SO aS ee ES). By LIND he saga of Jesse Jackson’s treat- ment in the main- stream media — the tormented logic, obscurant- ; ism, shifts and reversals — has been nearly as interesting as the story of the presidential campaign itself. In the early Stages of the campaign, before the caucuses and primaries, the Jack- son campaign was virtually ignored. After all, the Teasoning went, he was staging a sideshow that everybody has already seen. But then Jackson began to appear in the polls as frontrunner. The press, unprepared to accord Jackson’s effort the coverage it deserved, treated the polls as a fluke. All kinds of interesting explanations were advanced for the figures in the polls: Jesse had greater name recognition than other candidates; people were responding not to Jackson’s positive qualities but to the weak- nesses of the other candidates and so on. Anything but the notion that perhaps a majority of those polled honestly believed that Jesse Jackson’s program and approach represented the kind of leadership they would like to see in the White House. _ The stance of the media was dismissive. As everyone knew, the real deal was the winnowing out of the white candidates to establish the supremacy of a white front- runner. The presumption was that Jack- son’s frontrunner standing would quickly become history as soon as the caucuses and primaries began. On to Iowa. Around the time of the first few primaries the press had a brief romance with Jackson. Articles began to appear heralding the “mainstreaming of Jesse Jackson.” He was praised for bringing on more moderate advisors, for adopting a less challenging attitude towards the Democratic Party, for playing by the rules, for softening his rhe- toric. Jackson became ‘“‘the candidate we can live with.” The more liberal commentators were even prepared to grant that perhaps Jack- son’s gains among white voters in Iowa, Maine and New Hampshire were a good thing, demonstrating the latitude and toler- ance of democracy and a healthy, enlight- ened break with racism on the part of some white voters. Then came Super Tuesday. __ Inthe aftermath of March 8, the overrid- ing theme in the media was ‘‘What Does Jesse Want?” The dismissive attitude and benign paternalism of fall and winter gave way to the urgent speculation of spring. Once it became clear that Jackson was a power to be reckoned with, the question of appeasement became paramount. It was eerily rerhiniscent of the early days of the civil rights movement when headlines read “What Does the Negro Want?” The notion that “the Negro” might want a complete rearrangement of the disposition of power was as unthinkable as is the notion that Jackson might want exactly what he wants — the presidency. Though Jackson has shown tremendous strength in the South, he had not pulled ahead of Dukakis, and there was still hope for Gore. Jackson was a power but not a mortal threat. And, with the industrial states in the North coming up, the assump- tion was that his glory days were done. Michigan changed all that. The prospect of Jesse going to the Demo- cratic National Convention with a sizeable block of delegates was daunting enough; the idea that he might win a majority was greeted with near hysteria. Gone are the “Jesse in the mainstream” articles. The press has taken to reminding us on a daily basis that Jackson is a long-time radical on the far-left fringes of his chosen party. There is new-found interest in his program, and reporters and commentators are picking through it with a fine-toothed comb. Old news is good news: Castro, Farrakhan, PUSH finances. The Arafat hug has become the most talked-about embrace in political history. The name of the game is to discredit Jesse by any means necessary. At the same time, the media are provid- ing the service of ringing the wake-up gong for those white voters who might be consid- ering voting for Jesse in the upcoming primaries. “Vote your head and not your heart,” they are told. The New York Times on March 31 said that the Democrats are once again intoxi- cated with liberalism and Jesse is their liquor. Naturally, the voters are encouraged to go on the wagon before it’s too late. _ Dire warnings about the Democratic Party’s self-destructive tendencies come along with advice to Dukakis on how to make himself more appealing. Those who, pre-Michigan, argued that whoever has the most delegates should get the nomination — after all, fair is fair — have quietly with- drawn that concrete commitment to demo- cracy. The Democratic Party willnot admit toa Stop Jesse strategy, but the mainstream media are clearly willing to do their part. As the primaries draw to a close and the battle APR See PRI 11, 198 of Atlanta draws near, “Stop Jesse, Save the Party” has become the theme song of the press on Jesse. — reprinted from Frontline, Oakland, California TIME COVER ... symptomatic of the U.S. media’s