p. 192.
16. Sam'o, p. 45.
17~ Janice M. Belkaoui, "Images of Arabs and Israelis in the Prestige Press, 1966-1974." Journalism Quarterly, Vol. 55 (Winter 1979): p. 738.
18. Edelstein, p. 89.
19. Suleiman, p. 41.
20. suleiman, p. 40 21. New York Times (December 7, 1975) "How the Palestinians Came to be an Issue," by Naomi Shepherd, p. 24.
22. Ibid., p. 24.
23. Encyclopedia Americana International, Vol. 21 (Connecticut: Groiler Inc., 1981), p. 2207.
24. Ibid. I p. 201. 26. James Davis, "Toward a Theory of Revolution," American Sociological Review Vol. 27 (February 1982): pp. 5-19, from The Middle East, Quest for American Policy, edited by Willard Beling (New York: University of New York Press, 1973): p. 5. 27. Encyclopedia Americana, p. 203.
28. New York Times, December 7, 1975. 29. The Middle East, Quest for American Policy, p.l04.
30. Janice Terry and Gordon Mendenhall, "1973 u.s. Press Coverage on the Middle East," Journal of Palestinian Studies, Vol. 4 (Autumn, 1974): p. 124.
31. Said, p. 193.
32. New York Times, June 17, 1970.
33. Michael Adams, "The Arabs and the world, from The Arab world, edited by Abdeen Jabara and Janice Terry (Wilmette, Illinois: Medina University Press Inter national, 1971): p. 93. 17
34. James A. McClure, "The Arabs: An American Awakening," from Arabs in America, Myths and Realities, edited by Baha Abu-Laban and Faith Zeady (Wilmette, Illinois: Medina University Press International, 1975): p. 235.
35. Edward Said, "A Palestinian Perspective, from The Arab world from Nationalism to Revolution, p. 187.
36. Naom Chomsky, "The Future of Palestine," from The Arab world from Nationalism to Revolution, p. 187.
37. Suleiman, p. 65.
38. Abdullah Frangi, The PLO and Palestine (London: Zed Books Ltd., 1979): p. 115.
39. Adam M. Garfinkle, "U.S., Decision Making in the Jordan Crisis: Correcting the Record," Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 100 (Spring 1985): p. 120.
40. Hudson, p. 107 (.\ '
CHAPTER II
METHODOLOGY
Importance of the Study
The Jordan Crisis of September 17, 1970 was the first time the Palestinian Fedayeen supported by Syria had to fight with an Arab army. It was with the Jordanian army, the army which had been their ally in the Karameh battle against the invading Israelis in 1968. That battle witnessed the first victory achieved by the cooperation of the two military groups.
The Jordan crisis of September 1970 is one of the most frequently mentioned yet least studied episode in the recent Middle East conflict. The crisis represented the suppositive value of the political and military coordination between the u.s. and the moderate Arab regimes in the face of radical Arab regimes with ties to the Soviets in the Middle East. This is the reason why a heavy coverage of the crisis was found in the u.s. press. The Fedayeen-Jordan confrontation of September 1970
18 19
2 was a short-lived but intense episode. Its most decisive
historical legacy was the state of U.S.-U.S.S.R. relations
in 1970, which conditioned u.s. top policymakers to regard
the crisis basically as an internationally cold war
confrontation rather than a localized Middle East 3 conflict. Obviously, to the American administration, the 4 Jordan Crisis is regarded as among its finest hours. It
also had no problem finding the support of the media like
the Alsops and the editors of Time magazine to recall
how fine the hours were through their heavy coverage of
this war.
As the New York Times is considered by many to be the most prestigious newspaper in the u.s., the prominence
given to its coverage of the Jordan Crisis should make for 5 a better understanding of the PLO image. This image
affects public opinion and therefore ultimately the 6 decisions made by the elected government of the u.s. This
study will also test the objectivity of the New York Times
in terms of the justification given to the PLO revolution's
relationship to the loss of its homeland--Palestine--in
1948.
The research questions stimulated by the research
focus are as follows:
1. What were the dominant themes in the coverage of the New York Times during the Jordan Crisis from September 17 -September 27, 1970?
2. Was the coverage issue-oriented or was violence the dominant factor? 20
3. Did the coverage include the social and historical background of the Palestinians?
4. Were the Palestinian guerrillas viewed as stateless and frustrated?
5. How did the New York Times coverage show the PLO's intentions fighting King Hussein?
6. Were the Palestinian Fedayeen seen in the coverage as a peace disruptive factor?
7. Did the coverage attribute the probable superpower confrontation, to the PLO or to Syria?
8. Were the Palestinians covered as people with legitimate nationalistic rights or as a band of stateless refugees?
9. Did the coverage tone change over the change of events? After the victory of King Hussein? Interference of Syria? The defeat of the Fedayeen?
10. Was the PLO seen as different or the same when fighting an Arab army?
Purpose of the Study
There appears to be a gap in scholarly literature regarding the treatment of the Palestinian guerrillas in the u.s. press. One study, "The Prestige Press Editorial 7 Treatment of the Mideast During Crisis Years," did not consider the Jordan crisis or the Palestinian Fedayeen coverage during this crisis. A second study, "Images of 8 Arabs and Israelis in the Prestige Press, 1966-1974," also did not refer to the Jordan Crisis or the Fedayeen. A third, "The American Elite Press and the Arab-Israeli 9 Conflict between 1966-1976," did not refer to the Jordan
Crisis, and other studies did not touch upon the Jordan 21
Crisis or the Palestinian guerrilla coverage during the
Jordan Crisis.
A major focus of the study is to review the media portrayal of the Palestinian guerrillas, both in war (armed struggle) and in peace (negotiation) during the Jordan
Crisis between September 17, 1970--the day the war erupted--to September 27, 1970--the day a cease-fire agreement was signed.
In addition to press themes of the Palestinian guerrillas in war and peace, this study will also consider themes of political, historical, and military aspects that also deal with conflict and cooperation. Palestinian portrayal prior to and after, 1970 might also prove helpful; it might possibly shed light on certain events that are linked to the analysis of this study.
The data set to be analyzed include all unsigned editorials published in the New York Times within the referenced period of the Jordan Crisis. They also include feature stories, and hard news. The New York Times was selected because it is commonly held to set the standard for journalism in the u.s. It enjoys more credibility than any other of the nation's papers for its thorough coverage 10 of international news. Between 1960 and 1983 the Times ranked first in a half-dozen polls taken to determine 11 newspaper prestige.
Leon T. Hadar, in his article, "Behind The New York 22
Times Middle East Coverage," claims that The New York Times 12 influences the foreign policy of the United States. The
Times publishes more foreign news than any other American news organization. It also maintains more correspondents abroad than any other company. It was the only American paper with permanent correspondents stationed in the Arab countries and Israel in the 'SO's. After the six-day war in 1967, it extended the coverage further and attempted to get fuller information from the Arab world, and the
Palestinians began receiving more space and attention than 13 formerly.
Before 1948, the newspaper was known for its anti-
Zionist stand. After 1948, it showed support for the existence of a Jewish state and published editorials friendly to Israel. Still, American Jews have argued that the paper, as Gay Talese puts it, because of its wish not to be thought of as a "Jewish" newspaper, will bend over backwards to prove this point by compromise, balancing both sides. Its critics saw a "pro-Arab erosion" in the position of the paper during 1967-73, attributing this partly to the administration's even-handed policy in the area, and partly to liberal "Third Worldist" tendencies 14 emerging in the Times in the late '60's.
Another Times editorial policy has appeared to be the attempt to legitimize the role of the PLO as a recognized actor in the Middle East process. However, this approach 23
did not develop before 1978.
With all the national recognition, the Times, like
every other human product, has its faults. Any consistent
reader can discern its biases by consulting different
sources or analyze it by a thorough research. However,
there is no paper available daily as detailed or as
thorough as the New York Times.
A Hypothetical Framework
A preliminary examination of the content of press news
reports between Sepember 17 to September 27, 1970 found
that most of the discussion of guerrillas' events centered 15 around two themes: conflict and cooperation. This
pretest helped to develop the following hypothetical
framework.
The news reports in general seem to describe the
Palestinian guerrillas as being involved in conflict, and
at a later stage in cooperation. This involvement assumes
two types: internal, between the ten factions of the
Palestinian guerrillas, Jordan and other Arab states; and
external, between Palestinian guerrillas and foreign nations or groups.
In specific terms, conflict activities may be categorized into the following types:
(1) Palestinian guerrillas seeking recognition as the
sole representative of the Palestinian people. This is the motive which triggered their revolt against any peace 24
initiative that included Jordan, Egypt and Israel and excluded the Palestinians.
(2) Palestinians conflicting with Arabs. This takes the form of disagreement, criticism, expressions of dissatisfaction against the governments, or actual warfare as in the Jordan Crisis. In this stage the Palestinian supreme command had little authority over the different factions in the PLO body. The PLO did not seem to present a united front to the American press when they were in the process of formation as an organization because some Arab leaders were sponsoring one faction or another, which generally would lead to friction and competition. The Arab regimes were also competing for the representation of the
Palestinian people in any peace plana
Cooperation activities have two sides: verbal and material. In both cases, the activity may be internal
(between Palestinian Arabs and Arab states) or external
(between Palestinians and other foreign nations or groups).
Cooperation activities include:
(1) Palestinians supporting each other against other
Arab states or foreign powers.
(2) Cooperation with the West. The Palestinians are seen here as cooperating with the European countries and the United States.
(3) Cooperation with the Eastern Bloc (anti-West).
The Palestinians in this case are against the West who 25
support their enemies.
{4) Desire for peace, peaceful coexistence, or
willingness to negotiate or compromise. The expressed
desire, whether conditional or not, suggests a willingness
to cooperate with others, and to reach a peaceful solution
for the injustice which occurred in 1948.
Around these two major themes of conflict and
cooperation, other attributes of the image may be explored.
These attributes concern the portrayal of Palestinian
guerrillas in relationship with other nations, and the kind
of relationship, military or political. However, conflict
and cooperation were found to be the main themes underlying
the portrayal of the Palestinians between September 17 to
September 27, 1970, linking the findings to the studies of
Arab images before the '70's and after, in order to attain
a comprehensive overview of the Palestinian image through
the Arab image in the United States press.
Objectives of the Research
This study attempts to explore by means of content analysis how a representative of the u.s. prestige press presented and portrayed the Palestinian guerrillas during
the Jordan Crisis between September 17 and September 27,
1970. In this regard, the role of the prestige press as a
source of information for public opinion will be examined with respect to Palestinian guerrilla portrayal. This
portrayal will be analyzed in the light of the themes of 26
conflict and cooperation that underlie the Palestinian coverage in the press reports. This examination will help us find out the kind and extent of relationships reported between and among the Palestinian guerrillas and other nation groups which may help explain the impact of coverage on the Palestinian image.
This study will explore the extent of Arab Palestinian
Arab relationships, both among themselves and with other nations/groups such as the u.s., U.S.S.R., and the West.
The Palestinians were driven out of Palestine by the
Israelis after two major wars in 1948 and 1967. The armed struggle of the Palestinians emanated from this expulsion from their homeland. This analysis of press reports may help show how Palestinian relationships developed over time with the Arab states and the external world. It will show the different Palestinian referents coverage dealt with individual factors in the PLO, as aggregates, or as a whole body of a group. This focus may help explain how the press viewed the Palestinians: as a homogenous composite referred to as Palestinian guerrillas ("PLO") or as separate factions within their host country.
Analysis of news reports sources will also help show the origin of news used by reporters. The objective will be to see whether the news sources used most were American,
Arab or Israeli. This may also throw some light on the kind of views maintained by the Palestinians and how they 27
changed and evolved as their fortunes fluctuated. For example, how did the media relate the optimism for an honorable compromise at the onset of the Jordan Crisis to the despondency of defeat when the PLO was driven from
Jordan by Hussein's superior force of arms? lt will also help to show if coverage was sufficient and complete to enable the reader to form an objective image of the
Palestinians and their background free from misconceptions, distortion and incompleteness. This research seeks to provide answers to the following questions: What are the themes that attract the attention of the New York Times more than the others? What are the sources of news? How does the press treat organizations unrecognized by the u.s. government? What is the role of the press in matters that pertain to stereotyping and image making of foreign nations/groups?
Thesis Design
Content analysis is the method by which the questions raised previously will be answered in depth and draw out the specific inferences and semantic identification of messages portrayed by the New York Times for a period extending between September 17 and September 27, 1970.
Definitions of content analysis have tended to change over time with developments in technique and with application of the tool itself to new problems; however, the basic definitions by Berelson and others are still 28
valid. Berelson defines the term content analysis as, "A
research technique for the objective, systematic, and
quantitative description of the manifest content of 15 communication." Also, according to Berelson, qualitative
content analysis would apply whenever one word is as 16 'important' as the rest of the content taken together."
This study combines both quality and quantity.
The analysis will follow a predetermined
categorization scheme. The theme is the basic analytic
unit of this study. The editorials will be analyzed also
as to whether the PLO received favorable, unfavorable or neutral treatment in the the New York Times as events
unfolded. A set of questions to the discovery of the portrayal of image in every story during the fighting
period between September 17, 1970 and September 27, 1970
{as the unit of the analysis piece). Certain news
report titles were discarded such as the stories that
related directly to the hijacking because they did not discuss the subject matter - PLO - during the Jordan
Crisis. Also, some material will be eliminated such as
"men in the news," political cartoons and opinion columns, not because they are unimportant but because an
independently objective reflection of the coverage can be determined from hard news stories, feature stories, and editorials.
In the studied stories, the unit of analysis is based 29
on what Berelson defines as a theme: " ••• an assertion about a subject matter. Thus it is a sentence (or sentence-compound) , usually a summary or abstracted sentence, under which a wide range of specific formulations can be subsumed." In the present research, the theme is defined as a manifest subsumed under an idea unit that dealt with PLO regarding activities they carried out among each other, with Jordanians, or with foreign peoples or entities. The PLO (Palestinian guerrillas), accordingly, is the referent in any theme that was analyzed for the purpose of this study.
These themes were further analyzed according to the following categories:
1. The Referent. For each theme, the referent is the
Palestinian fighter. Nine breakdowns were analyzed such as Al-Fateh, Palestinian guerrilla, Palestinian refugees,
Fedayeen, commandoes, PLO, PFLP, Palestinian groups and terrorists.
2. Party in Relationship with the Guerrillas. To find out with what other nation/group the referent
Palestinian guerrillas was discussed. Six breakdowns were examined such as: soviet Union, United States, Jordan,
Arab States, Israel and others.
3. Contexts of Relationship. Each theme was analyzed with regard to the context for the relationship
(in which the referent (Palestinian guerrilla) was seen as JO
involved). There were nine breakdowns--political, military, economic, social, historical, cultural, health matters, educational and other contexts.
4. Kind of Relationship. To find out in which one of the two relationships with or among Palestinian guerrillas were discussed: (a) fight (conflict); or (b) negotiation
(cooper at ion) •
5. Form of Attribution. Each theme was defined according to how the evaluation was shown: (a) verbal; (b) adverbial; (c) adjectival.
6. Direction of Attribution and Relationship. Each attribution was in one of these directions: (a) favorable- positive; (b) unfavorable-negative; (c) neutral.
7. General Sources of Attribution. Each attribution was analyzed for source of report:
a. Identified Source. This deals with a specified person (observer).
b. Veiled Source. An unidentified source such as,
"it was reported ••• ," or "an official said •••• "
c. Unascertained Source. Neither a or b above, but rather a reporter, news agency, or newspaper.
8. Editorials Unsigned. Each editorial was analyzed for its direction in terms of favorable, unfavorable or neutral during the Jordan Crisis.
9. Additional Procedures. The following points should be emphasized in regard to the content analysis Jl
scheme:
a. For each story, a count of the total number of
themes was maintained in a serial order.
b. The coding sheet permitted recording the
following: the page on which the story appeared; the
column number; the issue date; the source of the story
(e.g., foreign correspondent or news agency}.
Definitions
The following are definitions of major terms that were
used in coding the data:
Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO}. In 1969,
the Al Fateh group led by Yasser Arafat replaced the original conservative leadership and formed the united ten
factions (PLO} under one umbrella. The Palestinian
National Council's ultimate objective is to claim the West
Bank and Gaza Strip as their own "national authority."
Theme. A manifest assertion which subsumes under it an idea unit that deals with the Palestinians regarding activities they carry out among each other or with other foreign peoples or entities.
Conflict. The tendencies caused by one nation or group to disrupt the functioning of the other.
