It’s not just the misleading headlines and selective context – western media outlets have long since eschewed journalism to act as the Palestinians’ official propaganda arm.
International news outlets are often accused of displaying an anti-Israel bias, highlighting Palestinian claims and narratives while playing down or ignoring theIsraeliviewpoint altogether.
Selective headlines, misleading and selective use of terminologies and blind trust of Palestinian (or pro-Palestinian) sources – fact-checking be damned – are just some of the more obvious examples of this phenomenon.
Former Associated Press journalist Matti Friedman famously went a step further earlier this year, blowing the whistle on the ingrained anti-Israel bias within his own former company, and shedding light on how international journalists have long since eschewed objective reporting in favor of hostile propaganda where Israel is concerned.
The latest case in point is the saga over the BBC’s outrageous initial headline announcing a brutal attack by an Islamist terrorist in Jerusalem’s Old City on Saturday night.
A 19-year-old Islamic Jihad terrorist went on a deadly stabbing and shooting spree, murdering two innocent civilians and injuring several others – including a two-year-old boy and his mother, the latter of whom was then beaten and mocked by Arab passersby – before the terrorist was shot dead by Israelipolice.
In a now-notorious choice of headline, the BBC incredibly cast the murderer as victim, declaring: “Palestinian shot dead after Jerusalem attack kills two.”
Despite the BBC later changing the headline to more accurately reflect the story, the Israeli Government Press Office took the unusual step of reprimanding theBBC‘s Israel desk, prompting an admission by the British media corporation that it had indeed erred – though no apology was forthcoming.
The BBC was not alone in its ridiculous “style” of reporting; Al Jazeera at least apologized for its own egregious tweet and headline (“Palestinian shot dead after fatal stabbing in Jerusalem; 2 Israeli victims also killed”).
Neither is this phenomenon anything new. Following the massacre at a synagogue in Jerusalem’s Har Nof neighborhood last year carried out by two Arab terrorists, CNN informed us of an attack on a “Jerusalem mosque,” while blandly announcing: “4 Israelis, 2 Palestinians Killed in Jerusalem.”
The list goes on and on. Backwards headlines leading with the killing of a “Palestinian [Terrorist]” are by now practically the norm. (To cite just one example of many: “Israeli Police Shoot Man in East Jerusalem” is how APdescribed an attack last year by a “man” (Palestinian) who plowed his car intoIsraeli civilians, killing baby Chaya Zisel-Braun and injuring scores more.)
In fact, Israelis have become accustomed to this perverse tag-team of sorts between terrorists and supposedly objective media outlets, the latter of whom regularly supplement terrorist attacks with free propaganda, including bogus justifications, omitting context or details which could undermine the Palestinian narrative, and downplaying Israeli suffering or suggesting that it is somehow self-inflicted.
I’ve written about this before, following the upside-down coverage by almost every news network of the attempted assassination of Temple Mount activist Yehuda Glick by an Islamist terrorist. After that attack, CNN, BBC, AP and co. went into full propaganda mode, portraying the victim as an “extremist” practically begging to be shot, and the attacker as just a regular Palestinian guy legitimately upset at Jews “invading Al Aqsa” (“Temple Mount”? What Temple Mount?).
All of these instances have been highlighted repeatedly by media watchdog groups such as Honest Reporting, CAMERA and others, and the Government Press Office deserves credit for speaking up in the face of such galling bias in this case.
But the problem goes far beyond outrageous headlines and one-sided reporting. As exposed by Tuvia Tenenbom’s best-selling book, Catch The Jew, Western media outlets embedded in Israel for all intents and purposes function as Palestinian propaganda outlets, working not merely to delegitimize the State of Israel, but to dehumanize Israeli Jews in general.
Sometimes, it is a case of ideologically-driven anti-Zionism (take for example former Electronic Intifada hate-blogger, now New York Times Middle East Correspondent Diaa Hadid). But more often, it’s simply a matter of business; news is a commodity, and editors are increasingly more interested in what “sells” (or clicks) than in actually reporting the facts. If anti-Israel propaganda is in-vogue, then that’s what they’ll produce.
And it’s an industry which feeds itself: The more outlets encourage the perception of Israel as a legitimate target for violence, the more audiences will “expect” to receive such stories.
Yet regardless of the motives, this propaganda is key to the campaign to destroy Israel pursued by the likes of Hamas et al. As propagandists from Nazi Germany to Hamas have understood, to legitimize annihilating an entire people you must first make doing so appear unobjectionable and palatable – even desirable.
Which brings me to a facet of western media coverage far worse than any horrendous headline: its use of imagery.
Consider the following: When a Palestinian is the victim of an attack, whatpictures will BBC or CNN use to illustrate the story? A crying mother or father, often holding a picture of their lost loved one; touching photos of the victims themselves before their death; someone somberly carrying the coffin or corpse of the dead or helping the wounded; furious demonstrators.
What emotions do such powerful images evoke? Sympathy, solidarity, perhaps even a sense of righteous indignation.
Now consider: From the Fogel family murders to the brutal attack on Saturday night, how do BBC et al. illustrate their stories when Israelis are the victims? With pictures of vaguely menacing Israeli soldiers; bland, meaningless photos of the surrounding area; or, at best, some vague distant image of people milling about the attack scene.
BBC’s coverage alternated between the first and last of these options, initially showing Israeli border police pointing their guns, and only after several days changing to this relatively bland image of paramedics at the scene.
