01:00 AM EDT on Friday, April 9, 2004

In the 1950s, Israeli agents planted bombs in Egypt to be blamed on Egyptians and thus to sabotage the nascent Egyptian- U.S. relations (the Lavon Affair). Israeli agents also planted bombs in Iraq to scare Iraqi Jews into leaving for Israel (see the book Ben Gurion Scandals, by Naeim Giladi). And Israeli authorities were caught lying about the massacre of Palestinians (Benny Morris revealed these lies in his books).

Many in the U.S. media, however, continue to take Israeli statements at face value while qualifying even facts available from independent sources as merely Palestinian statements. Thus we hear such things as "Palestinians say that three civilians were killed," while the Associated Press, newspapers, CNN and Fox assert Israeli statements as facts.

The latest in this is the clear attempt to divert attention from the war crime of killing Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the Hamas leader -- who could easily have been arrested, instead -- and the isolation of Israel and the United States in the international community. (The United States had to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution on the killing of Yassin.)

So what did we get as a diversion? We got a well-publicized story about a would-be Palestinian child suicide bomber. Israeli authorities first claimed he was 12 years old; then they said that he said he was 14; then it turns out he is 16 1/2 years old.

Israeli authorities, parroted by the U.S. media, first claimed that he had been sent by al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and paid $27 for this. The groups accused later denied responsibility (this was not reported). Israeli authorities had no answers when asked by al-Jazeera to explain why someone would take $27 to commit suicide or why both TV and still cameras happened to be at the checkpoint.

We know that this 16 1/2-year-old is slow (probably because of malnutrition under occupation), and that he was atrociously used by someone. Like many other such incidents, we will never get the full story.

But that is not important to the Zionist spin machine, intent on making us forget occupation, colonization, ethnic cleansing and oppression. The spin machine accomplished its goal and passed another one over the gullible -- or perhaps not so gullible -- U.S. media.

No wonder that in Europe and the rest of the world (with much more rigorous journalism), Israel and the U.S. government are viewed as a danger to world peace.

MAZIN QUMSIYEH

Orange, Conn.

The writer is co-founder of the Palestine Right to Return Coaltion.