I read this book a while back and it has truly stood the test of time as more media manipulations become apparent. The Al Dura section of the book is particularly relevant given the recent libel case tried and won in France...giving the public the freedom to finally dispute this hoax once and for all. The damage the mainstream media has done to Israel and hence to Jews all over the world, willfully and intentionally, is truly scary. However in a world of 24 hour news with demand for instant product...I wonder if the anti-semetic filter of today's journalist can be overcome? It does beg the question if the "news" is nothing more than propoganda anymore? I suppose we have to look to ourselves to be capable of sorting though all of this "news" and the filters and biases that come inherent in the message.

Stephanie Gutmanns book should be read by a wider audience, especially as anti-Israel views are now expressed on a daily base in many Western news outlets. It is an important work which exposes the complexities of Middle East reporting. Jimmy Carter should have read this book before he wrote his slanderous "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid" book. Even Jimmy might have learned a thing or two...

This book was published a year ago, but it has even more powerful resonance today in light of the recently concluded (for now, anyway) hostilities in southern Lebanon. That conflict was widely deemed a PR "loss" for the Israelis, an outcome that author Stephanie Gutmann cannily anticipates in her review of media coverage of the Second Intifada.

She presents in copious detail the international (especially European) media's favoritism toward the Palestinians. One acclaimed photojournalist won't take pictures of armed Palestinians because "he would not want me to." The Middle East correspondent for the BBC (a news organization singled out for particular anti-Israel bias) wept openly over Arafat's death. More distressing is media complicity in allowing terror groups to control news coverage: children throwing rocks is okay; but an adult goading the kids to do so is off-limits. Often, the control is through intimidation. The AP cameraman who videotaped Palestinian celebrations of the 9/11 atrocity had his film confiscated at gunpoint. The Italian TV crew that filmed the mob lynching of two IDF soldiers in a police headquarters violated an unwritten "understanding" prohibiting such coverage -- revealed through another Italian journalist's public apology for the incident. He did not want his network blamed for the coverage.

Gutmann also sharply criticizes Israeli (especially IDF) media relations efforts, which can charitably be described as "ham-handed." The initial press conference after the seizure of the Karine A was conducted in the late afternoon before the Sabbath in a remote port location far from the media centers. International journalists who bothered to attend were kept far away from the munitions (no "photo-op") and had to cope with a press briefing conducted in Hebrew only.

Two years into the intifada, Gutmann credits the Israeli Foreign Ministry and Government Press Office with improving its ability to fight the Media War, facilitating media access to images that make "good television." However, the IDF has been slower to improve communications, as recent events in Lebanon underscore.

It's interesting how Israel can become a military base of the global hegemon (the US), occupy and brutalize a people for years on end, and so-called "supporters of Israel" come rushing to the defense of this perverted state. To the extent that Israel "looks bad" in the media, it's because it's doing hideous things, like killing men, women and children on a regular basis. There are plenty of websites to give a person the gory details, including those of Israeli peace groups. Maybe those Israeli Jews who see the blood on their hands are somehow dismissed as "self-hating Jews" or some other ridiculous charge.
Fortunately for the defenders of Israeli militarism, and its subservience to the American Empire, Israeli oppression of Palestinians is systematically marginalized by our conglomerate media. There are excellent documentaries on the issue, like "Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land." But fans of Gutmann's deceptions won't look at that sort of material. There appears to be too large an emotional investment in convenient fairy tales about the righteousness of the Israeli military. Their self-deception is only harming Israel, and the country's current aggression is making matters worse for everybody. Twenty-four Palestinian civilians killed during this month of June, and the economic warfare intensifies, as do the house demolitions, the land theft of the Wall, and other disgraceful acts.

It's the Palestinians who need to do the media work. For instance, having a single radio personality to counter the deceptions of Michael Medved, Dennis Prager and others would be helpful. In the meantime, journals like the "Washington Report on Middle East Affairs" provide a much needed dose of reality for anyone whose interested. I'd also recommend the film, "The Inner Tour," which is about a group of Palestinians taking a tour bus through Israel, a bus that is driven by an Israeli. It provides a more humanizing view of all people involved, instead of this good vs. bad framing of complex issues that US demagogues constantly utilize.

