U.S. vs. Them
In the minds of the media, it’s always America against the world.

By Denis Boyles
July 28, 2006, 9:48 a.m.

You may have missed it — many in the European press certainly did — but there was a conference convened in Rome earlier this week to deal with the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict now playing out in Israel and Lebanon. The result was a refusal to call for an immediate ceasefire. Instead, the summit produced a statement endorsing the American position that a truce should be “lasting and sustainable” if future violence is to be avoided.

Now getting a pile of Europeans to sign on to realism is, one would think, newsworthy. I mean, even Romano Prodi agreed that the Americans weren’t alone in thinking that a premature ceasefire leaving the status quo ante in place would only lead to later shoot-ups. But as far as Mideast conflicts go, that clearly could not be the news. The news, as you know, is that Israel is an outlaw state meeting defeat, the U.S. is alone in supporting Israeli aggression and thousands of innocents are being slaughtered by Israelis. All that other stuff? It’s in the footnotes.

Prodi’s comment, for example, explaining the importance of the Rome summit was buried in an AP story carried in the Guardian under a headline featuring more Israeli defeat and dwelling on the deaths of U.N. observers. Their misleading main story suggested that the conference resulted in producing a stalemate, presumably because it did not produce what they wished.

Or perhaps the conference had never happened at all — if you go to the BBC’s page devoted to an overview of the crisis, you won’t find a link to coverage of the event, that’s for sure. Or it maybe it just wasn’t a conference. Maybe it was just Condi talking to herself someplace in Italy. That certainly would be the impression lft by the headline in Le Figaro: “Washington refuses an immediate cease-fire.” That version of events was echoed everywhere, including in this piece in Friday’s Guardian. Did Washington refuse an immediate ceasefire? Oui. And so in the end did the rest of the conference participants. Sorry it didn’t go your way, messieurs.

Meanwhile, the disapproval expressed by many Arab leaders after Iran and Syria decided to have Hezbollah invade Israel, kill a bunch of Israeli soldiers, kidnap two others, and lob missiles at Israeli villages has been brought into alignment with a better reality by a New York Times reporter who apparently did a singlehanded snap poll of the Arab world and discovered that that battling Muslim terrorists only irritates militant Muslims and that Arabs like Hezbollah more than they like Israel, after all. Need proof? Among other things, the reporter talked to a guy who knew a guy who bought 20 pro-Hez posters. The International Herald Tribune carries the item here. The piece will be useful in smoothing over one of the rougher parts of the story, one that’s been lingering for a week or two — actually, since Hezbollah started the conflict. The Times’s discovery will help redirect the narrative that must have the US going wrong while the rest of the world goes Left.

The next chapter? It unfolds this weekend. Ideally, for the Left, there will be a break with the U.S. That’ll leave journalists with the more familiar story of an America isolated et cetera. This is more difficult, of course, because of Tony Blair’s interest in principles, but it’s worth a shot, especially since Blair is meeting with Bush Friday afternoon in Washington.

So not surprisingly, this has led to a new round of Blair-bashing today. Leaning on Blair is crucial, as always, to the Euro-Left. This morning, as preamble to the Washington meeting, the BBC’s World Service let loose the poodles of peace. As their man in southern Lebanon commiserated with a Hezbollah supporter who had her windows blown out when the Israelis pinpointed a Hez building next door, back in London they trotted out some yakkers to ask: Is Tony Blair George Bush’s lapdog? The answer: Why yes! Unless of course, he demands that immediate ceasefire he opposed a day or two ago when he arrives in DC. The Independent did its own subtle urging of Blair with one of its once-familiar, now-tedious front pages on which no actual news appears. British newspapers have always used posters—called “hoardings”—to boost newsstand circ.

The Independent is the first to avoid the unnecessary cost of producing a real newspaper by simply printing the poster instead. If you’re sucker enough to spend money for the thing, all you get is Robert Fisk doing his rant thing, or, as in Friday’s issue, a psychiatrist-filmmaker called Russell Razzaque claiming that “By supporting Bush, Blair lends credence to claims that the entire West hates us.” (A free sample, in case you need something to match your purple drapes: “I see it in their eyes as they watch the news: friends, relatives and neighbours. More than 400 dead, half a million displaced from their homes, pictures of dying infants broadcast around the world - and barely a word of rebuke from the British government.”) Razzaque’s film, by the way, is called “Halal Harry.” His psychiatry, until recently I guess, was an online gig. Now his old web-couch address is used to sell hair treatment, probably a more appropriate use for the ‘net.

For the European press, it all takes place in an imaginary world, full of excitement and potential—even for the French, who, as Le Figaro reports, are pressing for that multinational U.N. force that no doubt one day will step into the crossfire. This is something both Bush and Blair are already working on, of course. The exciting part would be if France provided the soldiers. That’s also the imaginary part.