Media Bias Against Israel

	MEDIA BIAS

What is the evidence that the media is biased against Israel?

News Bias?

Journalists are supposed to be objective and independent, delivering reporting that is as close to the "real truth" as humanly possible. Journalists insist they belong to a profession that does just that. But, sadly, there often seems to be an unwarranted bias against Israel and in favor of Israel's opponents when covering events in the Middle East, a bias that ranges from blatant unfairness to much more subtle misrepresentation of Israel's situation.

This discussion does not include partisan publications that obviously advocate for one side or another. No one expects the Tehran Times (Iran) to have anything postive to say about Israel. Rather, the concern is with the elite media, the New York Times, CNN, and the BBC, among others, organizations that should represent the highest journalistic ethics but frequently fail to do so.

Some examples:

ABC's Nightline, in covering the March 27, 2002 suicide bombing in a Netanya hotel that had occurred just hours earlier, reduced the Israeli dead and wounded to mere statistics, while they gave Arab spokesmen free rein to portray the Palestinians as the real victims of terror attacks. Reporters rarely make clear that most Israeli victims of Palestinian terrorism are innocent civilians, while most Palestinian casualties have been killed with weapons in their hands as a result of their participation in violence against Israel.
Andrea Koppel of CNN, in a report about the history of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process which aired on October 16, 2000 said, "When Camp David ended without an agreement, Palestinian despair eventually led to violence." The reference to "dispair" implies little was offered by Israel at Camp David, when in fact most of the Palestinian demands were met. Reporters almost never ask Palestinian representatives, "Why did you resort to terror when an agreement was so close?" They rarely mention that President Clinton blamed Yasser Arafat for the collapse of the Camp David talks.
On a more subtle level, words are often chosen by reporters that bias the impression that news consumers will get from the account. For example, Palestinian terrorist killers are called "activists" or "militants". An Israeli anti-terrorist military operation will be called an "invasion" or "incursion". The term "occupied territories" is almost always used to describe the West Bank and Gaza, even though under the Oslo peace process Israel has withdrawn so that over 90% of the Arab Palestinian population has been governed by the Palestinian Authority for years. Even the nomenclature "West Bank" is misleading since that area that was historically Jewish Judea and Samaria until Jordan invaded and captured it during Israel's 1948 War of Independence.
News organizations and individuals have largely accepted the basic propaganda of the Palestinian Arabs. They accept "facts" that are not facts, probably out of ignorance of the history of the region. They refer to the "Palestinian National Authority" even though no such institution exists (Yasser Arafat inserted the word 'National' with no official standing), they say Israel violates international law when no such law applies, they speak of crimes by Israel under the Fourth Geneva Convention even though this is a complete sham, they talk of Palestinian oppression and humiliation in the "occupied territories" even though most Palestinians were better off economically and politically before the Palestinian Authority took over in 1994. And they repeat the Palestinian version of the meaning of UN resolutions like Security Council Resolution 242, an interpretation that the authors of the resolutions have disputed.

Woman Staged at Security Fence, 7 Feb 2004

These examples are only the tip of a massive iceberg of biased reporting against Israel. Reasons have been advanced for such media bias and the best explanation would seem to be some combination of the following factors, operating in a different mix in the case of each individual journalist:

A three-month investigation of the foreign press in Israel concluded that some foreign correspondents do impose their private sympathies on the news they report
Palestinian intimidation of journalists and manipulation of the journalistic process in the areas they control has been rampant, although not well reported. In March 2001, Marwan Barghouti, leader of the PA's Tanzim militia, warned outright that any Israeli journalist who entered PA areas would be killed. Since then, most Israeli journalists either stay home or make sure to be accompanied by well-connected Palestinians. In 2003, Dr. Riyad Al-Hassan, the director general of the PA State Information Service (SIS), admitted in an interview that newspapers and journalists can be subjected to, "Sometimes a little punishment, [laughter] sometimes."
Ignorance of history erases the context of events and makes it easy to accept bogus claims.
Palestinians are perceived as the underdog, skillfully portrayed that way by propagandists. "Children with rocks against Israeli tanks" is a popular image, ignoring the rifles, machine guns, rocket propelled grenades, and more that are utilized against Israeli troops by Palestinian fighters lurking in the background.
The open, democratic Israeli society includes vibrant debate that uncovers weaknesses, failures and contradictions. Instead of seeing this as a strength, and a mirror of American values, the press often uses it against Israel. The autocratic, media-suppressed Palestinian Authority has been more successful in "controlling the message".
Because Israel is a western, secular, democratic society, the press and the public have higher expectations of Israel and therefore find fault more quickly when Israel is less than perfect.

For an excellent discussion of media bias and how to recognize it, see "What is Bias" on the Honest Reporting web site.

What is the evidence that the media is biased against Israel?

Sources and additional reading on this topic: