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CNN Sunday Morning

Reporter's Notebook: No Middle Ground in Middle East

Aired June 02, 2002 - 07:08   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.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, imagine trying to cover a story where no matter what you report, thousands of people will write to tell you that you're wrong.

CNN's Carol Lin spent a month covering Israelis and Palestinians and being told equally by both sides. Here's a look at a reporter's notebook.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CAROL LIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The first time I came to Israel, I was on vacation and the intifada broke out.

(on-camera): There are very few places in this country where you're going to find Arabs and Israelis working together.

(voice-over): I returned as a journalist and to a story that was heart breaking and downright strange. The day the Nativity Church standoff ended, I found a group of Buddhists monks chanting at our camera position. The Israeli, soldiers looking pretty chanted out themselves, said the monks could stay as long as they were on the correct side of the barbed wire.

(on-camera): And that is the Middle East where there is no middle. Everyone wants to know where you stand. The army checkpoints these days are the most visible symbol of that divide. Now, you'll talk to taxi drivers, waiters, and even your own friends in the region and they will flat out ask you, "Are you with the Israelis or are you with the Palestinians?"

(voice-over): So people constantly tug at you to understand their pain. Suffering is a political weapon. After a Palestinian in Bethlehem showed the devastation around his home, he wanted to show me bone fragments of his mother and sister who died during the Israeli offensive. Nothing is said about the Palestinian suicide bombers who also claimed innocent lives.

At a Jewish settlement deep in the West Bank, former New Yorker Lisa Rubin shared the family album documenting the worst day of her life, the day her husband and baby were ambushed.

LISA RUBIN, JEWISH RESIDENT: It's a horrible feeling. You know, you get in the car and you just don't know. LIN: If you visit her settlement, you'll hear the story too, shared routinely with American donors. Nothing is said about settlements existing in violation of U.N. resolutions.

This is the holy land where facts are often simply what people need to believe. I spent the day with a Palestinian family whose two sons had the bad luck to get swept into the Nativity Church for 38 days. The oldest son, Zawai Ruhal (ph) and I debated if there could be peace if Palestinian families like his could not reclaim land lost when Israel became a state.

"Look at your beautiful Bethlehem home," I told him, "Is it worth more dead and wounded for his family to have the smallest hope of getting property in Israel back?" He could not or would not answer that question.

So I leave you with the only pragmatic solution I found in this conflict, an Arab and Israeli who became best friends. They don't talk about the war and they only speak to each other in English.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And it's working.

LIN: Neutral territory and their only 10. It'll be interesting to see where they are on my next assignment to the Middle East.

Carol Lin, CNN, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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