A metaphorical gun fires Lebanon into media fuss

"HOW OFTEN," Herbert Spencer wrote, "misused words generate misleading thoughts." Especially, one might add, in the Middle East. A press conference - even the words "jump the gun" - can lead to accusations of an Israeli "plot". Or so it seems today. Let's start with an innocuous press conference held in Jordan to announce the opening of a new bridge over the Jordan river.

The bridge was opened by the Jordanian Foreign Minister, Abdul-Illah Khatib, and his Israeli opposite number, David Levy. A reporter from the Lebanon Broadcasting Corporation's satellite channel, LBCI, dared to attend the conference and - when informed a Lebanese reporter was present - Mr Levy announced: "Good - they should join the peace also." The Lebanese are used to such invitations from Israel, which are often followed by air attacks against Lebanese "terrorists" - the Israeli circumlocution for anyone who opposes Israel. So it was only a matter of time before the Beirut authorities turned in fury against LBCI.

The reporter - whose words were read out on screen but whose film was not shown - was admonished and the television channel made a grovelling apology, reminding viewers that it was "committed to the decision to boycott the Israeli enemy" and was not responsible for "the behaviour of a correspondent ... which took place without LBCI's prior consent". But this was not enough for the Lebanese National Audiovisual Media Council, whose president, Nasser Qandil, wished to mete out the "stiffest punishment" for the "most flagrant violation" a Lebanese medium could ever commit.

He has asked the government to close down the local channel for three days and the satellite channel for 24 hours - a recommendation the Information Minister, Anwar Khalil, now has to ponder. But Mr Qandil - his name, in Arabic, means "lantern" - has now turned his anger upon the Associated Press news agency in Beirut, which interviewed him shortly after his statement. In Arabic, he told the AP he didn't want to make a "premature decision" - a comment the reporter understandably translated by saying that Mr Qandil didn't want to "jump the gun".

Gun? Gun? In a country that is still recovering from the 1975-1990 civil war, the local Arabic-language press translated "jump the gun" as a threat - suggesting that Mr Qandil was ready to "draw the gun".

And Mr Qandil, further enraged, claimed that he would sue the AP. This was no mistranslation, he proclaimed, but "an Israeli plot". Lordy, lordy. The AP duly told Mr Qandil the Webster's Dictionary definition of "jump the gun" - "to start in a race before the starting signal" - which is exactly the meaning of Mr Qandil's words.

Alas, he was not assuaged. The AP had just three hours to withdraw this supposed calumny before his lawyers would descend on the AP's grotty offices in Nahme Yafet street. Gun is a word well avoided in the lexicon of a Lebanese journalist - even when it is used about horse-racing or athletic achievement. Mr Khalil is now trying to find a way out of this preposterous crisis. Lebanese journalists, it seems, should watch out for those dangerous press conferences in which Israeli ministers demand peace.

They should avoid any metaphor, however innocuous, that includes the word "gun". "Spiking the gun", "jumping the gun", "under the gun" - there is no end to the dangers of the English language. How the Israelis must have loved this little episode.