A War of Words 

The Israeli and Palestinian Media Coverage of the al-Aqsa Intifada

ISRAELI MEDIA

 Palestinians claim, among other things, that the Israeli media have become a “tool for political propaganda” and that “the majority of Israeli journalists serve the official Israeli political and military line” and are “participating in incitement against Palestinians and the Palestinian leadership, as well as Arab Knesset members”. [1] These statements have, however, not been seriously tested. As this study shows, while there are indeed examples of incitement and extremely biased reporting, one cannot bluntly state that the majority of Israeli journalists serve the official Israeli authorities.[2]

 In this report, three Israeli newspapers have been examined. Yedioth  Ahronot is an Israeli Hebrew language daily newspaper reflecting views of the centre of the Israeli politics. Ma’ariv is one of the mainstream tabloid newspapers in Hebrew competing for readership with Yedioth Ahronoth. The Jerusalem Post is a right wing daily English language newspaper. Ha’aretz is a more liberal daily newspaper, published both in Hebrew and English.

 It is of interest to mention that the coverage of statements and actions taken by the Israeli Peace Camp has been very weak and have not been well covered in the Israeli press. According to the Israeli Peace groups, they have been less active, because of their ambivalence about the issue of the right of return. An appeal by the Israeli Peace Camp, directed to the Palestinian leadership, was published in Ha’aretz on 02.01.2001, seeking to negate the right of return. [3] Israeli left wing organisations and the peace camp have also noticed a strong decline in attention by the Israeli media. Their calls for protection of Palestinian civilians are not “in fashion” at this time. By not looking to put a finger on the pulse of all groups, the Israeli journalist might find himself at the mercy of the authority and in a way “used” by the system for its own purposed.

 4.1 Suicide attacks and bomb attacks: “Who?”, not asking “what?”, never asking “why?”

“Terrorism” is a term the Israeli media use only for Palestinian violence. In general, Israel only defends itself. However, unsubstantiated allegations claiming that an ambulance had fired from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society Headquarters in al Bireh brought forward by the spokesperson of the Israeli army on Israeli radio on 01.11.2000 endangered the work of Palestinian emergency medical crews. [4]

 “Who was he? Who did he work for? Who can we interview that denounces ‘terrorism’?” It sounds simple, but unfortunately this has been a mainstream way of covering Palestinian attacks on Israeli soldiers, civilians or settlers. There are examples of deeper journalism, for example by Amira Hass and Gideon Levy in Ha’aretz when covering the latest violence in the occupied territories. But even some of these articles do not use Palestinian sources in a fair way: There is always the “claim” when Palestinian sources are quoted. “The Palestinians claim” or “a Palestinian source claims..”.

After the suicide bomb in Netanya on 04.03.01, Yedioth Aharonot on 05.03.01 resorted to the out-of-proportion headline “A War of Terror”, using an aggressive and agitated interviewing style, with eyewitness reports adding nothing but cheap sensationalism. The following is an example of this.

During the last week of March 2001, several bombs exploded in Jerusalem. Yedioth Ahronot reported on the events not very differently from how the Palestinian newspapers reported on clashes and martyrs. On the front page of the 28.03.2001 edition, the headline was “One Attack after Another”, with a anonymous picture of an x-ray from one of the victims showing a nail that went in a victim’s neck. It is worth mentioning that a Palestinian newspaper published a picture of an x-ray taken from a Palestinian victim of supposedly Israeli use of “flechettes” showing several nails in his abdomen. This picture was regarded by the Israeli side to be propaganda. There was also a picture on the front page with a bloody man on a stretcher, exactly the way in which Palestinian newspapers  are accused of incitement usually  due to or because of their layout. The coverage of the bombings went on for 13 pages, with 11 pictures of a little girl crying on 11 of the pages with the theme “A country under terror”. The paper also added a section describing all attacks since the election of the new Israeli Prime Minister and a map with places of attacks.

4.2 Bias and Omission

When looking at Israeli incitement, it should be noted that it differs from the Palestinian incitement. One is outright incitement to violence. Another is the more subtle incitement of dehumanisation. For example, if there is a constant theme portraying the Palestinians as “numbers”, actions taken against the Palestinians by the Israeli army or settlers are more easily justified. In times of conflict, as in the current situation, governments use the media to forward its own agenda and this has often been the seen in the Israeli media.