Cooperation. The interaction between two nations or groups toward their working to produce a common effect. 17 Favorable. Those attributions and relationships which reflect: unity, social (and religious}, cohesion, 32 ~ '
cooperation, stability, strength, morality, intelligence, success, good deeds and acts, lawfulness, peace-loving and involvement in independent efforts {revolution, freedom fighters), leaders, exercise of leadership and involvment in nation-building.
Unfavorable. Those attributions and relationships which reflect: disunity, social {and religious) conflict, disorganization, instability, weakness, immorality, lack of intelligence, failure, bad deeds and acts, involvement in a terrorizing effort and destruction of rules, unlawful, losers, refuse peace, backward, domineering, vengeful, warring, immoral, impractical, refusing {i.e. passivity), lacking in leadership.
Neutral. Those attributes and relationships which reflect neither favorable nor unfavorable conditions either through balance of content or lack of critical materials.
Bias
Four major factors must be kept consciously in mind throughout the entire study in order to minimize bias. The first is that data should not be selectively chosen to prove the stated hypotheses. This applies to both written and graphic data. The second is that the researcher is an
Arab and therefore the possibility of pro-Palestinian bias is present. This possibility has been fully recognized.
It has therefore been largely overcome by acquiring from neutral sources as many different perspectives of the JJ
conflicting parties. The third is to follow a specific method that can be replicated as much as possible. The
fourth is that the New York Times is owned by a Jewish family and much of its readership is Jewish in New York
City. These factors must be constantly set aside when examining the degree of impartiality with which the New
York Times treats the conflicting parties alike when covering the crisis. All of these biases may not be totally overcome and therefore results could be somewhat distorted. This, however, is an inherent feature of qualitative content analysis where results and conclusions are "inevitably subjective."
Methodological weaknesses
Because this method is subjective in part, it cannot ascertain the accuracy and validity of its findings in the manner of an exact science. The findings of this study will be difficult to verify because the qualitative part of this study is difficult to replicate exactly in most instances.
The time period covered is a short one for establishing knowledge about the New York Times. Since there are only ten days to be studied, in-depth information about Palestinian guerrillas is also hard to establish.
The choice of one paper, the New York Times, limits the study's horizon. It also eliminates the drawing of comparisons and evaluating the function of the New York 34
Times in relation with another.
Finally, because of the ongoing present, sensitive,
relations between the Jordanians and the Palestinians in
Jordan, this study does not include a complete assessment
of the political ramifications of the crisis.
Recommendations
When an incomplete picture is presented, the reader is
unable to form a true and balanced image. Completion of
the picture requires the enhanced awareness of the
Palestinian historical and social background. This is
necessary for a balanced coverage. This information was
rarely provided by the New York Times. The suppressed suffering of an entire people is a principal contribution to the instability in the Middle East today. Since the media have the power to form and inform public opinion, the
New York Times' failure to demonstrate the whole story might have created a biased and incomplete image in the public mind.
Conflict also was found to be a constant feature in
reporting the Palestinians. This could have been
instrumental in presenting an image of violence as a main feature of Palestinian life, a transformation from a passive refugee in the early '60's to an aggressive guerrilla in the late '60's. Moreover, the sources of the news were clearly unsympathetic to the Palestinian cause. J5
Hence, it is suggested that the absence of background
information on the Palestinians, coupled with an
inconsistent coverage, could have contributed to misconceptions about the Palestinians prior to 1970. Such misconceptions might have aided in creating stereotypes
that distorted the Palestinian image as a whole.
Notwithstanding all this, however, there was a
recognition of the Palestinians as a separate, independent
entity in reporting the news reports. This, therefore,
could be a turning point in the understanding of the
rights of the Palestinians and the prelude to an era of
balanced reporting and fair presentation. J6
FOOTNOTES
1. Adam Garfinkle, "U.S. Policy Making in the Jordan Crisis: Correcting the Record," Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 100, (Spring, 1985): p. 117. 2. Alan Dowty, "The u.s. and the Syria-Jordan Confrontation, 1970," The Jerusalem Journal of International Relations, Vol. 3, (Winter-Spring 1978): p. 172.
3. David Schoenbaum, "Jordan, the Forgotten Crisis, (2) ••• or Lucky?" Foreign Policy, No. 10, (Spring 1973): p. 171.
4. Ibid., p. 180.
5. Russ Braley, Bad News: The Foreign Policy of the New York Times (Chicago: Regnery Gateway, 1984): p. 373.
6. Ibid., p. 178.
7. David Daugherty and Michael warden, "Prestige Press Editorial - Treatment of the Mideast During 11 Crisis Years," Journalism Quarterly Vol. 56 (Winter 1979): pp. 776-782.
8. Janice Monti Belkaoui, "Images of Arabs and Israelis in the Prestige Press, 1966-1974," Journalism Quarterly Vol. 55 (Winter 1979): pp. 732-738.
9. Robert H. Trice, "The American Elite Press and the Arab Israeli Conflict," The Middle East Journal Vol. 33 (Summer 1979): pp. 304-325.
10. Leon T. Hadar, "Behind the New York Times Middle East Coverage," Middle East Review Vol. 12-13 (Summer/Fall 1980): pp. 56-61.
11. Edwin Emery, Michael Emery, The Press and America. (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1984): p. 651.
12. Leon T. Hadar, p. 56.
13. Ibid., p. 56.
14. Ibid., p. 57. 37
15. Bernard Berelson, Content Analysis in Communica tion Research (Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1952): p. 18.
16. Ibid., p. 138.
17. In defining favorable, unfavorable and neutral, some use was made of Budd. Budd, in turn, acknowledges that he employed Gieber definitions as a base. Richard Budd, Robert Thorp and Lewis Donohew, Content Analysis of Cownunication (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1967): p. 100. CHAPTER III
LITERATURE REVIEW
The Arab Image
Scholars became interested in analyzing the portrayal of the Arabs, including the Palestinians, when the press increased its coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict in the
1960's and 1970's. Most of these studies linked the Arabs to Israel and to the on-going Middle East conflict.
Therefore, most of the studies dealt with Arabs in general after 1948 and concentrated on years of crisis and wars.
The Arabs fought five wars with Israel in 1948, 1956, 1967,
1973 and 1982. In the meantime, the Arab Palestinians fought two civil wars with Arab states, one in Jordan in
1970 and the other in Lebanon in 1976.
Previous studies have focused on image portrayal
(favorable/unfavorable) and on the sources of information in order to detect bias. They used cognitive and affective components of the image relating them to educational,
38 Q ' 39
cultural, characters of leaders (moderate-radical) internal conflicts, etc. 1 Janice Terry, in her three content analyses of
American newspapers, studied the attitude of three u.s. newspapers including the New York Times over a 26-year period of time with regard to the Arab-Israel conflict,
from 1948-1974. The Palestinians were one of the various topics which she discussed.
In her first study, she found that all the newspapers she studied virtually ignored the existence of the
Palestinians as a separate group, referring to them as 2 "Arabs," "Moslems," "Moslem Arabs," or "refugees." the New York Times mentioned the Palestinians separately six times in 1948. In the following years, references to
"Palestinians" disappeared altogether from the coverage.
Palestine did not appear in the 1960 index of the New York 3 Times. It appeared once in 1952 and once in 1956. The most notable change in the 1968 coverage was the 4 recognition of the Palestinians as a separate group.
The result of her study revealed a "rather consistent pro-Israel and anti-Arab bias," which was particularly clear in editorials and cartoons and, to a lesser extent, 5 in feature stories. Her second study differed from the first in that she focused on 1973 exclusively. The study revealed that references to the Palestinians as a separate 6 unit became more frequent. With this emergence of 40
identity their armed struggle was portrayed negatively,
while Israeli military actions were depicted as responses 7 to intolerable situations. However, editorials stressed a
certain sympathy for the Palestinian refugees, who were 8 generally depicted as victims.
In the third study, she compared the content of the
three American newspaspers with The Times of London and the
French LeMonde. She found out that the European press
showed more sympathy for the Palestinians, who were 9 generally depicted as victims. In the u.s. press, including the New York Times, there was an indication that,
while there might have been growing sympathy for or, at
least, awareness of the Palestinian case, there was also 10 growing hostility to most commando activitiese 11 Michael Suleiman, in a series of four studies,
focused on the Arab image during three major crises, 1956,
1967 and 1973, in terms of their treatment of Arabs in six
news magazines. He found in his first study that the
Israeli-Western image of the Israeli soldiers was one of a
hero motivated by the justice of his cause, whereas that of
the Arab was of an ill-disciplined villain given to
cowardice when faced with a one-to-one situation and 12 motivated only by hate and fanaticism. To support this 13 he quoted Marcus Smith, "Reflections in a Mirror." In
his second study, he found that most editorials were anti-
Arab and/or pro-Israel, and those which were sympathetic to 41
the Arabs favored moderate Arabs with pro-Western 14 governments.
The press accepted the Israeli version that Arab leaders allegedly asked the Palestinians to leave their homeland; meanwhile the Israelis asked them to stay. In his third study on the 1973 war, he noted a slight shift from the repeated emphasis on the 'bad' qualities of the stereotyped Arab to a slightly less negative {but not yet 15 positive) image. In his fourth study, he found a move toward more balanced reports during 1973 and onward in 16 contrast to the negative portrayal of 1967. 17 Janice Belkaoui's study in the Journalism Quarterly on the "Images of Arabs and Israelis in the Prestige Press,
1966-74," also found that newspapers presented the Arabs more favorably and the Israelis less so in 1973, as 18 compared with 1967. Her findings, when she traced the path of these images to the general public, found the relation between economic, political interest in the prestige press in the large circulation and their 19 manipulation of international image. 20 Robert Trice's study attempted to measure and evaluate the editorials concerning the Arab-Israeli conflict of eleven major American elite newspapers. He found that years 1967, 1970, 1973 and 1974 attracted heavy media attention with respect to the Middle East crisis.
The 1968 war of attrition between Egypt and Israel was 42
analyzed in Trice's study. However, he did not study the
Jordan Crisis of 1970 which followed this war immediately.
One assumes that this is because Arab versus Arab was outside the scope of his research. Despite the omission, he measured the Palestinian coverage in editorials and he drew some conclusions. He noted that the editorials saw the Palestinian issues portrayed in two different lights.
On the one hand, the irregular military activities of
Palestinian groups received almost universal condemnation from prestige American newspapers. Palestinians were the target of more criticism for their commando and terrorist attacks than any other single party or any other issue that 1 22 arose during 1966-1974. However, the editorials seemed to sympathize with the Palestinian refugees in their denial of self-determination, although most papers did not recognize their rights in this matter for self 22 determination. He also found that the media interest was highest during times of crisis. the New York Times 23 appeared to be the most active interest in this respect. 24 The Wagner study covered the period between 1967 and 1969, tapping the attitude of the elite American newspapers toward disengagement which had become the new 25 mood in the u.s. press coverage of 1967. His findings 26 stimulated an expanded study by Daugherty and warden.
They spanned a longer period of time, from 1967-1977, covering four newspapers, including the New York Times. 4J
They found that the predominant theme was one of urging negotiated peace. Pro-Israeli tones existed but in general 27 terms rather than in any specific partisan prejudice.
After they examined the editorial pages they found that support for Israel out-weighed support for the Arabs in nine of the eleven years analyzed; the two years during which Arab support peaked and exceeded support for Israel 28 were 1971 and 1977. 29 The Eylan Gilboa study in Political Communication and Persuasion presents a critical analysis of public opinion polls of the PLO and the Palestinians since the middle of 1970. The analysis dealt partly with the PLO image in the u.s. The study revealed confusion in the
American attitude toward the Palestinian problem. Public opinion polls reflected substantial lack of coherence in recent u.s. policy toward the problem and the lack of 30 knowledge about the issue. In this case, the press might be blamed for the uninformed public. 31 A Master's Thesis by Beverly Marcus studied the portrayal of the Palestinian people in three publications: the New York Times, Chicago Times, and Time magazine from
1948-74. This study found that, until 1967, the
Palestinians were either ignored by the press or portrayed as anonymous, passive, helpless Arab refugees. Although they gave Palestinian terrorism massive play, the publications provided little information on the history and 44
complexities of the Palestinian dilemma. Only with the
1973 war and Arab oil boycott did the press begin to treat
Palestinian national aspirations seriously.
Besides examining how the press portrayed the
Palestinians, Marcus' study discussed some of the causes of that portrayal and the pro-Israel and anti-Arab bias.
A contemporary 1982 and relevant dissertaion 32 research of the period 1917-1948 by Issam Suleiman Mousa on the Arab portrayal in the New York Times has shown Arabs linked to the Middle East conflict. He also considered events prior to and subsequent to the study period in order to place this review in a balanced-in-context 33 setting. He found that coverage was primarily event- oriented, conflict-oriented, unfavorable and possibly biased in its limited context. He concluded that the limited information coupled with imbalanced coverage, could have contributed to misconceptions about the Arabs prior to
1948 which might have aided in creating stereotypes and distortions.
Jordan Crisis Coverage
Many studies support the contention of Epstein and others that the media tend to devote the greatest attention to problems when they meet the nebulous criteria for a "crisis" or when they lead to violence and 34 destruction. Such items are newsworthy and they sell newspapers. So it was with the Jordan crisis. It was heavily covered by the New York Times, for example, but
observers noticed the absence of scholarly studies in the media's coverage of the Jordan Crisis. In an introduction 35 to the article, "Jordan, the Forgotten Crisis," the editor claimed that "the Jordan Crisis was caught in the
rush of other headline events in the u.s. press--the trips
to China and U.S.S.R., the continuing drama in Indochina,
and the crisis faded in the background of people's
consciousness." These were references to Nixon's official visits and the Vietnam War. 36 Adam Garfinkle's work in 1985, "U.S. and Jordan
Crisis," draws an account of the studies published on the crisis. He found those of original research few, and those that investigate u.s. decision making in any detail are 37 still fewer. He explained why the Jordan Crisis is still
important and has remained a lively symbol in academic discourse and policy debates because the truth about the
Jordanian Crisis is more subtle, elusive and more
interesting than the contending images that have arisen;
and it has become a test case for the new u.s. strategy as a whole, namely, in how to minimize the potential for 38 direct u.s.-soviet confrontation.
The relevant literature of the Jordan Crisis reviewed 39 by Garfinkle in his study is as follows: Henry Brandon,
The Retreat of American Power (New York: Doubleday, 1972);
Henry Brandon and David Schoenbaum, "Jordan, The Forgotten 46
Crisis", Foreign Policy 10 {Spring 1973); Bernard and Marvin
Kalb, Kissinger {Boston: Little Brown & Co., 1974);
William B. Quandt's chapter on the Jordan Crisis in his
book, Decade of Decisions {Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1977); Ted Szulc, The Illusion of Peace:
Foreign Policy in the Nixon Years {New York: Vintage Press, 1978); Alan Dowty, "The u.s. and the Syrian-Jordan Confrontation of 1970", Jerusalem Journal of International
Relations 3 (Winter-Spring 1978); Nadav Safran, Israel,
the Embattled Ally (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1978)454-455; Yaacov Bar Simon-Tov, "Crisis
Management by Military Cooperation with a Small Ally,
American Israeli Cooperation in the Syrian-Jordan Crisis,
September 1970". Cooperation and Conflict 17 {1972) :151-62.
Nixon's memoirs on this topic .are brief and
unexceptional: R.N., Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New York:
Grasset & Dunlap, 1978); Henry Kissinger's memoirs are
good, White House Years (Boston: Little, Brown & Co.,
1979)594-631. For background, see Barry Rubin, The Arab
States and the Palestine Conflict (Syracuse/Boston: Little,
Brown & Co., 1979)187-189. 40 David Schoenbaum in his study in 1973 said, "The
Administration regarded its performance in September 1970
as among its finest hours ••• The editors of Time magazine
have no problem in recalling just how fine the hours were."
He draws a conclusion on the civil war by asking, "What 47
good carne of it at last? The Syrians withdrew. The
guerrillas were beaten. Hussein survived and the hijacked 41 hostages were released."
Three more studies which have contributed to the body
of this work deserve brief mention. "The Jordanian Civil 42 War" by Neville Brown, an article in the Military Review
which dealt strictly with the military action between the Jordanian army and the PLO armed forces. "The u.s. and the 43 Syria-Jordan Confrontation, 1970" by Alan Dowty mainly
studied the perception of threat on decision-making by the
u.s. policyrnakers during the Jordan Crisis. He included
some remarkable interviews with highly placed members of
the u.s. administration and other senior officials. These contributed greatly to the validity of his opinions= The
third, "Crisis Management by Military Cooperation with a 44 Small Ally", by Yaacov Ben-Sirnon-Tov, demonstrated Israel's importance as an ally to the u.s. to combat crisis
and protect the interests of the United States in the
Middle East.
