http://www.cjnews.com/viewarticle.asp?id=10146 Mideast expert slams media reporting on region By PAUL LUNGEN Staff Reporter TORONTO - Middle East analyst Barry Rubin has nothing but disdain for the Western media's reporting on the region he has spent years studying. "What's the point of reading their reports?" he asks rhetorically. "I feel that the more you read the media, the less you know about the Middle East. There are so many inaccuracies. A lot of the reporters have no special knowledge." Director of the Global Research in International Affairs Center (GLORIA) and a professor at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, Rubin prefers to read Arabic-language papers. As a result, his conclusions about the winners and losers of Israel's war with Hezbollah are somewhat contrarian. Israel, he said, did not lose the war, though it could have done better and acted quicker. But Hezbollah's crowing about defeating Israel is unsupported by the facts. Rubin, who was in Toronto last week to address a public gathering at Beth Avraham Joseph Synagogue sponsored by Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center, pointed to four indicators of Israel's military victory. . Israel destroyed all of Hezbollah's long-range missiles. Had Hezbollah retained any, the group would have made good on leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah's threat to bomb Tel Aviv, he said. . Israel stopped the transport of arms and hit arms shipments soon after they left Syria. . Israel "captured the battlefield," surrounding Hezbollah forces and at war's end were in a position to wipe them out. . Israel inflicted heavy losses on Hezbollah, perhaps as much as 25 per cent of its fighting force. "Israel's losses were proportionately less," Rubin said. What's more, the inflicting of casualties (part of Hezbollah's claim to have defeated Israel) has never been considered a determinant of victory. Many countries in past wars suffered much higher casualties than Israel and were still considered victors, he pointed out. Rubin compared the conflict with Hezbollah to the 1973 Yom Kippur War, which started badly for Israel but ended with Egypt and Syrian forces routed. As in that conflict, Israeli armour suffered at the hands of anti-tank missiles, but Israeli troops adapted to the new situation and prevailed. However, unlike 1973, this war did not end in a clear-cut victory and that may hurt Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, he said. "Could Israel have done better? Sure. There were shortcomings, particularly in the political leadership," Rubin said. Fear of high casualties and concern over international criticism restrained Israel from launching a more extensive ground offensive, he said. The military shortcomings are already being studied and improvements are being implemented, he added. Rubin, co-author of Yasir Arafat: A Political Biography, said "the story in Lebanon was the worst reported story I've ever seen." He slammed the western media for accepting uncritically civilian casualty numbers provided by the Lebanese government. Contrary to assertions that more than 1,400 civilians were killed in Israeli attacks, "the bottom line will be that more than 500 Hezbollah soldiers were killed and about 250 Lebanese civilians," he said. Lebanese newspapers, he added, are now reporting 800 casualties in all. As to the general reporting on the war, he slammed the media for under-reporting stories from Israel and for being taken in by concocted events in Lebanon. "We have never before faced such a systematic creation of false stories. I feel we'll find the whole Qana [incident] never happened." Rubin was referring to the south Lebanese village where an alleged Israeli attack supposedly caused a building to collapse, killing scores of civilians. Originally the death toll was put at 54 and later reduced to 28. But Rubin questions even that number. "I believe the bodies were carted in," he said, noting they appeared to have been washed and showed none of the trauma that would be expected from an explosion and building collapse. As well, he said "green helmet," the Lebanese civilian who directed rescue efforts that revealed the bodies, is in fact a mortician in Tyre. Another poorly reported story was the gift by Hezbollah of counterfeit money to Lebanese civilians. "It's easy to give people money if you printed it yourself," he quipped, adding that the media could have easily exposed the bogus relief effort had they chosen to. Turning to the aftermath of the war, Rubin said Arab claims of victory come from a mindset that puts a premium on extracting revenge by inflicting casualties. However, he argued, that has never been a military definition of victory. Morale in Israel remains high while in Lebanon, polls show many are turning against Hezbollah. Approximately 78 per cent of Druze and Christians oppose the Shiite terrorist group, while 53 per cent of Sunni Muslims are against it. That drop in support prompted Nasrallah to say he never would have precipitated the crisis had he expected Israel to respond as it did. As to long-term prospects in the region, Rubin suggested the Arab world was replaying a failed policy that dominated their societies from the 1950s through the 1990s. That process is being advanced by four players: Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas. It began with the Syrian and Palestinian rejection of peace, was strengthened by 9/11 and was once again reinforced by the Lebanon war. It posits the view that "all problems come from Israel and the West; we must resist; democratic reforms are a trap to weaken us; Israel and the United States are weak, so why compromise if you can win?" He predicted this view will "dominate for years to come. They will talk big, make threats, refuse peace and keep people incited. But what can they actually do?" Rubin suggested that "this will lead to 30 to 40 years of total failure for the Arab world."
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