In my judgment, my personal judgment, is that [the coverage] is tilting pro-Palestinian. And let me give you the evidence for that. When several days ago, week or so ago, the President and the Secretary of State began to ask Prime Minister Sharon to pull Israeli forces out of the West Bank, the Bush doctrine stated not only Israel pull out of the West Bank, but the Palestinians and Arab world [were told] you have to do something to proclaim your opposition to terrorism. [Bush] balanced his ticket, but the coverage was not balanced; it was strictly -- or strictly is too strong -- it was largely [blaming] the Israeli side, 'Get out of the West Bank.' And you would find verbs like 'Israel defies President Bush.' And it set up a collision between Israel and the United States... But deep down there is not a collision. There is a greater collision, in my opinion, between the United States and the Arab world, than there is between the United States and Israel, but the press covered it as if it was a collision strictly between two democracies.
Kalb also laments the media's use of the word "occupation":
"The word 'occupy' is used a great deal. The Israeli forces 'occupy' the West Bank. The word occupy was not used when the Americans moved into Afghanistan. We didn't 'occupy' Afghanistan. But now the word is being used, for example, on the Israeli side, partly because the Israelis have been in occupation of an area since 1967, so it sort of slips in easily. But I think good journalists ought to think about what they're saying. Occupation is a tricky term that the Palestinians use all the time and it evokes strong negative feelings and images. But you have to ask yourself what is, in fact, happening.
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