Mideast Report

Your Dec. 26 article (“Israel Bars Assistance to Deportees”) included the following shocking information: As reporters watched, Lebanese soldiers, headed by a Lebanese army officer, entered a Lebanese hospital and forcibly removed nine sick and wounded Palestinians, still wearing their hospital gowns. The nine were among the 415 deported by Israel the previous week for engaging in terrorist activities against Israeli citizens.

One would think that such a “man bites dog” report should have constituted the story’s headline. But the headline was entirely different--”Israel Bars Assistance to Deportees”--since the bulk of the article dealt with the Israeli government’s decision to prevent passage of the Red Cross through Israeli-controlled territory.

In fact, the report about the heartless removal of the wounded men from the hospital by their fellow Arabs appeared almost as an afterthought at the end of the story. The article’s headline said nothing about the expulsion of the wounded men from the hospital or about Lebanon’s refusal likewise to allow the Red Cross access to the deportees. How to explain such unbalanced reporting?

In my opinion, what is reflected here is the apparent assumption that the inhuman treatment of Arabs by their fellow Arabs is not unusual or exceptional enough to warrant inclusion in a headline or placement higher up in a story.

Israel is proud of the world’s recognition of her moral standards. Other nations’ high expectations of us are derived from many years of observing the behavior of the only democracy in the Middle East and from Israel’s tradition of guarding human rights, even those of her wartime enemies.

However, Israel is entitled to expect the enlightened world to take the additional step of recognizing her right to defend not only human rights but humans--that is, those Israeli Jews and Arabs who strive for peace and who, in return for their devotion, face unending terror and even death.

Unless the world starts applying a single moral standard to the behavior of Jews and Arabs alike, and until people stop speaking and thinking in terms of a double standard, their actions may, God forbid, end up serving the enemies of peace and deferring the attainment of the shared goal of all peace lovers.

URI OREN

Consul General of Israel

Los Angeles