efforts to undermine Jack- son’s candidacy. | israeli cabinet tied to murder Tribune Combined Sources As the body of slain Palestine Libera- tion Organization leader Khalil al-Wazir was carried aloft to the Cemetery of Mar- tyrs in Damascus, reports from within Israel and special Tunisian investigators left no doubt that al-Wazir’s April 16 assassination was carried out by Mossad agents and the Israeli military, operating with the direct knowledge of top Israeli cabinet ministers. The PLO leader, a close associate of Yasser Arafat from the time of the found- ing of the Palestine liberation movement, was murdered by a burst of more than 60 bullets fired by commandos who stormed his home in Tunis in the pre-dawn hours. A gardener and two bodyguards were also shot by the squad of terrorists before they entered the house. He was gunned down in front of his wife Intissar, his two-year-old son and older daughter, as he emerged from his study. Intissar, who was in Vancoouver in 1983 as part of a cross-Canada tour, is herself a prominennt figure in the Palesti- nian movement as the leader of the Union of Palestinian Women. She and her child- ren were not shot, apparently by pre- forces who arrangement with Israeli organized the operation. On April 21, a special commission of inquiry set up by Tunisian police stated that the sophisticated plan evident in the attack and the technology utilized in its execution pointed clearly to Israel’s involvement at the highest level. “We don’t think anyone but Israel could be behind such an operation, “the Tunis police commissioner told reporters. A report sent out by the Tunisian news agency stated: “The inquiry established that Israel was implicated in this cowardly terrorist act which it planned and exe- cuted.” Tunisian president Zein-al-abdin Ben Ali later condemned the violation of Tuni- sian territory by Israel, and lodged a for- mal protest with the United Nations. The UN Security Council voted Apr. 25 to “vigorously condemn the aggression perpetrated on April 16, 1988 against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Tunisia in flagrant violation of the UN Charter, international law and the stand- ards of international conduct.” The reso- lution did not specifically mention Israel, however. The resolution was adopted 14-0 by the Security Council with the U.S. taking the INTISSAR AL-WAZIR unusual step of abstaining. Several repre- sentatives of NATO countries, including Italy, had warned U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz that a U.S. veto would seriously impair efforts to find a peaceful solution to the Middle East conflict. Initially, Israel refused to acknowledge any part in the assassination but news reports within Israel — cleared, signifi- cantly, by Israeli censors — confirmed that agents for the secret service, Mossad, working together with elite units of the Israeli military, had carried out the opera- tion. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir con- tinued the official denials in response to a NBC-TV report April 18 which stated that KHALIL AL-WAZIR Israel’s inner cabinet had voted 5-2 to carry out the operation. But comments made by other ministers, including Indus- try Minister Ariel Sharon, who stated that he had always supported attacks on PLO leaders, demonstrated that Israel wanted to retain its official distance for diplomatic purposes while exploiting its role in the assassination to maintain support among the rabidly anti-Palestinian right wing for- ces in Israel. Even Time magazine, long known for its pro-Israel stance, carried a report in its May 2 edition, outlining the details of the attack on al-Wazir and noting that Israel’s “Prime Minister’s Club”. — Shamir, For- eign Minister Shimon Peres and Defence Minister Yitzhak Rabin — “had given a green light to all security services for pre- paring an operation.” According to Time’s version of events, drawn up by the magazine from its own sources, Israel military forces brought the commandos from Israel by boat and dropped them off at a pre-arranged spot some 20 miles north of al-Wazir’s home. From there, they were transported in two vans and a car to the PLO leader’s home. Once they were in position, other agents used electronic gear to disable the tele- phone in al-Wazir’s home and at the nearby police station. And for nearly two hours covering the critical attack period, an Israeli Boeing 707 loaded with elec- tronic jamming apparatus flew just out- side Tunisian airspace to prevent al-Wazir from making radio communication with anyone outside. Just after 1 a.m., a squad of eight assas- sins stormed the house, killing al-Wazir on the second floor. As his widow called for help from a balcony, they escaped in the three vehicles which were later found abandoned on a beach following the ren- dezvous with the Israeli ship. Pacific Tribune, May 4, 1988 « 7