THE SHEHADEH KILLING A CASE STUDY OF THE MIDDLE EAST INFORMATION TANGLE
by Gideon Weisz

In Gaza, shortly after midnight on Tuesday, July 23rd, the Israeli Air Force killed Salah Shehadeh. As I tried to understand this event, I was struck by how difficult it is to get trustworthy information about the Middle East. The following was written on July 28th, after five days of trying to make sense of what had occurred on July 23rd.

At last, Israel had managed to eliminate Terrorist Number One on its list, the commander of the military wing of Hamas, a man who consistently rejected any accommodation with Israel. Shehadeh was a unique powerhouse of professional skills and creativity, a fanatic leader responsible for hundreds of Israeli deaths and presumably planning more, including, according to Israel's defense minister, a megaterror attack. Unfortunately, also killed in the operation were Shehadeh's wife, a daughter, an aide, and a dozen others, most of them children; there were claims that major ceasefire initiatives were damaged, or even scotched. Concerning these initiatives, there have been contradictory reports.

No one disputes that a one-ton bomb was dropped on Shehadeh's home in a crowded residential neighborhood. Sharon initially called the operation a great success, but later said that had he known the outcome, he would have postponed the killing; yet, in Israel and abroad, some charged that the timing was meant to sabotage a Palestinian ceasefire move. There were contradictory and otherwise flawed reports about the nature of the ceasefire efforts and what the Israelis knew about them. It was well known, however, that Israel, because of many previous disappointments, was insisting on broad security reforms and a cessation of incitement before it would dialogue with the Palestinians. All reported versions of what the Palestinians meant to offer fell well short of those requirements.

Western media emphasized that Israel must have anticipated the outcome, that the operation was heavy handed or brutal, that there had been decisive ceasefire moves in the works that had been deliberately undermined, etc. There was talk of war crimes and I encountered some strikingly odd statements. Although the Guardian allowed, for instance, that Shehadeh was "a dedicated enemy of peace, an apparently remorseless killer .. a butcher of innocents," it concluded "but even so [he] should not have been assassinated. One day he might have been made to answer for his crimes." Elsewhere there were both more balanced accounts and less balanced ones, but in general journalists were poorly informed and rather unrealistic.

I try to take pains to follow and understand what is happening in Israel and the Middle East. My favorite sources are the Jerusalem Report, an English language biweekly, and the great Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, which is available fully online in Hebrew and most of which is also available online in English (www.haaretzdaily.com). Both sources are intelligent and honest, which is to say that they take great care in reporting and analyzing the stories and issues that they cover. Considering its size and resources, Ha'aretz is a much better newspaper than the New York Times. Some people call it leftist, but I would dispute that. It is definitely a newspaper that makes sure that it covers various viewpoints. Several of its reporters who know the Palestinian situation intimately often give Palestinians the benefit of the doubt, while casting a cynical eye on the Israeli side of the picture. That says something about the scope of the paper. It is worth emphasizing that reality in Israel and its neighborhood is extremely complex, and at the same time it cries out, as it were, "Know me, understand me, fix me!" You need these kinds of sources, rather than NPR and BBC, or even the New York Times, if you want a fuller and more accurate acquaintance with the facts.

For military and strategic issues, I have come to rely on reporters and analysts with very good track records, such as Amir Oren and Ze'ev Schiff of Ha'aretz. They are honest, concerned, street smart, savvy about the field, and have good connections with military people and politicians.

Not all journalists, Israeli or otherwise, are that reliable, of course. If, for instance, a writer implies that Israel killed Shehadeh only to avenge his murderous past, rather than -- what should be obvious -- to prevent his murderous future, then I tend to conclude that the author is trying so hard to tillt the reader's opinion that she is probably not trustworthy. I keep reading, but squint suspiciously at the text. It is amazing how often that kind of improbable, childish motivation is attributed as the primary motivation to the Israeli government or to Sharon. Such an unlikely analysis tells us something about the quality of what we are reading.

