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American Morning
Election Gurus Sound Off on Israel
Aired May 07, 2002 - 09:21 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Now to this morning's "Sound Off."
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but sometimes the pictures may need a thousand words to explain what's really going on. And in the current Middle East conflict, there is a debate over whether surveillance cameras would make it easier or more difficult to get to the truth if they're used as a tool to monitor the peace.
Joining us now from Washington, Bob Beckel, Democratic Political Strategist, and Cliff May, former RNC communications director.
Good morning, gentlemen, good to see you two.
CLIFF MAY, FORMER RNC COMM. DIRECTOR: Good morning.
BOB BECKEL, DEMOCRATIC POLITICAL STRATEGIST: You too, Paula.
ZAHN: All right. With your permission, we're going to go back to this dramatic surveillance video. And I wanted to get your analysis of these gentlemen of them.
But from what we understand from the Israel defense forces, they say this shows Palestinians staging a fake funeral. The Palestinians deny it; they say it's a film.
Now I'm going to say this quickly because we can't watch this whole thing. But in the video, the stretcher bearing the body tips -- and you actually see the body fall to the ground. And then what is caught on tape -- and you'll see this a little bit later on, about 30 seconds from now -- is that all of a sudden you see these crowds scattering.
What is the significance of this, Bob? And how damaging is it?
BECKEL: Well, I mean, it proves either that everybody who doesn't believe in God is wrong or this really is the Holy Land. I mean I don't know how us to take it. But I'll tell you this, first of all, the first part of that picture looked to me like somebody who was wounded being carried away. And, you know, the problem with video cameras is that we can edit and you can cut it different ways and you can interpret it different ways.
I think the whole idea of making decisions based on videotape provided by one side against the other is nuts. I mean, you know, everyday in this country we get videotaped on the average -- every one of us -- 100 times. Now, for example, my speeding tickets, which I wish they would let me go on.
The point is that you cannot take that tape and say that this was a funeral procession and this was all made up and -- sorry, go ahead.
MAY: Yeah, thank you very much.
BECKEL: Please, I really don't want to interrupt you.
MAY: No -- no. What this was was a funeral procession staged for the cameras down there and the corpse fell off and he got back on and they all took a break for lunch. And what you have is the Israelis, at this point, with unmanned drones with cameras on it and also cranes with cameras on it and they're photographing everything.
Now modern warfare has become two components: one, military, two, public relations. The Israelis have not been very good on public relations; that's not been their strong suit. But now what they're doing is filming everything.
They filmed the Church of the Nativity to show they weren't the ones who caused the fires that Arafat was screaming about. They should have filmed, I'm sure they believe, in Jenin, so they could show all that.
This is the wave of the future, because fighting the public relations war has become almost as important as fighting the military war on the ground. There's no way out of it. Everybody is going to do it. This is what's going to happen from now on.
ZAHN: Well, Bob, wouldn't you acknowledged based on what you've seen so far on this tape that this is a pretty good PR move on the Israelis' part?
BECKEL: I mean if I had something like that, would I leak it? I mean I've got videotape of my opponents in campaigns before I've leaked. They weren't very flattering.
But the fact of the matter is, first of all, who is holding the camera? I wouldn't take anything that Cliff was holding if he was doing the camera work and say it was true. And the fact is, you know, when I first saw that, I thought what a great move by the Israelis.
But have you ever seen a Palestinian funeral where there's not mobs and mobs and mobs of people around the presumed body? No. In that case, you didn't see it. And a lot of times, the Palestinians will put a flag over wounded people so they can get them away from there.
MAY: Yeah, but this...
BECKEL: I'm not defending the Palestinians, Cliff, I'm just saying if you think that is (UNINTELLIGIBLE) evidence that the Palestinians have been conning everybody all along...
MAY: They haven't -- well...
BECKEL: I mean, look, your party has been conning people a long time on tape.
MAY: This is a corpse under a shroud and he got up and he brushed himself off.
BECKEL: I told you it's the Holy Land, man.
MAY: We've also had the...
(CROSSTALK)
BECKEL: (UNINTELLIGIBLE). Come on.
MAY: And the Israelis know, for example, the Palestinians have dug up bodies and put them in one place and said, Look here, there's a massacre. But the wrong point of this is, what do you -- how do you fight the public relations war that have become such an important part of every military campaign? And I think you're going to see this.
I wouldn't be surprised, for example, if CNN said to the Israelis, OK, you've got a drone with a camera up there, you've got a crane. You're filming everything at the Church of the Nativity or Ramallah or wherever. Put our cameras up there too.
And I wouldn't be surprised if they said yes to it. We're going into a very new stage. Look, just CNN changed the world in terms of how we see the news around the world and how we see warfare. The changes are not over yet. There are all kinds of changes coming up, and you're seeing part of it right here.
ZAHN: Gentlemen, I just want to break you off for a moment and quickly go to Boston, where the Reverend Paul Shanley is being arraigned.
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