April, 20, 2002
A Different Drummer/Toogood Reports
Though one has no reason to expect honesty from terrorists, journalists claim to be in the truth business. In the matter of Adam Shapiro, however, mainstream journalists have served as Shapiro’s propaganda officers.
Adam Shapiro snookered the pro-Israel New York Post, which presented him on its front page on Sunday, March 31, as a hero:
“MY NIGHT OF HELL. B’klyn man’s terror tale from Arafat bunker.”
Shapiro was promptly unmasked by civilians as a supporter of terrorism, who had raced to join Arafat in the latter’s bunker. And yet, the mainstream media, including New York’s WCBS-TV News, the New York Times, and Newsday, all insisted on presenting him — or rather, misrepresenting him — in a heroic light.
In the April 3 New York Times, “reporter” Susan Saulny did her bit for Shapiro: “In a telephone interview from his home in Ramallah, Adam Shapiro expressed a sense of disbelief about what is happening to his family.
“It’s not that I don’t understand people’s anger,” he said. “But I do think it’s based on hatred and not on a balanced and fair understanding of the situation.”
Adam Shapiro, 30, dismissed comparisons between him and Mr. [John Walker] Lindh, the American accused of conspiring with the Taliban. Mr. Shapiro said he condemned all violence and reiterated that his efforts were for civilians’ well-being.
“My work is with the way Palestinians are living,” he said. “That is getting lost because I got trapped in the presidential compound.”
Had Susan Saulny believed in a “balanced and fair understanding of the situation,” she would have reported on Adam Shapiro’s support of anti-Semitic terrorism, and noted that Shapiro wasn’t “trapped” in Arafat’s bunker, but rather that he entered it as part of a publicity stunt, and to help Yasir Arafat. Indeed, had Shapiro not raced to Arafat’s compound, Susan Saulny would never have bothered interviewing him.
In Newsday, Sheryl McCarthy titled her April 4 column, “Adam Shapiro Ranks As a Mideast Hero”: “WHEREVER Stuart Shapiro may be, he gets my vote for father of the year.”
His son, Adam, is a Jewish child of Brooklyn who in the last few years has been living in the Mideast and advocating for the rights of Palestinians.”
[Adam Shapiro’s lawyer brother] Noah Shapiro says his brother believes in the teachings of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. and is at the opposite extreme from Hamas, Hezbollah and bin Laden. If Sharon had asked him to breakfast, Noah Shapiro said, he would have gone.
Had Sheryl McCarthy revealed that Adam Shapiro is “advocating for the rights of Palestinians” to butcher Jews, she might have had a harder time presenting him as a hero. When Shapiro and his “Palestinian” fiance, Huwaida Arraf said, “We are here today to support the Palestinian legitimate right to resist the illegal and brutal occupation and to draw attention to the failure of the international community to intervene against Israeli aggression,” Gandhi and King were the last names on their minds. That’s the first plank of their “pacifist” platform, which they use the “International Solidarity Movement” (ISM), the organization they founded, to promote. They have also phrased that plank, “We recognize the Palestinian right to resist Israeli violence and occupation via armed struggle, yet we believe that nonviolence can be a powerful weapon in fighting oppression and we are committed to the principles of nonviolent resistance.”
They support “armed struggle” AND “nonviolent resistance.” Got it?
The second plank is “the right to return of Palestinian refugees,” which would destroy the Jewish state.
The third plank is a call for “international intervention” against Israel. In other words, the armies of the world should unite to destroy the Jewish state.
Sheryl McCarthy didn’t mention any of the statements from Shapiro and Arraf’s web site, or even mention ISM, but then, I don’t think she’s terribly interested in the truth. The only name she connected to terrorism was Ariel Sharon: “Ariel Sharon is a malevolent former terrorist himself...”
McCarthy did not bother explaining what Ariel Sharon’s terrorist actions were. She ignored the fact that what Adam Shapiro calls “the occupation” is legal, according to the Oslo Accords that Yasir Arafat had agreed to, beginning in 1993, which included his agreement to renounce violence, not to bankroll and order it.
Adam Shapiro is a hero to his family. His brother, Noah, has proudly said Adam was telling the Israeli soldiers, “Here, shoot me, instead!”
First of all, until he proves otherwise, I can’t see Adam Shapiro as a martyr. Secondly, there is a supreme arrogance in the words Noah Shapiro ascribed to his brother. Adam Shapiro is, in effect saying, “Here, you bloodthirsty monsters, kill me!” Adam Shapiro does not offer himself to the suicide bombers of the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, saying, “Here, kill me, instead!” of Jews.
On the April 3 WCBS-TV News, anchor Ernie Anastos reported, “A Jewish peace activist who had breakfast with Yasir Arafat has been branded a traitor in his Sheepshead Bay neighborhood.” A WCBS report showed Noah Shapiro saying, “We know what an amazing person my brother is. He could, by himself, end this conflict.” Noah Shapiro also referred to his brother, Adam, as “a humanitarian worker.” On the same broadcast, WCBS’ passionate Pablo Guzman, who wears his heart, and his racial-socialist politics on his sleeve, lied, saying, “All of this depends on how you feel about pacifists, which Adam is.” Guzman spoke of “the picture of a young Jew, eating breakfast next to Arafat.”
In addressing his Arab and anti-Semitic audience, Adam Shapiro emphasizes that although born a Jew, he has renounced Judaism. But for New York audiences, with Pablo Guzman’s help, he is “a young Jew.” Shapiro’s double-talk shows that he has learned the lessons of the master, Arafat, who speaks of “peace” in English, and of “millions of martyrs” in Arabic. Had WCBS-TV told the truth, that Adam Shapiro, who grew up in a Jewish neighborhood with Holocaust survivors, had renounced Judaism, and was helping genocidal Arabs kill Jews, it would have made for a considerably less “heroic” story.
My New Webster’s Dictionary and Thesaurus defines “pacifism” as “the belief that war is morally wrong and, in the long run, ineffective, and that disputes should be settled by negotiation.”
Pacifism does not permit the support of snipers killing soldiers at roadblocks, let alone of the butchering of unarmed civilians, including babies, by suicide bombers. Adam Shapiro’s “pacifism” is a mere tactic, in the service of terrorism. He sees correctly, that — with the support of anti-Semitic reporters and editors — his pacifist pose gives his attacks on Israel more weight than they would have, were he to say that although he personally does not kill Jews, he supports those who do. Adam Shapiro’s notion of “pacifism” is elastic enough to cover Hitler, who also never killed a Jew with his own hands.
I know of only two possible explanations for Susan Saulny, Sheryl McCarthy, and Pablo Guzman’s misrepresentation of Adam Shapiro as a “pacifist,” “humanitarian worker,” and “peace activist.” Either they are lazy incompetents who never bothered to read Shapiro’s pro-terrorist statements, or they are anti-Semites who favor Arab genocide and the destruction of the Jewish state.
To Pablo Guzman, I say, all of this depends on how you feel about the truth.
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