Racism and the North American media following 11 September: the Canadian setting.

IN THE LIVE COVERAGE OF EVENTS in New York and Washington on the morning of 11 September 2001 Canadian media molded the immensely powerful imagery of the tragedy into a concise discourse for Canadian media consumers. Immediately following the World Trade Center's collapse, Canadian television broadcasts and newspaper reportage represented the sentiments of many Canadians by conveying an outpouring of emotional support for Canada's American neighbors--as well as the Canadian victims--in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington. Within the first few hours, in an effort to provide explanation and context for the enormously emotional images transmitted into Canadian homes, trends began to emerge from the coverage as news producers and editors selected what they saw as "the story."

This article will examine Canadian mainstream media over the period of 11 September 2001 through 1 June 2002. Its goal is not definitively to quantify media coverage but rather to point out some major themes and tactics used by the Canadian media in its coverage of events in the United States and the Middle East, and in its analysis of Islam, both political and non-political, following the terrorist attacks.

Attention will be paid to the Canadian media's portrayal of events in Palestine and Iraq, and of issues such as "terrorism" and the politics of the "Islamic world". Primary materials will be taken from the two national daily newspapers, the Globe and Mail and the National Post as well as from other major daily newspapers from across Canada.

COVERAGE PRIOR TO 9-11: CANADIAN MEDIA DEPICTIONS OF THE MIDDLE EAST

On 11 August 2001, under a large photograph depicting the bloodshot eyes and menacing gaze of a young Arab man wearing a red kafiya over his face, in an article entitled "Paranoid Imaginings: Hopes for peace infected by disease of conspiracy," the National Post's Alexander Rose examined what "drives the hate" of the Palestinian/Islamic uprising against Israel. (2) Using materials supplied by the Middle East Media and Research Institute (MEMRI), which was identified as an "independent, non-profit organization" based out of Washington D.C., and the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), Rose proffered the National Post article as a "glimpse [at] what passes for normal, civilized, balanced, rational discourse" by the "cream of Muslim intelligentsia." (3) Evaluating the MEMRI translations of the Arabic press and selected speeches by politicians and clergy, (4) Rose found three major categories of discourse: anti-Semitic, conspiracy-centered, and holocaust denying. Critical focus was also brought to bear on Palestinian schoolbooks for their portrayal of Jewish people and a lack of recognition of the state of Israel. Rose concluded his findings in a resounding critique of the Arab Middle East:

   ... despite all the golden promises of their leaders ...
   Arab countries are poor, oppressed, nervous, pitiful places that
   can only stare enviously at Israel, a country which enjoys a
   standard of living approaching that of Canada. Unlike its
   neighbors, Israel is a thriving noisy democracy with a high-tech
   sector greater in absolute terms than any other country
   apart from the United States. Fifty years ago, that land was a
   desert. It has never lost a war. (5)

Rose put forward a popular orientalist history of the "fall" of Arab and Muslim power from the Middle Ages through to the founding of the state of Israel in 1948. He also asserted that an Arab/Islamic quest for a conspiracy theory to explain the lack of development, poverty and the rise of dictatorial regimes in the Middle East is evidence that the lack of such hallmarks of Western societal development is the fault of the Arabs themselves, and that it represents an intellectual and cultural affliction independent of any external forces.

The underlying analysis driving this reportage is a reactionary and ill-informed vision of the Arab and Islamic worlds. Public accountability has been edged out of the process as the Canadian media is increasingly immune to public review processes, industry or government ombudsmen, and civil society organizations. (6) This has distorted the coverage of complex events such as the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, the conflict in Afghanistan, the struggle between Palestinians and Israelis, and threats of invasion by the U.S. government against Iraq. The events of 11 September were depicted through reductive and racist notions of 'truth' 'fact' and 'reality.' (7) The media in Canada, as reflected in the particularly rabid quote above, do not neutrally report facts and stories on the Middle East, but rather reconstruct reality based on the professional and personal ideologies, corporate interests, and cultural and organizational norms and values. (8) Journalists, editors and producers contribute, consciously or not, to the marginalization and denigration of Arab and Muslim people, and in the process undermine the political legitimacy of Arab people's human rights including the right to self-determination.

Following the end of the Cold War Western societies triumphantly espoused the dawn of a new age, proclaimed a 'new world order' and rapidly expanded existing economic and political programs in what came to be identified as a rapidly globalizing world. Benjamin Barber's Jihad vs. McWorld (1992) and Samuel Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations (1993) put forward a monolithic discourse modifying popularized Cold War notions of the West, and its newly minted adversary, the traditional and collectivist 'other' with special emphasis on the Islamic world. (9) Whatever the theoretical merit of such reductive theories, (10) they do reflect the paradigm of Western policy towards the Middle East for much of the last three centuries. While largely discredited in academic circles, at scholarly conferences and within publications, politicians and political commentators in the mainstream media have utilized and popularized these terms to frame the discussion of political motivations and actions in a classically orientalist fashion following 11 September. Analysis of policy alternatives regarding the Middle East, Islamic revivalism, and terrorism articulated in the Canadian media, offering counsel for either the Canadian or American governments, and elucidation for Canadians, has been filtered through the lenses provided by such esteemed pillars of Anglo-American intelligentsia as Michael Ignatieff (Harvard), John Ralston Saul, (11) Samuel Huntington (Harvard), Bernard Lewis (Princeton), and Fuad Ajami (Johns Hopkins University). The National Post in particular has also made use of American-based spokesmen, lobbyists and members of think tanks such as Daniel Pipes and Frank McCaffrey.