It's interesting how Israel can become a military base of the global hegemon (the US), occupy and brutalize a people for years on end, and so-called "supporters of Israel" come rushing to the defense of this perverted state. To the extent that Israel "looks bad" in the media, it's because it's doing hideous things, like killing men, women and children on a regular basis. There are plenty of websites to give a person the gory details, including those of Israeli peace groups. Maybe those Israeli Jews who see the blood on their hands are somehow dismissed as "self-hating Jews" or some other ridiculous charge.
Fortunately for the defenders of Israeli militarism, and its subservience to the American Empire, Israeli oppression of Palestinians is systematically marginalized by our conglomerate media. There are excellent documentaries on the issue, like "Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land." But fans of Gutmann's deceptions won't look at that sort of material. There appears to be too large an emotional investment in convenient fairy tales about the righteousness of the Israeli military. Their self-deception is only harming Israel, and the country's current aggression is making matters worse for everybody. Twenty-four Palestinian civilians killed during this month of June, and the economic warfare intensifies, as do the house demolitions, the land theft of the Wall, and other disgraceful acts.

It's the Palestinians who need to do the media work. For instance, having a single radio personality to counter the deceptions of Michael Medved, Dennis Prager and others would be helpful. In the meantime, journals like the "Washington Report on Middle East Affairs" provide a much needed dose of reality for anyone whose interested. I'd also recommend the film, "The Inner Tour," which is about a group of Palestinians taking a tour bus through Israel, a bus that is driven by an Israeli. It provides a more humanizing view of all people involved, instead of this good vs. bad framing of complex issues that US demagogues constantly utilize.

The author has done her research and writes well. The picture on the cover sums up the whole story: that's a wall of media photographers on a "photo op" taking staged pictures of a Palestinian boy throwing rocks. Ms. Gutmann reveals the truth of what happened to news footage of ecstatic Palestinians celebrating 9/11. Remember, we saw a brief flurry of it and suddenly there were no pictures? Withdrawn to keep Palestinian officials from murdering newsman held at gunpoint. The PLO has long used strongarm tactics to bully and threaten any sense of independent Arab media in areas under their influence. There's so much more. This book is an important opening to the reality of media lies, distortions and bias in shaping public perception of this conflict.

I have wondered for years how the media could get reporting on Israel so wrong. Here is the explanation, told by a reporter who was on the ground and saw the process in action. As a freelance, she was able to see clearly how images were manipulated, reporters came in with pre-set attitudes, agendas, and viewpoints, and the Palestinian AUthority intimidated and tightly controlled what could be said. I recommend this gritty first person account to anyone who wants to understand how AP, CNN and others manipulate our view of the world.

I have wondered for years how the media could get reporting on Israel so wrong. Here is the explanation, told by a reporter who was on the ground and saw the process in action. As a freelance, she was able to see clearly how images were manipulated, reporters came in with pre-set attitudes, agendas, and viewpoints, and the Palestinian AUthority intimidated and tightly controlled what could be said. I recommend this gritty first person account to anyone who wants to understand how AP, CNN and others manipulate our view of the world.

This extremely relevant and well written study subjects the media coverage of the Palestinian/Arab-Israeli conflict to a meticulous scrutiny.

Providing a behind the scenes perspective & an abundance of examples, the writer documents what she describes as the distorted, inaccurate and egregious bias against Israel throughout the realm of the mainstream media.

The book reveals how so many journalists, photographers and editors are sometimes guided by what is cited as a "hardened anti-Israel ideology" often selectively omitting pivotal factors thus portraying a false image of the reality on the ground.

The writer emphasising the public now need to become what she calls "experts at inspecting, analysing and demystifying the news product" with a need to know who/what is behind the source providing the news itself.

One of the reasons for writing this book being described as the fact that "pictures do lie" and that behind every picture is a long story & a list of people who decide how and in what manner that particular picture is presented, as the full background is rarely depicted.

Throughout the book the reader is confronted with the fact that the news media is the world's spokesman and through controlling the information provided to the public and the manner in which it is presented, subsequently controls the public's judgement and perception.

The writer strives to underscore how those within media are very much aware of their enormous power to manipulate and use their power & platform to their full advantage, with most of the world, allegedly having yet to learn that the media is NOT a non-profit organisation working for the betterment of the human race. To the contrary, the book reveals how the media competes fiercely for elite positions, career making scoops and headline supremacy.

Many instances are shown which reveal that, purportedly, the media will readily falsify, fake and fabricate news to achieve it's own ends, staging events for the benefit of the ever present cameras.