There are endless examples of biased coverage in the Israeli media. Gilo is not a settlement, but a “suburb of Jerusalem”. The same goes for Har Homa, while both of them were built on confiscated Palestinian land (from Beit Jal la and Bethlehem). Further, when Ha’aretz reports that the “Jewish settlement population targets 200 000”, they  omit the fact that there are another additional 200,000 Jewish settlers living in confiscated Palestinian houses and land in East Jerusalem. This report cannot cover all the examples, but rather focuses on several issues of dual interest during this intifada.

During two weeks of “self-restraint”’ in the beginning of the intifada, about 110 Palestinian and 3 Israeli soldiers were killed. No Israeli officer was interviewed by the mainstream Israeli press to explain the reasons behind this curious ratio. The Jerusalem Post described the clashes and demonstrations by Palestinian youths as “assaults against the IDF”.[5]

When the Israeli army withdrew from Joseph’s Tomb, the Jerusalem Post covered the incident on 07 and 08.10.2000, saying that the evacuation of the Israeli army was temporary. The Palestinian celebrations were described as

“…hundreds of Palestinians were reported to be converging on the site. Palestinian forces have so far kept them from entering and ransacking it...Israeli radio reported this afternoon that a mob had already broken it and set the yeshiva and military post alight and were shooting victory gunfire into the air.”

In its coverage of Joseph’s Tomb over two days, the Post failed to mention that Arafat gave instructions to renovate it in order to assure respect to all the holy places. No Palestinian sources were quoted at all; the sources used were the Israeli radio, six military sources, one Israeli politician, the Israeli Prime Minister, European Union and the Yeshiva director. Al- Jazeera was inaccurately quoted as a Palestinian source, although it is not:

“Police and IDF troops also conducted a search for US citizen Hillel Lieberman of Alon Moreh, who was reported missing yesterday morning. Lieberman is feared to be somewhere in Palestinian-controlled Area A. Yafe [Judea and Samaria spokesperson Rafi Yafe] said a report was received at noon, but the family refused to cooperate with the police. However, the Palestinian news agency Al Jazirra [Al Jazeera] reported that Lieberman, who went to protest the withdrawal from the compound, was killed by Palestinians”.[6]

4.2.1 Military service also for the Hebrew language

All the Israeli newspapers have adopted the Israeli army’s definitions and terms regarding the conflict without questioning their use of terms. During the last five months, all newspapers except Ha’aretz have resorted to directly quoting in their articles the Israeli army spokespersons statements as they describe last day’s or night’s events in the occupied territories. The statements have not even been rewritten for the purpose of the news articles, and in many cases when the Israeli army reported that “heavy exchange of gunfire” went on in specific places, Ha’aretz later pointed out that this was not the case. Some newspapers have even used the Israeli army radio as a source to quote directly without checking the accuracy of the information. This radio report, for example, stated that the Israeli army “identified the source of fire and killed him” when a 17-year old innocent Palestinian boy was killed in the bedroom of his house in Beit Jalla while Palestinian shooters were targeting Gilo from another location in the area.[7] “Security engineering work” is a term describing the Israeli army’s bulldozers work on sweeping agricultural land and evacuating vast areas of the Gaza Strip from the Palestinian inhabitants. What Palestinian sources calls “evacuation” or “ethnic cleansing” is in the Israeli press labelled as “widening the margins of the settlements”.

The Israeli mainstream media have been using newly invented terms related to the intifada; “After the killing of Baruch Cohen the army has again crowned Bethlehem”. A foreign correspondent writes: “One might think that ‘crowning’ a city is something quite pleasant. But this is not the case when even the Hebrew language is recruited to do military service.....But well aware that people don't like hearing such words connected to their army, men of ample imagination have invented a new, more 'pleasant" word - to crown. Probably this word was chosen because it describes an action where something, a head, or now a city, is covered by something else, a crown, or for example, an army.”[8] The Hebrew word referred to is ‘keter’, which means ‘throne’ or a ‘crowning’. A related word, “Kitur”, is translated to ‘encirclement’ in Dov Ben Abba Hebrew-English Dictionary from 1977.