This narrow perspective, predominantly conservative and American in origin, has rendered to Canadians an immensely homogenized Islamic "Arab world" that is characterized by its poverty, dictatorial regimes, draconian human fights record, economic backwardness and social malaise. No mention of the legacy of colonialism is broached, and no analysis of the overt involvement of American and Soviet machinations during the Cold War is incorporated. The absence of such factors leaves the distinct impression that Islamic Arab society, as such, is solely responsible for the current state-of-affairs in the region. That such a succinct estimation could summarize the diversity of geographically heterogeneous societies from Morocco to Afghanistan, and from the Sudan to central Asia defies credible scrutiny. The corollary premises made to distinguish the West, harbor the enshrined hallmarks of advanced civilization. A strong commitment to democracy, human rights, a transparent legal system, liberal capitalist economies, ethical standards of business, and public discourse, are proclaimed as the enlightened and magnanimous societal legacies of the Western tradition. The Canadian media's promotion of the robust sentimentality, and chest-beating glorification of the facets of the Enlightenment (with additional meritorious pilfering from non-Western sources), is used to distinguish 'us' from 'them.' References to that which is most esteemed within the discourse of European and American societies is used as a discursive tool to dehumanize the subject, and thereby allow for the denigration and use of massive violence against the 'other.' Racist notions flourish, and discussion promoting the recourse to force-of-arms is accepted as a viable policy alternative in the face of intransigent societies, and peoples opposed to the dominant societal ethos. Bernard Lewis in particular has advocated a "get tough" policy with the Arab world. The mainstream adoption of such a framework in the discussion of political action is emblematic of the darkest legacies of Europe's imperialist past. (12)

Mark Steyn in a National Post cover story on 9 October 2001 advocated the colonization of Afghanistan, as well as much of the Islamic world, and for the return of the "white man's burden." (13) The implication, that American policies, colonization and military occupation within Arab and Muslim societies was a benign influence, and that further tutoring by the benevolent and advanced West would advance more civilized Arab and Islamic states, is paramount in Steyn's commentary. He further argued that 19th and 20th century European and American policies of indirect rule (as opposed to direct colonization like that in India), and the ongoing support of client governments, "did a great disservice to the populations of those countries." This disservice, he believes, could be rectified by the imposition of direct colonial rule in Arab and Islamic states today. To those who proposed a sophisticated examination of European and U.S. actions in the Middle East, Steyn countered that the "alleged mountain of evidence of Yankee culpability is, in fact, evidence only of the Great Satan's deplorable faintheartedness." (14) As with Barber, Huntington, and Lewis, the dichotomy is asserted, and the condition presented to Canadian readers is one of unavoidable conflict:

   The most unstable parts of the world today are on the
   perimeter between Islam and the infidel--places such as the
   Sudan, where vast numbers of Christians have been
   Slaughtered--and given the vast illegal immigration of
   Muslims into western Europe and elsewhere that perimeter is
   expanding. Afghanistan needs not just food parcels, but
   British courts and Canadian police and Indian civil servants
   and US town clerks and Australian newspapers. So does
   much of the rest of the region. Given the billions of dollars of
   damage done to the world economy by September 11th,
   massive engagement in the region will be cheaper than the
   alternative.

   America has prided itself on being the first non-imperial
   superpower, but the viability of that strategy was
   demolished on September 11th. For its own security, it needs
   to do what it did to Japan and Germany after the war: civilize
   them. It needs to take up (in Kipling's words), "the white
   man's burden," a phrase that will have to be modified in the
   age of Colin Powell and Condi Rice, but whose spirit is
   generous and admirable. (15)

Steyn's condescending concession to the racial sensitivities of African-Americans serving in the Bush White House notwithstanding, the notion that the peoples of the Islamic and Arab societies are in need of "civilizing," and his scheme to attack Islamic teachings and societal achievements through a rampant process of westernization, exemplifies orientalist notions of the powerful dictating to the powerless.

Edward Said succinctly defined his thesis of orientalism and the importance of its use by mainstream media spokesmen to reinforce racial stereotypes in a 2002 Harper's article arguing that:

   ... the original reason for European attempts to deal
   with Islam as if it were one giant entity was polemical--that
   is, Islam was considered a threat to Christian Europe and had
   to be fixed ideologically, the way Dante fixes Muhammad in
   one of the lower circles of hell. Later, as the European
   empires developed over time, knowledge of Islam was
   associated with control, with power, with the need to
   understand the 'mind' and ultimate nature of a rebellious and
   somehow resistant culture us a way of dealing administratively
   with an alien being at the heart of the expanding empires,
   especially those of Britain and France.

   During the Cold War, as the United States vied with
   the Soviet Union for dominance, Islam quickly became a
   national-security concern in America, though until the Iranian
   revolution (and even after it, during the Soviet invasion of
   Afghanistan) the United States followed a path of encouraging
   and actually supporting Islamic political groups, which by
   definition were also anti-Communist and tended to be useful
   in opposing radical nationalist movements supported by the
   Soviets. After the Cold War ended and the United States
   became the "world's only superpower," it soon became
   evident that in the search for new world-scale, outside
   enemies, Islam was a prime candidate, thus quickly reviving
   all the old religiously based cliches about violent,
   antimodernist, and monolithic Islam. These cliches were
   useful to Israel and its political and academic supporters in the
   United States, particularly because of the emergence of
   Islamic resistance movements to Israel's military occupation
   of the Palestinian territories and Lebanon. Suddenly a rush of
   what appeared to be respectably expert material spouted up in
   the periodical press, most of it purporting to link 'Islam' as a
   whole to such absurdly reductive passions as rage,
   antimodernism, anti-Americanism, antirationalism, violence,
   and terror. (16)

Said's Orientalism has provided an unparalleled tool for the analysis of global cultural and political interactions, specifically those which exist between Europe and the formerly colonized territories of the Africa and Asia. Presented in the form of a discourse, the inherent nucleus of Said's argument is that to know something is to have power over it. More so, power relationships turn this relationship around, and allow the powerful to establish the terms and parameters by which they "know" the world.

For the purpose of understanding Western interactions with the Islamic or Arab "other"--a nebulous entity made up of the dozens of ethnicities, languages, cultures and religions found in North Africa, the Middle East, Central and Southern Asia--that knowledge, and the power it buttress,' become significant. The large number of sophisticated social, economic and political challenges faced by Middle Eastern societies is not depicted in media renditions of the region. However, the discourse presented in Western mainstream news media, as well as that in movies and other popular entertainment's rendering of Islamic and Arab peoples all factors into Canadians understanding. That Islamic and Arab people face many of the same challenges as Canadians, strive for similar goals, and share a respect for peaceable lives with the potential for social and economic betterment, should be an idea a distinctly multicultural Canadian society not only shares but endorses. That Canadians have been provided a singularly reductive view of over one billion fellow human beings can only represent a gross fading on the part of the Canadian media.

A positive corrective appeared in the form of a commentary by David Hirst in the Globe and Mail on 9 October 2001. Entitled "Bin Laden appeals to Arab frustration, not religious values," Hirst persuasively depicted bin Laden as not the voice of "Islam," but rather as the leader of a disaffected political organization, willing to use violence to pursue a self-appointed agenda for reform within the Islamic societies of the Arab Middle East. Hirst clearly outlined how for bin Laden:

   ... this is a clash of civilizations, "the decisive war
   between the faith and the global impiety." But, though his
   address was couched in the imagery of uncompromising
   Islamism, he did not belabor his doctrines and beliefs. Those
   beliefs have only a limited appeal to the Arab people. In fact
   --as Mr. bin Laden knows--a great many of them pine for
   those ideals of democracy and freedom that the US stands for.

   What Arab and Muslim people really object to is that,
   thanks to the repressive and corrupt regimes that Washington
   has supported, they have been deprived of [democratic
   freedoms]. They also object to the way in which, in their eyes,
   the US tramples on the self-determination of peoples,
   especially when those people are Palestinian. (17)

In spite of the heinous attacks on innocent Americans, Hirst points out that bin Laden's appeal speaks to a populist sentiment curtailed by U.S.-sponsored repressive regimes. That "in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf, Mr. bin Laden commands a sneaking sympathy that extends beyond his own, ultra-orthodox Islamist constituency. What he says represents what many people there want to say and can't." (18) Hirst's effort was followed by that of Thomas Homer-Dixon, entitled "Why Root Causes are Important," Homer-Dixon called for the "need to be able to make crucial distinctions ... between culpability and innocence, combatant and non-combatant, and the legitimate and illegitimate uses of force," within the public discourse following 11 September. (19) He went on to berate fellow commentators that "declare that any discussion of root causes legitimizes terrorism by making excuses for it," (20) dismissing such notions, and contending that a distinction could, and must, be made between explanation and responsibility for the attacks. He further charged his interlocutors with avoiding such examinations for fear of where they might lead, the inference being that a true exposition of Muslim and Arab political sentiments and grievances would affect North American public opinion, and effectively alter governmental policies in the democratic decision-making process. He urged readers to look beyond the explanations prevalent in the mainstream media, asserting that issues, such as "the structure and functioning of the planet's economy, politics, and society," (21) commonly examined when other regions of the globe were discussed were ignored by the mainstream media when the Middle East was examined. He proffered that those who committed the acts of terror were not simply, "depraved, mad, or the product of a particularly wicked sub-culture of radical Islam," and that more sophisticated factors were predominant.

   In the Middle East and South Asia, they include a
   demographic explosion that has produced a huge bulge of
   urbanized, unemployed young men--the most dangerous
   social group of all, according to many social scientists. They
   also include environmental stresses--especially shortages of
   cropland and fresh water--that have crippled farming in the
   countryside and forced immense numbers of people into
   squalid urban slums, where they are easy fodder for fanatics.
   The impact of these factors is compounded by chronic conflict
   (including the Israeli/Palestinian and Afghan conflicts) that
   have shattered economies and created vast refugee camps; by
   the region's corrupt, incompetent, and undemocratic
   governments, and by an international political and economic
   system that's [sic] more concerned about Realpolitik, oil
   supply, and the interests of global finance than about the wellbeing
   of the region's human beings.

   The receptivity of young men to terror's radical
   message is enormously increased by this legacy of conflict,
   dislocation, and-yes--poverty in the region. From the
   refugee camps in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province to
   the squalid streets of Gaza, we have ignored--for far too long
   --festering wounds of discontent. (22)

Mathew Ingram, while not sympathetic to the motivations of the attackers or the societies from which they came, penned a Globe and Mail article highlighting the role of U.S. oil policy as an inducement to the reactionary elements of the Muslim and Arab states of the Middle East. (23) Ingram noted that bin Laden was "only the latest in a series of Middle Eastern figures who have become public enemy number one as a result of U.S. oil policy." Ingram quoted John Sigler, Professor of political science at Carleton University, who stated that U.S. justifications for the deployment of military forces in Saudi Arabia, such as the threat posed by Iraq following the Gulf War, were "largely a fiction." (24)

The reductive view provided by Canadian media of the Muslim faith and the people who practice it is similarly defective. Islam and events in Arab states are generally only portrayed or examined in mainstream Canadian media when they affect Canadians, or arise as stories examining staggering events of (often political) violence. The sensationalist coverage made in the public discourse within Canada equates Islam with terrorism, Palestinians with gunmen, and profession of the Islamic faith with fundamentalism. (25) The "expert" analysis provided by North American news media frequently depicts Muslims and Arabs as a monolithic community, by hastily retreating to opinions based upon the study of the Quran, and the various schools of legal interpretation arising from Islamic legal and philosophical scholarship, and bedu tribal society. Such a diagnosis of how the people living in Muslim and Arab societies are politically informed, the assertion that their motivations are solely from teachings of Quaranic origin, and that socio-religious factors predispose Muslims to the indiscriminate use of political violence dominate media coverage. That socio-economic forces, other than fundamentalist renderings of Islam or 10th century Arab tribalism could affect Muslim or Arab political action is ignored. (26) The French scholar Maxime Rodinsun identified such referencing of Islamic theology in Western academia, when used to interpret any action taken by Muslims or Arabs, as theologocentrism. (27)

Like any other religion, Islam clearly holds a central place in the lives of those who choose to adhere to its precepts. This is most certainly true in Middle Eastern culture broadly, and in the political discourse in Arab society in particular. However, it is as misleading to identify any Arab state or political movement as being representative of Islam and its teachings, as it would be to reduce Christianity to a single Protestant church, or Judaism to the interpretations of any single Rabbi. By doing so the "expert" media commentary renders any possible understanding of Islam gleamed from the Canadian media, indecipherable and impaired. The discourse promoting a monolithic Islam in conflict with a monolithic West exists in both the West and the Middle East in the teachings of many Islamic activists and right wing (often-Christian orientated) opinion leaders in North America. Statements repeatedly referring to the Christian crusaders who occupied the land of the holy places in Arabia, the loss of Muslim Andalusia (Moorish Spain) to Christendom, and the depraved and evil actions of the West to dispossess the Palestinian and Iraqi peoples of their freedom, litter the speeches and statements of Osama bin Laden and other Islamic fundamentalists. Thus, the reduction and identification of the policies and past acts of the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom, or of Western Christendom generally, reflects theologoism successfully transformed into the reactionary political vision of many Islamic political actors who oppose corrupt and ineffectual Arab states. Put simply, the interpretive vitriol of Islamic activists can better be understood in terms of their political and economic roots. Similarly, the motivations of Christian fundamentalists in America are also frequently cultivated from the derivation of social, economic, and political circumstances particular to U.S. political culture. Indeed, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, in characterizing events such as the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, (28) and again with 11 September, proceeded to characterize events in terms of a "good vs. evil" and "Christendom under siege," highly reductive language. (29) That the vitriol contained within the calls to action, by religious fundamentalists in many societies, has spawned violent action should be seen as a tactical decision for political gain, rather than evidence of any proclivity for violence inherent within any particular religion.