The cover of the book itself displayed scores of media photographers lined to obtain a controlled/staged photograph of a Palestinian throwing a missile.

The writer illustrates how that in the early years of the Palestinian intifada about 95% of the TV pictures on satellite were supplied by Palestinian film crews and that many journalists have shown themselves unwilling to attribute any blame to the Palestinian side as such would allegedly endanger their physical welfare and prevent future access to essential sources/areas upon which the news entities utterly rely for their coverage.

Other issues examined include Jenin, the Ramallah lynching of Israeli soldiers and Palestinian celebrations after the September 11th attacks on the US where some 3,000 Palestinians were filmed rejoicing in the streets in the wake of the murders of so many innocent people. The study describes how the footage of such events was destroyed due to the fact that a photographer was then allegedly held in the office of the Governor of Nablus with gunmen holding the barrels of their weapons held against his skull. A demand then being made that if the video of the celebrations was not destroyed, the photographer would be executed. The film was subsequently destroyed. (Page 152)

Another issue studied is the visit of Ariel Sharon to Jerusalem's Temple Mount which media sources have blamed for the outbreak of the second intifada. Detailed analysis in the study reveals that this was anything but the case and that the Palestinian violence had already been pre-planned. The book's evaluation disclosing that Sharon's visit to Judaism's most holy site was agreed beforehand with the Palestinian authorities and that Sharon made no attempt to even enter Islamic holy sites.

The writer pulls no punches in apportioning considerable blame on the part of the Israeli government for not making their own case known on innumerable occasions.

The book also includes a case study on the killing of Mohammed al-Dura, aged 12 years, allegedly by Israeli troops at the Netzarim junction in Gaza.

The reader is shown the media's haste to utterly condemn the Israelis for an apparent act of cold blooded murder. The book analyses the evidence in considerable detail and confronts the reader with a very different reality.

For example the sole footage of the incident is shown to have been provided by a Palestinian freelance photographer located close to, and directly opposite the child at the time of the shooting & that on the day of the incident a plethora of film crews arrived before any demonstrators and the Israelis are cited as knowing that something big was being prepared. (Page 45).

The book cites how subsequent Israeli and independent investigations revealed that the shots that killed the boy could not have been fired by Israeli troops due to obstacles, angles of fire & that even the bullets that hit the child and the surrounding barricades were purportedly not of the kind used by the Israeli Defence Forces but instead the type used by the Palestinians on scene & and having allegedly been fired from the direction where the Palestinian photographer had filmed the incident.

No forensic, autopsy or medical evidence is shown to have been supplied by the Palestinian police or medical services who had sole possession of the child's body, with Palestinian opinion instead being reported as fact.

An independent report cited in the book also reveals that Mohammed al Dura's mother stated that a few days before his death, he had asked her "If you're killed in Netzarim, do you die as a martyr?". The alleged involvement of Mohammed's father as an Israeli collaborator out to purportedly redeem himself is also studied. However perverse this may seem, the information needs to be read.

Despite such evidence being available the reader is shown how the media itself showed little if any interest in following up their original portrayal of events or re-examining any such data or testimonies that may absolve Israel of responsibility in this tragic event. Highly recommended.

In this 271-page book, veteran journalist Stephanie Gutmann carefully documents myriad ways in which mainstream media Middle East coverage is compromised. In September 2000 when the current war against Israel began, Gutmann became increasingly disturbed by the inaccurate portrayal of Israel.

Thus in October 2000, she decamped to Jerusalem. She found the press, then and during her 2002 return, almost universally pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel. Foreign reporters, who habitually hang out in the American Colony Hotel in East Jerusalem, cheerily announced this fact--which hardly makes for unbiased, complete or factual news. What Palestinian Authority officials say, reporters accept as truth, without challenge. Whatever Israeli officials say, the same reporters consider suspect propaganda. Both sides do not receive equal skepticism.

Take the case of Mohammed Al Durrah, the Arab boy allegedly shot at Netzarim junction on Sept. 30, 2000. The media's job is "to dig, ... to ask difficult questions of both sides," Gutmann writes. Here, "they looked at one image, taken from one angle, by one photographer, and accepted, seemingly without skepticism, the photographer's explanation...."