The book The Palestinians and the Middle East Conflict edited by the Israeli scholar Gabriel Ben-Dor reported the proceedings of a conference in Haifa in 1976, six years after the war. Its interest lay in the even handed
approach and the broad-based select bibliography on the main aspects of the Palestinian problem from 1948 to 1978
in English, Arabic and Hebrew. The inter-Arabic relations' 48
section includes many useful sources of information on the
Jordan Crisis.
The New York Times 45 Russ Braley, in his book, Bad News, the Foreign
Policy of The New York Times reviewed in depth the press coverage of the Jordan Crisis. He was a reporter of the
New York Daily News. He said, "Most reporters used imaginary casualty estimates and implied that the Jordanian army had used ruthless tactics, although Hussein 46 protested." Braley noted that the reports also lacked background to enable the reader to understand what this sudden violence was all about, other than grave predictions of doom. He acknowledged the efficacy of Eric Pace, the
Times correspondent in Amman, but he added these reports were over-shadowed by the Times editorials and house- 48 written commentaries. 49 Leon T. Hadar, in his article on "The New York
Times' Middle East Coverage", also analyzed the New York
Times foreign policy regarding the Middle East. One part of his article specifically referred to the PLO coverage in
February 1978 in which a headline from a series on that organization stated, "Despite diplomatic and battle scars, the PLO is the Palestinian Voice."
The most recent review on the New York Times is "All 50 the news that fits" by Noam Chomsky, the leading American foreign policy critic, scrutinizing America's leading source of international news. Chomsky explained the role
of Times as a leading practitioner of what American
historians called "historical engineering". He illustrated the fact that u.s. client state, Israel, is a major beneficiary. For example, in the reporting of terrorism in the Middle East over many years. Palestinian terrorism is
front-page news, bitterly denounced and carefully preserved
in order to be recalled on later suitable occasions.
Israeli terrorism, which has been far greater in scale since the early days of the state, is unreported, quickly forgotten or dismissed or erased with apologetic comments.
Chomsky elaborated on the Middle East coverage using many examples to explain the pro-Israeli bias. 51 The Mishra study in the Journalism Quarterly studied the era for news dissemination in international communication and how the inadequate news flow, bias in the channels, and lack of background news posed problems for those who needed balanced portrayals. The Middle East is an example. His content analysis study found the New York
Times provided more pictorial items and gave most attention to the hard news. 52 Daniel Sneebny, in the Journalism Quarterly, claimed that the Middle East became "the hottest journalistic assignment going." The number of journalists jumped 50% between 1972-1975, and the number of correspondents working for u.s. news organizations rose 36%. These correspondents 50
averaged 20 years of news experience, 14 of which were in foreign correspondence; and 5 1/2 of these years were in 53 the Middle East. 54 The Press and America by Edwin Emery and Michael
Emery gave an account of the national reputation of the
New York Times including the "staunchly internationalist" view of world affairs which was part of its history. In image construction, semantics are important. Howard Davis 55 and Paul Walton, , in their edited book, Language, Image and Media, analyzed news vocabulary. They said, "There is more to the problem of description than the frequent use of the term 'terrorist' •••• Its use in a descriptive term in the mass media is a relatively recent phenomena--for example, there is no entry under 'terrorism' in the New
York Times Index until 1970, its use being historical 56 before that.
Conclusion
Summarizing the information obtained from the literature, it can be said that many of the earlier existing studies of the coverage of Arabs in the u.s. press reveals that when Palestinian events were covered, they were absorbed into the generic category of 'Arabs' with no distinctive identity. Palestinian problems were Arab problems. Furthermore, there is a consistent pattern of coverage by the u.s. press which shows that: 51
1) Palestinians were virtually ignored by the press
until 1967. When mentioned they were categorized as anonymous, passive, helpless refugees.
2) After 1967, although giving Palestinians better play in the press and recognition as people with separate
identity, the coverage provided little information on the history and complexities of the Palestinian problem.
3) After 1973, the press began to treat Palestinians' national aspiration seriously; however, their negative
image still needed improvement.
4) The Jordan Crisis as portrayed by the New York
Times was an internal victory for King Hussein and an
international recognition for Yasser Arafat as a representative of the Palestinian people.
5) Regarding the New York Times coverage, the literature acknowledged its able news reporting, yet criticized its editorial policy. 52
FOOTNOTES
1. Janice Terry, "A Content Analysis of American Newspapers," in The Arab World From Nationalism to Revolution, edited by Abdeen Jabara and Janice Terry (Wilmette, Illinois.: The Medina University Press International, 1971): pp. 94-113. Janice Terry and Gordon Mendenhall, "1973 u.s. Press Coverage on the Middle East," Journal of Palestine Studies Vol. 4 (Autumn 1974): pp. 120-133.
Janice Terry, "The Western Press and the October War, A Content Analysis," in Arabs in America, Myths and Realities, edited by Baha Abu Laban and Faith T. Zeady (Wilmette, Illinois: The Medina University Press International, 1975): pp. 3-28.
2. Ibid., p. 98.
3. Ibid., p. 98.
4. Ibid., p. 100.
5. Ibid., p. 99.
6. Ibid., p. 97.
7. Ibid., p. 99.
8. Ibid., p. 100
9. Ibid., p. 7.
10. Ibid., p. 7.
11. Michael Suleiman, "An Evaluation of Middle East Coverage in Seven American Newsmagazines, July-December 1956," Middle East Forum Vol. 41 (Autumn 1965): pp.9-30.
Michael Suleiman, "American Mass Media and the June Conflict," in The Arab - Israeli Confrontation of June 1967: An Arab Perspective, edited by Ibrahim Abu Lughod (Northwestern, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1970): pp. 138-154.
Michael Suleiman, "National Stereotypes as Weapons in The Arab-Israeli Conflict," Journal of Palestine Studies Vol. 3 (Spring, 1974): pp. 109-121. 53
Michael Suleiman, "Perceptions of the Middle East in American Newsmagazines," in Arabs in America, Myths and Realities, edited by Baha Abu-Laban and Faith T. Zeady (Wilmette, Illinois: The Medina University Press International, 1975): pp. 28-44.
12. Ibid., p. 141.
13. Ibid., p. 142. 14. Ibid., p. 29.
15. Ibid., p. 116.
16. Ibid., p. 35. 17. Janice Monti Belkaoui, "Images of Arabs and Israelis in the Prestige Press, 1966-1974," Journalism Quarterly Vol. 55 (Winter 1979): pp. 732-738.
18. Ibid., p. 738.
19. Ibid., p. 799. 20. Robert H. Trice, "The American Elite Press and the Arab-Israeli Conflict," The Middle East Journal Vol. 33 (Summer 1979): pp. 304-25.
21. Ibid., p. 320.
22. Ibid., p. 729.
23. Ibid., p. 324.
24. Charles H. Wagner, "Elite American Newspapers Opinion and the Middle East: Commitment vs. Isolation," in The Middle East: Quest for an American Policy, edited by Willard A. Beling (Albany, New York State: University of New York Press, 1973): pp. 306-335.
25. Ibid., p. 312. 26. David Daugherty and Michael Warden, "Prestige Press Editorial Treatment of the Mideast During 11 Crisis Years," Journalism Quarterly Vol. 56 (Winter 1979): pp. 776-782.
27. Ibid., p. 782.
28. Ibid., p. 782. 54
29. Eytan Gilboa, "Trends in American Attitudes Toward the PLO and the Palestinians", Political Communication and Persuasion, Vol. 3 (Spring 1985): pp. 45-67.
30. Ibid., p. 45. 31. Beverly s. Marcus, "The Changing Image of the Palestinians in Three u.s. Publications, 1948-74", M.A. University of Wisconsin, 1977. Abstract of Journalism, No. 15, p. 144. 32. Issam s. Mousa, The Arab Image on the US Press (New York: Peter Lang Publishing Inc., 1984).
33. Ibid., p. 7. 34. Edward J. Epstein, Between Fact and Fiction: The Problem of Journalism (New York: Vintage, 1975). 35. From the editors of Foreign Policy on the article, "Jordan: The Forgotten Crisis," Foreign Policy Vol. 10 (Spring 1973): p. 157.
36. Adam M. Garfinkle, "U.S. Decision Making in the Jordan Crisis: Correcting the Record", Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 100 (Spring 1985): pp. 117-138.
37. Ibid., p. 119.
38. Ibid., p. 118.
39. Ibid., p. 121.
40. David Schoenbaum, "Jordan: The Forgotten Crisis (2) ••• Or Lucky?" Foreign Policy Vol. 10 (Spring 1973): pp. 171-181. 41. Ibid., p. 180.
42. Neville Brown, "Jordanian Civil War", Military Review Vol. 51 (September 1971): pp. 38-49. 43. Alan Dowty, "The u.s. and the Syria-Jordan Confrontation of 1970", Jerusalem Journal of International Relations Vol. 3 (Winter-Spring 1978): pp. 172-196.
44. Yaacov Ben Simon-Tov, Crisis Management by Military Cooperration with a Small Ally: American-Israeli Cooperation in the Jordanian-Syrian Crisis, September 1970", Cooperation and Conflict Vol. 17 (1982): pp. 151-62. 55
45. Edited by Gabriel Ben-Dor, The Palestinians and the Middle East Conflict {Ramat Gau, Israel: Turtledove Publishing, 1979): p. 555. 46. Russ Braley, Bad News, The Foreign Policy of the New York Times {Chicago: Regnery Gateway, 1984}.
47. Ibid., p. 373.
48. Ibid., p. 375.
49. Leon T. Hadar, "Behind the New York Times Middle East Coverage", Middle East Review Vol. 12-13 (Summer/Fall 1980}: pp. 56-61. 50. Naom Chomsky, "All the News that Fits", Utne Reader (February-March 1986}: pp. 56-65.
51. V.M. Mishra, "News From the Middle East in Five u.s. Media", Journalism Quarterly Vol. 56 (Summer 1979): pp. 374-378. 52. Daniel Sneebny, "American Correspondents in the Middle East, Perceptions and Problems", Journalism Quarterly Vol. 56 (Summer 1979}: pp. 386-388.
53. Ibid., p. 386. 54. Edwin Emery, Michael Emery, The Press and America (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc. 1984}. 55. Language, Image, Media, edited by Howard Davis and Paul Walton (New York: St. Martin's Press Inc., 1983}.
56. Ibid., p. 15. CHAPTER IV
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Prior to the six-day war of June 5, 1967, the
Palestinian refugees depended on the United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA) which was established in 1950 to care for the estimated 896,690 Palestinians. They lived on the U.N. dole in widely separated camps - mainly in Jordan
- and in other Arab States after losing their homeland in
Palestine in 1948. The refugees lived in a "deplorable material and moral situation." If the material diet was insipid, it was sustaining. The emotional diet was fatty and noxious. It consisted of a blend of exaggerated 1 memories and unrealistic hopes.
Like Moses' sojourn in the desert, the refugees' sojourn in the camps saw the rise of a new generation. 2 They longed for national coherence.
In the aftermath of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, and the
Israeli occupation of the rest of Palestine (West Bank) and
Gaza Strip, the loss of their homeland gave the Palestinian
56 57
Liberation Organization the momentum to change the passive, homeless, dependent Palestinian refugees into an independent, coherent, national body. The creation of a new refugee politico-military group is shrouded in the shadow of the PLO structure.
Accompanying this post-June 1967 metamorphosis was a proliferation of Fedayeen groups, each having a particular ideology and operating procedure depending on where they lived. But though the differences and struggles among the various resistance groups are important, the issue most central was how did the Fedayeen affect the image of the
Palestinian refugees? As Michael Hudson writes, it was in the adoption of violence as its strategic centerpiece that 3 the resistance showed itself radical and unified.
Prior to June 5, 1967, there were only three
Palestinian Organizations: the old Palestine Liberation
Organization; Al-Fateh, led by Yasser Arafat; and the small Heroes of the Return, a forerunner of the future
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). By the time Al-Fateh was elected to take control of the PLO in·
1969, there were seven resistance groups which joined the
PLO unified body of the Palestinian guerrillas. These included PFLP, the Syrian-backed As Saiga, and the Iraqi- 4 backed Arab Liberation Front.
Fateh's ascendence was largely the result of its successful confrontation with Israeli forces on March 21, 58
1968, at Al Karameh, in the Jordan Valley. Though the
Israelis did not technically lose the battle, they suffered
unexpected losses. Word of Karameh - meaning "dignity" in
Arabic - spread quickly and launched Arafat and Fateh on a
wave of popularity in the Arab World. It catapulted Arafat
into the limelight.
Since Al-Fateh constituted the mainstream of the ten
Fedayeen factions, it took the leadership. In 1969, Al-
Fateh established the Palestine Armed Struggle Command
(PASC). Founded as a coordinating body, the PASC included
all major Fedayeen factions except the PFLP, the second
largest after Fateh. The PFLP did not join the unified
Palestinian command until 1970, when the umbrella functions
of the PASC were transfered to the PLO Executive 5 Committee.
Although the PFLP membership was never more than one-
third of Fateh, which had about 10,000 members in 1970, it
represented a formidable challenge from the left to
Arafat's relatively moderate organization. The fundamental
goal of both groups, according to Hudson, has been the same
according to the Covenant of the Fedayeen: the establish- 6 ment of a secular, democratic state of Palestine. But the
Marxist PFLP has gone beyond the less political and more
pragmatic Fateh by calling for total revolution as part of
its struggle against colonialism, imperialism, and 7 Zionism. Habash's leadership of the PFLP established it as 59
the organization primarily responsible for the spectacular acts of violence performed by the Fedayeen in the first years following the six-day war. In July 1968 the PFLP carried out the first in a series of hijackings, climaxed by the multiple hijackings of September 1970 which ended in the destruction of four Western-owned jetliners by the PFLP commandos. However, Arafat, leader of the Palestinian
Liberation Organization, publicly condemned the hijackings.
The PFLP membership in the PLO was suspended accordingly but it was reinstated to face the common danger from the
Jordan Army on September 17, 1970.
The hostility between the Fedayeen and the Jordanian
Army started to develop after the Israeli raid on the
Palestinian camps of Al Karameh. This confrontation lea to the dispersion of the Fedayeen into various areas in Jordan rather than their concentration in a single place and therefore a more direct interface with the Jordanian army.
The guerrillas, who were forced first off the West Bank after the Arab-Israeli war of 1967, ana then in turn forced back from the Jordan Valley by the thoroughness of the 8 Israeli counteraction, were now based in Jordan's cities.
The armed militias created an uneasy atmosphere in. the cities of Jordan by becoming a direct rival to the
Jordanian army. It was as if there were two different armies, each with its own sovereign allegiance, in one state. 60
In addition, growing Palestinian nationalism rallying
around Yasser Arafat and supporting the PLO, created a
direct threat to the Jordanian Hashemite Monarchy from
Jordanians of Palestinian origin. His own subjects,
particularly those sympathetic to the encamped Palestnian
refugees, were switching their loyalty from Hussein to
Arafat. Jordan's policy became a function of the interplay
of two fundamentally opposed factors: inter-Arab pressures
for freedom of action of Palestinian organizations versus 9 Jordan's attempts to safeguard her sovereignty.
The moderate mainstream of the PLO-Al-Fateh, seemed
initially willing to avoid an open confrontation with the
Jordanian Army, unlike the PFLP, which was not prepared to
accept any control whatsoever.
During the summer of 1970, when the United States was attempting to bring about the "Rogers Peace Plan", Jordan and Egypt accepted the Plan which did not include the 10 Palestinians' participation. Once again, the Palestine guerrilla movement, considering itself the legitimate
representative of the Palestinian people, seemed on the
rocks. Formally spurned by the Egyptian government, it
lived in an increasingly hostile and bitter atmosphere in
Jordan. Always restricted in its activity in Syria, unwanted and feared in Lebanon, it found itself in a delicate and dangerous position. Israel's overtures for a cease-fire appeared to be the harbinger of a sell-out of 61
11 the Palestine cause.
In this inflammatory situation, the spark of a show- down was provided, ironically, by the most successful and most flamboyant action of the PFLP fighters, the hijacking of a gaggle of jets; a Swissair DC-8, a TWA 707 and a Pan American 747 on September 7 and on September 9, a BOAC vc- 12 10 by the PFLP. All were flown to an abandoned World war
II fighter strip near Mafraq in north-eastern Jordan - called Ga-Khann-Dawson's Field - "Revolution Airstrip" - 13 the passengers and crews were held hostages.
