September 6^th, 2007

 

 

PHRMG Publishes a New Report on Israeli Media

 

 PHRMG has published a new report examining the framing of the West Bank barrier in Israeli newspapers. The research analyzes how             Ha’aretz and Jerusalem Post articles depict the barrier from April 14^th to the end of August 2002, when the Israeli Cabinet was formulating construction plans.  

 

The erection of the barrier, which partitions territory within the West Bank and separates the West Bank from Israel, is currently one of the most controversial Israeli policies. The barrier has lead to a decrease in the number of suicide bomber attacks but has also limited and, in some cases, completely destroyed the Palestinians' freedom of movement within the occupied territories.

 

In modern democracies, citizens get the majority of their political knowledge from the media. Therefore, it is important to examine how the Israeli media frame issues (i.e. the construction of the barrier) that affect the Palestinian lives. How then did the Israeli media depict the barrier from April to August 2002? The barrier can be conceived as a security issue from the Israeli perspective and as a humanitarian issue from the Palestinian perspective. It is critical to explore both components of the issue in order to provide a nuanced account of the barrier controversy. Ultimately, the level of public support for the barrier is influenced by how much information Israeli newspapers expose regarding the security benefits versus the negative humanitarian consequences.

 

The report states that:

 

• Ha’aretz and the Jerusalem Post have both communicated a security frame to their readers through the different variables that have been examined. Even when humanitarian considerations appeared in the articles, the security frame dominated.

 

• The most frequently highlighted consideration in the articles about the barrier was security. Usually, the only aspect of the barrier that was highlighted was its ability to prevent terrorists from entering into Israel. In total, 73.9% of the studied articles highlighted Israeli security.   Only 20.9% of the articles highlighted the negative humanitarian repercussions of the barrier on Palestinians. Because the articles primarily focused on Palestinians as terrorists rather than on the barrier’s effects on innocent civilians, Israeli readers may not have considered the severe negative consequences of the barrier.  In the study, security frames dominated the examined articles which may have caused the reader to attach more importance to Israeli security considerations when forming an opinion about the barrier controversy.

 

• When the newspapers contained articles about the barrier, the word “fence” was most commonly used to describe the barrier.  “Fence” was used to denote the barrier in 67.1% of the cases. This term may have also affected Israeli opinions about the barrier.  The term “fence” understates the physical significance of the barrier itself, a concrete wall and fence with a security area averaging sixty meters wide. By downsizing the physical presence of the barrier, the use of the word “fence” may also impact how Israelis perceive the severity of the barrier’s effects on Palestinians. The second most common term used to denote the barrier was “security fence,” used in 14.4% of the cases. “Security fence” also undermines the severity of the humanitarian considerations involved in the barrier controversy by referring to the concrete barrier as a fence. However, “security fence” also draws the reader’s attention to security considerations. The words chosen by the media to depict the barrier are the same subjective words used by the political actors that were promoting the barrier during this time. Consequently, during these critical months in 2002, the media assisted Israeli politicians by framing the barrier solely as a security question.

 

• 90.5% of the newspaper sources in the examined articles were Israeli, while only 7.7% of the sources were Palestinian. Because the media often transfer the frames held by the sources of the articles to the public, the discrepancy between Israeli and Palestinian sources is extremely problematic. If one type of source dominates, only the frame held by that source will be communicated by the newspaper. Israeli readers are rarely exposed to the voice of a Palestinian affected by the barrier.  However, readers are flooded with arguments about the barrier’s security benefits from Israeli sources.  Additionally, Israeli officials constitute 65.0% of the sources examined. The use of state officials as sources in barrier articles is problematic because they promote a frame for political purposes. The Israeli state officials conveyed the construction of the barrier during this period as an urgent security matter.  State officials warned that if the barrier was not to be immediately constructed, many more Israelis would soon fall victim to terrorism. By publishing these statements and neglecting to incorporate statements from alternative sources, the media assisted Israeli officials in promoting their particular agenda in regards to the barrier.
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PHRMG concludes that the media must take immediate action against the various dilemmas revealed in this research. Ultimately, the media have helped to generate and reinforce a biased security frame that was promoted by Israeli officials. Even in times of armed conflict, the media should attempt to uphold an objective stance and monitor the actions of the state.