Reporting Palestine-Israel in British Newspapers: An Analysis of British Newspapers 3030170713, 9783030170714

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Reporting Palestine-Israel in British Newspapers An Analysis of British Newspapers

Nadia R. Sirhan

Reporting Palestine-Israel in British Newspapers

Nadia R. Sirhan

Reporting PalestineIsrael in British Newspapers An Analysis of British Newspapers

Nadia R. Sirhan Independent Scholar London, UK

ISBN 978-3-030-17071-4    ISBN 978-3-030-17072-1 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17072-1 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: MirageC/Moment/Getty Images This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

For the Nakba generation For my parents

Contents

1 Introduction  1 2 Uncovering Myths About the Palestinian-­Israeli ‘Conflict’ 15 3 Language Use in the Reporting of the ‘Conflict’ 61 4 Media Censorship in the Reporting of the PalestinianIsraeli ‘Conflict’123 5 Media Framing and Sourcing Techniques Used in the Reporting of the ‘Conflict’165 6 The Status Quo and a Look to the Future201 Bibliography223 Index251

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

1.1   The Role of the Media in Conflicts It is an undeniable fact of modern life that mass media not only permeate almost every aspect of our existence, but that they are a powerful—if not the supremely powerful—influence on culture and politics. This holds true even as different media are employed in different ways and to various ends, and remains true even as their effects vary from person to person and from one society to another. Mass media are the tool by which the public’s gaze is directed, edited and filtered, for it is through the media that citizens learn about politics and public affairs, and so, “the media have a major impact on the health of democratic citizenship” (Cushion in Curran and Hesmondhalgh 1992/2019, p. 303). In the example of the UK, the press media, and specifically the print news media, remain one of the nation’s principal opinion formers and “the main information source for most people” (ibid.). The media’s influence is unrivalled because of its vast reach and its ability to determine what is and what is not reported, which in turn influences the dissemination of information. In times of relative peace, stability and prosperity, the media can take on a relatively neutral role, relaying information deemed important, significant or of interest to the general public. At the worst of times, however, the media can play a divisive role in society, separating people along social, ethnic, economic or religious lines. At such times, the media’s influence on public opinion becomes key, and their power is revealed in the effect © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 N. R. Sirhan, Reporting Palestine-Israel in British Newspapers, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17072-1_1

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that their divisiveness can have on the society in question. A good example of this is the media coverage of the ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’ fiasco and the subsequent—arguably consequent—invasion of Iraq in 2003 by the US-led coalition. In this instance, not only did the media at large fail to hold the warmongers to account, but, by knowingly disseminating false information and misrepresenting the situation, and by employing moral rhetoric overlayed with national fearmongering, only a very narrow range of views was reported here in the UK, laying the groundwork for the invasion. The expectation, at least in democratic societies, is that the media will keep governments in check by questioning policies or issues, by raising important questions and by keeping the public aware of any corruption or misdeeds by the government. “In a democracy one of the main purposes of a media outlet is to scrutinise governments, even if its editorial line is politically sympathetic to those in office. There is supposed to be a clear line between the media and those at the helm of the state” (Jones 2014, p. 113). However, the media have proven equally capable of reinforcing stereotypes, of controlling the narrative and thus the public view, and of diverting attention away from important issues at the behest of governments or powerful interest groups. Since, for the overwhelming majority of people, the media are the sole source of information regarding both national and international issues, the media are able to control this flow both by commission, and by omission. Never is the media’s control over information “more important than during times of national crisis”, nor more apparent than in the reporting of conflicts as we will see in the analysis of the reporting of the Palestinian-­ Israeli conflict in this book (Jackson 2005, p. 165). Referring to the example of The War on Iraq,1 Beckett argues that, “Whatever you think about the virtues of going to war, the public were not well served by journalists who failed to give them all sides of the debate and all the facts” (2008, p.  61). In its role as both arbiter and gatekeeper, the obligation of the British press should have been to question the evidence and to interrogate the ‘official’ narrative, rather than—as later transpired—to work hand in glove with the British intelligence services to lead the nation into war. The view of the media as “an essential public service” and the notion that “an ideal news media serves as an adversarial watchdog over the powerful, a forum for diverse voices and viewpoints and a rich source of information regarding the important social issues upon which citizens will vote” is one that is widely held and presumed (Pickard in Boczkowski and