The fact was that the hostages had been forced down in
Jordan when the country was coming daily closer to civil 14 war, and the hijackings were to give the final push.
The embarrassing situation moved the King of Jordan, under pressure from his army and advisers to attack the guerrillas. On September 15, he appointed a military government "to restore order and impose the State's authority." On September 16, he proclaimed martial law and ordered an ultimatum to the Fedayeen to disarm their 15 militias. The Fedayeen defied the orders of the King, and on September 17, the Jordanian Army moved rapidly, using every weapon it had, including heavy cannon against parts of the capital - Amman - and swept through the refugee encampments.
People have asked why Hussein waited so long before he took this radical and decisive action. This same question 62
was put to a senior member of Hussein's cabinet at that time. His answer was illuminating. In effect he said that he privately thought Hussein deliberately waited until the
PLO made enough mistakes and disruptions in Jordan for his 16 actions to have a broad based popular support. In this way he hoped to rid himself of the irritant to the Israelis
(the Fedayeen) and thus secure his own border, and at the same time win back the loyalties of those of his subjects who were now preferring the authority of the PLO to that of the King. A third factor was that the proud Jordanian army were also ready for a showdown with their rival military force.
A bloody battle ensued, ending with the Palestinians' defeat in late September. The Fedayeen had not only been liquidated in Jordan, but also controlled in Syria, aban- doned by Egypt, and restricted in Lebanon (which became the 17 PLO's headquarters) after their defeat in Jordan. The defeat that marked the beginning of a decline of Fedayeen military operations and in part their political power, helped to accelerate in part the terrorism phenomena of today.
Although the PFLP hijacking captured the headlines of the Times from 1969-70, the Hussein-Palestinian showdown on
September 17 also made page one of the Times from the
September 17 issue - the first day of the fight to the
September 27 issue, which reported the cease-fire agreement 63
in Jordan. Many of these issues received several entire pages filled with the sensational events. Out of 77 stories that were published during the ten-day fight, 26 were front page news; nine editorials in addition were published. Most of the Times Palestinian guerrilla news reports concentrated on describing military commando actions, with very few reports describing the historical background of the problem.
The next chapter analyzes the news reports of The New
York Times. 64
FOOTNOTES
1. William R. Polk, The United States and the Arab world (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975): p. 270.
2. Ibid., p. 268. 3. Beverly s. Marcus, The Changing Image of the Palestinains in Three U.S. Publications: 1948-74, Master of Art. University of Wisconsin, 1976, p. 87.
4. Ibid., p. 88.
5. Ibid., p. 89.
6. Michael Hudson, "The Palestinian Resistance Movement Since 1967," in The Middle East: Quest for an American Policy, ed. Edward A. Beling (Albany, New York: University of New York Press, 1973): p. 116. 7. David Holden, "Which Arafat?"{ New York Times Magazine, March 23, 1975, p. 78. 8. Dana Adams Schmidt, Armageddon in the Middle East (New York: The John Day Company, 1974): p. 189.
9. Polk, p. 276.
10. Polk, p. 282.
11. Polk, p. 283.
12. Polk, p. 238. 13. Peter Snow and David Philips, The Arab Hijack War (New York, Bellantine Books, 1971): p. 23. 14. Snow, p. 24.
15. Polk, p. 283. 16. An interview August 16, 1985 with Adnan Abu Odeh, Minister of Royal Court, who on September 17, 1970 was the Minister of Information.
17. Marcus, p. 91. CHAPTER V
ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
The major purpose of this research is to show the portrayal of the Palestinian guerrillas in the New York
Times between September 17 and September 27, 1970 when the
Palestinian guerrillas were fighting with their Arab brothers (the Jordanian Army).
The present chapter analyzes this portrayal, as
revealed by 77 press reports in the following order, according to the categories defined in Chapter II,
Methodology:
1. The referent (Palestinian Guerrillas)
2. Party in relationship
3. Kind of relationship 4. Context of relationship
5. Form of attribution
6. Direction of attribution
7. Source of attribution
65 66
The editorials of the New York Times are also reviewed for their direction (favorable, unfavorable or neutral).
The entire chapter is structured around the seven graphs constructed from the analyzed categories in which frequences of reported incidents are plotted against a common time base (from September 17 until September 27) in the standard way.
Category 1 is somewhat different in character from the others and does not directly relate to them when considered in relation to the common time base. This category consi ders the different names used by reporters in referring to the Palestinian fighters. The remaining categories all take the Palestinians as a group, regardless of their name, and relate them with other participative parties. In these cases comparisons between the relationships are rational and therefore the chapter concludes with a consideration of their interaction.
Categories 2 to 7 are each divided into three parts:
1. An overview to provide a background on the
category.
2. A chronological review of the 10 day events
supported by quotes and source references.
3. A graphic trace, in narrative form, together with
an interpretation of the curve and an attempt to
explain and rationalize the inflections and
trends. 67
The interaction between categories is apparent from the graphs. For example, when the Syrian troops inter vened, attention switched from the guerrillas to the
Syrians, therefore the increase in media coverage of the one reflected in a decrease of the other. Some background is common to several categories, therefore the individual overviews are cross-referenced as the chapter proceeds.
1. THE REFERENT: NOMENCLATURE FOR THE PALESTINIAN FIGHTERS.
During the period and scope of this study, eight different names for the Palestinians were used. Some of the names were generic to the Palestinian people and some were specific to those Palestinians engaged in actual combat. The eight terms and frequencies were:
1. Guerrillas 250
2. Commandos 113
3. Fedayeen 77
4. PFLP 11
5. Al-Fateh 5
6. PLO 12
7. Arab groups 8
8. Palestinian People 10
An attempt was made to relate the frequency of use of these terms to the progress of the war in an effort to determine if their use indicated positive, negative, or 68
Graph 1 Referent
Number of days which the Palestinian terms were mentioned in the New York Times during the Jordan Crisis between September 17 -September 27, 1970.
c I c 1\ A ~ .i .I. I ' \ I \ I \ j I I I ~ \ • I I I I A \ I " I . \ • d \ \ I . \ \ //J1 \ . I ~ \ ~ \• " I \ I \~ ,~ I I \ . • t I I ·, I I \ \ 9-t • I . 8~ \I ,I \ ~ T~ ·' ,' \ 0 I \ ~ \• I I \ \I ;J ~:-.-4 \ /\ I I. I \ ,, ~ a I 4~ \ I \ I I I \ I ~ ~ \ I ' • ' ,. I ~ ,., =·-·., \1 1..: ...... ol I I I I I ' I ' I S£PT 17 18 e 20 Zl .2.2 Z3 .Z4 15 26 2T
-0 - Guerrillas Total • 250 -A - Fedayeen '' ·= 71 -·-0 - Commandos II =113 neutral reporting in light of the fortunes of the
Palestinian combatants. The heavy frequency of 1, 2 and 3 made each sufficiently important to consider individually.
Number 4 was also considered individually since this group comes the closest to being universally branded "terrorists" because they had been disclaimed by the other Palestinian fighting groups (PLO) when they hijacked four aircraft a week before the crisis, but had later been reinstated as brothers-in-arms when facing the Jordanian army and their military support was needed. The balance of the groups, five through to eight were considered of too low a frequency to have any significance in the analysis.
Examination of the curves for the four groups consi dered showed that probably, in the minds of the reporters,
"Guerrillas", "Fedayeen" and "Commandos" had no individual meaning and became synonymous with each other. This is illustrated by the three approximately contemporaneous peaks in these three curves. It does not explain the low usage of the word "commandos" at the beginning of the war period but this may be a reflection of the concept that commando is normally applied to a unit whose activity is to attack, whereas the Palestinian Fighters were on the defen sive during this period.
It is interesting to note that whereas foreign correspondents of the New York Times made no distinction between guerrillas and commandos, the Jordanians themselves 70 @ •
only used the term commando. "Commandos" are commonly held
to be a small offensive force which attacks from a safe harbor and withdraws to its base after a brief encounter.
"Guerrillas" on the other hand are held to be small bands which remain resident in their own land under hostile conditions and conduct armed resistance. Clearly the
Jordanians did not regard the Palestinian armed forces as guerrillas by this definition because Jordan was not their homeland.
Dana Adam Schmidt marked the Jordanian official recog- nition of the commando movement after the last agreement of
June 1970. Before, the Jordanian Government's radio never mentioned commandos as such but alluded to them vaguely as 1 "the resistance".
The positive and negative inflections of the
Guerrillas/Fedayeen/Commandos curves probably reflect the frequency of switching of information during the war rather than a response to particular events, therefore they are not considered significant. No special incidents could be related to the upswings and downswings. The PFLP curve is quite level, steady and low. It has been assumed that they were considered a minor fighting force and that mention of them was consolidated in the general reporting of the
Palestinian fighters. During this period they also appeared to lose support for the hijacked planes act.
Regarding the guerrillas' image as being "terrorists", it 71
was noted that the term terrorist was used twice only during the Jordan crisis coverage. On September 26, Eric
Pace quoted part of Eric Rouleau, correspondent of Le
Monde, in his interview with King Hussein as having said,
"I was indignant recently when I learned that my own chauffeur, to whom I entrusted my children, was a terrorist."{p. 2) And on September 24, Peter Grose of The
Times quoting Colonel Asher from Israel as saying, "We decided in Israel we had to live with the terrorists right among them in the Israel's occupied Golan Heights".(p. 16)
Apart from those two incidents, there was not any mention to the term "terrorist" in The Times coverage of the
Jordanian crisis.
This is partly because its use as a descriptive term in the mass media is a relatively recent phenomena. For example, there is no entry under "terrorism" in the Times
Index until 1970, its use being historical prior to that.
Also, it is partly because the term "terrorist" is applied to a range of activities which have independently derived systems of labelling (criminal, political, military, 2 etc.) •
Prior to 1970, there was a distinction made between the Palestinian Liberation Organization and Palestinian people. But after 1970 it became clear that the majority of Palestinian people supported the PLO and recognized it as their sole representative. The category terrorist has 72
3 been routinely applied to the category "Palestinian".
At the time the guerrillas were at the high point of their moves toward Palestinian unification, and the guerrillas were near the long-sought achievement of effective political community, The Times news reports from washington called the guerrillas "Arab groups" or
"Palestinian groups." This could be coordinated with how one u.s. Department official explained it: "We recognized the validity of the Palestinian problems, but we did not - and for the moment we do not - recognize the validity of the Palestinian Organizations," adding that, "the major difficulty of communicating with the Palestinian groups is 4 their fragmented body."
In general the reporting was issue-oriented. The issue was Arab versus Arab rather than any particular Arab faction versus another foreign group or country. Specific descriptive terms for "Arab" were therefore not of primary importance to the reporters. The terms "Guerrillas",
"Fedayeen", and "Commandos" appear interchangeably in the same reports. The general conclusions therefore are that there was no significance in the terms used to identify the combatants, and that as the war proceeded there was no connotation nor specific trends in the way they were used. 73
2. THE PALESTINIAN GUERRILLAS' RELATIONSHIP WITH OTHERS
In most reports the guerrillas were not discussed separately but rather in conjunction with other nations and groups of nations. In the Jordanian crisis the primary relationship was obviously with Jordan, therefore this forms the principal discussion. Important secondary rela tionships were with three others:
"Arab States" - Syria as an active participant in the fighting and the rest of the Arab World as participants in the negotiations.
"Other Nations" - Including the World Powers who have a heavy stake in the Middle East.
Israel - As a close observer ready to intervene.
An overview
This category, together with the remaining five, con fines its attention to the relationship between the guerrillas and the four groups as defined. The interests of the four groups in the outcome of the conflict may be broadly described as:
Jordan - Its sovereignty, internal stability, and preservation of the authority of King Hussein.
Arab States - Concern for the Palestinian cause speci fically, and the integrity of the Arab World generally.
Other Nations - Concern for their specific political interests regionally, and World stability generally. 74
Israel - Concern for its security in that which it viewed as a hostile, and potentially explosive, environment.
Review of Events
Relationship with Jordan: During the Jordan crisis, between September 17 and 27, the coverage mainly described the "violence and bloodshed" surrounding the conflict between the Palestinian guerrillas and the Jordanian army.
In the first three days most of the news reports focused on describing the guerrilla actions, relating commando pronouncements, detailing military maneuvers, and protraying the reaction of the world to the Jordanian crisis.
The Times correspondent in Amman, Eric Pace, was the first - out of the 114 media people who were caught in the
Inter-Continental Hotel - to telephone that the war had broken out, laying on the floor behind the reception desk in the glass-littered lobby, making his call a pool dis- patch available to all news organizations with representa- tives in the hotel. Pace stayed in Amman when the rest 5 pulled out. On September 17, three front-page stories carried the news of the first day of the fight. An AP story said in part, "Heavy fighting began at dawn ••• Black and grey smoke covered the entire city. At intervals heavy machine-gun exchanges took place. Telephone lines out of
Amman went down." Similar stories were printed, describing the fight, and how the government swept into the 75
capital for a showdown battle with the Palestinian
guerrillas.
The position of the Jordanian government was under
scored by the fierce fighting which persisted for a second
day in Amman and in northern Jordan as the Jordanian Army
failed to score the quick knock out of Palestinian
guerrilla forces it had presumably expected.
On September 20, the Syrian attempt to advance through
the Jordanian borders headed the news reports. North of
Jordan became the focal point of media attention, except
for one story from Amman which carried the relationship of
the Fedayeen with Jordan. It said in part, "Government
troops dominate Amman's streets with their armor."(p. 1}
This report was confirmed the next day with another by Eric
Pace which said, "King Hussein's army appeared to be
winning the battle for this capital, but the Arab
commandos, after a terrific pounding, are holding out in
pockets in the hope that the Syrians will come."(p. 1} On
the same day more news reports confirmed that the Syrian
troops backed by heavy artillery crossed the Jordanian
border. "Those same armored troops from Syria could be
part of the 3,500 man contingent of the Palestine Libera
tion Army forces that are attached to the Syrian Army,"(p.
1} observers said. 76
Reports between September 22 and 27 discussed the last phase of the Palestinian guerrillas' fight with Jordan, followed by a cease-fire agreement. As Eric Pace described it, "The fight for Amman, and for the throne, is in its final stages. It has cost more time and more lives than the two-day battle the King forecast. Arab leaders sent four envoys to Jordan to confer with King Hussein and
Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian guerrilla leader."(p. 1)
That story explained the efforts made by the Arab leaders to establish understanding. "Cease-fire is announced,"
John Hess reported from Beirut on September 23, adding that
Field Marshall Habes Al-Majaly announced a cease-fire as the seventh day of Amman's agony drew to a close.(p. 1)
From Amman, the Inter-Continental Hotel, coffee is served for breakfast and Eric Pace happily announced that the fighting had diminished. In his diary on September 24,
Pace reported the week-long fight in detail in chronological order, "7 days in what's left of a luxury hotel as the war goes on outside."
Finally, "Arafat Complies". Pace exclaimed, "What made Arafat change his mind and accept a cease-fire?"(p. 1)
It could have been that the support of Syrian tanks without air cover failed to assist the Fedayeen, and their resistance weakened under the heavy shelling of the
Jordanian Army. Or perhaps they yielded to the pressure of the Arab leaders who were conferring in Cairo to help stop il . 77
the bloodshed in Jordan. The future Palestinian-Jordanian relationship was
referred to in a special story to the Times on September
27. "Coexistence doubted, after the bloodshed." Highly
placed foreigners in Amman felt that any possibility of
real coexistence between the Jordanian and Palestinian half
of the population in Jordan would be impossible. The story
in part said, "From the point of view of stability, things
have certainly gotten worse." One Western diplomat was
quoted saying, "Now you can never get the Palestinians to
trust the army and the Hashemites ever again."(p. 28)
Palestinian Guerrillas' Relationship with Arab States:
The Palestinians received two kinds of support from the
other Arab States: (1) military support from Syria, (2)
political support from the remaining States, with Egypt
playing a lead role. Apparently economic support from various sources virtually ceased. Jordan withdrew its
support to the PLO and in turn Libya and Kuwait withdrew
their financial contributions to Jordan to demonstrate
their support for the PLO. Saudi Arabia, which contributed
to both Jordan and the PLO, made no public statements.
Initially almost the entire analysis was influenced by the intervention of Syria. After the first few days and the withdrawal of the Syrian forces, the influence had become that of Egypt and the remaining Arab States as the
Arab Summit Conference was quickly convened and the cease- 78
fire terms were determined.