Concerning this episode, Gutmann raises excellent questions. But she neglected many details suggesting this case was a fraud. As I discussed in a December 2004 article, Charles Enderlin, France 2's Jerusalem bureau chief, continues to refuse to release six minutes of videotape to Israeli investigators, despite a formal request at a public hearing before 40 witnesses. In August 2004, Israel Government Press Office (GPO) director Daniel Seaman told me the al-Durrah incident was a hoax, a staged forgery.

But Gutmann skewers press oversights and bad faith. For example, the mainstream media downplayed and excused the premeditated October 12, 2000 lynching of Israeli Sergeants Vadim Nourezitz and Yosef Avrahami in Ramallah. It was another terrible day of fighting, Peter Jennings announced on ABC before cutting to Gillian Findlay, who focused on Israeli retaliation, without noting the IDF's exacting efforts to bomb only empty buildings in Ramallah. The BBC seemed "to justify the killings by implying the two soldiers could have been spies." Nasser Atta witnessed the lynchings in cold blood; he told ABC's Nightline that Palestinians had beaten his cameraman for trying to film them. Ted Koppel dropped the subject.

Gutmann also documents PA intimidation of reporters--a subject few dare to cover. One heroic exception is Palestinian journalist, Khalid Abu Toameh, whom I interviewed in 2004. He recounted witnessing an August 2002 PA execution, while waiting to see Arafat at the Ramallah Mukata. Two men dragged a third, whose face was "badly swollen." Of many reporters present, only Abu Toameh described the horror--in "Anatomy of an Execution," on August 8, 2002.

After the Oslo Accords in 1994, the PLO's armed Fatah "political wing" began intimidating Palestinian reporters, "mov[ing] from newspaper to newspaper...and from radio station to television station, beating, jailing and threatening anyone who reported anything that would reflect badly on the new leader." Five independent newspapers were shuttered and replaced by three PA dailies, Voice of Palestine radio and Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation.

In September 2002, Abu Toameh ran afoul of future PM Ahmed Qurei, then a Palestinian Legislative Council speaker. He received repeated threats and called the Jerusalem police. Arab journalists working with foreign or Israeli media, Abu Toameh explained, are expected "to tell the truth only if it sounds and looks convenient and appropriate. Otherwise, you could be risking your life." Abu Toameh nevertheless continues risking his life to report truthfully on events within the PA government and Palestinian-controlled areas.

Since 1993, he told Gutmann, he has seen the so-called peace process as "just a contract between ten thousand or so Palestinians from the PLO and their families and businesses" and the Israeli government. In 2004, he was more blunt with me. "How can Jews be so stupid," he asked, while translating hate-filled screed from PA TV broadcasts. "An entire generation has been irretrievably destroyed." He blames Israel for allowing exiled terrorists to take power. But more so, he blames the foreign press for ignoring the truth.

In contrast to Abu Toameh, Gutmann holds up partisan "journalists" like former ABC reporter Gillian Findlay, the Guardian's Suzanne Goldenberg and former Washington Post Jerusalem bureau chief Lee Hockstader, whom GPO director Seaman boycotted in 2002 for "florid dispatches" that sounded like copy for the PA daily, Al-Hayat al-Jadeeda. (They even coordinated reports with PA terrorist Marwan Barghouti, Seaman said.) All three reporters were replaced.

Media outlets out to "weed out people who were more activist than committed reporter," Gutmann writes. But in the Middle East, they don't.

New York Times ethical guidelines prohibit reporters from doing anything that "might raise questions about political neutrality." Gutmann found several Middle East stringers claiming to work for the Times also listed on amin.org. One resume cites two "occupations" -- the Times and "political activist." From Amin.org, CBS and Reuters photographer Khaled Zighari links to his webpage, featuring outright bias like "a controversial 'One Palestine' picture."

In May 2001, BBC correspondent Fayad Abu Shamala told a Gaza Hamas rally: "journalists and media organizations [are] waging the campaign shoulder-to-shoulder together with the Palestinian people." Gutmann reports, the BBC refused to take any disciplinary action. On April 30, 2002, Italian journalist Patrizia Viglino, with a GPO press card, ferried Asif Mohammed Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif from Gaza into Tel Aviv, where Hanif detonated himself at Mike's Place, killing three and injuring 60.

Gutmann recounts a seemingly endless string of incidents involving activists posing as reporters. In another case, Associated Press reporter Ali Durehmeh previously spent two years as a "field researcher" for the pro-Palestinian "human rights" group, B'Tselem. To my inquiry, an AP spokeswoman replied, AP reporters were "not allowed to talk to the press." Gutmann received similar replies.