In Ha’aretz on 4 March 2001, Aluf Benn writes on the front page: “The army wants to maintain closures on Palestinian towns and villages, and the selective strikes [emphasis added] against Palestinians identified as being implicated [emphasis added] in terror plans and other activities against Israel”.[9]  “Selective strikes” can hardly be said to cover the real meaning of Israel’s assassinations policy, where Palestinian activists have been killed without a trial or a charge. To be “identified as being implicated” in a crime does not warrant the extra-judicial execution of a person according to both international and Israeli law. The journalist is free to avoid using the Israeli army’s own terms for their assassination tactics and should have chosen more accurate description, including pointing out that this policy involves the same problems arising from using extra-judicial killing as do the Palestinian Authority’s executions of Palestinian collaborators after a unfair trial and no right to appeal.

However, the same day a more detailed article was published in the same paper, in which Gideon Levy described the closure of the territories and questioning the Israeli government’s attitude to it (“Appalling Equation, Ha’aretz, 4 March 2001):

“The iron grip of the closure in its new format is increasingly strangling a population of 2.8 million people, yet no one is saying a word, not around the cabinet table of the outgoing government - the peace government - not among those who are going to serve in the new government, and not in the opposition of the Zionist left.”

Looking at the use of sources in Yediot Ahronot, The Jerusalem Post and Ha’aretz, the first two solely use Israeli sources for all information about incidents in the Occupied Territories, while Ha’aretz in their daily news updates uses Palestinian sources, saying that “a Palestinian source claims..”. Further, there has been a strong tendency by the mainstream Israeli newspapers to not mention names of Palestinian civilians who have been killed; they are basically just listed as “Arabs” or “Palestinians”. This is not the case in Ha’aretz and – sometimes – The Jerusalem Post.

In a Jerusalem Post article by Margot Dudkevitch on 02.10.2000, the Palestinian media is blamed for the death of 29 Palestinians killed by the Israeli army over three days of demonstrations, because as she states, the media called to “join the battle to protect al-Aqsa”. [10] Dudkevitch used five Israeli military and security sources for her article, and one Palestinian.

Another article in The Jerusalem Post (25.10.2000) claimed that

“The foreign Ministry helps hundreds of Christian families flee PA areas”

According to the article, this allegedly happened with the help of foreign embassies such as UK, Canada and Cyprus.  The respective embassies denied the story, while the Christian residents in the occupied territories also denied it. [11]

Again, on 04.03.2001 (Jerusalem Post), Margot Dudkevitch reports that four Palestinians were killed, without further explanation. This is usual for her articles, but this time she mentions that there is an investigation into the killings, while leaving out the information on how these four civilians were killed. The same article goes on in detail about how two “Israeli residents” (read: Arabs) were wounded, one “Israeli citizen” (read: Jewish citizen) and five Israeli “bus passengers” (read: Arab citizens of Israel) were wounded. The same article mentions the funeral of Obayeh Mahmoud Daraj (9) of Al Bireh

“…who was shot in his home during an intense gun battle between Palestinians in al Bireh and IDF soldiers at Psagot that continued for several hours in the afternoon and again later in the evening”.

This information was taken directly from the Israeli army. At the time Obayeh was killed, there was no “intense gun battle” in the area, but shooting caused by an internal fight between Palestinians – not at all directed at Psagot. The Palestinian shots were later directed at Psagot, but this was after Obayeh was killed. Dudekvitch goes on to mention more Palestinian deaths, not mentioning if they were participating in clashes or gun shooting.

When Mohammed al Durra was killed on 30.09.2000, The Jerusalem Post wrote under the headline “Boy’s tragic death caught on camera”, starting with:

“Some say Mohammed Jamal al Durra, a 12 year old boy from el-Bureij refugee camp, was participating in the stoning of the IDF outpost at Netzarim when his father came to drag him home before he got hurt. Others say he was returning from a used car market with his father when they were caught in the crossfire between IDF troops and Palestinian gunmen”.

