"But We Didn't Know"
BAYEUX, France — I finally lost it after 15 years of seeing yet more names chiseled on marble steles at the Reporters' Memorial in this noble Normandy town, which puts its heart and soul into alerting a distracted world to the horrors of war.
A few of those names were friends. Others were colleagues who were killed for getting too close to truth, leaving stricken families behind. It is time to get very, very angry. When totalitarians come for the journalists, we won't know what happens next.
Each October, an international jury awards Bayeux Calvados-Normandy war correspondents prizes. At exhibits and panels, we talk with townsfolk, from school kids to elders who fought past wars. Thousands jam into a big tent for the final ceremony.
On late, lubricated nights, we exchange firsthand insights from far-flung places where smoldering embers risk bursting into flame. This year, alarm bells clanged like never before from the Middle East, Ukraine and most every corner of an imperiled planet.
But across the Atlantic, too many people tune all that out. Republicans pour money into close races to befuddle the gullible and suppress opposition turnout. Americans have only days left to grasp why the Nov. 3 midterms are so drop-dead crucial.
Jean-Léonce Dupont, president of Calvados département, summed up the Bayeux consensus on Donald Trump in two words at the awards ceremony: brutal and vulgar. Reporters who cover the impact of his depredations were scathingly specific.
Journalists are out there, whether noticed or not. One sentence stands out from all that was said in Bayeux. It was about a photo exhibit by a Palestinian who exposed what Israeli hardliners did not want seen in Gaza. But it applies to conflicts everywhere.
At the very least, the curator wrote in his introduction, no one can say, "But we didn't know."
The world has changed dramatically since World War II. Human nature has not.
In Washington and Moscow, power-obsessed miscreants evoke a Führer whose ruthless quest to rule over off-white Untermensch filled so many graves along nearby Normandy beaches. Neither gives a shit for human decency, let alone human life.
In Beijing, a more sophisticated despot wants China to remake the world in its own image, with strict surveillance and harsh controls. He knows the dangers of outright war. But if pushed to it, he is ready.
Once we had time to recover from past calamities and pull back from the brink of new ones. Now as temperatures soar, billionaires bogart dwindling resources on an overcrowded planet and fascistic rulers amass power, we no longer do.
Seasoned foreign correspondents are a vanishing breed. Many were brought home by profit-minded executives. Governments with something to hide ban access — or worse. Armed gangs, terrorists and random-seeking goons murder at will.
Veterans are increasingly replaced by courageous reporters and photographers in stricken societies who live the stories they cover at enormous risk. Authoritarians target them, expecting no diplomatic blowback or public outrage for expendable "local hires."
When I first came to Bayeux in 2011 as jury president, those grim columns listed about 2,000 names. Now they total over 3,000. This year, 27 of the 56 are from Palestine and Jordan. Eight are Mexican, and most others are from Latin America.
This new generation reflects what they know intimately. The rest of us — reporters and citizens alike — need to fit their eyewitness reality into a clear view of what the wider world faces. That takes tough, persistent work. What can be more important?
Trump ended none of those eight conflicts he boasts about. But he is to blame for the Ukraine war, which he plainly wants Russia to win. At winter approaches, he lifts sanctions while Vladimir Putin hammers civilian neighborhoods and power plants.
Ukraine frantically seeks U.S.-made Patriot interceptors, yet Trump is even blocking transfers from European stockpiles. But as those midterms loom, just focus on his war of choice in Iran, closely linked to Ukraine. Also, on Gaza and the West Bank.
Benjamin Netanyahu exploited Trump's ignorant hubris, goading him to attack Iran. He scrapped the 2015 accord in which Iran foreswore nuclear weapons. He wanted to outdo Barack Obama. Eight months before his Operation Epic Fury, he insisted Midnight Hammer had "totally obliterated" Iran's capacity to build a bomb.
His Feb. 28 onslaught caught U.S. citizens in the region by surprise, even diplomats, with no plan for their safety. Other countries sent chartered aircraft. Americans struggled to book canceled flights, some driving all day to an airport if they found seats.
Iran fought back, blowing Pandora's Box all to hell across the Middle East. Its missiles crippled U.S. bases. It struck water desalinization and power plants in Gulf states that now seek alternatives to an unreliable ally.