But why would they choose to do so, when readily-available pictures such as this one – showing an Israeli man holding the toddler wounded in the attack – would surely make for a far more eye-catching choice?
The answer, of course, is that such images are only deemed appropriate for use when involving Palestinians – the only side in the conflict allowed any form of grievance by most mainstream media outlets.
By avoiding such otherwise obvious choices of image time and time again, outlets are consciously and cynically trying to play down the human tragedy where Israelis are concerned. We are merely a state of soldiers and militant “settlers”, with some blurry paramedics and other people lurking somewhere in the background.
With this in mind it is worth asking where the Israeli authorities have been in the face of such relentless, insidious dehumanization.
Much as they have allowed European-funded far-left NGOs – whose sole objective is to undermine Israeli government policy and delegitimize the State of Israel – to operate with impunity in their own backyard, the government has done little if anything to curb their journalistic counterparts.
I am not, of course, talking about Turkish- or Hamas-style curbs on free press, but when Netanyahu himself talks of the “threat” of delegitimization, surely he and his government must do more to end this phenomenon of dehumanization. Press credentials are a privilege, not the God-given right of every journalist looking to launch his or her career via some juicy, anti-Israel propaganda.
Of course, the most effective answer is the construction of a powerful counter-narrative.
That begins with exposing and deconstructing the way media outlets manipulate the discourse, and challenging by them, as consumers, when they propagate such a coarse, one-sided narrative.
The writer is the Managing Editor of Arutz Sheva/Israel National News….
Good point, keelie. In the long run, the attempt by governments and social elites to make the Jews the scapegoats for their own unpopular and selfish behavior has failed. For example, the supporters of the last Russian tsar sought to redirect the rage of the people against the tsar and the nobility toward the Jews. There were pogroms; but within a few years the tsar and the nobles were overthrown anyway. Despite the fact that scapegoating the Jews never works for very long to protect selfish elites from the people they have abused, the elites and the governments that represent them try this maneuver over and over again.
@ adamdalgliesh:
Yes, what you say makes sense, but:
In fact at this moment in time we have to say “was a cheap and easy way…” for both Western officials and the media. It’s no longer a “cheap and easy way” now that the Arabs are actually living next door to said officials and their media toadies as opposed to being neatly contained several thousand miles away. Lets see how they cope with this reality.
This a very sensitive and perceptive analysis of what is perhaps the greatest threat to Israel’s survival. However, I disagree with the author about one point: I don’t think that the anti-Israel bias of the Western press (anhd even large sectors of the Israeli press) is motivated by financial considerations. The truth is that Muslim militants and Arabs in general are not wildly popular with the Western public, since they have killed many Americans and West Europeans as well as Israelis. I doubt if media publications would lose a great deal in subscriptions, advertising revenue or hard-copy sales if they presented the conflict from the Israeli point of view, or at least attempted fair and impartial coverage. The real motives for the anti-Israel bias of the Western press are 1) Antisemitism, which is pervasive among the “educated” class of Westerners, including even many Jews, and 2) the desire of Western governments to suck up to the Arab world, in order to preserve Western military bases and financial interests in it. Supporting the Arab governments against Israel, Western officials feel, is a cheap and easy way of maintaining Arab goodwill, while deflecting Arab anger away from their more direct and substantive conflicts with the West. These more substantive conflicts involve the political, economic, military and even cultural power exerted by the Western countries in the Arab world. The Western governments don’t want the Arabs to focus on these realistic, genuine sources of conflict. Encouraging them to focus on Israel as the scapegoat for, and symbol of, Western interference in Arab world, while leaving real Western interests in the Arab countries intact, is why Western government incite the Arabs against Israel. And the Western press is a tool of Arab governments far more than they are willing to admit. Europeans have always believed that when it is necessary to appease an enemy or potential enemy, the Jews are always an expendible “peace offering.”
The Nazi savages at the BBC are not journalists, any more than Goebbels was a journalist.
They are terrorists and Israel should treat them as such. Same for other European propagandists.
By the way, I am told by expats that most Brits hate the BBC too.
BOLDLY CAPITULATE!
If it were not for shurat Ha Din Israel would not even have any lawfare, BB GOI has no plan there either
the real question is what is Israel doing about these foreign propaganda agents lying about Jews… what is BB’s plan. this has been going on for years and getting worse and BB has no plan, just like on every other major issue. No plan on Iran but charts and chats and quarrels with obama other than hoping the international community would deal with it. No plan on hexbullah arms buildup in violation of the cease fire other than whining to the UN the foreign media and telling israelis they will be attacked with the rockets they are allowing to build up. No plan on the euro BDS, sanctions and illegal building in YS other than doing what they want. No plan on pal terror other than incarcerating Jews and limiting their access to the MOunt. No plan on the propaganda media other than arresting soldiers for smashing cameras when instead foreign blood libeling journalists should be jailed for the crime of blood libeling. All this whining to others, we see who they are but instead of finding a way to stop them, nothing is done. why cant blood libelers suffer accidents in the street, get robbed by thugs and permanently crippled for life, have soldiers smashing cameras over their heads and getting medals for it….. I dont want a situation that makes the foreigners and leftists proud of their BS fabrications but rather to see dead anti semites and crippled blood libelers. Whats wrong with wanting every anti semite dead and/or gone by any means?