By Nehad Ismail
Writing for Ammon News

Understanding the conflict requires the knowledge of two important aspects; the history and origin of the conflict.
In 1948 when Israel was established on 78% of historical Palestine, large numbers of Palestinians were made refugees. Some 500 villages were erased.
In 1967 Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza.
When the media reports the conflict, it rarely mentions the history and origin of the conflict.
A study by Glasgow University Media Group which monitored TV news between Sept 28th and October 16th 2000 had found that out of 3500 lines of text in total, only 17 lines referred to the History of the conflict. (Full details are available in the Glasgow Media Group Book “Bad News from Israel” 2004).
It is worth noting that when facts are known people tend to change their views and some switch support.

Two perspectives
In the Israeli-Arab conflict, we always have two narratives or two perspectives, an
Israeli and a Palestinian.
For Israelis the 1948 war was a war of independence (in Hebrew “melhemet Haatzma’ut”) but this resulted in the uprooting of more than 700,000 Palestinians who became refugees. For the Palestinians that was “The Nakba” The Catastrophe.

Another Study by the Library of International Affairs (30th Oct 07) which
Compared media articles over a period of months had reached some interesting conclusions:
From primarily Israeli perspective, Palestinians are terrorists.
From an Arab perspective, they are freedom fighters and the Israelis are illegal occupiers.

From an Israeli perspective and indeed from the perspective of Israeli supporters, Ariel Sharon is a hero. One New York Times columnist described him once as the feisty warrior, a kind of brave jolly stout fellow.
But in Arab eyes he is a war criminal. Many Europeans and Arabs still consider Ariel Sharon as a devious cunning politician and a murderer.

Different interpretations make it difficult to get the real picture. The interpretation is based on prejudices, experiences and interests of both sides.


Power of the Headlines
In the media war, we cannot ignore the power of the headlines:
The Glasgow University Media Group provided dozens of examples of misleading and inaccurate headlines; however I mention below 2 or 3 examples:

“Avenging their death, Israel hit back”. ITV March 3rd 02

“Israel had been dragged into a war on terror”. BBC December 6th 01

Here we can see that the emphasis is on portraying the Palestinian action and the Israeli retaliation. The Palestinians are the terrorists and the Israelis are the victims who are forced to defend themselves.

Palestinians are depicted as the trouble makers, the terrorists and Israel responds to teach them a lesson.

The Illegal Settlers:
In some Western and Israeli press the settlers are pioneers and defenders of biblical Israel.
In 2003 B’tasleem an Israeli human rights group said: “the press often reports attacks by Palestinians but the facts are different. B’tasleem listed many examples of settlers setting up road blocks, shooting Palestinians at random burning of crops and cars etc etc.
In Hebron 500 settlers make the life of 125000 Palestinians a misery, a hell
On earth.


Ariel Sharon’s provocation:
Violence sparked off 29th Sept 2000 following a visit by Sharon to Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem.
He was reported as saying “I came here with a message of peace”.

To Arabs the visit was a provocation.

Samples from the BBC:
BBC October 3rd 2000
“Ariel Sharon right wing enemy of the peace process”

BBC November 1st 01 “Sharon used every opportunity he could to attack the Arabs as terrorists”.

Guardian Newspaper UK October 3rd 2000
Amira Haas wrote “when the Intifida began 7 years after Oslo Accord all Palestinians feel betrayed”.

Us duplicity:
Two examples of US obvious bias:
Bush uttered the following words in 2002: Sharon a man of peace. We learned later that the White House phone lines were jammed by Evangelical supporters of Israel demanding that President Bush says something nice about Ariel Sharon, he complied. Sharon a man of peace?? What a joke, no wonder nobody believed Bush. I suspect that even Sharon himself was skeptical.

President Bush and his Secretary of State Colin Powell both said: “Arafat must end terrorism.” This was despite the fact that both Bush and Powell knew that Arafat was under siege at the time.

Global Issues Organization was more frank when it stated on July 30th 06
“Sharon a right wing and against peace who committed massacres”.

Anti-Semitism and the stifling of debate:
Jimmy Carter, former president and author of the book “Palestine, Peace not Apartheid” was attacked and accused of being Anti-Jewish and Anti-Semitic for writing about the pernicious impact of the Apartheid Wall.

Professors John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Professor Stephen Watt, a Harvard Professor, were both criticised , slandered and boycotted for exposing the role of AIPAC and Jewish lobbies in Their book “The Israeli Lobby and the US foreign policy”.

Anti-Semitism and Anti-Jewish Syndrome:
Let me begin with the famous China/Tibet analogy: (Counter Punch a US based internet website) wrote:
“When we criticise the Chinese occupation of Tibet, nobody accuses us of being anti-Chinese. When we criticise Kim Jong IL, do we hate the Korean people”.

We can safely add by saying:
When we criticise Omar Al-Bashir, President of Sudan, we are not told you are anti the people of Sudan.

To criticise the Iranian leadership does not mean you are anti-Shiite or anti Farsi people. Why is it then, when someone criticises Israel he is accused of being Anti-Semitic and Anti-Jewish?

The media has a role to play and must not be blamed for conveying the message; by the same token the media has responsibility to be objective, informative and accurate.

nehad ismail
Writer/broadcaster, London