Yemeni Houthis, helped by Iran, strike at the heart of Saudi Arabia. Their missiles killed 19 people and wounded hundreds more at King Khalid airport in Riyadh. The Hormuz strait remains largely choked off, and Houthis bedevil other oil export routes.
Yet Trump raises cheers at rallies each time he declares he will soon win the Iran war, which he has already lost. Reporters who cover it closely with solid Iranian and international sources expect worse is yet to come.
With my telltale name, I see Gaza and the West Bank provoking a global backlash against all Jews, whatever their beliefs. That feeds the sort of racist scapegoating of any convenient "Other" that authoritarians choose to single out.
Netanyahu harangued a nearly empty U.N. General Assembly, attempting to heap shame on people who endanger Jews by condemning Israel. The hypocrisy is stunning. Resurgent hatreds are political, not religious. I see him as the principal cause.
If a multi-faceted religion like Judaism had a pope, Netanyahu would be the last one in line. He is a slicker, smarter version of Trump, a self-serving politician desperate to hold power to stay out of jail.
Israel's Knesset is a parliament, not a two-party bicameral Congress. But as in American midterms, polls show a slight lead for the opposition in Israel's Oct. 27 elections. After covering intermittent war and peace in Israel since the 1960s, I'm holding my breath.
Without some equitable autonomy for Palestinians, all bets are off. Until George W. Bush invaded Iraq, I've been welcome in Muslim countries from North Africa to Indonesia. Now, I'd appreciate a passport calling me Mahmud O'Shaughnessy.
The unholy land has been fought over by countless peoples since, according to unconfirmed reports, the Hebrews' god parted the Red Sea so Moses could lead his tribe out of slavery in Egypt.
When so much depends on individuals' faith and politics, words carry little weight. "Right" and "wrong" are moving targets. Arabs and Jews are both "Semites." The term "genocide" surfaced in 1944 when its meaning was clear.
After the Holocaust, U.N.-defined borders partitioned British-mandated Palestine to create a homeland for stateless Jews, a Western-style democracy. Arabs called it the Nakba, a catastrophe. Today, ultra-Zionists who dominate the Knesset want it all.
That bone-chilling photo exhibit in Bayeux, by Ali Jadallah, was titled "Gaza: The Chronicle of a Genocide." If the word jars, call it mass murder.
Damir Salgolj, an ex-Reuters star who directs international reporting projects from Sarajevo, spent a month selecting among 30,000 photos Jadallah took to show the impact of Israel's riposte to the vicious Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023.
We've all seen wide-angle views of Gaza in rubble. Jadallah's picture above this Report shows the real damage in one mother's eyes.
Nothing diminishes the horrors of that Hamas raid into Israel to slaughter Jews at a music festival and in nearby homes, most of them sympathetic to Palestinian autonomy. Terrorists brought 251 hostages back to underground captivity.
Netanyahu's first move was to bar all foreign journalists from Gaza. Not, as he claimed, to keep them safe. But his censorship failed to stop gutsy local reporters, doctors and international aid agencies from bearing witness.
Jadallah, who works with the Turkish agency, Anadolu, recently wrote about an airstrike that changed his life:
"My father, sister, three brothers, and my cousins were all killed in the attack. My mother was found, badly injured, buried beneath the rubble. For three days, I pulled my family’s bodies from the wreckage. I never found my sister Doa’a; they told me her body likely disintegrated from the force of the blast.
"Among the rubble, though, I found my mother alive. I kissed her hand—a moment that brought me back to life. There is nothing like feeling a living hand beneath the ruins. That moment became the inspiration for this project. Now, as I document Gaza’s devastation, I search for moments that hold the same spark of life. I know what it means to reach for a hand amid loss. It’s the feeling of finding life surrounded by death.
"In my work, the grief is ever-present. Every day, I relive my pain. Whenever a body is pulled from the rubble, I see my family’s faces. I know the helplessness of facing death and, through this project, I want the world to know it too. This is Gaza’s story—a story of love, loss, and resilience. Though, nobody deserves to live such a life and to endure the helplessness of securing the beloved ones under non-stop attacks.”