Ha’aretz reported on 03.10.2000 that “The IDF apologizes for killing 12-year-old boy in Gaza”. On the same day, The Jerusalem Post on the contrary reported that “IDF: Not our fault boy, 12, killed”. But the article listed seven Israeli human rights organisations that called on then Prime Minister Ehud Barak to establish an independent commission for inquiry outside the army.

Ha’aretz is published in both Hebrew and English. Often, the English version headlines on articles are different from that of the Hebrew version, most often more neutral. One example can be taken from 13.03.2001, when Ha’aretz in Hebrew ran a story with the headline “The Minister of Defense to the Settlers: I Salute you”:

“Ben Eliezer said that he is full of admiration and appreciation for the settlers of YESHA. …The settlers of YESHA are facing a battle that was forced on them, and they are doing so calmly and bravely, and are setting an example. I salute them, but they must understand that the solution cannot be found with a magic wand and that the restoration of order is a process”

The article does not question the statements in any way. What is interesting is the tendency of the two editions of Ha’aretz to differ in their headlines. In this case, the English headline read: “Ben-Eliezer opposes using tanks on PA” (Ha’aretz English Edition, 13.03.2001).

In Ha’aretz on 11.03.2001, a headline reads “Settlers attack journalists in Hebron”. The article opens by describing a Palestinian civilian killed by the Israeli army and other events, while the story on the settlers attacking the journalist received less attention in the story itself.

An example of extremely bad journalism can be taken from Ma’ariv on 12.03.2001 (by Eitan Rabin). The headline read “Suspected: Palestinian Journalists of Leaking Information to Ring, Resulting in the Shooting Aimed at Minister of Defense”. The article explains in detail rumours about Palestinian journalists leaking information to Hizbollah who shot towards the Israeli Minister of Defense Benyamin Ben Eliezer, Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz and the director of the Ministry of Defense Amos Yaron during a visit to the settlement block of Gush Katif. The article is long, and it openly blames Palestinian journalists of being associated with Hamas and the Islamic Jihad and acting to help these organisations with information on visits by Israeli officials – based on rumours. At the end of the article, the journalist – who normally reports on IDF statements without further  explanation of events – undermines his own article by mentioning in a few words that

“The IDF’s spokesperson said that after the investigation it appears that the shots heard during the Minister of Defense’s visit to IDFs post in Gaza were directed towards a nearby base, with no connection to the Ben Eliezer’s visit and that hostile terrorist activities is negligible in these areas since the outbreak of the violence”.

That an investigation was launched, was not mentioned previously in the article. The headline should more logically have been “Investigation denies charges against Palestinian journalists” instead of being based solely on rumours presented in the story.

4.3 Incitement in the Israeli Media

Incitement can be found in several Israeli newspaper articles. Reports on prominent people calling for violence are not only found in the Palestinian newspapers. As Israel charges that Palestinian religious leaders are inciting to violence, so too can quotes from Jewish Rabbi’s public opinions on the ongoing conflict:

“It is forbidden to be merciful to them. You must send missiles to them and annihilate them. They are evil and damnable” [12](Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, April 2001).

On 23.11.2000 Ma’ariv reported that “Right wing leaders call for a powerful reaction”. The article reported how leaders demanded that the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak must implement an effective and powerful retaliation in response to the bombing that occurred in Hadera on 22.11.2000. They asked for the destruction of infrastructure in the PA, to declare a state of war against the Palestinians, to chase and kill the Palestinian leaders and to reoccupy the Palestinian areas in order to arrest those who attack Israelis.

In the beginning, Israeli journalists talked about the intifada as “local riots and disturbances”. The use of unsubstantiated statements from the Israeli army without checking or verifying the facts of the statements led Israeli public opinion to believe that the Palestinians always are the aggressors, while the armed Israeli soldiers are just defending themselves against the rocks and bullets of the Palestinians. The fact that then Prime Minister Ehud Barak, on October 30, 2000, gave the Israeli army permission to initiate attacks was reported, but since that date many Israeli initiated attacks have been presented in a way that implies they were  “reactions to Palestinian violence”. One cannot blame the Israeli army for using the term “responding” to all actions they take, even when they strike first, but journalists should not let it shape their reporting of the conflict. The word “response” provides a ready-made reason for the Israelis’ actions and neatly brushes off demands for further explanation. Israeli journalists follow up loyally by always asking “the other side” why Israel launched attacks against for example civilian communities or neighbourhoods.

