Professional Documents
Culture Documents
ENGW1111-35
Professor Richard
The highly polarizing Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been raging since the establishment
of the State of Israel in 1948, and is perhaps a continuation of the conflict between the Yishuv
and Arab populations in British-ruled Palestine. While the conflict has taken many forms, it is
mostly categorized by violent clashes between respective armies, established terrorist cells, and
individuals, establishing two dominant narratives and solutions for the conflict. For the past 10
years, much of the violence has been attributed to Israels clashes with the military arm of the
democratically elected government of the Gaza strip, otherwise known as Hamas, a designated
terrorist organization. The most recent, and probably most controversial, conflict occurred during
the summer of 2014, wherein Israel launched Operation Protective Edge, utilizing airstrikes and
ultimately a ground offensive against Gaza to neutralize military targets and destroy tunnels dug
by Hamas to fire rockets into Israel. The coverage of the aftermath of the bloody conflict has
become highly partisan, with both sides of the political spectrum and their respective media
outlets accusing the other of leaving out crucial information and even lying about the causes and
nature of the conflict. Right-wing political factions and media organizations such as Fox News
are generally pro-Israel (sometimes even unjustly so) and often portray its military actions as
strictly retaliatory, often using softer language to downplay the impact that its airstrikes have on
civilians to better fit a one-state narrative. Left-wing media outlets such as the Independent often
utilize shock-value in their headlines to capture the extent to which Israels airstrikes and ground
offensives have impacted the innocent civilians living in Gaza to help make the case for a
sovereign Palestinian state. However, these media outlets have also downplayed the significance
of Israeli warnings and calls for peace and have portrayed IDF actions as vengeful rather than
retaliatory.
Surprisingly, one of the most neutral articles covering the 2014 conflict comes from the
BBC, in an article published after a ceasefire was declared in August titled Gaza-Israel conflict:
Is the fighting over?. The article is almost completely neutral due to its apparent lack of loaded
language and almost exclusively fact-based reporting, successfully covering both sides of the
conflict, including opposing goals, casualties, ceasefires, and roots of the conflict without much
evidence of implicit bias. Overall the article is solid in its reporting and will serve as a good
reference point when discussing articles covering the same issue from historically partisan
outlets.
Fox News often caters to a more conservative base in the United States, more specifically
the average viewer is aged 65, white and is typically Christian a stark contrast to the people
who constitute the support base of the Democrat party who are typically younger and more
Israel due to its largely Judeo-Christian roots. Obviously this would mean that Fox News has a
pro-Israel slant when reporting on Middle Eastern events. One particularly blatant example of
this slant can be found in an article published in July 2014, shortly after the conflict began, titled
Israeli Amb to Hemmer: 'We Already Accepted a Cease-Fire Proposal'. Immediately the article
sets up Israel to be a non-aggressor who strives solely for peace between itself and its neighbors.
The article further goes on to say that Dermer noted that instead of accepting the cease-fire
terms, Hamas has continued to fire "about 100 rockets every single day,". The phrasing of this
sentence portrays Hamas as wholly unwilling to settle for peace, which is clearly untrue, as seen
at the very end of the article, where it admits that Hamas rejected the initial Egyptian cease-fire
proposal on the grounds that it had not been consulted by Cairo. Clearly, Hamas had not even
been consulted when Israel accepted the ceasefire plan proposed by the Egyptians, which was
completely unfair to them, since as the BBC article shows, none of their demands including the
lifting of an Israeli blockade (which would allow for easier influx of humanitarian aid and
building supplies into Gaza) and the release of Palestinian prisoners were met. This serves as a
classic example of a dog whistle, in which the article says that Hamas is unwilling to settle for
peace, but really implies that theyre monsters. Lastly, it is important to note the language that
this article leaves out, as that can also be construed as implicit bias, especially when there are
other articles that do include that language. For example, this article makes no mention of the
actual impact that Gazan rockets had on the Israeli population, which was a trifle compared to
the destruction caused by Israeli mortar and artillery barrages, mention of which is also missing
Left-wing media is usually more sympathetic to the Palestinian side of the aisle, with
some outlets such as the state [Qatar]-funded Al Jazeera being openly anti-Zionist. Israel is often
portrayed as brutish and invasive with regards to settlements and overly aggressive in its war
with Hamas. The Independent recently published an article titled Israel kills pregnant mother
and her baby in retaliatory attacks. The title immediately pushes the extremely grotesque and
horrific image into the readers mind, conditioning him to view Israel as a bloodthirsty aggressor.
Only later in the article does it explain the airstrike, The Israeli Defense Force said it carried out
rocket fire toward Israel.. Instead of leading off with this important information first, the
Independent strove for an emotion-targeting shock-value based title, which serves as a kind of
click-bait for its audience, playing on their pre-conceived notions of Israels involvement in the
first place. The article goes on to mention further acts of terror by Palestinians and Palestinian
casualties as a result of IDF activity. The end of the article describes a knife-wielding Palestinian
who murders two Israeli men and wounds a mother and her toddler before being shot dead. The
placement of these events in the article is crucial of course, as the death of the pregnant
Palestinian and her child constitutes only a minor portion of the article, yet is used as the basis
Interestingly enough, the bias demonstrated within the articles were somewhat mirror
images of one another, yet also highly similar. The Fox News article put more emphasis on the
much broader subject of the Egyptian cease-fire agreement, portraying Israel as the only
supporter for peace while also trivializing the absence of Hamas from the negotiating table, thus
inadvertently supporting the single-state narrative wherein the only viable solution for peace is
the dissolution of the possibility of a Palestinian state. The Independent article blew the death of
the pregnant Palestinian woman out of proportion while trivializing the cause of the Israeli
airstrikes, which was to destroy the Hamas weapons manufacturing facility (the destruction of
which no doubt saved more lives than it cost) which indirectly contributes to the two-state
narrative, as the language suggests that the atrocities that the Palestinians have overcome have
earned them a state of their own and a chance to govern themselves. Complete objectivity in this
instance cannot possibly exist, as it involves too many human lives. The omission of information
by the articles also helps to build their respective narratives, as what is often observed is what
one omits the other emphasizes. The use of images is also highly important in constructing a
narrative; Fox News and other right wing outlets have a tendency not to broadcast images of the
extent of the destruction caused by the IDF while left wing outlets generally tended to focus
more on the damage to buildings and death tolls as opposed to the completion of IDF objectives.
There are always three sides to any story, and it is important to be able to tell the difference
between the three, so as not to be trapped within the echo chamber of a single viewpoint. Rather
we should be wary of language and imagery associated with articles and the narratives that they
Works Cited
Akram, Steven Erlanger and Fares. "Israel Warns Gaza Targets by Phone and
Leaflet." The New York Times. The New York Times, 08 July 2014. Web. 01 Mar. 2017.
"Gaza-Israel conflict: Is the fighting over?" BBC News. BBC, 26 Aug. 2014. Web. 01
Mar. 2017.
"Israeli Amb to Hemmer: 'We Already Accepted a Cease-Fire Proposal'" Fox News. FOX
Independent. Independent Digital News and Media, 11 Oct. 2015. Web. 01 Mar. 2017.
"The Price of Hamas' Underground Terror Network |." Israel Defense Forces. N.p., 18