Nonetheless, such reductive notions are repeatedly reinforced in the media, both in Canada and the United States, as "experts" on Islam are given pride of place in mainstream investigations of events as varied as the Gulf War in 1991, the World Trade Center bombings in 1993, and suicide bombings in Palestine and Israel. American calls for a cleansing of Islam from the violent interpretation provided by oppositional Islamist movements throughout the international Muslim community, bluntly appear as attacks on the broader cultural traditions and societal mores that make up Middle Eastern society. Regimes in states as diverse as Algeria, Lebanon, Iraq, the Philippines and Afghanistan are presently challenged by inspired and elaborately equipped Islamist opposition groups. Arab regimes, and the people of the Middle East, are encouraged to remove the constraints, as interpreted by Western leaders and commentators that Islam has conferred upon their societies. However, Canadian and American political leaders, intellectuals, and the English-speaking media do not similarly stress the religious orientation or numerous references to the Christian faith by Canadian, American, or British political and opinion leaders. Such language and imagery are not seen as bearing on the political decisions emanating from Ottawa, Washington, and London. Political violence by the IRA, pro-life activists who bomb abortion clinics or assassinate medical professionals are not seen as being archetypal or even representative of the Christian faith. Groups as diverse as the Branch Davidians, the Unification Church, the People's Temple or any other aberrant Christian theological groups are usually dismissed and not given the legitimacy of having their views espoused and analyzed by experts in the media. Such an examination, in reality would only legitimize such groups' beliefs as being within the cannon of Western Christendom. That Christian phraseology and references are common in Canadian and American political discourse is not seen as relevant, while religious references by Arab political leaders are highlighted within translations by experts within mainstream media. The theologocentrism evident in Canadian media has emerged from a long history of similar views in Western Europe and the United States that have contextualized Islam as a threat to its civilization.

WAR AS THE SOLUTION: JUSTICE OR VENGEANCE?

The Canadian media response to 11 September was, like that in the United States, sensational and emotional with persistent calls for the use of military force to bring about justice. Such calls, especially in lieu of the absence of an enemy state, or opposing military force, were nothing short of highly repetitive warmongering wrapped within a clamoring desire for vengeance. The Globe and Mail carried a prodigious headline on 12 September 2001, characterizing the previous day's tragedy as "A Day of Infamy." This unabashed use of U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's words that followed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 identified the terrorist acts as being commensurate with a traditional act of war. The media drum-beating saw the adoption of bellicose and jingoistic banners across television screens and in newspaper headlines across North America. "Attack on America," "America Fights Back," "America's New War," as well as the use of U.S. military operational codenames such as "Operation Infinite Justice," and "Operation Enduring Freedom," were reminiscent of media coverage of the 1991 Gulf War and "Operation Desert Storm."

Increasingly concerns have been voiced regarding media reliance on the military, and the popularization of military life and mentality identified as "militiamen." Media in North America, and their international colleagues, have had their freedom to cover conflicts involving the United States military incrementally curtailed in the post-Vietnam era. Initially limited to the reliance on military accreditation for access to conflict zones, media now depend on government and military briefings, inside contacts, and professional press kits in order to construct the basic information on which their coverage of events is based. This reliance on government and military sources is made more inhibitive due to the increasing technological expertise required to depict and discern the efficacy of military actions. (30) With the onset of the Bush administration's "war on terror" critics have identified a desire by the U.S. government and the administration to reach audiences, both within the United States and internationally, with a positive portrayal of U.S. government policies and the use of military force. While U.S. news programming adopted a patriotic viewpoint from the moment of the attacks, with TV newscasts framed in electronic bunting and newscasters adding American flag pins to their lapels, the administration and Pentagon nonetheless remained wary of media criticisms of the war effort. Through vehicles of popular culture, predominantly movies and television programs, the Pentagon has increasingly supported and embraced stories and plots centered on military life and engagements. Dubbed the military-entertainment complex the entertainment media saw the cooperation between the industry and the military as a new twist on reality TV. The focus was on sending reality TV to war, which of course required a military escort, one the Pentagon was more than happy to provide if it was given some discretion over production. Generally the military was allowed to screen episodes to ensure they did not give away operational or intelligence secrets, and some programming acquiesced in giving them final say as to a program going to air. Examples include movies such as Blackhawk Down and The Sum of All Fears, which are to be joined by television broadcasts including ABC's Profiles from the Front Line, (31) that will tell the personal stories of soldiers in Afghanistan, the Philippines, and beyond, VH1's Military Diaries which has provided more than 60 soldiers with cameras who will record their days away from the U.S. and talk about how music helps them cope, and CBS's AFP: American Fighter Pilot, which follows three F-15 pilots through training and then on operations around the globe. (32) In such dramatic presentations the Pentagon trades access to military equipment and expertise--added realism--in return for editorial inputs to plotlines that positively endorse military engagements. This positive portrayal of the military further curtails dissent by making criticism appear not only unpopular, but unpatriotic. Furthermore, the gushing presentation of popular young movie stars portraying U.S. forces in heroic combat instills support for militarism. This phenomenon has been coined as "militiamen" and clearly the military commitment is representative of their belief that such efforts will increase public support. (33)

The headlines and analysis within Canadian media coverage increasingly asserted the bellicose line of the U.S. administration. (34) Culpability for the murders in New York was broadened rapidly as Southam's Lorne Gunter wrote "... retaliatory measures should be brutal against those directly involved, as well as against those, like, for example, the Afghan government if bin Laden is responsible...." Scant mention was made of the affect of bombing on the people of Afghanistan as media coverage increasingly attempted to outdo competitors in an effort to appear increasingly belligerent against the perpetrators of the attacks. (35) Such coverage was apparent across the media's ideological spectrum. Marcus Gee of the Globe and Mail wrote that the U.S. wrath would "shake the world" and that readers should "expect an all-out war on terrorism that will almost certainly include some kind of US military strike. Expect a far more assertive United States, far more willing to throw its weight around and far less likely to listen to the doubts of its allies on the United Nations." A Toronto Star editorial on 12 September characterized the attacks as "... an unparalleled act of barbarism that Americans took as an act of war...."