Syrian troops that supported the Fedayeen in the north of Jordan attracted heavy coverage. On September 19, the day before the invasion, stories reported the Syrian support of the Fedayeen, with Syria and Iraq condemning the
Jordanian regime and accusing it of liquidating the
Palestinian Guerrilla Movement.
On September 20, 21 and 22, during the invasion, the coverage of the Fedayeen decreased, while the Syrian role was covered heavily because this intervention created a threat of an expanded super-power clash in the Middle East.
This threat, in fact, led many scholars who were studying the case to label the conflict as "The Syrian-Jordan
Crisis, 1970." The crisis was regarded basically as a cold war confrontation between the two super-powers rather than 6 a localized Middle East conflict. A story by Ihsan Hijazy on September 21, from Beirut, explained the Syrian role as exporting revolution to other Arab lands and saying that the President of Syria, Nureddin Al-Attassi was quoted saying, "The Liberation of Palestine passe~ through
Amman. 11 (p. 16) Ironically, the soviets seemed to be hinting that they put pressure on the Syrians to pull out troops from Jordan, siding with the United States in putting emphasis on diplomacy rather than military activity to prevent the Jordanian conflict from expanding.
The Jordanian aircraft attack on the Syrian tanks 79
which were not protected by the Syrian airforce caused the
Syrian troops big losses which was followed by their with drawal from the Jordanian territories.
The Palestinian guerrillas• relationship with Egypt and the rest of the Arab States was emphasized after
September 24th and 26th. Raymond Anderson from Cairo on
September 24 reported news of the Arab Summit to be held in that city noting that Egypt 1 s President Nasser, as a leader of Arab nationalism with a wide charisma and following throughout the Arab world, had convened the emergency con ference to seek a solution to the deteriorating situation in Jordan.(p. 16) The media attention focussed on the Cairo
Summit and the agreement to establish peace there.
Relationship With Others: Most of the stories were issued from Washington, two from Moscow and one from China.
From Washington, the Times correspondent reported on
September 17, "The Nixon Administration, increasingly con cerned that a showdown between King Hussein and Palestinian guerrilla groups may be imminent in Jordan, is preparing contingency plans" concluding that if the militant
Palestinian groups were to gain control, their government would presumably reject peace negotiations and might present a serious security threat to Israel.(p. 1) The
United States supported the King without reservation.
The day the cease-fire was announced, William Beecher announced the reward of the u.s. to King Hussein. The 80
headline said, "Fighting ended in Jordan under cease-fire accord: King due to get arms, Pentagon hints weapons will include jet planes. "The aim would be to increase Jordan's ability to defend herself." He quoted Mr. Packard, Under
Secretary of State whose statement was an attempt to lend support to King Hussein by pointing out that the u.s. was interested in strengthening the King's positions toward both the Palestinian guerrillas in Jordan and the Syrians to the north. Mr. Packard concluded that, "The principle lesson drawn from the recent crisis in Jordan is that the
United States must stress the provision of defensive arms to its friends and allies, rather than try to police the
World with American troops."(p. 1)
From Moscow, on September 26, Bernard Gwertzman briefly reported the soviet diplomacy during the crisis as refraining from interference because neither Soviets nor
Americans wanted to see the conflict expand, and both were aware that if the Palestinians won the upper hand Middle
East efforts might be undermined. (p. 4)
The only story that was printed giving sympathy to the
Palestinian guerrillas was from China on September 20,
Peking, by Tillman Durdin. It said in part, "Communist
China denounced attacks in Jordan on Palestinian guerrillas and charged that attacks on the guerrillas by Jordanian forces had been instigated by the United States in 81
Graph 2 Party in Relationship with Guerrillas
Number of days that the Palestinian guerrillas were mentioned in the New York Times with other nations during the Jordan Crisis between September 17 - 27, 1970.
Ifr I I I I I I I I I I ~~,,~ ; I \ ~ I ' I I \ I I \p I \ II ;'&-~ /. \ I I ,, I \ I 'tt .
I a"'J:i---.o.--.d 0~~--~--~~--~~--~~--~~~ SEPT 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 l6 l1.
0• Jordan Total = 149 Arab States " = 67 Q• Israel " = 16 82
collusion with Israel implementing a "Munich Pact"* in the
Middle East.(p. 22) Durdin added that the compendium of opinion from various Peking newspapers and other cornrnenta tors was that the fighting was the outgrowth of the u.s. Peace Plan (the Rogers Plan) which cut the Palestinians out of the negotiations for Middle East stability (by refusing to recognize the Palestinians as a negoitiating body) thereby disturbing the unity between the Palestinians and the other Arab peoples.
Relationship with Israel: Stories from Jerusalem dis- cussed the Palestinian relationship with Tel-Aviv, showing
Israel's concern over its security because of the events in
Jordan. James Feron, September 17, said, "Deputy Premier
Yigal Allon stated that "the situation may arrive when
Israel may have to act if the Arab guerrillas gain control of certain areas in Jordan." He said that, "Israel had special security interests in that area and it must insure them." Therefore the progress of the war was closely monitored and analyses of the situation were updated all through the entire period.(p. 19)
Analisis of Category 2 Graph
The significant phases of the time base were:
1. September 17 - commencement of hostilities between
*Munich Pact: In 1938, an appeasement by Britain and France of Hit1ers' aggressive policies. 8)
the Jordanian army and the Palestinians.
2. September 20 - intervention by Syria supporting the Palestinian guerrillas.
3. September 23 - the defeat of the Palestinians by the Jordanian army at the same time as the withdrawal of the Syrians. Cease-fire negotiations commenced at this time.
4. september 27 - ratification and implementation of the cease-fire as a result of the Arab Summit Conference on that day.
The "Jordan curve" shows a steady decline ·in frequency from its initial high at commencement of hostilities, to the defeat of the Palestinians and the negotiations for a ceas fire. It does not appear to respond to the Syrian inter vention. Although it is certain that this event caused a dilution of interest in the Palestinians, the absence of a point of inflection may simply be that events passed too quickly to affect the general downward trend. At the point of defeat obviously interest in the Palestinians reached a new peak and then declined sharply as the other Arab States
{participants and prime movers in the cease-fire negotia tions) took more of the limelight.
As might be expected the "Arab States curve" peaked at the beginning of hostilities because the World wondered how
Syria would react. It fell away when it seemed that Syria would leave the Palestinians to fend for themselves {18 and 84
19) but reached a new peak when they intervened on
September 20. It reached a maximum peak at the point of the Arab Summit Conference and then rapidly decayed to a base level when the cease-fire was implemented. In effect
Syria took it upon itself to act for the Arab World and suffered a quick reversal at the hands of the Jordanian
Army. The remainder of the Arab leaders then quickly stepped in to "put the fire out" and to try to repair this open rift amongst the Arabs. The effect of Syria's brief intervention on the Arab States curve is dramatic. This contrasts with its effect in the Jordan curve.
The Israeli curve maintained a steady low profile, rising as a minor peak in response to the uncertain impli cations of the Syrian intervention (which might have brought Israel into the conflict on the side of the
Jordanians) and dropping to a low when the Palestinian issue appeared to be settled by their defeat. It rose again as the terms of the cease-fire were made known since these directly affected Israel's future security.
3. PALESTINIAN GUERRILLA CONTEXTS OF RELATIONSHIPS
This category describes the types of relationships between the Palestinian guerrillas and other nations
September 17 to September 27, 1970. There are nine contex tual settings which illustrate a wide variety of relation ships in which the guerrillas were involved. 85
An Overview
As shown in graph 3, the guerrillas' relationship involved two major contexts: political and military. Few historical contexts were mentioned. The remaining six contexts recorded and identified under Methodology in
Chapter II had very minimal frequency. Therefore they were not considered.
In this category, the military context was the center of discussion. During the crisis, the two cease-fire agreements of September 20 and 26 gave high frequency to political context. The military context frequency totaled
131 when the political was 90. The historical was as low as 12.
Review of Events
The military context as shown in graph 3 focused primarily on contextual structure rather than on the political context. This can be understood in a crisis situation. The heavy fighting that broke out between the guerrillas and the Jordanian Army recorded a high military frequency in the first three days of the fight. On
September 17 and 18, Eric Pace's stories from Amman described the fight that spread quickly to all sides of the capital. In part, Pace reported how "the Jordanian armored columns advanced along the littered boulevards of the city of seven hills, firing at guerrilla snipers perched on roofs."(p. 18) On September 22, the military context grew 86
again to a peak of frequency. The Syrian intervention in
favor of the Palestinian guerrillas added a new dimension
to the fight. By the time Syria withdrew its troops from
Jordanian territory, the coverage turned to emphasize the
political aspects of the crisis.
Graph 3 shows the major emphasis of the political
context to be on September 20 and 25 when the two cease
fire proposals were issued by the Jordanian Army. On
September 20, John Hess from Beirut reported that, "Jordan
suspends attacks after second day of fighting," quoting the
Army Commander in Chief and Military Governor, Field
Marshal Habes Majali who called a temporary halt to his
attack and said he wanted to give the guerrillas a chance
to swing over to the side of King Hussein.(p. 1) In the meantime, the army maintained its curfew and threatened to
shoot anyone on the streets.
On September 25, the political situation improved and
recorded a higher frequency when the guerrillas chief
agreed to meet the "Arab delegation representing Arab
governments" that are seeking to end the civil war in
Jordan. During this time, King Hussein also accepted the
resignation of the Premier of his military government of national unity. These changes partly ended the hostility
of the Palestinian guerrillas which had provoked the civil war. 87
Graph 3 Context of Relationship Number of times that the Palestinian guerrillas were mentioned in context in the New York Times during the Jordan Crisis between September 17 - 27, 1970.
fr I I I ' I I i I I I I I I I 1\ I I I 'jt I I I 1 \ I I I" 1 \ I I I \ I I I \ I I I 'ti I I I I I II I I I I ' I II I I ·I I I I 1 1 I A. \ / I A. / 4 I ~ ''-a./ ', / ' 'iiI I 0~~--~--~~--r-~--~~--~~~ SEPT rT 1& 19 20 21 24 Z3 24 25 26 27
o • Conflict Total = 163 ~- Co~peration " = 83 88
As regards the historical context, the coverage of the
New York Times of the historical background of the
Palestinian guerrillas in the Jordanian Crisis was not
observed. Few news reports mentioned the Palestinian
problem and how it developed to create a problem to Jordan
afterwards. On September 17, John Hess reported in one
paragraph that, "the Central Committee of the Palestinian
Liberation movement announced the reinstatement of the
Popular F~ont, suspended Saturday for having defied orders
by blowing up the three captured airliners. The
Palestinian Liberation Organization, the overall guerrilla
group, ordered all ten of its organizations placed under
the control of the Town Hall." Also, the story in part
explained briefly how the crisis had been building for weeks before it erupted on September 17. Very few other
reports fitting into this category could be found.(p. 1)
In terms of press coverage, the contexts themselves may possibly be indicators of image representation. The
question is how well the image of the Palestinian
guerrillas was portrayed to the reader? This question may
be answered in relation to two contexts, military and
political. The military one relates to the Palestinian guerrillas and Jordan. The political one relates to the
Palestinian guerrillas and the other Arab States. The
image of the Palestinian guerrillas arising from the mili
tary context was neutrally presented. The image of the
I p • 89
Palestinian guerrillas arising from the political context
was that when Arafat decided to fight rather than negotiate
he was presented unfavorably but after he agreed to attend
the Summit the Palestinian guerrillas' image became more
neutral. In presenting the Palestinian guerrillas' image
the reporters appeared to only concern themselves with the
day-to-day events and to ignore the historical background,
which was mostly the cause of the conflict in the first
place.
Graph Analyses 3
The military relationship shows high frequency at the
beginning of the conflict for the obvious reason that the
focus of attention was on the relative strengths, the
positions of the two opposing forces, and upon reported
incidents of actual clashes. The curve momentarily fell as
interest switched to the Jordanian cease-fire proposal.
When the Syrian army intervened, frequency rose to its highest peak as it became obvious that the PLO were
supported by the Syrian troops. As military interest gained ascendency there was less time for consideration of political implications and indeed at this time the fighting was of such intensity with the intervention of the Syrians that a political solution was not prime news. The two subsequent peaks on the curve represent reporting of pockets of resistance (particularly in the north), and
interestingly, a second peak two days later, reflected the 90
cynicism on the part of the reporters that the cease-fire would hold and that military activity would erupt again.
When the cease-fire became firm on September 27, clearly military interest fell away.
The political relationship curve forms an interesting counterpoint to that of the military. It also starts at a peak as the political implications of a Jordanian cease fire became clear. The cease-fire initiative by Jordan pushed the urgency of a political solution to a maximum.
The curve rises again on September 22, as the Arab leaders'
Summit took place, and falls when the matter was settled when the Arabs set about putting their house in order. As the Arab summit convened, the already fairly high level of interest climbed to a peak as the political impact of the war upon the relationship between the remaining Arab countries and the PLO became apparent.
Predictably the historical relationship curve is fairly steady and is in fact based upon a low level of total observations. Interest is high initially as the public are reminded of the background to the conflict.
4. KIND OF RELATIONSHIP
In this category, the discussion deals intensively with the themes of conflict and cooperation. Prior to
September 27 these were seen as two major activities in which Palestinian guerrillas were involved and therefore references to them appeared in press reports. 91
An Overview
As shown in graph 5, conflict relationship at 163
observations were almost double the 83 of cooperation.
The themes of the reports are:
1. The conflict between Jordan and the Palestinian
guerrillas;
2. Limited cooperation between the guerrillas and
Syria;
3. In the later stages of the war, less emphasis on
cooperation with Syria and more with the Arab
States.
Review of Events
The Conflict and Cooperation relationships continued
throughout the war, rising and falling in response to each
other as fighting and negotiations proceeded simul
taneously. On September 20 a special story in the New
York Times reported a cease-fire order to the Jordanian
army after a three-day armored assault on the guerrilla
forces in Amman and the towns of Northern Jordan.(p. 1)
The guerrillas however, would not accept this cease-fire; making a condition for doing so that the six-day-old government be replaced by a "National authority". Hussein did not agree and the fighting continued. For a while it
appeared that this move by the guerrillas was to their
advantage as they improved their military position. On
September 22 John Hess reported "King Hussein's battered 92
forces fought retreating battles today against Palestinian commandos reinforced by tanks rolling down from Syria".
(p. 1) Pressures on Hussein were political as well as military. Another story reported Arab World sympathy for the guerrillas and messages to the King to halt the fighting. "In an emergency meeting leaders of the Arab
World called a conference in Cairo today to seek a solution to what the United Arab Republic of Egypt termed a deteriorating situation in Jordan",(p. 8) read one report.
On September 26 Hussein's government and the Arab Commando
Leadership agreed on a cease-fire accord under the super vision of the Arab States. More cooperation was reported between the two conflicting parties~and the Arab States to bring about an agreement.
Although the last episode of the crisis witnessed cooperation between Arabs, the portrayal of conflict recorded higher frequency at this time because of the
Israeli concern over the agreement signed between the
Jordanian government and the PLO. From Jerusalem September
27, James Feron's account of "King Hussein's reported offer to the guerrillas to give up the struggle in Jordanian cities and join the army in fighting Israel, their common enemy" reflects the Israeli position. This was underlined by its statement that "The Jordanian government would be held responsible for all guerrilla actions". The Israelis
(Deputy Premier Yigal Allon) however, felt that the 93
Graph 4 Kind of Relationship
Number of times that the Palestinian guerrillas were involved in fight or negotiations during the Jordan Crisis between September 17 -September 27, 1970.
I I \ ~ \ I \ I 1\ I \ I \ I \ \ / \ -..-J.~ \/ \I ---~ I \ .r- \ J! '\ \ I ~/ ', 'b"
o • Military Total = 131 l1• Political " = 90 0 • Historical " = 12 94
Jordanian army might be able to restrain the PLO from
hostile actions which would have provoked retaliation by
Israel against Jordan.{p. 25)
Graph Analysis 4
Initially, during the first three days of the war,
interest in the conflict was high and interest in
cooperation was correspondingly low. The Conflict and
Cooperation curves clearly show this particularly as they enter the fourth day, September 20, at which time Hussein
proposed a cease-fire {which led to a drop in conflict
reports as the fighting paused) and there was a corresponding increase in interest in cooperation. The two curves almost meet at this point. However, the cease-fire proposal coincided with the intervention of the Syrians which strengthened the resolve of the Fedayeen to continue their fight and reject the cease-fire. The impact of the decisions and events was not felt until the next day
{cooperation between the guerrillas and the Jordanian government fell away) and conflict reports escalated under the influence of the joint PLO and Syrian counter-attack.