One impetus for the Hamas raid into Israel was turmoil boiling over in the West Bank. Presidents since Jimmy Carter tried to limit Jewish settlements with varying success. Trump and his Orthodox son-in-law spurred them on.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir says God gave Jews the land Palestinians occupy; they should be removed by any means necessary. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich wants the army to use the approach it did in Gaza throughout the West Bank.
Faced with growing violence, young men disgusted with an ineffectual Palestinian Authority and their elders' inaction began fighting back. Israeli Defense Forces moved in, which spiked yet more conflict.
A BBC report from a West Bank village shot me of out my chair. Masked settlers set fire to olive groves, after stealing harvested ripe fruit, to take Palestinians' land. I grow olives in France, and I've seen in the West Bank what ancient trees mean.
Their luscious green oil, among the world's best, is now the only source of income left to beleaguered Palestinians. Abbas Milhen, director of the Palestinian Farmers Union, said 140,000 olive growers provide the livelihood for 800,000 people in the West Bank.
But it is more than that. Those trees were planted centuries ago, and each new generation tends them lovingly. People regard those trees like their own sons and daughters, Milhen said. "They are stealing the life of farmers."
At least 200 similar attacks so far this year add up to more than all past raids, the BBC said. Israeli soldiers stood by as settlers aimed slingshots at reporters. The report showed "an American journalist" who spoke from a hospital bed, but it did not identify her.
She was so badly bruised and lacerated, speaking softly in pain, that I didn't recognize her. Settlers kicked her for 10 minutes, she said. It was Heidi Levine, a widely respected Washington Post photographer. We had worked together for the Associated Press.
Heidi is a straight shooter who first came to Israel to live in a kibbutz. She has seen all sides of Israel-Palestine conflict, along with courageous war coverage elsewhere.
“I don’t know how a parent can raise such monsters," she said. "They’re not even humans, and yes, they are Jewish terrorists. And you know what? Sadly, none of them will be prosecuted. I am sure of it.”
The "Prix Bayeux" is the only global gathering I know that unites people who cover the news with those whose lives depend on how that news plays out.
I last saw Heidi Levine in 2015, when hope infused a pre-Trump Middle East. "War and Healing in Gaza" for SIPA Press won not only the photography award but also the overall prize determined by a public vote.
BBC is far better than CNN at global coverage in general, but each has some excellent reporters. Lyse Doucet of BBC, jury president this year, was mobbed with admiring colleagues from the road. So was Christiane Amanpour of CNN in 2018.
As I was finishing this piece, Amanpour announced her departure from CNN after more than 40 years. Not accidently, that coincided with the David Ellison's Trump-assisted takeover of the network. Watch for a "Mort Retort" on Substack shortly.
Americans have never needed more the sort of solid cable news Ted Turner pioneered. "Objective" is a tricky descriptor. Christiane's watchword — truthful, not neutral — caught today's challenge. I fear a Foxification: neither truthful nor neutral.
Jeremy Diamond in CNN's Jerusalem bureau won the short-format TV prize with a masterful report from West Bank homes under siege.
Police confined him to his car, where he spoke in perfect Hebrew to a young soldier who stood guard out the window. His cameraman discreetly recorded their exchange. The army sympathized totally with the settlers, the soldier said. Palestinians had to go.
Later, I found a more powerful piece, attached below. Diamond interviewed Kamel Musallet, whose 20-year-old son, an American citizen, was beaten to death by a mob one year earlier on a visit from Florida.
A statement from U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee said nothing was more important that safeguarding Americans. No one has yet been held to account.
Diamond's armored car barely escaped a settler attack. Some tried to slash its tires, while others smashed iron bars at the windows. No sign of Israeli peacekeepers.
Bayeux's cathedral houses a 970-year-old tapestry, the world's first newsreel. Its panels depict the Norman conquest of England. It is out on loan in Britain, But Americans still pack trains from Paris on their way to the beaches.
They come to revere the past yet seem incurious about how it impacts the present. The Prix Bayeux crowd and American tourist groups coexisted in separate universes.
That needs to change fast. As the world spins ever faster, with artificial intelligence that already outthinks so many brain-numbed couch sitters, history no longer repeats itself. It just gets worse.
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I've been scrawling and typing words since first grade in 1949. None have mattered more to me than this cri de coeur. Please share widely, with a mortreport.org link. Mort Retort is on Substack. Both are without paywalls, but contributions are gratefully accepted.
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