Investigative reports and exposes appraising Islamic radicals built on past reportage portraying Arabs as terrorists, as well as examining the resolve and invincibility of the Mujahideen in Afghanistan in their war against the Soviet Union. The new enemy in Afghanistan was made out to be a fierce fighting force, just as Saddam Hussein's "third largest army in the world" was depicted as a credible adversary prior to the Gulf War, and Iraq's "elite" Republican Guard has been ever since 1991. Stephen Handelman wrote in the Toronto Star on 12 September that "[the] US administration will have to mobilize effectively for war against an enemy that has proved himself as well-organized and as efficient as any this country has seen before."

The assumption of the Canadian media was that the United States would respond with overwhelming military force. George W. Bush's pronouncement that "Every nation in every region, now has a decision to make ... either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists" divided the world into choosing between pro-U.S, and anti-U.S, camps. (36) The media put, even longstanding allies such as Canada, on the spot in the face of increased U.S. unilateralism. (37) Faced with the expected reality that the U.S. would act unilaterally, regardless of the positions adopted or objections of other members of the international community, Canadian media opinion strongly endorsed Canadian support and participation in the impending war. The Ottawa Citizen's Graham Greene, opined "... the United States needs to know that its allies will stand with it, including militarily, if its retaliatory actions provoke a wider conflict." (38)

Responding to the media swell, Canadian Defense Minister Art Eggleton stated, "I think [Canada is] going to play a major role, a frontline role" in any military strike against terrorism. However, media responses categorically lamented the reduction of the Canadian military to a "helpless bystander" through "decades of government negligence." (39) Prime Minister Jean Chretien, when conferring with the U.S. administration following the attacks, endorsed the inclusion of Canadian forces in a combat role in Afghanistan, a commitment which led to the first deployment of Canadian forces in combat since the Korean War. Canadian forces were to work alongside U.S. forces in hunting down remnants of Al-Qaeda and the former ruling Taliban militia, rather than in their traditional peacekeeping role. However, Canadian commitments in the military campaign were overshadowed by pressure from the United States to tighten their shared borders, increase military spending, and integrate itself further into a continental military defense by joining a Pentagon proposed "continental command." (40) Such speculation raised concerns of diminishing Canadian sovereignty. Former Foreign Affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy argued "The more we tie ourselves to U.S. military decision-making, the more we will inevitably compromise the ability of the Canadian government to pursue approaches that reflect our distinctive views of the world and Canada's role in it." (41)

The Canadian media essentially parroted the U.S. administration in attributing the event to a faceless and shadowy "threat." While the guilt or innocence of Osama bin Laden and the Al-Qaeda organization he led was seemingly unquestionable. This was largely as a result of the sheer volume of media scrutiny condemning bin Laden and Al-Qaeda portraying him as the only possible culprit, while obscuring any other possible suspects. In its reportage, the media either ignored or dispensed with international law, along with the presumption of innocence until proven guilty in a court of law. (42) In so doing it failed to serve its traditional role within democratic societies of questioning the potential abuse of power within government. Further, this unquestioning support closed opportunities for the formulation of any potential Canadian response or critique of the potential broadening of the conflict to include a U.S. attack against Iraq. When questioned about Canadian participation in such an effort, Prime Minister Jean Chretien stated that the determination of any Canadian participation in any attack against Iraq would be made by Canada alone. When Chretien told reporters during a trade mission in Berlin "We decide what we are doing with our troops," (43) reports immediately surfaced that Condoleeza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser, called Claude Laverdure, Chretien's foreign affairs and defense adviser for a clarification of the Canadian position. (44)

Canadian media, in effect, found itself under the influence of media from the United States, and largely was left without the capacity to respond to increasingly bellicose U.S. media calls that ran counter to traditional Canadian political values. For example, when The Washington Times decided it was "Time To Use The Nuclear Option," and U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, spoke of "ending states who sponsor terrorism," the Canadian media was mute. Confined within a self-imposed "us vs. them" mindset, Canada's print and television media failed to respond to increasing U.S. militancy, who increasingly broadened the conflict in its pursuit of the perpetrators. James Winter in his book MediaThink has argued that the media's failure to question government policies "may mean simply overlooking some things, or suffering from apparent historical amnesia, or adhering to what George Orwell called the "prevailing orthodoxy." (45) When, contrary to the Geneva Conventions, American policy-makers and media advocated pursuing civilian targets, Canadian media adopted the U.S. characterization of the confrontation in civilizational terms, and failed to voice disapproval of the expected abuse of human rights in far off lands. (46)

The expansion of such commentary was a clear consequence of the oversimplification and reductive characterization of the "threat" posed by Al-Qaeda. The attack in New York was portrayed not as an attack on buildings but as assaults on the civilized world itself. (47) The U.S. was portrayed not as another country, but as the representative of enlightenment values such as freedom and democracy, as the representative of civilization itself. The Windsor Star editorialized:

   The real targets of the hijackers and their flying
   bombs were freedom, democracy, and capitalism.... It is time
   to draw a line in the sand. On one side lies democracy,
   individual freedom, and the capitalism that makes the two
   most essential qualities of life possible. On the other side lies
   terrorism. (48)

The Toronto Star added, "The assault on America is a threat to every civilized nation;" (49) and The Ottawa Citizen proclaimed, "this was not just an attack on American targets or U.S. citizens. It was a well-planned and deliberate attack on the very essence of all truly democratic countries." (50) Thus, within days of the attacks, it was already conventional wisdom within the Canadian media that everything had changed. This broadening of the threat posed by the perpetrators, to include in its purview the entire Western world, including the United States, Canada and Europe, as well as the ideals of the enlightenment which in form western civilization, raised the attacks from terrorist incidents, to a to a global conflict and then to a clash of civilizations. The result of such spurious argumentation has been the promotion of the policies advocated by the U.S. administration and a distinction between "us" and "them". It has also led to increased discrimination against minority groups within Canadian society, and to a dehumanization of the victims of the conflict's military engagements in Afghanistan and beyond.