By not publishing the names of Palestinian victims, using the term “Arab residents” for Arab Israeli citizens, never allowing a Palestinian to be called a “civilian”, the Israeli media help the Israeli army in the well known tactic of war: stop talking about humans, rather concentrate on “collateral damage”. Palestinians become faceless numbers, and it is then easier to rationalise the killing of them by the Israeli army or by settlers. They are viewed as less human.

Further, in the Israeli press “communities” and “neighbourhoods” are terms only used for Jewish residential areas. According to the Israeli press, Palestinians live in “areas”, implying that they are not members of communities and neighbourhoods.

Similarly, the Israeli newspapers have adopted the Israeli authority’s attempt in January this year of redefining the current crisis from that of a “belligerent occupation” to be labelled as “violence”, in order to deny the responsibilities placed on an Occupying power to protect the civilians in the occupied territory.[13] The terms “state of emergency” and “a state of war” have been widely used, whereas journalists have not managed the simple task of pointing out to the reader exactly “where” this “war” is being fought.

When looking back to Chapter 4 and how the Palestinian newspapers publish stories of children who fight the Israeli soldiers, one can ask if this type of article, interviewing an Israeli sharpshooter, does not serve the same intention of glorifying their struggle:

“I shot two people…in their knees. It’s supposed to break their bones and neutralize them but not kill them…. How did I feel? …Well, actually, I felt pretty satisfied with myself”…. I felt I could do what I was trained to do, and it gave me a lot of self-confidence to think that if we go into a real war situation I’d be able to defend my comrades and myself”. (Jerusalem Post 27.10.2000, “Nahshon battalion ready for urban warfare”, by Arieh O’Sullivan).

After Israeli Arab citizens demonstrated against the Israeli police in Nazareth, Yedioth Ahronoth reported on 03.10.2000 in their article “A Difficult Day Yesterday” that one soldier was killed, together with one Israeli civilian, five Arabs and eight Palestinians. The referral to Israeli Arab citizens as ‘Arab residents’ or just simply ‘Arabs’ imply that they are not Israeli citizens nor civilians. Jewish citizens of the state of Israel can be called civilians, while Arab citizens were never referred to as ‘civilians’ in the mainstream newspapers when they covered the riots in Nazareth during October 2000.[14] As noted by Keshev,  The Center for the Protection of Democracy in Israel, the Israeli media has a tendency to report that “Jews take the law into their own hands” when they commit wilful killings or other crimes, while when describing Arab citizens or Palestinians committing violent acts they use the term “The Arabs become wild”. [15]

The military correspondent of Yedioth Ahronoth, Ron Ben Yashai, has written several inciting articles the last few months, making it hard to distinguish between his role as a journalist or as a spokesperson for the Israeli army. One example is from 21.11.2000, where he emotionally calls for the Israeli army to initiate attacks using all the different weapons types available to them instead of merely responding to Palestinian actions.

“We must understand that Arafat and his regime are our enemies, and we must hit them systematically until they ask for a cease-fire.” [16]

As a professional journalist he is out of line in asking for initiation of army attacks. If the Palestinian Authority was a government /independent state, his article would be calling for Israel to declare a war.

On March 11, 2001, Ha’aretz published a picture of Arafat on the front page showing him speaking to the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) session the day before. The photo desk picked the worst possible picture taken at this session, showing Arafat with bulging eyes, looking wild and dangerous.

In the same way as the Palestinians newspapers have published reports and quotes from Palestinians calling on using violence against Israelis, the Israeli mainstream media have published similar reports.  One example is from Yedioth Ahronoth (06.12.2000):

“A ‘Security Council’ was formed in Katsir in Wadi Area inside Israel in order to protest, and fight, the presence of Arabs in the area. The Council suggests that the Arabs must always be stopped, searched and abused, so as to force them to leave the town. The monthly report of the Council warned that ‘when the number of Arab families reach 20, they may ask to build a mosque, and that will create a problem for us”.

