Biased Western Media Coverage of the Arab-Israeli Conflict.
Western media sources tend to show various biases in their coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Favouritism and prejudices that are not newly discovered phenomena but have been existing as well as impacting public sentiment and judgement for years. Such biases include a strong agreement with and re-enforcement of the Israeli narrative of the conflict, whilst perpetuating a negative image of and neglect for the Palestinian’s account. These prejudices are evident and revealed through media framing and agenda setting, and have dangerous repercussions for those observing the conflict. Biases of the Western media towards Israel and against Palestine are evident through strategic neglect of certain facts and statistics, lack of context, overlooked and forgotten violations and the tendency to under-report or omit information. These devices are quite telling in analyzing how and why the media presents this narrative of Israeli “self-defence” and Palestinian “terrorism”.
Through specific phrasing and Israeli-influenced rhetoric, Western sources often place stigmas onto Arabs, regardless of if these labels are justifiable. More often than not the Palestinians are portrayed as foreign aggressors, whilst the Israelis are presented as the victims. Stories often get twisted and miscommunicated, and as an example an innocent Palestinian man shot down by the Israel Defense Force (IDF) could be depicted as a security threat the next day, depending on who is telling the story; and as previously stated when the West are responsible for relaying information regarding the conflict they will tend to favour Israel and their Zionist motives. Lack of context and disregarding Israel’s violations and breaches of human rights and international law, again exposes the very one-sided slant that Western media continually propagates. Sources will often mislead the audience to believe the conflict is a balanced one, when in reality the Palestinians have been forced to endure killings, home demolition, arbitrary arrests and various other degrading and illegal treatments by Israel.
The Western media are guilty of providing an unbalanced, partial and manipulated coverage of Palestinian suffering, and this is highlighted through the analysis of CNN’s reportage on several attacks and feuds, and the breadth of those they interviewed. Only 20 Palestinian officials were invited to speak, compared to 45 Israeli officials when discussing the 8-day attack on Gaza. American medial sources providing incomplete figures is also highlighted in a study of the National Public Radio. Only 20% of Palestinian child deaths were reported on, in comparison to 89% of Israeli child deaths. The New York Times were also guilty of largely ignoring Palestinian casualties, regardless of if they outnumbered those of Israelis. It is not only figures that get manipulated but also the emotional aspect attached to such; sources often empathizing more so with Israeli injuries or causalities, whilst undermining that of the Palestinians. Other medial manipulations may include providing fake captions to photographs or re-releasing old footage under a different banner. This often results in legitimizing and highlighting Israeli propaganda and their violent actions, whilst marginalizing the Arab standpoint.
The repercussions of such biases on observers of the conflict as well as those studying it, range from a general ignorance of the conflict, to the struggle of obtaining unbiased information. The question of who is to blame and be held accountable for the casualties and overall suffering is also affected if individuals only draw their information and knowledge from Western sources. This level of skewed knowledge and understanding was highlighted when educated individuals were interviewed on the occupation and conflict as part of an audience research questionnaire. Only 1/3 knew that Israelis were occupying the occupied territories and less than a quarter were aware that between 2005-7, 1,290 Palestinians were killed by the IDF. Israelis simply retaliating to Hamas-lead violence was a commonality between responses and many expressed that they gained these impressions from sources such as BBC. Overall, such knowledge of the conflict was very limited and proved that those studying these events will find it difficult and suffer the consequences of a biased viewpoint and adopted prejudices, if they do not branch out to other sources and make a conscious effort to see both sides of the story. It is then they can decide whether this conflict is just as unbalanced as Western media is.
