A War of Words 

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

CONCLUSION

 Palestinian news is undermined by its low investigative content that is mostly published as opinion-oriented advocacy journalism. This is a result of the Palestinian media’s past, having to operate in the context of foreign military occupation, and from self-censorship stemming from the PA rule. Almost all of the Palestinian news organisations have some level of affiliation with the ruling faction in the PA. The Palestinian news is not used as a primary source of information for foreign correspondents stationed in the country. This was confirmed by Lee Hockstader from The Washington Post in a lecture at Birzeit University in March 2001; “The reason why the closure of Ramallah and Birzeit University suddenly got a lot of attention in foreign media was that the Israeli media was talking about it.” [1]

The Israeli media should, however, be judged by standards for media in a democratic society, where the duty of the journalist is to put his finger on the pulse of the people. In this context, the Israeli journalist has clearly not addressed important questions regarding quality reporting. What are the issues you write about? What do you try to ignore? What do you hide? What are the priorities? Why are they important? What criteria do you use? These are decisions that are sometimes forced by events, but the Israeli media usually tends to select and to impose their own priorities – like media in other democratic societies. In the case of the   al-Aqsa Intifada , there has been little or no restraint to be unbiased or produce balanced reports. Moral standards apply universally. If it is wrong for an Arab to kill a Jew, then it is equally wrong for a Jew to kill an Arab. If extra-judicial killings are wrong when carried out by the PA, then they must be equally wrong when carried out by the Israeli army. This seems like straightforward logic, but the consequences have not been appreciated by many Israeli journalists. When taking the language of the Israeli government directly into the newspaper and adding to the dehumanisation of Palestinians as a people, the Israeli media has shown very little professionalism in their reporting.

Palestinians have taken advantage of the images of teenagers and younger children killed or wounded in the clashes in the same way as the Israeli media have over reacted “in the heat of the moment”, in their sympathetic coverage that followed bombings or suicide attacks, when Israelis were the victims of violence. The Palestinian use of pictures of martyrs, often showing blood, does not differ much from Yediot Ahronot or Ma’ariv’s use of pictures from a blast site or of Israeli civilians or soldiers who were killed.

During the intifada, the PA has used the Voice of Palestine and its other official channels to disseminate material inciting Palestinians to inflict injuries on Israelis, to damage holy Jewish sites, and to engage in what the Israeli mainstream media labels “acts of terror” (which could in many cases also mean participating in demonstrations and stone throwing). The Israeli side claims that these messages use religious language, some times emphasizing that the conflict is between Islam and Judaism. That is true, but unfortunately there is no great difference between the Palestinian statements and those used of Jewish right-wingers quoted in Israeli newspapers. We find that in some cases they speak the same language. But in general, the Israeli newspapers report on the conflict from a secular view.

When Palestinian TV shows over and over again the picture of the boy dying in the arms of his father, the Israelis label it incitement. Which should imply that, when Israeli TV shows dozens of times a day, day after day, the atrocious lynching in Ramallah followed by up to 13 pages coverage in the mainstream newspapers with bloody pictures, that is incitement too. The same goes for the use of the picture of the Israeli infant who was killed by a Palestinian bullet.  The lynching in Ramallah was covered in a way that dehumanized all Palestinians and failed to report on the Palestinian policemen injured attempting to protect the Israelis.

  Al-Quds newspaper tends to use less inciting language than  Al-Ayyam and  Al-Hayat al-Jadida.  This can be explained partially by its having to choose its words according to what will be accepted by the Israeli military censorship, due to its location in Jerusalem and registration under the Israeli authorities. However, considering the many restrictions on Palestinian journalists by Palestinian and Israeli censorship, by Israeli police and soldiers, not being allowed to enter Israel or Jerusalem or travel in general, being badly equipped and not having the necessary training and professionalism to come up with an accurate description of what is going on, the Palestinian press can be said to “under-report” on many of the incidents taking place during the intifada (Interview with Khaled Amayreh, editor Hebron Times and columnist of various news sources).

The most disturbing pattern in the Israeli print media is how they have resorted to using Israeli military sources as their sole resource for news articles. Some of these reports are deliberately false information issued in order to meet the Israeli army’s own agenda - justification of their use of excessive force against civilians, and, as already documented,  some false claims have been widely published as the truth by the mainstream Israeli newspapers. When the two institutions – army and media - meet during a conflict, clashes should be inevitable. If Israel is to be called a Western democracy, as they claim, the media should firstly want to tell the story, while the military wants to win the war and keep casualties to a minimum. The media should want freedom, no censorship, total access and the capability to get their stories out to their audiences quickly. The military on the other hand, wants control. The greatest fear of a military commander in a pre-invasion scenario is that something might leak out that would tip off the enemy. Otherwise, too, surprise is the most potent weapon in the Commander’s armoury. On the other hand, the media should fear that the military might stifle news coverage for enhancing their public image or cover up their mistakes. Unfortunately, these simple characteristics of democracy and a free press are hard to find in today’s Israeli mainstream coverage of the ongoing conflict. But interestingly, many of Ha’aretz’ reports on the current intifada have been very detailed, accurate and to a certain degree unbiased.

Both the Palestinian and Israeli media have failed to provide a scientific and medical context and analysis for why so many civilians have been killed during the last six months.

The media should publicize the principles of human rights and other moral norms, and can act to enforce those norms by publicizing violations. They should also focus public censure on hate groups. Each side has been pointing to the atrocities committed by the other, “forgetting” the atrocities committed by his own side. Israel points to the horrible lynching and the death of eight-month-old Shalhevet Pass, the Palestinians point to the killing of 12-years old Muhammad al-Dura in the arms of his father, the brain-killing bullets used by Israel army snipers against stone-throwing children and the death of four-month-old Iman Hijo.

It is no surprise that neither Israelis nor Palestinians see journalists reporting on the conflict as an entirely neutral force. Both sides are working to influence the message that shapes world opinion – and both sides have been deeply hurt by the media’s use of strong images. These actions also have damaged the prospects for reconciliation, because these images have incited hard-liners on both sides. Israeli acts of violence come in response to the actions of the Palestinians, the Palestinian acts come in response to the Israelis. It’s a vicious circle, fuelled by media on both sides, who should take responsibility to “cool it”, as Aidan White of the International Federation for Journalists pointed out. The media could be a powerful tool to end the cycle of hatred and violence. The media need to report accurate facts and also give the “enemy” some humanity instead of labelling each other as “animals”.