Palestine, the Arab-Israeli conflict

The nihilistic exploits of embittered Black September militants have contributed to the focusing of public discussion of the Palestine issue on means to combat "international terrorism" rather than on the political roots of the violence or on the diplomatic means to reduce its appeal. Even before these hijackings and assassinations came to dominate the headlines, however, the American press tended to play down the political ramifications of fedayeen actions and to accept simplistic characterizations of the Palestine militants as "commandos" and "hired thugs." In 1969 and 1970, magazines such as Life and Look printed interviews with fedayeen leaders and photographs of military training in the refugee camps. But the romantic glamour attached to the Palestine liberation movement vanished in late 1970 as the guerrillas were hounded out of Jordan, some of them turning to political assassination. Although the underlying problems faced by the Palestinians had not been reduced, the little consideration that had been accorded to the movement's arguments and aims all but vanished. Russell Stetler of Ramparts Press explicitly intended his Reader partially to fill this vacuum. — From http://www.jstor.org (Sep. 20, 2016).