Microsoft's Encarta muddles Middle East
by Andrea Levin

Distortions about the Middle East dispensed by the mass media can
mislead news consumers of all ages, but especially worrisome is
misinformation purveyed in reference works. Microsoft's popular Encarta
Encyclopedia, available on the Internet and in expanded form on CD, is a
troubling mix of solid information, bias and error.

While a 22-page section on Israel's people, geography and history by
Bernard Reich, for example, is faithful to the record, other parts are
marred by distortions and inaccuracies. A number of these were
"contributed by" the University of Oregon's Shaul Cohen.

Among them is a section entitled "Arab-Israeli conflict." That account
severely blurs Arab aggression against the Jews from the Mandate period
to the present, repeatedly equating the violence by the parties. Of the
years after 1922, Cohen writes: "Both Jews and Arabs conducted terrorist
attacks and intermittent, low-level warfare."

Evidently Cohen thinks such language adequately encompasses the
anti-Jewish riots of 1929 in which Arabs, incited by wild, false claims
of Jewish designs on Islamic shrines, killed 133 Jews. According to
historian Martin Gilbert, of the 116 dead on the Arab side, all but six
were killed by British police.

The same pattern prevailed in the 1936 Arab riots, in which Jews were
overwhelmingly the victims of violence, and not its perpetrators. In the
first month, for example, 21 Jews were killed by Arabs, and no Arabs by
Jews.

The Peel Commission of 1937 observed: "It is true of course that in
times of disturbance the Jews, as compared with the Arabs, are the
law-abiding section of the population, and indeed, throughout the whole
series of outbreaks, and under very great provocation, they have shown a
notable capacity for discipline and self-restraint."

Nor did Cohen mention in his review that the Peel Commission called for
a division of Palestine between Jews and Arabs, which the Jews agreed to
and the Arabs rejected.

Cohen's equating of Jewish and Arab conduct even extends to his
falsifying of such basics as the content of and response by the parties
to UN Resolution 242. The writer states: "Arabs and Israelis both
rejected Resolution 242. The Arab states continued to call for the
destruction of Israel, while Israel for its part refused to withdraw
from the territories it occupied."

Israel explicitly and repeatedly accepted the resolution, as a 1974 UN
report underscored. Among supportive statements cited were numerous ones
by Israel's Abba Eban, including: "The Government of Israel, out of
respect for the Security Council's resolution of 22 November 1967 [UN
Resolution 242] and responding affirmatively thereto, assures you of its
full cooperation in your efforts with the States concerned to promote
agreement and to achieve an accepted settlement for the establishment of
a just and lasting peace, in accordance with your mandate under the
resolution."

Moreover, Cohen's equating of Arab calls to destroy Israel with Israel's
failure to "withdraw from the territories it occupied" misrepresents
242's content. The Arab states were specifically required to cease
"belligerency" and acknowledge the "sovereignty" and right of every
state to "live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free
from threats or acts of force." Israel was explicitly not obliged to
withdraw from "the" territories it occupied. It was assumed for reasons
of Israeli self-defense that not all the land could be ceded; the
language was thus crafted to omit the definite article "the" which Cohen
misleadingly inserts.

Nor was any withdrawal required in the absence of a negotiated agreement.

Cohen is no less deceptive in summing up Oslo. He writes: "Despite these
accomplishments [creation of the PA, Israel's treaty with Jordan and
diplomatic relations with various Arab states] some terrorism and
bloodshed continued. Palestinians conducted attacks on Israeli citizens,
and on a number of occasions Israeli extremists responded in kind."

Cohen's insinuation of multiple "in-kind" responses to Palestinian
terrorism suggests Israelis have bombed Palestinian buses, cafes and
malls filled with innocent men, women and children, and done so with the
involvement, funding and approval of their leadership and public. But
Baruch Goldstein, acting on his own, was the sole Jewish mass killer,
and was overwhelmingly repudiated by Israeli officialdom as well as by
the public.

Similar egregious fictions characterize the breakdown of the Camp David
negotiations of 2000, which Cohen claims "foundered over expansion of
Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the issue of how
Israelis and Palestinians could share the city of Jerusalem." Far from
entailing "expansion" of settlements, Israel was making far-reaching
offers to consolidate and remove settlements.

Not surprisingly, the writer's profiles of Ariel Sharon and Yasser
Arafat are similarly biased. While the former is pejoratively cast as
"controversial," "hardline," disobedient, deceptive and "reckless,"
Arafat is a "Nobel laureate" who is sometimes "accused" of failing to
prevent terrorism.

Myriad other distortions mar the Encarta commentaries which, for
Microsoft's good name and the public good, should be thoroughly and
speedily corrected.

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Andrea Levin is Executive Director of CAMERA, the Committee for Accuracy
in Middle East Reporting in America. www.camera.org