By September 22 however, the Jordanian army had re grouped and its air support had become decisive. It became clear that the Syrian armored column had not achieved the quick success which it had expected and even though conflict reporting remained high because of the intense military activity, interest in cooperation rose to a peak. 95
By the following day the Syrians had withdrawn and the PLO knew that they were by themselves. The reduction in conflict caused by the Syrian withdrawal reversed to a new high on September 24 as units of the PLO engaged the
Jordanian army in Amman and various Northern towns in a last desperate effort to defend their cause. The Jordanian army freed from its engagement with the Syrians, was anxious to move in and deliver the deathblow to the PLO.
Conflict interest therefore ran high and cooperation interest reached a new low.
The war, however, was over for the PLO and after brief fierce fighting on September 24 their units collapsed, and under great pressure from the other Arab States attention
(cooperation) focused on the Arab Summit and a resolution to the conflict was developed by negotiation. Cooperation reporting fell off quickly (September 27) once accord was reached, and Conflict reporting fell away somewhat less quickly as military action sporadically reduced to zero.
5. ATTRIBUTIONS
Attributions represent important key words in each theme. Functioning as connectors (i.e. verbs), and modifiers (i.e. as adverbs or adjectives), they may ascribe a quality to the guerrillas in a report. ,, . 96
An Overview
As shown in graph 5, verb attributions were most often
used such as "attack", "liquidate", "reject", "surrender",
"assault", "challenge", "strike", "score a knockout", and
"pledge".
The English language has the facility to express verbal actions as well as actors. The Jordan Crisis was reported mostly in a verb form which expressed a concept at the heart of the military conflict. Most of the news reports used physical action verbs, which were at the center of military conflict, and it is interesting that the crucial actions were expressed in a linguistic form which presented them as acting objects.
Review of Events
An example of one story can set a model for the rest of the images used most frequently in the reports during the crisis. In a story from Washington, September 17, the action verbs such as "installed a military dominated
Government," and "Hussein appeared ready to crack down on the Fedayeen," were used often. That same tone can also be picked up from the quotes previously presented in this chapter. The fighting that continued for the first three days used similar action verbs which expressed tones of favorable, unfavorable or neutral in the coverage. The adverbs and adjectives were less pronounced in the tone they imparted. 97
Graph 5 Form of Attribution Number of times that the Palestinian guerrillas were evaluated by a verb, adverb or adjective in the New York Times during the Jordan Crisis between September 17 - September 27, 1970.
\
I 0~~~~--~~--~~--~--~~--~~ SEPT ll IS 19 20 21
o. Verb Total • 181 A a Adverb II = 17 a. Adjective II = 38 98
Chapter II, Methodology, carried the definitions of the terms favorable, unfavorable and neutral and accordingly the analysis followed the same evaluation of the negative/positive meanings.
In analyzing news, from the book Image, Language 7 Media, the author explained how the contrasting categories of two relative words, for example, "massacred", and
"unavoidably killed" can be used in a report that presents two parties, one as negative and the other as positive/ neutral. The contrast in the usage of these verbs creates images which express certain tacit beliefs, and affect the party the verb is related to.
Graphical Analysis 5
The use of verb attributions exceeded those of adverbs and adjectives combined. Verb attributions give the narra- tive an "action style" which was in keeping with the dramatic turns of events, on a daily basis, during the period covered. The basic premises are that, whether used consciously or otherwise, verbs are related to action, particularly military action; adverbs to how that action takes place; and adjectives primarily to a description of events, places and people.
Examination of the adverb and adjective curves show that they are fairly low profile and reasonably uniform.
The minor perturbations prior to the beginning of the collapse of the Syrian initiative during S~ptember 20/21 99
are not considered significant and the drop in each upon
the actual withdrawal follows that of the verb curve.
Prior to the period of "last ditch" fighting by the
guerrillas, and the determined effort by the Jordanian army
to settle with the Palestinian Guerrillas once and for all,
there was a brief pause (and therefore a reduction in
reportable action) as the combatants prepared for this
final effort. Predictably, as the focus moved to political
action, the summit, adjectival emphasis increased to
describe the participants and their points of view and
adverbial emphasis tailed away since there was little news
value in describing how the Summit participants actually
debated.
The verb curve, being that of the greatest
frequencies, is the most explicit in charting the course of
events. Its peaks and valleys follow almost exactly the
reportable military and political activity of the PLO. The
three peaks represent the initiation of hostilities, the
Syrian intervention (both periods of intense military
activity) and the double activity of a sharp military escalation for the final showdown and the frantic efforts
to convene the Summit. The last one shows as a twin peak.
The minor perturbation prior to the lull before the final battles may be ascribed to graphic reports of the engage ment of the Jordanian airforce with the Syrian tanks. Once
the Summit was set, the use of action verbs fell away 100
sharply as is evidenced by the curve.
Considering all three curves together it is quite noticeable that they move generally in unison. It is believed that the reversal of this trend by the adjective curve during the Hussein-proposed first cease-fire and the entry of the Syrians, reflects more concentration on action-verbs - and therefore less on supplemental description-adjectives. Therefore this part of the analysis concludes that the reporters used the verb attributive approach and that words such as "liquidate" and
"score a knockout" reflected their perspective of a fast action war. The adjective and adverb usages were just followers according to the reporters' individual writing styles.
6. DIRECTION
This analysis and discussion deals with the direction of attributions of the Palestinian guerrillas. The descriptive classes were "favorable", "unfavorable", and
"neutral" as related to its Palestinian referent in each theme. Definitions of these descriptions were given in
Chapter II, Methodology. Direction analysis is necessary to explain whether or not Palestinian guerrillas were portrayed according to one or other of those descriptions. 101
Overview It was expected that even though reporters are supposed to be entirely objective, certain conscious or unconscious biases would be exposed in the reporting. Upon analysis of the reports no definite or identifiable trend was detected either in bias by individual reporters or by
influence on the reporters' sympathies by the fortunes of the combatants. Neither was there any real pattern which related favorable, unfavorable, or neutral reporting to specific events such as the intervention of the Syrians and their rapid withdrawal. The neutral curve showed such large excursions about the norm that the raw data was suspected of being in error but after careful review this was found not to be so.
The overall impression was one of scepticism on the part of the reporters that the guerrillas, seen as a disruptive influence (unfavorable} in a country trying to preserve its sovereignity, would have any chance against a regular army. The entry of the Syrians (generally regarded unfavorably because of their ties with the radical factions of the PLO} was also an unfavorable reflection upon the guerrillas because the reporting lumped all the factions under Arab guerrillas. However, there was a favorable tone when the guerrillas were defeated presumably out of sympathy.
The brief conflict ended in no outright victory for 102
either side, although it was clear that the Jordanian army had won militarily. The relief on the part of the media to the fragile political solution was apparent as they swung from rather unfavorable to the PLO, to either neutral or favorable, as the futility of a military solution became acknowledged and a political solution was accepted.
Review of Events
Initially the general trend was unfavorable to the guerrillas. On September 17 they were reported to be defying King Hussein in his efforts to disarm the militias.
Here, obviously, the King was being portrayed as the champion of law and order. James Feron reporting from
Jerusalem on September 17, viewing the conflict from the
Israeli perspective, appeared to be critical of both sides.
After emphasising the most important factor was the security of Israel, inferring that he would not want to see the Palestinian guerrillas in control of any part of
Jordan in which Israel has certain interests, he went on to accuse the Jordanian army of forcing the showdown by demanding a military government, suggesting that it was a move to prolong the rule of ~ing Hussein. Quoting an
Israeli source he said, "King Hussein represents the end of a dynasty, the last of a line, and the King knows it."
(p. 19) This anti-both-sides reporting is again illustrated on September 18 in which an unidentified story showed the two sides in Jordan's crisis as participants in 103
an intra-racial squabble in which (it infers) neither side had particular merit. "Once again Arabs are fighting
Arabs" proclaimed the lead in. "On one side are the forces of King Hussein and on the other a coalition of frequently divided Palestinian guerrillas, united in their aim to reclaim the land that is now Israel." The story goes on to describe the Palestinian guerrillas as irregulars, leftists, and a menace to King Hussein's monarchy- the pro-Western regime.(p. 8)
Reports which related the PLO to leftist (presumed anti-Western) regimes immediately cast the guerrillas in an unfavorable light in the eyes of Western readers. For example on September 17 John Lee wrote from Beirut "the leftist governments of Syria and Iraq assailed the military regime imposed in neighboring Jordan today as the work of reactionary imperialist authorities." He went on to say
"the official radio of both countries functioned today almost as the spokesman of the Palestinian commandos, broadcasting in detail, and with approving comment, the belligerent statements of Yasser Arafat, the guerrilla commander." It is interesting to note that only two words in these quotations place the report in the unfavorable category. They are "leftist" indicating alliance with anti-Western sentiments, and "belligerent" indicating that
Arafat was more intent on war than peace. If Lee had quoted the radio reports verbatim without the ~escriptive 104
comments of his own, the report would have been favorable.
The inference is that just as the Syrians and Iraqis were
biased for the PLO, Lee reveals himself in this piece of
reporting to be biased against the PLO. This association
with anti-Westernism is emphasized further in the report in which he refers to "the animosity of Syria and Iraq and
their support for the commandos ••• (being) ••• important because of their... (the commandos') abi 1 i ty to damage the
Jordanian Government." The inference is that the commandos were an instrument of the pro-Soviet bloc and that damage
to the pro-Western Jordanian Government would further the
interests of that bloc. There was also the perception that the several fighting factions making up Yasser Arafat's
"army" was a fragile military coalition born of desperate necessity which did not have the philosophical cohesion (or perhaps Arafat did not have enough unifying influence) to make it a factor in bringing political stability to the area. This view is illustrated by Hendrick Smith's comment on September 19, p. 1 "The Palestinian commando groups challenging King Hussein's rule are not capable of making a long-range peace agreement." Here the words "challenging"
"rule" and "not capable" indicate the wish to disrupt the status quo without the ability to substitute something better in its place. It is clearly unfavorable.
Another form of unfavorable reporting is reflected in the reporters' perception of a leader who would be 105
determined to continue after his cause was apparently lost.
On September 20 John Lee speculated on Arafat's
determination when he wrote "Commando rejection of the
reported conciliatory overtures from army forces would
bring the King under increased pressure from army militants
for the all out attack with infantry and air power which he
has so far resisted. Here the words "rejection" and
"conciliatory overtures" show that Lee considered Arafat to
be unreasonable and the rest of the quotation clearly
states that such unreasonableness would lead to an
intensification of the conflict and to heavier casualties.
A correspondent biased in favor of Arafat could have
reported the same incident with the words " defiant
refusal to yield to unacceptable terms despite the threat
of esclating hostilities." This infers principles and heroism and not necessarily the inevitability of total defeat. Neither despatch would have been actually false but each deliberately shades the simple reportable fact that the commandos did not agree to a proposal which they considered unacceptable and that in doing so they took the risk of incurring heavier casualties.
Favorable reporting appeared to be divided into that
from Western reporters, each of whom may have switched
favorable/unfavorable/neutral positions according to their own perspective or according to the raw information they were able to gather during the war, and Eastern bloc 106
reports which took the position of supporting the PLO at
the outset and did not shift from this. Western reporters,
as exemplified by the New York Times, never reported
favorably on the PLO in ideological terms. Such
favorability as they showed appeared to be derived from a
respect for the PLO military credibility in not collapsing
immediately, and also on humanitarian grounds.
Good examples of favorably reporting were those of
John Hess in his Beirut dispatches. On September 22 he
inferred that the guerrillas were reporting truth fully on
the military situation even when the tide was not running
in their favor. He said, in part, "The commando official who has given fairly reliably reports of the fighting in the last five days said the Jordanian army had been mounting a counter attack on the salient between Jarash and
Ajlun, about halfway between Amman and the Syrian border."
Again on September 25 when the emphasis had switched to negotiating a cease-fire he presented a picture of Arafat as a reasonable man (or perhaps a realist who recognized the inevitability of military defeat) when he reported
"Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian guerrilla leader, agreed early today to receive a delegation representing Arab governments that are searching to end the civil war in
Jordan."
The transition to sympathetic reporting (favorable) reporting was exemplified by Eric Pace on September 26 when 107
he reported "The military government that Brigadier Daoud
headed is hated by the Fedayeen. A day after it took power
the army began the assault of guerrilla positions in Amman
and other cities." He added, "In the 10-day civil war the
guerrillas suffered heavy casualties - thousands of dead
they report - and the Palestinian refugee head-quarters
were the hardest hit areas in and around Amman." This tone
is generally favorable. The guerrillas are seen as digging
in against superior forces and the Jordanian army is seen
as attacking helpless refugees under orders from a ruthless
general. As the war proceeded, Pace appeared to continue
to show favorableness in his writing as he presented the
picture of a small fragmented band of differing military
factions which had become a cohesive military group which
had been defeated by a professional army with air support.
The guerrillas had no air power and their hope of armored
support from Syria had been short-lived. When the
Jordanian army seemed to be gaining the upper hand Pace
said, "This was the first time that the army had brought in major armored units against the guerrillas. During the morning British-built Centurion and United States-built
Patton tanks as well as armored cars ranged over the city,
their machine guns spraying guerrillas' positions." (p. 1)
Favorability recorded the same frequency on September 20
and 21, with John Hess describing how 40 planes from the
Jordanian Air Force struck the Fedayeen strongholds in the 108
north of Jordan. (p. 1) Each reporter seemed to be
stressing the heavy odds against which the PLO were
fighting.
As the PLO casualties mounted and the pressure from
Arab states for an end to hostilities increased (John Lee reporting from Beirut gave the reader an estimate of 1500 guerrillas killed) favorableness on humanitarian grounds became more evident. Pace in his story from Amman on
September 26 inferred that the refugees were the innocent and very tragic victims of the conflict. He described how a fire was seen blazing where a large Fateh Camp was
situated.
Humanitarian-type reporting cannot be easily classi fied. Just because it shows concern for the innocent victims (refugees shelled in camps) or the battered forces
(the losing Palestinian guerrillas) it does not mean that
it is favorable or even neutral. It would be equally possible to interpret this as unfavorable to the PLO by
inferring that the military arm was bringing suffering to its own civilian population by continuing its confrontation with the legitimate army of the country which was providing
it with shelter. This ties back to the example from John
Lee quoted earlier in which Arafat's "belligerent" state ments in defying King Hussein would either have been wil lingness to sacrifice for a just cause (favorable) or sub
jection of his people to further suffering (unfavorable). 109
The second subdivision of favorable reporting, that from the Eastern bloc, is more simplistic. It simply adopts the position that the u.s. Middle East policy
(strongly and unswervingly pro-Israel, therefore generally anti-PLO) is wrong. Consequently the cause of the PLO is right. Tillman Durdin reporting from Hong Kong said that
Communist China denounced attacks in Jordan on Palestinian guerrillas. The Chinese Prego Agency and the Peking newspaper Janmin Jib Pao was quoted announcing its backing for Palestinian combat organization in the Middle East. On
September 20 he reported, "Communist China today denounced attacks on Palestinian guerrillas and charged that attacks on the guerrillas by Jordanian forces had been instigated by the United States in collusion with Israel." This is an example of favorable commentary at international news level but its favorableness bears examination. First, it does not actually speak in favor of the PLO, it simply condemns the anti-PLO factions. Second, it infers that the beneficiaries of a defeated military arm of the PLO would be primarily Israel and the u.s., and that Jordan was merely an instrument for this. It does not address the state-within-a-state issue which had led to the military confrontation.
Neutral reporting was difficult to define and therefore difficult to classify. It had to state the facts as they could best be gathered by the reporter and present 110
them with sufficient background for the reader to place
them in context, yet it should not contain a commentary
which would bias the report. Also, since the raw
information usually came from one side or another, because
first hand observation was rarely possible, the reporter
either had to try to obtain both versions of the event or
draw his own conclusions. A second type of neutral
reporting in simply repitition of a non-contentious
communique in which a proposal is made but as yet there has
been no consequential action or reaction.