To illuminate another aspect of the problem of getting accurate information, I want to take up here the issue of Arab speech style. I encountered this issue twice recently. The first time was in an article in the New York Review of Books (June 13, 2002). In it, Benny Morris reports from an interview with Ehud Barak, as follows:

"Repeatedly during our prolonged interview, conducted in his office in a Tel Aviv skyscraper, Barak shook his head in bewilderment and sadness at what he regards as Palestinian, and especially Arafat's, mendacity:

'They are products of a culture in which to tell a lie...creates no dissonance. They don't suffer from the problem of telling lies that exists in Judeo-Christian culture. Truth is seen as an irrelevant category. There is only that which serves your purpose and that which doesn't. They see themselves as emissaries of a national movement for whom everything is permissible. There is no such thing as the truth.' "

Now, what Barak said and how he said it is insensitive and extremely impolitic, and he has been roundly criticized for it. Granted that Barak might be trying to deflect blame away from himself, possibly laying the groundwork for a comeback to politics, I still take it that he speaks from some experience. I certainly recoil from the tone of what Barak says, and yet ..

The second time the issue came up for me was in connection with the killing of Shehadeh, when I read or heard the recent words of the suave, charming Saeb Erekat, one of the top handful of figures in the Palestinian Authority. You have probably heard him on TV or radio. My recollection is that he said the killing was a war crime and intended only to destroy a Palestinian ceasefire that Israel knew was about to happen. Recall that this was the man who assured the media that there were 500 Palestinians massacred in Jenin, and only gradually reduced the number (There was no massacre. See FOCUS, Vol.1, No.4 or the UN report [NYT, August 2]). Which brings me back to the subject of this digression, namely, the question of Arab use of language. Now, as someone has said, with reference to political and diplomatic history, everybody lies. I would recommend, though, that the reader pay attention to the odds. How often does everyone lie, in this arena, by how much, and in what way? Now, please bear with me for one more paragraph on this issue.

I remember in my college days being smug about the accuracy and honesty of Israeli reports on military and other matters, and harboring a certain contempt for what I termed "Arab battle reports". And yet in the first days of the Six Day War I was terrified by what I heard on the radio. I was not the only one fooled by the Egyptian reports of their sweeping victories. Even King Hussein of Jordan claimed that he had miscalculated on the basis of what he had heard from Egypt. One factor in the distortions was undoubtedly various officers' fear of punishment for telling the truth. In fact, Nasser's deputy Amr was killed or committed suicide in prison not long after the war. But certain pervasive aspects of Arab culture might also have played a role. A book I recommend for learning more about this is The Arab Mind, by Raphael Patai (1983). Patai is an anthropologist and a prolific writer. He is a man with a deep knowledge of and respect for Arab culture. His discussion of rhetoricism and exaggeration in Arab culture (pp 48-59) is important. In addition to questions of face, loyalty, and information sources, there is a style of exaggeration that affects how Arabs are liable to speak and think, and Patai claims that even westernized Arabs find themselves to be subject to this stylistic factor. Arab culture is rich in linguistic and rhetorical goods that, in brief, lead to a style of expression that we Westerners would find overassertive and tending to exaggeration (mubalagha in Arabic). Consider the possibility that some statements about people or events that would be considered quite strong to Americans might seem rather bland to Arabs. Conversely, an Arab who is speaking in a perfectly ordinary way might seem to a Westerner to be exaggerating.

I want to leave this subject now, hoping that you consider the possibility that if you were acquainted with Arab culture, you would appreciate the beauty of their relationship to language, honor, etc., but at the same time would be sensitized to their different ways of expression and how these might be factors that contribute to misunderstandings by politicians on both sides, by reporters, etc. You might find yourself listening to an interview on radio with different ears. And, you might understand that there are lies, and "lies" that are not.

We did not need this complication in addition to all the others, but no one asked us.

In the case of the Shehadeh killing we had different and often contradictory stories about the Palestinian ceasefire initiatives. Some stories made it sound as if there was an imminent unilateral ceasefire by the Tanzim (the Fatah movement's grassroots military organization), along with, perhaps, Hamas and even Islamic Jihad. There were even claims that the ceasefire would apply to attacks on soldiers and civilians in the West Bank and Gaza. If you look carefully, however, at the alleged Tanzim ceasefire document that came out, you will find it to be very unsubstantial. Certainly it is hard to imagine that Shehadeh would have abided by the Tanzim proposals; and Sheikh Yassin, the so-called spiritual leader of Hamas has repeatedly set stringent requirements upon the Israelis as prerequisite to his considering any ceasefire.

