Do you always trust TV news? Does it serve as an irreproachable source of information about world events? Sometimes so, sometimes not. Here is an article by Michael Zaslavsky - an Israeli student and soldier, who is sharing one true story that happened to him and describing how the mass media "covered" that event.

I had a short army duty this summer. We spent three weeks in the West Bank, near one of the Palestinian-controlled towns. It is a complicated region, which includes areas A, B and C (an Arab town, many Arab villages, Jewish settlements and small towns). Our responsibility was to maintain order, ensure security on the roads, control riots, etc. During the service, I witnessed many events and participated in some of them. One was covered by television channels and that's when I realized that news reports are sometimes far from reality.

Our camp was only few kilometers away from one of the most problematic villages in the area. The residents of that village are notorious for stoning Israeli vehicles passing by. There was a bypass road, but it also was not secure enough. Every day we allocated soldiers that should always be on alert in case of riots. One morning I happened to be among them. We were in the middle of daily instructions when our patrol jeep was notified over the radio about a riot in a nearby village. Just a few seconds later, we were on the way. When we arrived, we found at least a hundred Arabs throwing stones and empty bottles and blocking the road. Thank G-d, no Israeli vehicles passed there before we arrived. We were in their village, so they could always get reinforcement and, of course, they knew the place better than we did. Now, guess how many soldiers we had? Fifty? Twenty-five? Wrong! We had twelve (!!!) men, and three of them were drivers. We had three army vehicles that could protect us from stones flying from different directions. We had to keep them at least 50 - 100 meters away in order to be safe. Do you think we opened fire? No, we did not! Only three of us (the commanders) used weapons, not real bullets, of course. We used tear gas and rubber bullets. In a half an hour, they finally retreated from the road.

I remember an interesting episode. We were attacked by stones, and suddenly I saw two or three men throwing stones from behind. One of them picked up a big stone intending to throw it towards us. He was about 70 meters away from me, and he was aware that I saw him. But he did not stop. What do you think I did? No, I did not shoot him. I estimated the danger and decided that warning others about the new direction of attack would be enough.

We still could not allow Israeli vehicles pass there, and when we saw that our presence was no longer needed, we left the village and blocked the way through it from both sides. Arabs could still pass, of course, since they were not attacked. This should have calmed them down eventually. Indeed, two hours later we could reopen the road.

I was in a group of six people, and we blocked a more dangerous side. The smaller group (commander, soldier and jeep driver) blocked the opposite side. Tens of Arabs came out of the village and attacked them with stones. As you understand, the Israelis could not retreat: it would endanger the traffic coming into the village from that direction. On the other hand, they could not let the Arabs get too close to them. Opening fire to keep them away was the only possible solution.

After the riots had gone on for two hours, the journalists appeared. My classmate, who was one of those three at the opposite end of the vilage, was very pleased when they were shown in the evening news on Israeli television and CNN. People who watched the news told us that they saw our commander shooting and the rioters throwing stones. You can often hear such reports. There were no casualties, and the number of injured was not reported. At first, I was disappointed that I did not see myself on TV. But when the disappointment had passed, I started thinking how others could interpret our behavior.

There were only three soldiers surrounded by the mob. Arab reinforcement could arrive any moment, and their numbers could be tens, if not hundreds. They could bring "Molotov cocktails", which are much more dangerous than stones. The fact that soldiers used rubber bullets is often mentioned later, after an impression that real bullets were used was created.

Have you ever heard similar stories in the news reports? If I saw these news with my non-Jewish friends, it would be very embarrassing for me. I do not blame the reporters: they cannot see the situation through the eyes of a soldier. It is much easier for them to understand the Arab viewpoint. Another reason is that they can never arrive in the beginning of an incident when Arabs have a vast majority, and it is clear that the use of weapons is justified. They arrive when the situation is more or less under control, missing the real story. So, next time when you watch a news report from the West Bank, do not trust your first impression. Think for a moment and try to analyze the situation independently. Ask yourself, what has not been shown and why; what happened before the journalists arrived; what was not important enough for them to cover, and whether their comments are reasonable and logical. And try to imagine yourself in this uniform.

Michael Zaslavsky (Израиль)
zaslavsky@new-generation.com