Two lessons emerge from this finely wrought book. 1) If the press changes, it will be slow. 2) news aficionado's should question everything the mainstream media reports on the Middle East.

--Alyssa A. Lappen

I couldn't put this down. It is about famous massacres that did not happen. The author has a literate yet contemporary voice and a sense of humor. She takes you to the exotic hangout of journalists at the American Colony hotel; inside Palestinian offices, families, and funerals; into the Israel Defense Forces; and into house-to-house combat. She is not only gutsy but also persistent. Not content to reveal ~ in evenhanded assessments ~ how unsound the reporting from the Middle East has been, she presses on and asks "Why?" She shows how reporters arrive in Jerusalem prepared to do battle, and how coercive and controlled their environment becomes. She even takes you into the Associated Press and Reuters ~ into their very inner workings. Every chapter is like the unravelling of a terrific mystery. It is a real page turner. Hats off to Gutmann for a terrific, exciting, courageous, and important book.

Ms Gutmann has written a very readable insiders account of the coverage of the palestinian/israeli conflict. In it she has documented the media's failure to objectively report on the events of the conflict. The Mohamad al-dura death, the lynching of 2 israeli reservists, and the sensationally reported jenin massacre are among the many examples of stories the media have poorly reported. As a result, the coverage of these events do not repesent the truth. Like Bernard Goldberg's book 'Bias' and 'Arrogance', Gutmann demonstrates how reporters and news bureaus alike come to a story with pre-conceived ideas, and how this slants the coverage. In addition, she exposes how journalists bend to palestinian authority's heavy handed use of intimidation, and how many journalists care more that they have a marketable story than the actual truth. 'The other War'and 'Bias' and the recent revelation that cnn sat on negative information about the iraqi regime before the war so that they could stay in Baghdad, should make consumers of news, unfortunately, skeptical of vitually everything they read. It seems that sensationalism has been so rewarded that it has replaced the journalistic code of objectivity, thoroughness, and fairness, and we all suffer for it.

This book is about the media war between the Arabs and Israel. It deals with journalistic sensationalism and lack of ethics. I am not surprised that Israel is not faring well in this war. The other side is cheating. And the referees aren't taking them to task for it. Still, Israel has no choice but to maintain its standards and value truth. Meanwhile, I think that many Arabs have drifted into a culture of destruction in this war. And maybe this culture is reflected to some extent in the media war. As Stephanie Gutmann shows, the anti-Zionists are making a mockery of journalistic standards. They are destroyers, not creators. In the short term, they may appear to be winning, but they are not achieving anything positive.

Like many other people, including myself, Gutmann was surprised at the extent to which many people "were ready to drop the skepticism they showed in most other areas of their lives and believe everything the New York Times and CNN told them about the conflict and then develop such great passions about a relatively small affair, in a land very far away." Many people are doubtful that Israel even wants peace, even though almost all humans, including Israelis, would rather be rich, free, and alive than poor, enslaved, and dead.

The author tells about the Mohammed al-Dura case in some detail. This was a 12-year old who probably died in September, 2000, during the Arab aggression against Israel. If he died, he was probably killed (intentionally or unintentionally) by Arabs. But there isn't enough evidence to tell for certain what happened. Still, the case points out the huge number of staged events (look at the cover of the book for a typical example) and the amount of media misinformation. As Gutmann says, "there is one clear bad guy in `al-Dura' and that is the international media."

In another chapter, the author tells us of another case of journalistic malpractice, exposed by the apologies by Italian TV to Arab thugs for filming the some of the lynching of two Israeli soldiers.

Gutmann confirms that Israel is treated as a Very Important nation. And a Dangerous one. She says that the coverage of the war against it sometimes seems to be only of Israel, as if the Arabs were some sort of undefined "amoebic force." And she tells of the American Colony Hotel, which is a sort of propaganda headquarters for what I consider the War Against Human Rights. In this war, the media have, as the author points out, gone from being observers to participants. And I think the majority of them are fighting against human rights.

There is a fine chapter on the ghastly misreporting of the Jenin battle of April, 2002. And there is a discussion of the reaction to the confinement of Arafat to Ramallah. By the way, in my opinion, the failure of the international community to bring a thug like Arafat to justice is a great crime against humanity. But the adoration of Arafat that the media showed is even more sickening and surreal. Gutmann considers Arafat to have been "a masterful media manipulator." I very strongly disagree, and I find it hard to imagine what the world would be like if Arafat had possessed even average, let alone above average talent in this or in any other regard.