All in all, any ceasefire offer would have been too weak to have influenced Israeli actions regarding Shehadeh.

I find no other evidence that holds water, to support the theory that Israel struck in order to avoid serious moves towards a truce. At first glance this may seem to you, as it did to me, a reasonable suspicion, but after observing the full stream of gossips, leaks, information and disinformation and considering their sources, I became convinced that there were no such machinations.

Is it true that "Had I known the consequences, I would not have allowed the operation at this time", as both Sharon and Peres have claimed? Maybe. Maybe not. On the one hand, two Israeli concerns militate against an operation in which civilians (especially children) are at risk. First, unlike many Palestinians, the Israelis do not exult when children on the other side are killed. Israelis tend to be brokenhearted when that happens. Second, killing civilians has both domestic and international negative political consequences. On the other hand, certain factors favor bombing even at the risk of collateral killing. One must have been the tempting opportunity to prevent the deaths of many Israeli civilians even at the cost of some revenge killing by Palestinians. In addition, the slaughter of Israeli civilians, the way in which the war was being conducted, and the paucity of results, was leading to unprecedented frustration and anger in the Israeli military. So, there were intense, on going pulls for and against an attempt on Shehadeh. There had already been a number of times (six? eight?) in the last months when he had not been attacked because of the civilians around him. Meanwhile, the price for refraining was dozens of civilian Israeli victims of terrorist attacks.

Amir Oren (Ha'aretz) describes exhaustive advance research and careful planning --- simulated bombing attacks on buildings, study of a variety of weapons, selection of experienced air crews and so on. Shehaadeh kept planting himself amidst civilian populations, so the degree of collateral damage was factored in as well as the chances of success. A number of attacks were rejected to avoid bad outcomes. Oren also relates that in more than 100 of the targeted killings (the press's "assassinations") Israel has miscalculated and killed innocents -- women, children and bystanders fewer than half a dozen times (Abayat in Bethlehem, Damuni in Nablus, Sidar in Hebron). Of all F-16 bombings in the territories, none has caused as much collateral damage as this one. All in all, the facts so far suggest that there was a snafu, including some kind of intelligence error, and we must hope that the probe into it yields its conclusions soon.

We have a very complicated situation here. Immediately after the bombing Israel started an investigation that was responsive to intense Israeli concern at all levels about the ordnance used, the timing of the operation and assessment of collateral risk. Reports indicated that the EU diplomat involved exaggerated the significance of the Tanzim document to the Israelis. Among items that now appear to be exaggerations were representations of the power and influence of the signers, the number of potential participating organizations in the ceasefire, the imminence of initial enforcement of a ceasefire, and the range of targets that would be exempted from attack. (See the Tanzim document at http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=12916 .) Besides such distortions by non-Israelis, we find material of the same kind within the Israeli establishment. Peres's office, for example, leaks opinions and "facts" aimed at discrediting Sharon. Information tailored to multiple agendas makes it hard for outsiders to bring the picture into focus, and easy for reporters to be swept away by their impressions of the latest Rorschach inkblot.

All in all, I have little doubt that Israel had reasons to discount the prospects of a real, practical, immediate ceasefire that would eliminate the dangerousness of Shehadeh, or be a good enough reason to drop the war.

The dust has not settled yet, as I write this. More information will come in. Meanwhile, the conspiracy theory people will know the bombing was clearly meant to destroy peace prospects. The self-righteous right will tell you how it was simply necessary and fageddaboudit.
The demonizers of Sharon will tell you how this is simply Israel's or Sharon's brutal way.
As has been said before, in a highly complex and loaded situation where so many have conflicting stakes in what you think happened, certainty is the monopoly of fools.

Meanwhile, there are dark clouds gathering in the north. As in Jeremiah's day, "Evil is appearing from the north, and a great disaster" (Jer. 6:1). Syria and Iran are preparing serious trouble. My greatest worries are focused there. See, for example, the Wall Street Journal Op-Ed by Dennis Ross

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