Evident by its absence within the media's analysis was any formulation explaining the motivations of the terrorists themselves, or an examination of why anyone in the world would have such antipathy towards the government of the United States. The Toronto Star pronounced that, "It was done without warning, not in response to American aggression but as an act of aggression in itself." (51) While previous terrorist incidents bad been identified and prosecuted as criminal acts, for which authorities deemed the appropriate response was to be legal rather than militaristic, the new "war on terror" was to be prosecuted as a military campaign. The 11 September event was depicted as an unprovoked attack, which had brought about the war that was to follow. Thus, while the act was identified as a provocative call to arms and labeled a war by the media and the Bush administration alike, the response to it would not be identified as such. Further, by not defining the war on terror in legal terms, the terrorists themselves were denied any legal rights under international or domestic law. (52)

That there was any discontent with U.S. foreign policy transgressions was greeted with hostile and condescending dismissals. Arguments that the attacks represented a backlash against U.S. aggression or economic exploitation were also dismissed out-of-hand as the delusional anti-American rants of leftists and oppositional voices of the developing world. (53) For example, Margaret Wente of the Globe and Mail, wrote:

   Those who are responsible are most likely men from
   remote desert lands. Men from ancient tribal cultures built on
   blood and revenge. Men whose unshakable beliefs and
   implacable hatreds go back many centuries farther than the
   United States and its young ideas of democracy, pluralism,
   and freedom.... Men capable ... of giving up their lives for the
   greater glory of Allah ... Men.... with the implacable
   determination of fanatics. (54)

The Globe and Mail editorialized, "This is a show of power and strength. It is a show of cold-hearted brutality perpetrated by fanatics who have discarded all pretence of humanity or morality." (55) No-matter what their foreign political cause, their campaign has now lost all international support and legitimacy." (56)

The Canadian media, justifiably outraged by the crime against humanity carried out by the 11 September terrorists, dismissed any argument or acknowledgement of the grievances expressed by groups throughout the non-Western world. Critics of U.S. policies were dismissed as terrorist sympathizers. Jealousy was espoused as the primary motive of those who would criticize the United States. The grievances they expressed were portrayed as, at best, excuses for their hatred of the United States and all that it stood for. (57) The accompanying reductionist view of what the West generally, and the United States in particular, represented undermined dissent and opposing views. Freedom, democracy, liberal individualism, market-based economic growth and advanced technology were opposed by tribal fanatics who adhered to an exotic religion that required elementary explanation for Western media consumers. (58) This reversion to theologocentrism and orientalist versions of Islam and Muslim peoples obscured any possible rational examination of legitimate grievances, and therefore of an understanding of non-Western, non-American outlooks of the contemporary global political environment. In dismissing the grievances of the non-Western world as part-and-parcel of the egregious crimes of the terrorists, the media denigrated and dismissed the legitimate grievances expressed by many in the non-Western world. (59) Furthermore, by reducing the genesis of the terrorist acts to a fictitious religious derivation, all Muslims would thereafter be suspect. Thus, grievances were not seen as the product of an international political environment, including a unique historical experience, where there are profound divisions between rich and poor, and where wealth and power are concentrated resulting in an immense power imbalance.

THE IMPACT ON IMMIGRANTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES

In response to the attacks in New York and Washington, much of the focus of Canadian media coverage quickly turned from the attacks themselves to an examination of the alleged perpetrators, and by extension the actions and beliefs of immigrants and visible minorities within Canadian society. (60) While the racist notions inherent within the denigration of Canada's immigration policies were supported by calls in the media to target those originating from Muslim and Arab countries for security purposes, long-standing commitments to civil liberties enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms were ignored. National Post columnist Jonathan Kay singled out Muslim and Arab Canadians:

   We should not pretend that an effective fight against
   terrorism [in Canada] can be waged in a truly color-blind
   fashion. The fact is, those who plot the annihilation of our
   civilization are of one religion and, almost without exception,
   one race. Yet admitting this is a problem for Mr. Chretien ...
   Multiculturalism is a relativistic creed that assumes all
   immigrant cultures are equally tolerant, civilized and
   enlightened once you scratch the surface ... (61)

The attack on Canadian immigration policy was couched within fears of the alien, the fanatical outsider, the Muslim newcomer who was unaccustomed to the freedoms and tolerance of Western civilization. The National Post in particular, continually charged immigrants of the Muslim faith with treasonous acts. The National Post's George Jonas played on the growing fears of Canadians that the violence in New York and Washington could visit them in Canada, carried out by people living within theft own community "... We have to fear our neighbors down the street ... a degree of ethnic or religious profiling is unavoidable ... Though few of our neighbors are terrorists, some are sympathizers. They provide the culture in which fifth columns grow ..." (62) The stereotype was not altogether new, as similar castigation of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War saw them interred in camps, and past criticisms of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) for its intimidation and harassment of Canadian Muslims during the 1991 Gulf War saw them characterized as objects of suspicion in Canada's media. (63)

The radical Islamist, who only came to Canada to use its porous borders in an effort to conduct violent attacks against the United States, or support those who wished to do so, emerged as a common synopsis. On 15 October 2001 an editorial in the National Post argued, "a small but substantial number of Canadian Muslims and Arabs are willing to assist terrorist operations." (64) On 31 October 2001 a National Post editorial announced that "... Muslims decided that religion overrode ties of citizenship ... so many Muslims use religion to define friend and foe." (65) Canadians were assured by the National Post that the abandonment of traditional Canadian social mores of tolerance and the rule of law were acceptable in the persecution of the war on terror. The Post argued "it is hard to get worked up about the occasional slur directed against North American Muslims ... Indeed there is something offensive about the tear-drenched press releases issued by North American Muslim organizations ...." (66)

Such reportage directed Canadian fears and anger regarding the attacks in New York and Washington against the entire Muslim and Arab community. The opening caveat of "the Muslim community is not to blame" was generally followed by a merciless reductionism that characterized all Muslim and Arab Canadians as within the enemy camp. Calls were rampant for the federal government to tighten up on immigration policy, and to deport without delay those deemed a threat. Stewart Bell of the National Post said, "Through negligence and indifference, the Canadian government has permitted virtually every major terrorist organization to operate within its borders.... Canada's vulnerability to infiltration by terrorists is deeply entrenched. Its refugee laws are probably the most lax in the Western world." (67) This characterization denigrated all immigrants, and long-standing Canadian commitments to refugees.

