The 60 Minute Fence

By Rabbi Mordechai Rhine

In Parshas Kedoshim we read of the great prohibition against Lashon Horah. According to Torah law to malign another person improperly is considered an offense. Indeed in the last hundred years, since the campaigns of the Chofetz Chayim advocating Shemiras Halashon we have become extremely diligent and sensitive to the effects of Lashon Horah. Shemiras Halashon Campaigns and educational learning sessions have led to altruistic, sincere, and caring people becoming more aware of what is said.

There is, however, another angle worthy of comment in the field of of Shemiras Halashon, one that will be of great interest to altruistic, sincere, and caring people. That is: What happens if you are the person being maligned? Or, on even a greater scale, what can the Jewish people do if they find that someone attempts to adjust the facts to malign a great segment of the Jewish people.

On April 22, 2012 CBS’ 60 minutes aired a 15 minute piece about an Israeli security fence which affects Palestinian Christians living in Bethlehem. The fence was built to stop Palestinian terrorists from getting into Israel. And as the narrator describes “… it’s worked. Terrorism has gone down 90 percent.” Nevertheless the narrator observes that it has affected the Christian community living in Bethlehem. Since the fence was built, residents are required to wait on security clearance lines in order to get to work. This can sometimes take as long as 60 minutes, or longer, and has upset the local residents. The narrator infers that this Israeli built fence ought to have serious economic consequences to Israel from the Christian community.

The reporter is clearly a talented fellow. He successfully blended interviews with subtle narration to produce a piece that conveyed the image about Israel that he chose to convey. The question is: Is the piece journalism, or is it propaganda?

But before we consider that I would like to focus on the narrator’s acknowledgement that the fence is 90% effective in stopping terrorism in that region. Ninety percent is a very significant number. Compare that, for example, to brushing one’s teeth, which we certainly recommend should be done at least once a day. According to many studies, if we consider food particles that aren’t removed by brushing, as well as other degenerative situations, brushing one’s teeth is only 33% effective in protecting the teeth. And yet, thirty-three percent is considered significant enough to advocate brushing one’s teeth.

Imagine someone would come up with a gadget in the car industry that would improve gas mileage by 90%. I think everyone would consider that a breakthrough worth implementing. Certainly a strategy that diminishes terrorist activity by 90% is to be praised. It makes the region safer for tourists and residents alike.

The problem is that someone is being inconvenienced. At times a significant segment of the local population can actually be described as suffering. But the question is why are they suffering?

There is a famous moshol in which a dog his being hit by a stick that is being wielded by an assailant. But, as the story goes, the dog doesn’t realize that there is an assailant, and instead begins to defend himself by biting and attacking the stick.

In our application, the fence is the stick. It is causing pain. So people get angry with it. But it is necessary for the people being hurt to consider who is actually playing the role of the assailant.

I would venture to say that in the world of ethical behavior, the State of Israel would be obligated to implement almost any deterrent to terrorism, if indeed that deterrent would be 90% effective. In fact, if it did not do so, it could probably be held liable for crimes against humanity… against its own citizens.

So it is really not the wall that people should be angry with. It is really the situation of perpetual war causing the need for a wall which is what we are angry with. We can be angry with the PLO charter and with the Hamas mandate. We can be angry with the terrorist training camps and with the teaching of hate to Arab children. But it is primitive and propagandist thinking to claim that the “stick”, or the wall, is the true source for people’s suffering.

The way to remove the wall is not by attacking Israel, but rather by putting an end to terrorism which caused the wall in the first place. And at the same time that some people bite at the “stick” there are people who are going after the assailants in an effort to put them out of business. Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, for example, has founded a law based method entitled Shurat Hadin in which she goes after terrorist supporters by judicial means.

Following the May 2010 “Gaza-Aid Flotilla” incident, Leitner got news of a second flotilla in the planning. She proceeded to discover which companies provided cell phone service to the organizers and threatened to sue them in court for assisting terrorist activity. She then served notice to the ship owners that if they leased the boats to the terrorist organizers they would be sued. When she learned that some ship owners were still considering the lease, she went after the boat’s insurance companies warning them of severe legal action if their boats were used to promote terrorist activity. The result was that the second flotilla simply didn’t happen.

Analyzing any volatile situation requires careful study of the dynamics. It is critical to recognize that as long as terrorism is promoted by Israel’s neighbors, a state of war still exists. One of the unfortunate aspects of war is the collateral damage which results. In fact, it was reported that during the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein purposely positioned munitions in civilian areas so as to use the potential collateral damage as a human shield against the allied forces. Unfortunately for him, in times of war, as careful as honorable armies will be, the strategy of human shields is not an effective deterrent.

In more recent times, during the Commando raid which killed Osama bin Laden, it was reported that in his final moments he was still pushing young women in front of him, hoping that he would not be shot. Fortunately the Navy SEALs got him anyway. But not everyone has the benefit of billions of dollars poured in to the training and equipment of the Navy SEALs and their targeted work. Sometimes there is indeed collateral damage.

The Chofetz Chayim writes that Laashon Horah includes cases where a person reports information but forgets to disclose mitigating circumstances. For example, if one were to say that someone got angry, but “forgets” to mention the volatile situation that led up to it, it would be considered Lashon Horah.

While it may be true that many Palestinian Christians are being inconvenienced, and this indeed may be heart wrenching, if one forgets to report in the same piece on the hundreds of families destroyed by terrorism, then one has strayed from the path of journalism and entered the realm of propaganda. With video footage of emergency vehicles with sirens wailing as they respond to the aftermath of a suicide bomber, it would be quite difficult to challenge a fence which can be credited with solving 90% of the problem.

It also seems odd to focus on the constraints that the Palestinian Christians feel when Israeli youth suffer many of the same indignities. They too wait on long security lines to enter malls and movies so that each person can be checked that they are not in fact wearing the belt of a suicide bomber. No, it is not the wall that is to blame. It is the perpetual state of war that has caused so much collateral damage.

When considering this 60 minutes piece of proposed journalism, I was somewhat stymied to come up with a comparable case of something in our society with was 90% effective, and might be challenged. After much thought I came upon: Seatbelts. We know that seatbelts save lives. Although they are constraining, and possibly a significant expenditure of time, they are a worthwhile inconvenience because they save lives. As one veteran State Trooper exclaimed, “I don’t know the exact statistics, but I can tell you that in thirty years of service, I have never had to unseatbelt a fatality. In my experience, people who wear a seatbelt usually survive the crash.”

Let us therefore consider what would happen if a person created a movement to do away with seatbelts. By use of sarcasm and half truthful reporting he would start a public relations campaign to have people stop using seatbelts. In fact he would take his advocacy group to a whole new level by petitioning car manufacturers to stop installing seatbelts in automobiles. I would venture to say that we would be obligated to stop such a person in his tracks, to do all we can to ensure that his activities are curtailed before he endangers countless people.

It was with great surprise that I noticed at the end of this 60 minute propaganda piece, that the narrator takes the Ambassador of Israel to task for objecting to the piece. It seems that the Ambassador got word of the tone of the piece while it was still in production, and contacted the executive producer of 60 minutes to object. The narrator includes in the piece an interview with the Ambassador in which the narrator attempts to place the Ambassador on the defensive for objecting to the narrator’s efforts to have a fence that is 90% effective in saving lives removed.

In fact after the piece aired to an estimated 13 million viewers, the CBS official response was that not enough people had e-mailed them with unique objection letters. It seems that the difference between journalism and propaganda is decided by how many people e-mail CBS’ sacred or not so sacred inbox.

The fact remains that history does not judge propaganda by the e-mail inbox. Propaganda, terrorism, and attempts to remove safeguards that are 90% effective, are tried in the courtroom: In the judicial courtroom, and in the courtroom of the minds and hearts of thinking and self respecting human beings.

© 2014 by TEACH613™