An example of neutral reporting in which an attempt is made to obtain both sides of the story was provided by John
Lee on September 21. He reported, "Diplomatic and
broadcast reports from Amman told of continuous street
fighting ••• (a simple communique with sources quoted) •••
The guerrillas spoke of persistent shelling of the refugee
camps ••• (possible exaggeration in order to gain World
sympathy) ••• However communications from Amman have been
sporadic since the outbreak of the war ••• (Lee tried to
verify the claim of the guerrillas by checking with the
Government but he could not do so) ••• "
Simple repetitions of official releases, presented
neutrally and without comment are exemplified by Hess's
report of the early attempts to obtain a cease-fire. On
September 18 he reported, "Marshal Habes Majali, Commander
of the Jordanian armed forces proposed a cease-fire late in 111
Graph 6 Direction Number of times that the Palestinian guerrillas were mentioned with a favorable, unfavorable, or neutral attribution.
t \ \ I~ \ \ en \ Q) \ !' \ ~ e: .,..j \ ' \ I ~ \ \ ~II II ~ I \ ,..0 Q) \ .0e: :z::l '~ ' ~ I 0 SEPT 17 18 19- 2.0 2.1 22' 2.7
o • FAVORABLE TOTAL 6 T ~ • UNFAVORABLE TOTAL 71 a .. NEUTRAL TOTAL 99- 112
the day, following which the guerrillas would move out with their arms to bases along the Jordan River facing Israeli occupied territory." He did not comment on the inferences of this which would be possible antagonism and therefore reaction from Israel, neither did he speculate on the response of the guerrillas.
The last example is from a story prepared by the New
York Times correspondent Eric Pace, in Amman, whose stories were known for their neutrality (see page 106). On
September 26, he said, "King Hussein's Government and the
Arab commando leadership agreed on a cease-fire today and silenced their armies' guns." In this case Pace was able to implement the preferred method using both government and guerrillas sources.
Graph Analysis 6
Examination of the three curves, favorable, unfavorable, and neutral, as judged by the criteria established in Chapter II show moderate oscillations in the favorable; initial large oscillations in the unfavorable which then dampen down to a fairly uniform, low, profile; and the widest oscillations throughout the entire period, in neutral. All observations however, should be treated with caution because much of the raw news upon which these reports were filed was from radio flashes partisan to one or other of the combatants, and the extent to which the reports were edited and re-written back at the newspaper llJ
offices is unknown. As might be expected, peaks in
favorable are mirrored by valleys in unfavorable.
When the fighting broke out it is clear that
sentiments were strongly unfavorable to the Palestinian guerrillas. Evidently they were seen as fragmented forces
of semi-independent militias, only loosely united behind
Arafat, which were a constant threat to Middle East peace by their armed harrassment of Israel. Also they had
refused to lay down their weapons in the face of an order
from the legitimate government of the country which had provided them with refuge. At this point the implications of the specially decreed Jordanian military government were not an issue - a legitimate government had its legitimate order defied and therefore a police action was necessary.
As the Palestinian guerrillas defended themselves however, and as they communicated their side of the story to the media more freely than did the government, the
unfavorable curve is seen to sharply reverse. This reversed again when Hussein, seen as a moderate who was forced into this action to defend the integrity of his country, offered a cease-fire to save more bloodshed and this was rejected by Arafat who did not yet see his military position as hopeless and who momentarily expected powerful assistance from the Syrian armor.
As the war proceeded through the Syrian interevention; 114
the Syrian withdrawal; the military defeat of the
Palestinian guerrillas; and the Arab summit; unfavorable biases dropped to a steady low (in response to Arafat's evident desire to negotiate a peaceful settlement) and favorable comment rose steadily. There were two sharp downward perturbations in this rise however, which may be related to events. On September 22 fighting sharply escalated as the Palestinian guerrillas, supported by the
Syrians, drove the Jordanian army back. On September 24, even when the Arab States were trying to convene a Summit and Arafat was in contact with his fellow Arab leaders to promote this, yet at the same time he was making one last intense military effort (perhaps to improve his bargaining position at the summit). Both these escalations were seen as counter-productive to the peace making process and they accounted for the lowest favorable reading of all on
September 22 (Syrian involvement) and a second low two days later.
The extreme excursions of the neutral curve do not appear to be related to either the contrapuntal inflections of the other two, or to the events of the war.
This curve oscillates on almost a daily cycle. One correlation which is noticeable however is that neutral always acts in strong opposition to an extreme of either favorable or unfavorable. It is rationalized that this represented a conscious effort by such reporters as Pace 115
and Hess to preserve their own judgement when receiving raw news through reports which they suspected of being biased either one way or the other.
7. NEWS SOURCES
This category shows the sources which made the attribution and its direction in the theme. The source is divided into three types: the identified, the veiled and the unascertained •• The three types represent all the sources used in reporting the news on the Palestinian guerrillas during the Jordan crisis. The news sources are useful in determing possible gatekeeping in informational flow.
An Overview
The unveiled source was the one most utilized in press reports. This implies that in this case the newspaper used sources that were made known to the reader. This did not reduce the possibility of portraying the Palestinian image in an incomplete or in a distorted manner but at least enabled the reader to use his or her judgement in deciding what credence to place on the story, or the reported
"facts".
The unveiled sources totalled 159 and the veiled together with the unascertained totaled 77 frequencies. 116
Historical Events
The free flow of information from Amman was not possible during the crisis. On September 23, John Lee reported "the city of Anunan has been cut off from normal communications, with journalists confined to the Jordan
Inter-Continental Hotel and forbidden to emerge or take pictures, although the area is one of the government has held securely from the beginning. No pictures or dispatches have been allowed to leave abroad." Previously
John Lee complained on September 19 that, "Communication with Amman was almost completely cut off except for broadcasts by the army and by the guerrillas ... {p.l) One more complaint was reported in a study on the Jordan crisis by Schoenbaum, who said that, "Information was the first major problem. Two major sources, the guerrillas, especially the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine (the hijackers) and their supporters the Syrians, were inaccessible to public and government alike."8 The skimpiness of news might have led to two further distortions. One was reliance, for lack of alternatives, on radio news, particularly the guerrilla radio, and remote reporting from Beirut. The other was the increased vulnerability of the press to some of its own occupational hazards.
This view is reinforced by Ali Ghandour, an adviser to
King Hussein. In an interview he said, "By and large, I 118
VleWpOln. . t . 11 Another view was expressed by the Director of
the Palestine Information Office in Washington when he said
in an interview that the official PLO information offices
were ready and organized to assist the media with regular 12 releases of bulletins from the Palestinian Guerrillas.
Despite the complaints by Lee and Schoenbaum of lack
of communication there was still a reasonable supply of
information available. When veiled sources had to be used
the reporters used such well established labels as "one
observer'' (meaning a fellow reporter) and "senior
government official" (a Cabinet member or top presidential
aide or top bureaucrat) to give some authority to the
information. This anonymity also could work the other way
and be used to cast doubt on the veracity of the
information. In effect the reports were able to use
official anonymity to put a wrapper around the story. It
created a distance between them and the actual event (third
party reporting) which protected them in cases of bias or
misreporting, but at the same time added a measure of
authority to the source. The use of these reporting
techniques were quite legitimate given the circumstances of
reporting a war from the front line. They blended the news
as the reporter saw and heard it with his perspective of what the public wanted to know. This enabled him to
present his particular story in the context of the whole
picture. 119
Graph 7 General Source
Number of times that the Palestinian guerrillas were observed with the source of information in the New York Times during the Jordan Crisis between September 17 - September 27, 1970.
~. I \ I \ I ' ~ I ~ f', I ' I \ I "'-.· I ' I \ I '~ \ I \ I ' Cll - Q) \i '\i \ s \ ~ E-4 \
~ \ 0 \
-~ 4 Q) .c ;--- .s ;\., / ::l I z -\\ \ I / \ I
SEPT 17 IS.· -19 20 21 22 23 24 -25-i6-Z7 .
o -Veiled ··Total ,. "43 A. _ =- Identified " = 159 a =·.Unidentified " = 34 120
Graph Analysis 7
An examination of the three curves for news sources, veiled, identified, and unidentified show that they follow quite rational paths. The preferred source would always be the identified one.
At the onset of hostilities there were, as might be expected, numerous official news releases from each side.
The sharp drop in identified sources in the second day is probably a· reflection of the fierceness of the fighting in
Amman at that time, Amman being the nerve center of news dissemination. As official sources dried up, naturally newsmen turned to veiled sources (people who would not wish to be identified since the future was so uncertain at that time). Predictably therefore, when identified sources were at their lowest, veiled sources were at their highest.
The second peak in identified sources appears to reflect the official announcement of Hussein's offer of a cease-fire (big news) and shortly afterwards unidentified sources reached a distinct peak as they reported on the negative response by guerrilla leaders as they awaited help from the Syrians. Official, identified, sources momentarily dropped since there was little to say until the guerrilla leader responded. The unidentified sources' peak was also no doubt helped by the secretive nature of the initiation of Syrian campaign (no government communiques from Damascus) meaning that again reporters had to turn to 121
wherever they could.
The high point of identified sources appears to be the reporting of the very successful engagement of Jordan's airforce, supported by army units, with the Syrian armored forces. From this point on, through the withdrawal of the
Syrians, the military defeat of the PLO, and the Arab
Summit, it was obvious that reporters either used official sources or gathered news directly themselves. Their interest in other sources declined correspondingly. At the time of the summit Conference however, when urgent negotiations were going on behind closed doors, unidentified sources reached this second peak as reporters tried to pre-empt each other in finding out what was really happening amongst the Arab leaders.
The interesting curve is that for veiled sources. It appears that once the shock of the initial confusion was over, or perhaps once the Syrians had openly made their move and the need for secrecy in preparations was past, the media no longer used their sources. It is not clear if they dried up or if the media preferred to use sources which, even if incorrect, would satisfy the rules of orthodox reporting. It may also be that, confined to their hotels, they had no other source but the radio.
8. EDITORIAL ANALYSIS
The previous seven sections referred to 77 reports which were analyzed. These enabled an image of the 122
Palestinian guerrillas to be constructed as seen through
the eyes of the reporters. However the papers' readership
were also influenced by the editorials at that time. These
are now briefly analyzed.
An Overview
Out of the nine editorials published, one piece was
neutral, and the rest were negative toward the Palestinian
guerrillas.
Review of Events
on September 17, "Showdown in Jordan," the editorial
said in part, "The commandos, who have increasingly usurped
the King's authority while studiously evading the ultimate
responsibility of government, have renounced any compromise with Israel and have vowed to wreck the peace initiative."
The editorial described them as ''intransigent" and
"reckless criminals." The September 18 editorial was the only neutral commentary. It was more of an advocate for peace by securing Israel, and adequately satisfying the
legitimate demands of the Arabs, especially of the displaced Palestinians, whose frustrations were now causing distress far beyond Israel's borders.
On September 20, the focus was on the threat of the
Soviet Union dominance over the Middle East which the Times
said should be watched carefully in order that the interest of the United States should not to be undermined. 123
On September 21, the danger from Syria and its entry
across the Jordanian borders was condemned, and the focus
shifted on the Syrians instead of the guerrillas.
Back to Jordan, September 22, the editorial described
the guerrillas as foes who would sacrifice not only the
Hashemite monarchy but the wealth and manpower of the whole area in vain pursuit of illusionary Gods. They were also called a world-defiant menace advocated by the Palestinian guerrillas and their Syrian supporters. September 23, the acusation went on as, "the aim of the Syrian-Palestinian attack on King Hussein is an undisguised bid to undermine the United Nations' efforts to promote a just peace throughout the Middle East."
On September 24, with the headline "Edging back from the brink," the editorial said in part, "Guerrilla leaders have sought to shift all the blame to Government forces for what from many accounts has been a horrible slaughter," adding that, "for the second time, if the Palestinian guerrillas were allowed to prevail with their mad scheme for a fight to the bitter end to exterminate Israel. The extremists' arrogant challenge to international peace efforts and to the conciliatory overtures of King Hussein must be put down decisively." The rest of the editorial continued the use of negative words.
On September 25, the Times made "a call for peace," and on September 27 it explained "the necessity for trust." 124
Q •
'I'he Arabs are expected to bring peace to Jordan through the
Arab leaders Summit Conference, criticizing Jamal Abed Al
Naser, President of Egypt - "for giving uncritical support
to guerrilla chieftains who have vowed to topple the
Government of Jordan and to sabotage international efforts to mediate the Arab-Israeli dispute.
CONCLUSION
The reports from the field were, on the whole, neutral in bias. On the other hand most of the editorials were negative to the point where they were hostile to the
Palestinian guerrillas. This was asserted by Ross Braley in his book Bad News in the chapter on "The Jordan Revolt" in which he concludes that the Times news reports were 13 overshadowed by their editorials. This view was disputed by Wes Gallagher, the president of the Associated Press for
fifteen years, and who said in an interview that the editorial judgment of the New York Times was neither decisive nor effective. He said that he did not believe that the administration was influenced by the editorials because he feels that in many cases the editors are feeding off information filtered and leaked by the administration 14 itself. Roland Wolsely, in reviewing Braley's book, said that the New York Times editorials were not influential. He rejected the point of view of "others" as he put it, who claim that "the Times runs the United States." He noted
"if it does, it has done a poor job for it was defeated in 125
the 1984 national election when it sought, through editorial policy, to replace President Reagan and certain 15 o f h 1s' f ore1gn, ' as we 11 as d omest1c, ' po 1'1c1es. ' II
The views of these distinguished observers are important. They cast doubt on the influence and credibility of the editorials of the New York Times but they do not similarly discount the quality of the field reporting. The conclusion from this is that the casual reader might be influenced by the editorials and side with them in their anti-Palestinian guerrilla bias, but the more discerning reader would see through the editorials to the actual field reporting and be likely to form his or her own judgment.
Summarizing the first seven categories: The Referent
- "Guerrillas" was the term most frequently used.
Party in Relationship - the guerrillas primarily interacted with Jordan because they were fighting the
Jordanian army.
Kind of Relationship - this was military because most of the reportable activity concerned the fighting.
Context of Relationship - this was clearly a conflict relationship.
Form of Attribution - the words used which most strongly set the tone were action words, verbs, because the reports followed dramatic and fast-paced events.
Direction of Attribution - from the reporters' 126
standpoint this was mostly neutral. This contrasted with the editorials reviewed in the seven sub-sections which were mostly unfavorable to the Palestinian guerrillas.
Sources of Attribution - these were primarily
American, either directly from u.s. reporters or of originating elsewhere but quoted through u.s. reporters. 127
FOOTNOTES
1. Dana Adams Schmidt, Armageddon in the Middle East (New York, John Day Co., 1974), p. 171.
2. Language, Image, Media, edited by Howard David and Paul Walton (New York, St. Martin's Press Inc., 1983), p. 15.
3 . Ibid. , p. 2 8 7 .
4. New York Times, September 24, 1970. p. 18.
5. Russ Braley, Bad News: The Foreign Policy of the New York Times (Chicago: Regnery Gateway, 1984), p. 375.
6. Alan Dowty, "The U.S. and the Syria-Jordan Confrontation of 1970," Jerusalem Journal of International Relations Vol. 3 (Winter-Spring, 1978), p. 177.
7. Language, Image, Nedia, p. 296.
8. David Schoenbaum, "Jordan: The Forgotten Crisis ( 2) Or Lucky?" Foreign Policy Vol. 10 (Spring 1973), p. 174.
9. An Interview (August 20, 1985) with Ali Ghandour, Adviser to King Hussein. Amman, Jordan.
10 . Ibid. I p . 17 5 .
11. An Interview (August 26, 1985) with Adnan Abu Odeh, Minister of Royal Court. Amman, Jordan.
12. An Interview (August 26, 1986) with Hassan Abed AlRahman, Director of Palestine Information Office, Washington, D.C.
13. Russ Braley, p. 373.
14. An Interview (June 3, 1986) with Wes Gallagher in Santa Barbara, California.
15. Journalism Quarterly: Vol. 62 (Spring 1985), p. 178 "Book Reviews." CHAPTER VI
GENERAL CONCLUSIONS
The coverage of the "Jordan Crisis" of September 1970 which stemmed from the "permanent crisis" of the Arab
Israeli conflict, showed the Palestinian guerrillas emerge from the state of holding a strong military position in
Jordan, at the outset of the war, to a state of defeat after the ten day fight, which finally led to the expulsion of the PLO military forces from Jordan.
This study of the Palestinian guerrillas' portrayal in the New York Times during the Jordanian crisis has presented a content analysis of the news reports and the unsigned editorials between September 17 and September 27,
1970.
Based on the analysis in the previous chapter, some major conclusions on the nature of the coverage are discussed, followed by implications for further research.