Editorially, the National Post went even further, stating "Canada has a porous staging area and conduit for terrorist conspiracies in the past. The Canadian government should not wait until U.S. authorities complete their investigation. They need to reform our immigration, refugee and visitor entry procedures now." The National Post was not alone in its xenophobic pursuit of the alien terrorist. The Globe and Mail editorialized that, in spite of the federal government's overhaul of Canada's immigration rules in 2001, they "should review the issue again with particular focus on the new war on terrorism." (68) As the legislation resulting from the 2001 review was still before the Canadian Senate, pressure was exerted to compact the planned five weeks of debate on the new legislation into four days. Initial attention was #oven to the possibility that the terrorists had crossed into the United States from a Canadian border crossing, an argument that--without any evidentiary basis--gave credence to those calling for harsher measures and increased security in Canada. In a National Post column, George Jonas raised the specter of "... the threat of militant Islam, where fifth columns of theofascist storm troopers have infiltrated Western democracies ..." (69)

Within the context of criticism of government policy, the media singled out Arab and Muslim Canadians as being different. The lack of context, and the racist notions informing the reportage supplied those wishing to abet retribution with ample latitude. Attacks on innocent Muslims following 11 September saw mosques vandalized and shot at, young student harassed by classmates in school, and individuals accosted in public. Several incidents were reported, in Oakville, Ontario where five school children with Arabic-sounding names were assaulted. (70) However, the violence, misdirected against innocent Canadian Muslims within the context of the reductive anti-Muslim and anti-Arab representations of their community in the Canadian media, was also extended to other immigrant groups. Southam newspapers ran a wire service story which stated "Those who look like Muslims--but aren't--say they are suffering from angry fellow Americans." (71)

While it was also incumbent on the government to gauge Canadian preparedness, should an event akin to that of 11 September occur on Canadian soil, it was not necessary to focus such measures on domestic sources of political dissent and more conspicuously on the rights of Canadian immigrant communities, especially those of visible minorities. This increased focus on security and Canada's role as a partner in North American defense was increasingly focused on, in the interests of the United States, without any publicly recognized source of a threat against Canadians. (72) The expansion of security and police powers, and the effect upon civil liberties was a story, largely uncovered in the hyperbole and charged atmosphere following 11 September, which left Muslim and Arab Canadians, and those speaking out against government policy, open to public censure.

Canada passed new draconian anti-terrorism legislation that defined terrorism so broadly as to threaten the legitimate organization of protests against government policy, private corporate power, and globalization as embodied in the demonstrations against the World Bank and IMF popularized in Seattle, Prague, Genoa and Quebec City. The legislation (Bill C-36) was broadly designed, dealing with issues as diverse as immigration, charitable donations, privacy, trial fairness and arbitrary preventive arrest. While the government was forced to withdraw and redraft the legislation following the successful mobilization of Canadian civil society, the vilification and demonization of those who dissent, and the criminalization of dissent, challenged Canadian civil liberties to a degree not witnessed since the War Measures Act was imposed in 1970 during the FLQ crisis. (73)

THE THOBANI CASE: INTOLERANCE FOR DISSENT

One of the most striking illustrations of the media's repudiation of those expressing views contrary to the dominant discourse occurred through the vilification and denigration of Sunera Thobani. Thobani called for peace and compassion for all victims of politically motivated violence when speaking at an Ottawa conference on violence against women. (74) She expressed opposition to colonialism, imperialism, U.S. foreign policy, and the war which the U.S. was preparing to launch against Afghanistan and beyond--identified as the "war on terror." Speaking in her capacity as a professor at the University of British Columbia; Thobani stated that the United States was "the most dangerous and most powerful global force unleashing horiffic levels of violence," and that US foreign policy was "soaked in blood." Referring to the enormous pain and suffering caused by the 11 September attacks, she asked, "do we feel any pain for the victims of US aggression?"

The Canadian media attacked her position by vilifying her personally for her feminist views (Thobani is former president of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women in Canada [NAC] as well as for being an immigrant.) The media further condemned her for questioning the policies of the United States government following 11 September, finding such questions tactless, and her ideas "hateful and manipulative." Thobani was abused editorially as "vicious" and "hate-filled," and her receptive audience as "collected wing-nuts."

Politicians made public their derision. Gordon Campbell, premier of the Canadian province of British Columbia, characterized Thobani's remarks as "hateful destructive and very disturbing," and the rightist Alliance Party leader Stockwell Day said it was "unacceptable" for Thobani "to be saying the things that she did ... at taxpayers' expense" as the conference had received government funding. The Globe's Margaret Wente suggested that Thobani was "stupid and morally bankrupt" and blithely argued that the freedom enjoyed by Thobani to deliver her speech at the conference negated her assertion that women were oppressed. Wente went on to voice a common refrain that if Thobani, or those who share her views, are so loathing of the United States foreign policy, "why don't they live under the totalitarian despotic regime of their choice." (75) Ross Mclennan of the Winnipeg Sun went so far as to call Thobani a "hysterical spittle-spewing ... feminist, equivalent to the Taliban." (76) Christie Blatchford, in the National Post argued that the opinions expressed by Thobani reflected the thinking of "those who actually run the country" ... the "ruling elite." (77) The speech was even investigated by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) following an anonymous complaint for potential violation of section 319 of the Canada Criminal code--inciting hatred against an identifiable group. (78) The criminal investigation was dropped, but its initiation sent a warning to others who could potentially speak out against the dominant orthodoxy in the war on terror. (79)

In reporting the Thobani story the media played to racial and anti-immigrant sentiments. Reporting that Thobani was an immigrant from Tanzania, made it clear that she came to Canada from "somewhere else" that was far away from Canada. The assumption is that immigrants are lucky, should be grateful for Canadian hospitality, and are not true Canadians. (80) While many in the media postulated that theft criticisms were based on the insensitivity and timing of Thobani's speech, the inclusion and focus on her immigration to Canada and position as a non-white voice making strong public commentary, her feminist political convictions, including a deep concern for those dying at the hands of political violence the world over and not just those who were murdered on 11 September, created controversy rather than bringing attention to the issues. (81)

