Israeli war on Gaza in 2008 and media coverage

November 2009

Israeli war on Gaza in 2008 and media coverage

The Israeli and Palestinian conflict has been the focus of media, politicians and many people around the world for a long time .The recent event that drags the attention of the whole world is the Israeli war on Gaza in 2008 (Zuhur 2009, p.41). The war has started in December 2008 when everyone worldwide was celebrating the 2009 New Year (Dumont 2009, p.610). This war is considered the most bloody and severe war since 1967 (Zuhur 2009, p.41). Gaza’s population is approximately 1.5 million Palestinians which show how small Gaza is (Zuhur 2009, p.51). This essay focuses on the various media coverage of the 2008 Israeli war on Gaza and how the cultural factors might shape the news.

First of all, Journalists have faced many difficulties covering the war on Gaza (Bauer 2009, p.5). In fact, Israel did not give journalists the permission to cover the war on Gaza except for specific news agencies such as Al-Jazeera and some others (Bauer 2009, p.5). Israel did that to hide the human crisis that Palestinians suffered from (Bauer 2009, p.5). I agree with this as Israel would be controlled by media if it lets media cover the war freely as media has a great influence on audience. This has a consequence on Americans who have limited access to world news channels (Bauer 2009, p.5). As a result, Americans would not be able to be aware of the situation in Gaza (Bauer 2009, p.5). The unbiased media coverage of war on Gaza was not possible as journalists were not allowed to cover all news in Gaza (Zuhur 2009, p.41). Consequently, these limited media sources might hide the whole truth and be biased to one side of the conflict according to the ideologies and cultural determinism (Dunsky 2009, p.10). To understand more about the media coverage of Gaza war in 2008, a close analysis of Western and Arab media coverage and the points of view of each would be discussed to examine the reliability of both media coverage.

The Western media coverage is a very important element that should be discussed to discover its reliability and bias. Marda Dunsky, (2009, p.10) expresses in her article ,The Rest of the story, how Hamas is the only side that should be blamed for the war in Gaza .The White house spokesman, Gordon Johndroe, in the second day of the war has officially blamed Hamas for leading Israel to attack Gaza (Dunsky 2009, p.10). “The rocket attacks are completely unacceptable and Israel is going to defend its people against terrorists like Hamas “, Johndroe added (Dunsky 2009, p.10). In my opinion, this obviously shows that the Western media point of view is in favor of Israel and its decision of going to war against Hamas. Various Western newspapers such as, The Los Angles Times, New York Times and Washington Post, wrote about the right of Israel to attack Gaza and defend its people and stop Hamas’s rockets (Dunsky 2009, p.10). CNN coverage of the war on Gaza has somehow indicated that its biased and controlled by its cultural aspects as in the second week of the war , the CNN correspondent Ben Wedeman, reported that’s Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 (Dunsky 2009, p.10). This might illustrate that the American media coverage is trying to justify what Israel is doing in Gaza. To illustrate, the report has pointed out that Hamas has no any excuse to attack Israel as the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza was done in 2005 (Dershwitz 2009, p.2). In addition, western media has criticized Hamas of refusing building shelters to protect its civilians (Dershwitz 2009, p.2). As a result, Israel has to defend its people and kill Palestinians so it is a self-defense war (Dershwitz 2009, p.2). I think this clearly shows the ideology of western media to prompt the image that Israel was in a self-defense position. This also indicates that it is Hamas which forced Israel to launch the war on Gaza and kill Palestinians (Dershwitz 2009, p.2). In reality, the makeshift projects and rockets that Hamas used against Israeli towns are rarely caused threaten to people’s lives (Dunsky 2009, p.11). However, the western media is always trying to show that Israeli people are always under threat and risk and can not live peacefully (Dunsky 2009, p.11). As a result, this has led people to believe just one side of the story without referring to the other side and this is enforced by media (Dunsky 2009, p.11).

The previous point might prove the argument that is discussed in the article “Why does it happen” about the notion of lack of Palestinian public relation (Philo and Berry 2004, p.246). The Palestinian public relation is not that active and uneasily accessible and this hide the whole truth (Philo and Berry 2004, p.246). On the other hand, the Israeli public relation is active and can be easily reached by journalists (Philo and Berry 2004, p.246). As a result, the flow of information might come from one side, Israel, while the Palestinian side is difficult to reach (Philo and Berry 2004, p.246). Indeed, this is a huge problem for the Palestinian position as their opinion is hardly expressed especially in the western media. For example, the UN spokesman once expressed to the CNN correspondent about the Israeli sanction on Gaza which lasted for a year and half which Gaza people suffer from (Dunsky 2009, p.10). As a result, people do not know about this sanction as there is no good Palestinian public relation with media to express this (Philo and Berry 2004, p.246). In fact, even if the western media, CNN, has an access to such information, it has been ignored so as not to blame Israel (Dunsky 2009, p.11). In addition, talking about the tunnels that the Palestinian officials said that it is used by Palestinians to survive while Israeli army argue that these tunnels are used to transfer weapons (Dunsky 2009, p.10). In this point, which side should people believe?