Similar statements from Jewish settlers calling for harassment and inhumane treatment of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories have been widely published in the Israeli newspapers. One such case is worth mentioning, as it is a disturbing example of how, as political leaders have made decisions under the pressure of live news reports, journalist bias has changed the course of events. The case in question is the death of a 10-month-old infant that served as the focus of the battle for international public opinion during the last week of March 2001. On  26.03.2001, a settler child named Shalhevet Pass was killed by a bullet fired from Abu Sneineh in Hebron. It was a terrible tragedy, although not proof was offered for the assertion that it was done on purpose by "a sniper who deliberately drew a bead on the baby's head", an assertion repeated countless times by Israeli politicians and media. The tragedy could also have been the result of random shooting, much of which has taken place in that area in the past six months.[17] As Ha’aretz reported, there was evidence that the shooting was intentional and not random.[18] The Israeli mainstream media had as headlines on their front pages “Sniper Kills Toddler Shalhevet” (Yediot Ahronot), “Baby Murdered” (Ma’ariv). While Ma’ariv claimed that there was “one single shot”, Yedioth Ahronot reported that “several shots were heard”. Naom Tivon, the Hebron Brigade Commander argued that a Palestinian shot two bullets. This confusion was never addressed later by the Israeli mainstream media.

While the case of Shalhevet Pass was widely reported , the death of a Palestinian boy, due to random Israeli gunfire, was ignored by the Israeli media.  Eleven year old Mahmud al-Darwish was killed by heavy machine gun fire which penetrated his parents’ home at the Hebron suburb of Dura.  Mahmud was playing in the backyard with his brothers when a bullet hit him.  The circumstances of the killing, which took place one day after and a few kilometres away from where Shalhevet Pass was killed, was not reported in the Israeli media.

Used by the Israeli authority in the same way as the Palestinian Authority used the pictures of the boy Mohammed al Durra, a disturbing photograph showing the infant shot through her head was circulated “informally” on 27.03.2001 by the Israeli authority at the news agencies. The high quality photo was shot from short range. Other photographs were circulated with the approval of Shalhevet’s family, one showing her receiving medical treatment after she was hit. The Israeli newspapers decided not to publish the “difficult” pictures, and settled for a picture showing the infant with her parents.

Ha’aretz reported on the use of the killed infant in a front-page article, but did not question how the Israeli media had been using the pictures and calling for a reaction regarding Abu Sneineh neighbourhood:[19]  

“The foreign ministry instructed Israeli diplomats abroad to convince opinion-makers that the sniper slaying of the baby represented ‘unprecedented cruelty’ and that the attack was a cynical Palestinian ‘response’ to Israel’s lifting of closure measures on Palestinian towns…Justifying the use of the Pass tragedy in a public relations campaign, Israeli officials said, ‘ We’ve learned the lessons of past weeks. This is a war waged on television screens, and we need to shock the public opinion around the world”. [20]

Nahman Shai, Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson, said :” This picture should have to be published outside to justify our reaction”.

The settlers in Hebron have long demanded that the army send in troops and altogether conquer the whole neighbourhood, however many casualties it would take. This stance was further intensified by the Pass family’s decision not to bury Shalhevet until the Abu Sneineh neighbourhood was reoccupied. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon did not go this far, but military actions were initiated every day in the week following  29.03.2001; the army warned the inhabitants of Abu Sneineh to move away 'for their own good', and the neighbourhood was subjected to daily bombardments of tank artillery. This took place after heavy pressure from the Israeli media and settlement movement.

Yediot Ahronot (Roni Shaked):

“Settlers reacting to the murder of baby Shalhevet Pass in Hebron said yesterday: ‘There is going to be an atomic explosion here’”.

Following the funeral of Pass[21], Jewish settlers rampaged through Palestinian areas during the evening and night without interference by Israeli police. The settlers used a gas balloon that went off and wrecked several Palestinian stores, while around 20 other Palestinian businesses were torched in the area. No arrests were made of those responsible for the vandalism.