THE EVILS OF TERRORISM AND THE CONNECTION WITH ISRAEL

North American media not only played to racial and anti-minority sentiments, but also portrayed a threat to Canadian society and well-being out of all proportion with events following 11 September. Canadians were led to believe further attacks were imminent, would be of increasing intensity, and that they would be targeted as Westerners. Moreover, reportage consistently equated the emotional fears and sense of loss and vulnerability felt by many Canadians following 11 September with those of the people of Israel. The sense of foreboding and vulnerability facing Israeli civilians was highlighted, especially in the National Post, as commentators and stories emotively illustrated the effects of the intifada, and especially the horrific devastation of suicide bombings, on the Israeli populace. Israeli fatalities and injured were often named, and the locations and activities they were carrying out at the time of the attacks lent not only sympathy but also an intimate awareness, connecting readers with Israelis who were attacked while shopping, eating pizza dancing in a nightclub, riding a bus or attending a family meal. This intimacy obliged Canadians to identify with the slain.

Innocents slain through suicide bombings are clearly recognized as victims under any understanding of the Western cannon of ethics. Indeed, the targeting and murder of civilian non-combatants is not accepted in any legal, moral or ethical code the world over. However, Palestinians, who were living under military rule, were being killed at horrific levels through clashes with the IDF, and more so due to the routine incursions and permanent occupation of refugee camps and towns. Innocent Palestinian victims were not afforded the same intimate depictions as their Israeli neighbors. Within the Canadian media, mention of the misery and sufferings of the Palestinian people were perfunctory at best in comparison. Palestinians, many living in squalid conditions in refugee camps, have been forced to endure an endless occupation now entering its thirty-fifth year. The daily encumbrance and humiliation of military checkpoints, arrest without charge, inability to move freely from one Palestinian town or area to another, curfews, and periodic household searches have devastated an already anemic Palestinian economy, and had untold consequences on the social fabric of an entire society. (82) Palestinians, Iraqis and victims of U.S. bombings in Afghanistan, have remained largely ignored in media coverage, and concerns raised regarding their well-being are usually dismissed. Media coverage in Canada, suspiciously and with singular devotion, has focused, not on the human toll of increasing levels of hostility, but rather focused on the use of terror by Arab and Islamic political organizations. The predicament endured by civilians faced with aerial bombardment, the concomitant devastation of societal infrastructure, economic ruin, prospects of migration and a future as a refugee, as well as the pernicious and spiraling increased use of violence by other political, religious and ethnic groups within Afghani, Iraqi, or Palestinian society in the face of such trenchant social dislocation, is not examined.

The coverage of Israel, its policies in the Occupied Territories and its military operations abroad, have been a sensitive matter since the founding of the Jewish state. (83) The events of 11 September provided an opportunity for the Israeli government of Ariel Sharon to portray the Palestinian intifada as the equal of the attacks on New York and Washington. With the United States now aggressively pursuing Islamic militants across the globe, using military means to address an egregious attack on civilian targets in New York, Israel set out to portray itself as facing a similar adversary, thereby justifying similar retaliation. (84) Media coverage in Canada was ebullient in its attempts to depict Israel in such a fashion. (85) Israeli victims were sketched in a fashion stimulating empathy while Palestinian victims remained largely unmentioned. The National Post and the rest of the Southam newspapers have maintained their editorial policy of not criticizing Israel, while the Globe and Mail has provided coverage that endeavored to provide balance through an approach that produced articles depicting "both sides" in practically equivalent column inches. This more balanced approach however failed to provide an over-riding analysis and led to criticisms from pro-Israeli commentators of the "moral equivalency" between terrorists and Israelis, (86) and from defenders of Palestinians, of the Globe and Mail's egregiously failing to depict the humanitarian devastation meted out on Palestinian society.

When Israeli actions garnered criticism from civil society and states in the international community, the Canadian media deflected the admonitions with coverage, either attacking the merits of Israeli interlocutors, or through presentation of the rationale that such criticisms were unwarranted during such a perilous time. (87) When Israel reoccupied West Bank towns a barrage of criticism from the international community was met with strong defense of Israel. Christie Blatchford argued in the National Post that the "lesson" of 11 September was being ignored by "the rest of the civilized world" as the United Nations Security Council passed resolution 1402 (30 March 2002) calling for Israel to withdraw from the West Bank. (88) She stated that 11 September brought:

   ... instantaneous recognition that terrorism knew no
   boundaries and could come to any shores; that it required a
   hard, fast response (and one came from everywhere that
   mattered except Canada ...); an immediate kinship with
   Israelis and the stuff of their daily lives. (89)

Blatchford, in addressing critiques of U.S. foreign policy asserted that "whatever the previous foreign policy wrongs by the United States, they did not warrant or justify the slaughter of innocent civilians. (90)

However, the slaughter of innocent civilians was precisely what was then occurring in Palestine and Israel in March and April 2002. While the toll of suicide bombers was given ample coverage, the open fighting between Israeli military forces and Palestinians defending their homes was virtually ignored. The argument advanced was that innocent Palestinians who are killed, maimed and injured are (albeit sadly) tolerable sacrifices in the war on terror. That Israeli victims were to be mourned and avenged however was a common refrain. During this period, when the international community called for reswaint on the part of both Palestinians and Israelis, highlighting a respect for innocent victims, no-matter their ethnicity, religion or citizenship, the Canadian media vociferously called on the Canadian government to support further Israeli actions. (91)

Even the reductive analysis common in past reportage of Palestinian activists was increasingly abandoned for ad hominem attacks on Palestinians as a people. Daniel Pipes writing in the National Post quoted University of London Professor Efraim Karsh, distinguishing the Palestinian people as legitimate targets:

   One can argue that the Iraqi and Afghan populations
   are not parties to the aggression of Saddam Hussein and the
   Taliben, and so are not America's enemies, but that's plainly
   wrong when it comes to the Palestinians versus Israel. Every
   piece of evidence suggests and every opinion poll confirms
   that the Palestinian assault on Israel is a wildly popular
   undertaking ....

   .... The implication is clear: If Israel is to protect
   itself, it must achieve a comprehensive military victory over
   the Palestinians ... ending the Pa