One dramatic example of venomous journalistic malpractice that I won't forget is of the reaction to an inciteful sermon given by an Arab sheik in Gaza. Almost every sentence of the speech was out of line. The author tells us parts of it, where the sheik calls the Jews terrorists, butchers of Arab children, and desecrators of holy places who must be butchered and killed. And where he tells his listeners to "have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country," and to fight and "kill those Jews and those Americans who are like them." But how did William Orme of the New York Times report this? He looked through the sermon for just one tame line that he could quote out of context. And he found one! It was, "whether Likud or Labor, Jews are Jews." That is the only line he permitted his readers to see from the sermon! I consider such a vicious misrepresentation of Israeli concerns about incitement to be a serious attack on journalistic standards, truth, and human rights. Gutmann needs to be praised for pointing it out to us.

Gutmann quotes an Arab who explains that the Oslo agreement of 1993 was merely a contract between Arafat (and ten thousand or so of his supporters) and Israel. I agree. And it does seem to me as stupid as not realizing the difference between America's people (represented by our government) and the Mafia, and making a deal with the wrong one.

Gutmann tells of the bad guys, such as the infamous Peter Jennings of ABC News, Suzanne Goldenberg of the Guardian, Lee Hockstader of the Washington Post, and Gillian Findlay of ABC News. And she also tells us of the good guys. I'm not surprised that there are people who do fight back to support truth and standards. They include CAMERA, Honestreporting.com, littlegreeenfootballs.com, and a variety of other media-monitoring websites. I'd include books such as this one as making a positive impact.

This highly readable book takes one behind the media scenes and agendas of the conflict in the Holy Land. In a most engaging fashion, the author explains how journalism works in practice whilst exposing the gross bias against the Israeli side. She names the worst culprits, both individuals and organisations. The latter include the BBC, National Public Radio, The Guardian, The Independent, CNN, Associated Press and that old grey harlot, The New York Times.

Using examples like the death of the 12 year old Palestinian boy Mohammed Ad-Dura, the gruesome lynching of two Israeli reservists in Ramallah and the so-called Jenin Massacre that was later debunked by a United Nations investigation, Gutmann provides plenty of detail on how the anti-Israel propagandists operate. Truth be told, some of the blame rests on the Israeli side where the media war was not handled correctly. For example, Israeli spokespeople have not always received adequate resources or been proficient enough in English. This situation is now being improved.

One of the most glaring examples of media hypocrisy is the way in which Israel's security fence has been portrayed, with false analogies to the Berlin Wall. This while the EU intends to erect a barrier on its eastern borders and there are similar fences or walls between Turkey and Syria, and between Yemen and Saudi Arabia, to mention just a few. Gutmann reports that the situation is improving but I think much damage has already been done if one considers recent opinion polls conducted in several countries of Old Europe where alarming percentages of the population see Israel as the greatest threat to world peace.

Then again, this might just be a resurgence of the old European Anti-Semitism now surfacing again under the guise of Anti-Zionism. In this regard, I refer the reader to Bat Ye'or's magisterial work Eurabia. There are also brave Arab reporters, like the Israeli citizen Khalid Abu Toameh of the Jerusalem Post. A whole chapter looks at his work, a refreshing example of objective journalism. Gutmann's revelations are indeed disturbing because not all news consumers are willing to think for themselves, let alone investigate other angles.

It seems that the real roots of the Anti-Israel bias derive from Israel's victory in the 1967 war when the old Soviet propaganda apparatus started the demonization campaign. It gained further momentum during the First and Second Intifadas. Now Israel is routinely scapegoated by the leftist media and by dominant sectors in academia. This ideologically based bias has reached alarming proportions in Europe and only a few principled voices are reacting against it, like Oriana Fallaci in her books The Rage And The Pride, and The Force Of Reason.

The Other War is a brilliantly researched book, full of verifiable facts and expert analyses, and at the same time a gripping read. Highly recommended for those who are interested in the Middle East conflict or who would like to get an inside look at how the media function. I also recommend Israel: Life In The Shadow Of Terror by Nechemia Coopersmith, Unholy Alliance by David Horowitz and The New Antisemitism by Phyllis Chesler.