The second topic about the Western media coverage is the using of words that show how much the western media is in favor of Israel. One of these words that are commonly used to describe Hamas is “terrorist organization” (Dunsky 2009, p.10). For example, ABC news used it to show that Israel attacked Gaza to defend Israeli people from this ‘terrorist’ group (Dunsky 2009, p.10). Wording can be effective and especially when leaving a negative effect on audience about Palestinians. This leads to another point about the image that the Western people create in their minds about the Arabs (Dunsky 2009, p.10). Because of media, the world nowadays is viewing the Arabs and Muslims as terrorists especially after 9/11 in the US (Zuhur 2009, p.40). Additionally, some journalists might write that Hamas is hiding behind its own Palestinians when killing civilian Israelis (Dershwitz 2009, p.2). This statement shows that Hamas is using its people especially children to fight Israel and they are heartless (Dershwitz 2009, p.2). Accordingly, Israel has to fight back and kill some innocent Palestinians as Hamas forced them to do that. As a result, the media coverage on Gaza war of western media has been biased (Zuhur 2009, p.40).

The Western media has always criticized the relationship between Hamas and media. The Financial post (Canada), for example, criticizes the way Hamas used the Arab media by providing ready cameras to broadcast the images of dead Palestinian children to affect the audiences emotionally (Dershwitz 2009, p.2). Actually, I think this might show that Hamas useed the media effectively to affect the public opinion.

On the other hand, some Israelis criticize the media in general as being biased against Israel this time. Israelis argue that the bias in media is rooted from the Anti-Semitism theory which based that the world is against the Jews (Philo and Berry 2004, p.249). For example, many Arab and Muslim groups kill each other in Iraq when a woman blew herself in a mosque and killed 40 people, no media coverage of that (Dershwitz 2009, p.2). This supports the theory of anti-Semitism as media pays more attention to what Israel is doing than others. Moreover, killing just 100 by Israel in a war of self-defense is much less than the numbers killed by Arabs and Muslims for no reason (Dershwitz 2009, p.2). This statement shows extreme bias against Palestinians and Muslims explaining that the killing of Arabs of Israelis is not reasonable while killing the Palestinians by Israelis is acceptable. The world seems not to care when Arabs and Muslims kill each other but cares when Israelis kill some Palestinians as self defense (Dershwitz 2009, p.2). To illustrate,, the writer has provided the readers with an example of Hamas killing two Palestinians girls by mistake when targeting Israeli civilians with no media attention (Dershwitz 2009, p.2). Furthermore, some argue that the protesters in London, San Francesco and Paris were not covered by media when Israeli children were killed by Palestinian terrorists (Dershwitz 2009, p.2). This is another example which shows how Israelis feel they are treated unfairly by media. Also, some Israelis blame media for the exaggeration of the number of people killed by Israel in Palestine ignoring the fact that Hamas use women and children as fighters and then Israel has to fight such fighters (Dershwitz 2009, p.2). This indicates again that Israelis feel they are not in position to be blamed for killing innocent people but in a self defense position. To sum up this point, this is a quote from the writer of the article in Financial Post, ‘ every human shield that is killed by Israeli self-defense measures is the responsibility of Hamas, but you would not know that from watching media coverage’ (Dershwitz 2009, p.2).

The Arab media coverage should be addressed to compare with the western media coverage. Al-Jazeera channel was the significant Arab media coverage with 53% of Arab audience and nearly 40 million viewers around the world (Dunsky 2009, p.11). Al-Jazeera has many correspondences in Jerusalem, Gaza and other Arab capitals to cover the various points of view (Dunsky 2009, p.11). Al-Jazeera has been successful in covering the Arab points of view by interviewing Arab experts and Israeli experts to express the others point of view as well (Dunsky 2009, p.11). Only Al-Jazeera’s viewers were able to see the live images of dead children and how Gaza is being destroyed by Israeli forces (Dunsky 2009, p.11). Al-Jazeera was the channel that Arabs know part of the truth as some other Arab channels hid the truth as they follow the governments will (Dunsky 2009, p.11). Al-Jazeera kept itself away from calling Israel the enemy or occupation and interviewed Israeli figures such as Livini Benjamin and Shimon Peres as representatives of Israeli army (Dunsky 2009, p.10). I think this is good as to show the point of view of both sides and not just take one stand of the conflict. Some Arab journalists claim that the goal of Israel is to stop Hamas rockets but many think its nonsense and the real goal is to destroy Hamas (Zuhur 2009, p.41). ‘Opening fire on five people daring to venture out to the market in Gaza city does not make the market a Hamas missile launcher’, Zuhur said. This quote shows that Israel is fighting just to end Hamas as it’s a threat for their Jewish state (Zuhur 2009, p.41). Also, the aim of war is to destroy Hamas as it is a threat to the whole region not just Israel (A bloody new year in Gaza, 2009).

In conclusion,’ news is sometimes described as a constructed reality that is a product of the interests of those who report it and those who consume it’, Dunsky said. This is a good quote to conclude this whole issue as it shows that news is shaped by the interests of people who control the media. An important question that should be asked is did Israel end Hamas in this war? ( Zuhur 2009, p.51). Were the strategies of Western and Arab media successful in this war? (A war of words and images 2009). Also, can Hamas target the West and that’s why Israel had to fight it? (Levitt 2007, p.926). All these questions are hard to answer as for the various media ideologies. The media is supposed to be neutral and unbiased in spite of the organization or country it belongs to (Philo and Berry 2004, p.248). However, many newspapers take a stand and support one part of the conflict which contradicts what journalists should do.




































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