The Israeli radio reported on the incidents (02.04.2001):

“The Jewish settlers in Hebron continue their protests”.

The Jerusalem Post reported it like this (02.04.2001):

“Police: Settlers detonated LPG tank in Hebron. Police believe Israeli Hebron residents detonated a liquid propane (cooking gas) tank in a Palestinian shop in Hebron last night. The Israelis trashed the shop and then set off the explosion, according to a report on Army Radio this morning. The explosion took place near Gross Square adjacent to the Avraham Avinu Jewish compound. Six policemen at a nearby guard post were reportedly lightly wounded in the blast, Army Radio reported this morning…”

The Jerusalem Post did not mention the tens of Palestinian stores and businesses that were destroyed during the rampage that took place, or that the explosion went off inside a Palestinian store, which was totally destroyed by the blast.

Another event showing how media have shaped political decisions can be taken from the use of the picture of a Palestinian man standing in the window of the Police station in Ramallah with blood on his hands after the lynching of the two Israeli soldiers on 12. 10. 2000. Thabet Aassi (23) from Beit Liqia was arrested on the 15.10.2000 after midnight from his house. He supposedly had been identified from the TV pictures by the Israeli GSS (General Security Service). He was imprisoned and tortured for two months, the media already having charged, prosecuted and sentenced him. He confessed. Later, after , the GSS arrested other people who confessed, the GSS withdrew their charges against Aassi. They then accused him for having joined Hamas in 1994 and during October he supposedly participated often in clashes at the northern entrance in Al Bireh, throwing stones at Israeli soldiers.

When the GSS withdrew the charges on the lynching, the Israeli media reported nothing about it. The pressure on the Israeli authorities to identify and arrest this man became so strong that, after arresting the wrong man and going through court procedures showing that he was the wrong person, they could not just release him, but had to charge him with a minor offence – throwing stones at Israeli soldiers. (Aassi is still under arrest pending new court procedures).  

On 13.03.2001, Ma’ariv published the news that details of corruption in the Palestinian Authority may be published soon. Among the alleged discoveries are tax debts paid through “bribe” to senior officials and the debts erased, aid money used to build luxury apartments and senior officials collecting the profits on them. The information was supposedly collected by “senior [Israeli] political figures, and the figures are to point especially to Yasir Arafat:

“Israel is considering publicising several figures collected on the eve of the Arab League meeting in Rabat Amon, in order to counter Arafat’s attempts to blame Israel for the condition of the Palestinian population”.

The article described in detail examples of corruption. The fact that this was the first time the Israeli government went public with such information in a time where the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was seriously escalating was not addressed in the mainstream Israeli media.

4.5 Reporting on Published Human Rights Reports

The Israeli media appear to totally disregard International Humanitarian Law applicable in the Occupied Territories in explaining events . The omission of the terms “Geneva Convention”, “Occupation”, “Protection of civilians”, and that the settlements in fact are “illegal” is disturbing. The same applies for the UN resolutions relevant to this conflict. When Amnesty International and the UN Commission for Human Rights and the U.S. State Department issued their respective reports strongly criticising Israel for breaching basic human rights standards and in some cases accusing Israel of committing war crimes, these reports where either not mentioned at all or given small columns, with the exception of Ha’aretz, which published several of the mentioned reports in addition to reports from Palestinian and Israeli human rights organisations.

As noted in section 3.3 on the Palestinian media and human rights, the Israeli media uses the same tactic.  The Israeli media reported the finding by Physicians for Human Rights concluding that Issam Judeh was not tortured and killed by settlers, but died in a car accident, as the Israeli army had previously claimed.  However they purposely   left out the part of the report that concluded that the Israeli army violated the Fourth Geneva Convention and its own opening-fire regulations by using excessive force against Palestinian demonstrators. The report focused on two disturbing patterns; that the Israeli soldiers do not only open fire in cases of self-defence and that they have been targeting the leaders among the demonstrators. The Israeli media further wrote a couple of articles attempting to discredit the report, the organisation, and the information (April 22, 2001, Ha’aretz “A report to watch carefully”).