The startpoint is the generally accepted definition of the
PLO. This study has noted that the PLO was an umbrella
128 129
organization of many different, and differing, factions united under Yasser Arafat. Its unifying objective was the preservation of their political rights, as people. The
New York Times, however, loosely agglomerated the factions as Palestinian guerrillas and sometimes, particularly in
Syrian related contexts, qualified them as leftist
Palestinian guerrillas. A more balanced approach would have been to inform the reader that the PLO (not the
Palestinian guerrillas) was in fact composed largely of moderate and conservative factions. The PFLP with its flamboyant acts of skyjacking was strongly leftist oriented. Thus a misleading label was created at the outset. Each time it was used it must have reinforced the negative image being established of the PLO.
Elements of conflict at the beginning of the fight, and cooperation at the end, influenced the relationships of the Palestinian guerrillas throughout the coverage. As a result the coverage was primarily crisis-oriented. This was obvious in reporting the Palestinian guerrillas in both the military and political contexts. It set the ground for a conflict-oriented image for the Palestinian guerrillas during the Jordan crisis.
However, the analysis of the news reports in general showed that most reporting was neutral, but not consistent in its neutrality. The increase in neutral treatment was accompanied by an important aspect of reporting the 1)0
Palestinian guerrillas. This was particularly so after the agreement to an Arab Summit and during its course. In a sense, at this point the reporting became favorable to both sides - Jordanians and Palestinians - as it reflected world opinion that reasonableness had prevailed. Conversely, during the early stages of the war, most reports were critical of the Palestinian guerrillas, caused by the initial negative picture of the PLO after their apparent defiance o£ a legitimate order of King Hussein to disarm their militias. Some other reports were critical of both sides - the Jordanian and the Palestinian - unlike the nature of reporting the Arab-Israeli conflict, in which a consistently pro-Israeli record was observed. It is also noteworthy that apart from one favorable report none of the news reports were pro-Palestinian. That favorable report, from the People's Republic of China, had obvious political overtones critical of the u.s. and its allies.
The general conclusion is that in matters of recording events such as a battle or a meeting, the reporters did a professionally impartial job in stating the facts to the best of their knowledge, and identifying the sources of information when appropriate. This was in contrast to instances when interpretation was necessary in order to put a story into its proper context and perspective, relating the Palestinian guerrillas to their background. Here, the use of various action verbs and descriptive words (both 1)1
creating an anti-PLO nuance) showed an initial bias for law and order, and against the leftist implications of a Syrian
(pro-Soviet) supported PLO. After the defeat of the PLO, there was a tendency to the opposite direction presumably out of sympathy or perhaps because the issue was Arab vs.
Arab, and the Fedayeen were killed by their Arab brothers.
At this point the reports began to lose some of their objectivity. One point which should be made is that in this particular conflict the reporters should have been strictly third party observers in reporting the news. They should have been consistent in their reporting and not changed their stance in response to the battle fortunes of the PLO.
A review of the unsigned editorials in this study presents the interesting conclusion that whereas the field reports were reasonably unshaded, the editorials were certainly negative. This disharmony in their interpreta tion of the same basic facts pr~vides an ironic reversed pattern to the belief that the field reporters can only see a limited picture while the editor can see the whole picture. This is a major observation of this study and it leads to the conclusion that those who relied solely on this medium as a source of information would have formed a distorted picture of what was happening and, even more importantly, they would have been left confused by the editorials contradicting the news reports. 132
This study confirms the study of Janice Terry who, in
her analysis, found a rather consistent anti-Arab bias in
the New York Times' editorials, and to a lesser extent in
the feature stories. Similarly Russ Braley noted that the
New York Times' editorials and house-writen commentaries
overshadowed the news reports of Eric Pace, who was
covering the crisis from Amman.
In terms of the possible roles played by the opinion makers of ~he Times, the evidence indicates that American
editors may have been predisposed to follow the lead of the
American government. Most editorials were steady in their
support for the actions of the government, however, the
New York Times went even further in its open antipathy
toward the Palestinian guerrillas. Many of the editorials
condemned their irregular military activities and
criticised them as a disruptive factor for the Middle East
peace efforts. The beginning of this study posed the questions of how the prestige press views organizations not
recognized by the u.s. government. The editorials in the New York Times give an unequivocal answer. They make it clear that they do not regard the PLO as the legitimate
representative of the Palestinians. This immediately
tarnishes the public image of the PLO.
Coverage primarily focused on the Palestinian guerrillas' relationships with Jordan and at a later stage with the rest of the Arab States. The reports paid little lJJ
attention to the relationships with other parties. Major contexts were political and military - particularly the latter. In this, the reports focused on the Palestinian guerrillas association with war events, and by and large ignored others, such as the social, educational, economical contexts. The initial emphasis was on the military interaction between the Palestinian guerrillas and the
Jordanian army, with a concluding emphasis on a political situation. Each represented conflict situations. The ground was therefore set for a conflict-oriented reporting of Arab vs. Arab. Little attention was paid to the
Israelis - even though they were obviously related to the cause of the dispute - because they were not directly involved. In any case, in the mind of the public, they were not conflict associated.
In addition to the emphasis on the conflict-oriented coverage, the reporting was issue-oriented. However, the issues were restricted to the war events between the
Jordanian army and the Palestinian guerrillas, with the
Times describing them as "a usual trend in the Arab society." This obviously negative comment eroded objective reporting from the outset.
By restricting themselves to only reporting on very limited aspects of the Palestinian conflict the reporters were already introducing a bias. For example, very little attention was paid to the multi-faceted life in refugee lJ4
camps. There was little discussion of the cultural, social, educational, and financial (help from UNRWA was drying up) and other factors which lead to the debilitation of the well-being and lifestyle of the Palestinians. These did not carry the news value of the political and military aspects and therefore they were largely ignored. Yet these provided the driving forces which caused the refugees to embrace the call to action o£fered by the PLO. This was their opportunity to elevate themselves from the misery of helplessness and frustration and at last act on their own behalf. The corning of the PLO provided a catalyst for the unleashed force, hitherto repressed, which was powerful enough to break the bonds of Arab unity and set brother against brother. At the very least the New York Times and others did their readers a great disservice by highlighting only the effects, and not the cause, of this war.
This sort of news writing poses the question, "Would the reporting have been the same if the issue was Arab vs.
Israeli?" It made the distinction that this was an intra social conflict rather than the more usual inter-racial kind. The question is asked, but the answer goes beyond the scope of this study because the conclusions here are specific to an all-Arab conflict and there has been no consideration here of conflicts involving Israel except in relating the conclusions of this to those of previous studies. It is noted however that such studies 1.35
consistently found that Israel was portrayed favorably regardless of the issue, whereas the picture of the
Palestinians was usually incomplete or distorted and never positive.
The reporting could also be considered fragmented.
Chapter II identified eight contexts of relationship considered important in balanced coverage. These were political; military; economic; social; historical; cultural; health related; and educational. Of these only two, political and military, received any real attention.
The two contexts were characterized by a high level of conflict. The reader could not possibly receive a complete picture of the Palestinian guerrillas through this portrayal in the Times. This incomplete, fragmented picture happens when reporting shifts the focus to one single element out of a larger whole thereby introducing a strong bias. For example, in the early stages of the war when the merits of each side could have been presented, supported by the initial causes of the crisis, the PLO was presented as having created a state-within-a-state with its own armed forces refusing to obey the demands of the lawful government orders to disarm their militias.
In this light the PLO were in the wrong. However, there was little exploration of the issues which caused the conflict. Because so little was published about the victims of the 1948 and 1967 conflicts, most of that which 1)6
appeared was extremely simplified. It reduced the Jordan crisis to the minimum of two Arab military forces confronting each other in a bloody fight. This oversimplification contributed to the press' stereotyping of the the Palestinian guerrillas as defiant trouble makers. The press dealt with the highly visible and the easily explainable, leaving out in the process the finer details which go beyond those which are military and political. Yet these are equally important. As Berelson suggests, in the content analysis one has to keep track of what is not said as much as what is said. According to
Budd, the two aspects may be equally important. The portrayal of the whole picture of a situation offers the reader the knowledge of the cause of the crisis as much as the effect. When reporting isolates the problem, the judgment of the reader is certainly affected by the fragmented portrayal. For example, Eytan Gilboa in studying the American attitudes toward the PLO and
Palestinians found that more than two-thirds (68 percent) of the respondents said that they did not know enough about the issue of the creation of a separate Palestinian Arab
State in the West Bank in order to have an opinion. An influential paper such as the New York Times should have been on its guard against reducing the cause of the conflict to a single issue right at the beginning of the crisis to prepare the reader to understand the problem. 137
In summary, the New York Times attached a label to the
PLO which created the image of a leftist group whose main strategy was disruption. Its coverage was crisis oriented with heavy emphasis upon the military and political effects and little explanation of the causes. The field reporting was generally impartial although somewhat inconsistent.
Its oscillations about neutrality to the PLO were minor and they were felt to be the natural effect on the reporters of the fast-paced and dramatic events of the time; and of their limited access to firsthand information. On the other hand the editorials exhibited a marked anti-PLO pre judice. It is speculated that this reflected both the official policy of the u.s. government and also the politi cal views of the editorial board. These editorials were therefore felt to have unfairly influenced public opinion.
Fragmentation and selective reporting contributed significantly to the negative image of the PLO. Arabs fighting Arabs made big news but little coverage was given to the deeply rooted causes which lead to this. A picture of Palestinians was created which showed them, as indeed all Arabs, as being a conflict-ridden society both in the political and military sense. Little attention was paid to their cultural background. The reader was thus pre conditioned to accept this war as the natural outcome of the
Palestinian way of life. In short, the New York Times' coverage was an example of flashpoint reporting without due 138 Q '
recognition of the deepset slow burning fire which lay
underneath.
Contribution of this Study
The principal contribution of this study is its specificity to the PLO image as created during the Jordan crisis. None of the previous research on the Palestinian guerrilla image in the u.s. press dealt with this first
Arab vs. Arab conflict. This study has extended the methodology proposed by Issam Suleiman Mousa in his survey of the Arab Image in the u.s. press. This study took into consideration the author's recommendation of adding the editorial analysis to the news reports. Also, study of this period allowed a comparison by both pre- and post-
1970 image studies, thus making it possible to observe the development of the guerrillas' image when they later fought a similar war in Lebanon.
Hopefully this study will encourage other media analysts interested in the Middle East to look beyond crisis-oriented reporting to the deeply rooted causes of international conflicts. It is vital that other "image building" studies involving Middle East topics follow, that media observers become more aware of the stereotyping of
Arabs--and Palestinians in particular--which is pervasive in the u.s. media, most noticeably in movie theater and television news, and in major newspapers such as the
New York Times. APPENDIX
CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS
1. September 17 - commencement of hostilities between the Jordanian army and the Palestinians.
2. September 20 - intervention by Syria supporting the Palestinian guerrillas.
3. September 23 - the defeat of the Palestinians by the Jordanian army at the same time as the withdrawal of the Syrians. Cease-fire negotiations commenced at this time.
4. September 27 - ratification and implementation of the cease-fire as a result of the Arab Summit Conference on that day.
139 1. STRUCTURE OF THE PLO
Union of Palestinilon Union of Palnt•n ..n Union of Patntinien Union of Pal"'inian Union of Palestini•n Writ"" and Workero Journeliftl Woman Studenu TNchers
Pelestinilon Nationel F....,omMo.. rnent Union of Palestinien "'Fateh". E"ffineers
,._,., Front for ~~ ·~ ~ ... the Liberation of ~\ //Union of Pall'ltinian PaleotineiPFLPI Lawyers ~ PALESTINIAN NATIONAL COUNCIL ~ Democratic Front for the Liberation a. .II. Union of Pelft'l:rnian of Paleotine IDFLPI r ... Docton Parliament 301 members Saiqa ~ Union of Palestinian I ~ rtirtJ Painters and A ... "' llO.. ... "'
Arab Liberation Union of Palertinien Front IALFI v; \~ Peauntl
Palestine Popular Pelntinian liberatton P01>ular Front - Palestine Communities G-••1 Command Front IPLFI Struggle Front I ndopandonto IPPSFI outside Palestine
L_____ ------~--
I-' ~ 0 141
2. STRUCTURE OF THE PLO , 1 EXECUTIVE COMMITIEE (CABINET) 15 Members J l ~ ~
, 1
CENTRAL COUNCIL 60 Members
j l .... ~
r ,
PALESTINIAN NATIONAL COUNCIL Parliament 301 Members
J l 3. STRUCTURE OF THE PLO
Department of Department of Department of Palenine National Education and Health Oepart....,nt Popular Information and FundfOepartment Department of Cultural A Hairs Organizations Coordination of Finance National Relations
Political Department lor the O.pertment Occupied Homeland
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE (CABINET) 15 Members
Chairman of the Executive Committee
Paleos1int1n Un•ted forces of Departmrnt of L•beratton Res•stancr Milttlas Palestine Plann•ng Patesttne Research Centre CP.n1re M•l•tiPf Affa•rs Armv IPLAI Orgamzat•ons
...... + N l4J
PLO Offices- i..,. O"'l 83 worldwide ~~ ,::-. " ..;:~ - 3- !•
Higher Council for Schools anrl Education and '"...c Kmderyartttns Trarning n ~ ;; :J .0 ~ Hospitals and Clinics
Palestine Red Medical C@ntres Crncent :t !.• ; ~ 0 . (I) ~ -1 :D H1gher Council tor c: Vouth end Sport C') ''Falestin ai-Thaura" -1 (Ce-ntral Org111nl c: i0""~ D Th~tRU• 11nd i'!~ :D Popular Arts ;1-W m Foreign Information Federation == .. Dept. .:J --· 0 .. a "'T1 -1 "Wala". Palestine ''Lions and Flowers·· :I: News Ag
Industrial Department SAMED- PLO olthe PLO IndustriAl ;... OrgRnllltion .. :J .n 0 Palestinian Society . Institute of Social lor the Blond Affair, and Welfare ~
Social Assistance for Wounded Palntinian PrisonHs' :t Oi Defence Committee .,_; ~! Social Aid for ;- -·o BtrP.aYP.tJ F amilir.s 6. !. : :r PaiMtine Nahon•l • Front for the Oav C1Pn1res for Occupied Homeland Children g r-f
1948 - Occupied .. ·Jordan ·. Areas 550,800 ( 1,148,334 I ...... ______./
~~~r~es Syria \~0,116 _/ 222,524
"-. /_:usA ·\ Kuwait 299,710 ~0_4.. ~~
Oman Iraq 50,706 ~20,604 /
/Lebanon / Libya \ 500,000 ( 23,759// \
Oatar Egypt 24,233 ,45,605 145
Palestine 1919-1967
Palestine Mandate Partition Plan
Areas conquered 1949 Area occupied 1956
Zionist Plan J9J9 Area occupied J967 BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Theses
Alberts, Dalene Jean. "King Hussein: Consummate Politician." Ohio University, 1973. Ph.D. Thesis. 159
Bailey, C. "The Participation of the Palestinians in the Politics of Jordan." Columbia University, New York, 1966. Ph.D. Thesis.
Dowling, Jennifer Jane. "A Fair Yet Limited Perspective: A Comparative Analysis of the 1978-79 Coverage of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in Business Week, The Economist and the Financial Post." California State University, Northridge. January 1984. Master of Arts. Marcus, Beverly s. "The Changing Image of the Palestinians in Three u.s. Publications: 1948-1974." University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1976. Master of Arts.
Mousa, Issam Suleiman. "The Arab Portrayal: The New York Times 1917-1947." University of Washington, 1981. Ph.D. Thesis.
Suleiman, Kalid. "Religious Press. Arab News. Israel. Editorial Bias." Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, 1983. Master of Arts.
Palestinian Publications
PLO Research Center, Beirut.
Institute for Palestine Studies. For information on books of related interest of the Palestinians, or for a Catalog of new IPS Publications, write to Institute for Palestine Studies, P.O. Box 25697, Georgetown Station, Washington, D.C. 20007 (202/342-3990).
Interviews
Abdellah, Hassan. Director of the Palestinian Information Office, Washington, D.C. Interview August 22, 1986.
Abu Odeh, Adnan. Minister of the Royal Court, Amman, Jordan. Interview August 16, 1986. Minister of Information 1970.
Ghandour, Ali. Chairman of the Royal Jordanian Airline, Advisor to King Hussein of Jordan. Amman, Jordan. Interview August 18, 1985.
Hamarneh, Michael. Under-Secretary, Minister of Information 1985. In 1970, Director of the Jordan Information Bureau, Washington. Interview August 17, 1985. 160
Unpublished Material
Blau, Ruth. Member of Natorie Karta. Jerusalem, 1986. Manuscript about Jews and Palestinians in Israel.