Choking the Truth to Death: More CAMERA Fabrications
Ali Abunimah
April 3, 2000
The pro-Israeli "media monitoring" group CAMERA has been at it again. In an item recently posted on the group's website, CAMERA's president Andrea Levin lambasts the world's media for "ignoring" Suha Arafat's "anti-semitic" remarks made in the presence of Hillary Clinton in November 1999. ("Media Ducks Arab Anti-Semitism in Suha Story," December 14, 1999, www.camera.org)
In the widely reported incident last November, Mrs. Arafat castigated Israel for using poisonous gasses against Palestinians during the Intifada. Mrs. Arafat did not specify that she meant tear gas, but many people noted in her defence that tear gas frequently used by Israeli forces has been lethal to children and adults, and has caused miscarriages. Levin,incensed that some reporters gave credence to Mrs. Arafat's claims, writes:
"Time magazine's Lisa Beyer actually endorsed Suha's ravings saying "Mrs. Arafat did have a point." The reporter declared, "It's true that tear gas, frequently used by Israeli soldiers, has been linked to miscarriages among Palestinians." No. It is not true. The Journal of the American Medical Association looked into the question in 1989 during the height of the Intifada, when such allegations first surfaced. That assessment, co-written by a member of Physicians for Human Rights, a group often severely critical of Israel, found no evidence of a link."
The first thing to note is that Levin completely ignores allegations that tear gas is lethal to adults, and chooses only to challenge on the question of miscarriages. This is because the authors of the JAMA study state up front that "severe traumatic injury from exploding tear gas bombs as well as lethal toxic injury have been documented."
The JAMA authors note that there had been a lack of studies on the effects of tear gas both in South Korea and the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza, because physicians and scientists feared government reprisals. But they say, "Of particular concern are allegations that exposure to tear gas has been associated with increases in miscarriages and stillbirths," in the West Bank and Gaza.
The JAMA article also makes a crucial distinction between two common types of tear gas, CN, and CS. CN was invented earlier, but was replaced in many countries by the safer and more stable CS starting in the 1950s. CS has completely replaced CN as a riot control weapon in the UK and the US. But, the more dangerous CN is still available. The JAMA article explains:
"Of particular importance is CN, which is still being produced in the United States and was reported to have been used in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (Jerusalem Post, May 6, 1988:1). [omega]-Chloroacetophenone [CN] is generally acknowledged to be of greater toxicity than CS...The maximum safe inhaled dose has been estimated to be several times lower than that of CS and at least five deaths have been reported following the use of CN grenades in confined spaces."
What about the miscarriages? The reference in Levin's CAMERA piece is to a single study cited by the JAMA authors. This is the so-called Hinsworth Report, the results of a committee of enquiry appointed by the British Home Secretary following the use of CS gas by British troops in Northern Ireland in 1969. This study looked only at the effects of CS gas, not the more dangerous CN, and has absolutely nothing to do with events "at the height of the Intifada," as Levin misleadingly infers. The JAMA authors do note that the Hinsworth report finds that CS could be lethal at high concentrations but that the committee found, "no significant increase in abortions, stillbirths or congenital abnormalities in geographic districts of tear gas use, comparing a 9-month period of heavy tear gas exposure to a previous 9-month period." In other words, the Hinsworth Report did not examine any individual cases of pregnant women exposed to CS gas. The JAMA authors do not conclude from this that there is no risk or evidence, but caution rather that, "More sophisticated epidemiologic studies do not exist."
In their conclusions the JAMA authors far from exonerate tear gas. On the contrary, they conclude:
"Unfortunately, the same social conditions that accompany political unrest and the use of tear gas make epidemiologic research difficult, if not impossible. We also believe, however, that the evidence already assembled regarding the pattern of use of tear gas, as well as its toxicology, raises the question of whether its further use can be condoned under any circumstances." The authors say "it is also worthy to note that in 1969, at the United Nations General Assembly, 80 countries voted to ban the use of any chemical in war, including tear gas, under the Geneva Protocol."
Finally, we should also note that the JAMA article was written early in the Intifada. Eleven years later, many more deaths have been documented because of tear gas. Only today, Agence France Presse reported the death of an elderly Palestinian woman due to tear gas fired by Israeli forces during Land Day protests in the village of Sakhnin last week in the Galilee.
It appears the authors of the JAMA article have been the victims of another CAMERA smoke job.
To read about other examples of CAMERA's shameless distortions, check out:
*Camera Propaganda on MSNBC Website
http://www.abunimah.org/other/000110camera.html
*Camera's attack ad on NPR is full of distortion and inaccuracy
http://www.abunimah.org/features/990402camera.html
Ali Abunimah
ahabunim@midway.uchicago.edu
www.abunimah.org
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