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04/22/2005:

"Sharon's 92 Percent Solution: How the Misperceptions Roll On"

by Diane Christison
Imagine my chagrin. While vacationing in beautiful Vancouver, I had my sun-and-mountain reverie interrupted on Tuesday by a New York Times article seeming to give the final word on Ariel Sharon’s plans -- blessed, of course, by George Bush -- for the disposition of Israel’s border with the West Bank and the Israeli settlements inside that territory. The article, by veteran diplomatic correspondent Steven Erlanger, discussed the “small furor” supposedly set off inside the Bush administration by Israel’s announced determination to build 3,500 new housing units in Maale Adumim, the largest of several Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and the fact that this new move will unilaterally expand Israel’s borders into the Palestinian territory. But Erlanger gives us the impression that this is not really the disastrous development it might seem. He quotes David Makovsky, of the pro-Israeli think tank, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, as saying that after all things are not so bad because Sharon, the Israeli most associated with wanting 100 percent of the West Bank, has now scaled down his sights to only 8 percent. This 8 percent is the proportion of the West Bank to be incorporated on the Israeli side of the separation wall when its new route, approved by the Israeli cabinet in February, is completed.

This was bad enough for my vacation mood, but then come to find out a columnist for Canada’s national newspaper the Globe and Mail, Marcus Gee, picked up the story the next day and, for all of Canada to see, played it as indicating a great breakthrough:

“After decades of blood and tears, a solution to the conflict over the Holy Land is emerging . . . . It is not an entirely just solution. But it is a solution, and it could give both sides what they need most: an independent homeland for the Palestinians and secure borders for Israel. The solution is the work of one man: Ariel Sharon.”

Thus are widespread misperceptions and gross distortions of reality born among a broad segment of the media-savvy public.

Steven Erlanger might be excused for swallowing the unlikely story that the Bush administration is really in anything like “small furor” over Israel’s settlement expansion plans, but it is dismaying to see a correspondent of Erlanger’s caliber allowing himself to be misled by an apologist for the Israeli settlement enterprise like David Makovsky.
Full Article: counterpunch.org