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Anderson 2017, p.  55). For the most part, the media’s first loyalty is thought to lie with the public, and indeed this is the professed standard to which the media hold themselves: “Ideally, a free press balances official views with a more impartial perspective that allows the public to deliberate independently on the government’s decisions” (Entman 2004, p. 2). The relationship of trust between the media and their audiences or readers relies crucially on the assumption that the media’s fundamental allegiances are to the public, and all that that entails, including questioning the decisions and motives of governments in its pursuit of truth. And yet, despite this, the ‘clear line’ of which Jones speaks is becoming increasingly blurred. In fact, Hedges argues that reporters no longer work in the interests of the public: “The most egregious lie is the pretense that these people function as reporters, that they actually report on our behalf…Many media workers, especially those based in Washington, work shamelessly for our elites” (2009, p. 175). In fact, Entman argues that “in practice, the relationship between governing elites and news organizations is less distant and more cooperative than the idea envisions, especially in foreign affairs” (2004, p. 2). The job of a journalist is not an easy one and, although we expect impartiality of journalists because of their important role as providers and disseminators of information, it is worth remembering that journalists “cannot exercise news judgement without a composite of nation, society and national and social institutions in their collective heads” (Gans in Dunsky 2008, p.  10). Individual journalists are products of the society from which they hail, and are therefore subject to bias in the same way that the rest of us are. This in turn affects their choice and their presentation of news stories. The first question is whether or not impartiality is even possible. Can people separate themselves from the culture in which they have grown up or from the society to which they belong or the frames they have accepted and assimilated? Davis argues that the ability of reporters to “be objective, pluralistic, professional and reflective of society has always been limited for very real practical reasons” (In Curran 2010/2016, p.  87). As Harcup explains, the identification of truth and facts itself can be problematic and subjective: “Even reporters witnessing an event for themselves may be carrying all sorts of personal or cultural baggage that can impact on what they see as true and what they can recognize as facts” (2004/2005, p.  75). Though we cannot detach ourselves from our environment or

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background, as Thompson asserts, “There are such things as facts and it is still the job of journalists to report them” (2016, p. 308). Bias can be intentional or incidental and, even in those situations where a journalist does strive for impartiality and objectivity, it can nevertheless creep in because of their own pre-existing narratives and frames: “Each of us constructs our own personal mythology from bits and fragments of information extracted from the media flow and transformed into resources through which we make sense of our everyday lives” (Jenkins 2006, pp.  3–4). Nevertheless, objectivity, whether elusive or not, should be something that is actively worked towards, if only because, as Entman argues, journalists are faced with choices that necessarily skew and slant the news: “By this I mean that their reports, while not ideologically biased, typically provide partial accounts that assist some causes while damaging others” (1989, p. 36). Inevitably, bias affects journalists to varying degrees, and there are some journalists who have a deliberate viewpoint to promote, while others strive for objectivity. Objectivity in journalism is arguably one of the most “contentious [ideas] in the world of media and journalism” (Maras 2013, p. 1). It seems that the concept of objectivity lies along a continuum, at one end of which it is seen as “the cement of good journalism” in liberal democracies, while at the other end it is regarded as “a kind of deception, obscuring cultural, capitalistic or national bias behind talk of a neutral point of view; promoting faith in an external truth or ideal, an individualistic viewing position that doesn’t exist” (ibid.). Drawing on Kaplan, Maras explains that “Objectivity compromises the independence of the journalist, giving new prominence to sources. This leads the reporter into a subservient and technical ‘lapdog’ relationship to political and corporate authority” (ibid., p. 27). Despite all the discussion surrounding the notion and practicalities of objectivity, a single definition remains elusive. Perhaps the most even-­ handed approach is given by Walter Cronkite, who defines objectivity as “the reporting of reality, of facts, as nearly as they can be obtained without the injection of prejudice and personal opinion” (Knowlton in ibid., p. 7). Starkey defines objectivity as “not placing undue emphasis on one part of a representation, in order to distort it, for whatever motive” (ibid., p. 20). Objectivity is closely linked to balance, lack of bias, impartiality and neutrality and all of these are typically required of journalism by their readers: “Clearly people want the press to appear objective. The best proof of that lies in their frequent complaints that it doesn’t” (Tucher in ibid.,

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p. 13). For Gans, even when journalists strive for objectivity, “neither they nor anyone else can in the end proceed without values” (ibid., p.  60). “Frame-blindness”, as Maras terms it, is the failure of journalists to recognise “the ideological nature of their own framing of issues” (ibid., p. 66). Doug McGill, former New York Times reporter, speaks of “pseudo-­ objectivity” and its dangers, arguing that it could allow a journalist to present opposing perspectives fulfilling the “ritual of objectivity” while doing “nothing to advance understanding of the issue beyond an initial acquaintance” (ibid., p. 73). Yet others question whether objectivity is even desirable? Journalism ‘of attachment’, based on former BBC reporter Martin Bell’s writings, is journalism that “cares as well as knows”. Bell describes objective journalism as “a sort of bystanders’ journalism, unequal to the challenges of the times… In proposing an alternative journalism—one that is both balanced and principled—I am not so much calling for a change as describing one that has already taken place. It had to. How else, for instance, were we to report on genocide?” (ibid., pp.  126–127). Here, we see that in some instances presenting the facts objectively (equally for aggressor and victim) could result in indirectly being biased in favour of the aggressor because being impartial would mean standing “neutrally between good and evil, right and wrong, the victim and the oppressor” (Bell in Harcup 2004/2005, p.  79). In other words, objective reporting could draw a moral equivalence between the victim and aggressor. Although all journalism requires choosing some information over others, the aim of journalists should nonetheless be the pursuit of truth rather than the promotion of a specific agenda, whatever their personal prejudices or views. Failing that, “they should make it clear that their report is partial, partisan or provisional” (Beckett with Ball 2012, p. 71). Similarly, the presence of competing narratives should not mean that journalists need not strive to present the facts in as neutral and impartial a way as possible: “If there is no single account of what has happened which everyone accepts, then the journalist has to rely on the concept of balance and attempt to represent the range of views which exist” (Philo and Berry 2004, p. 1). Afterall, “Transparency has to be a principle of news coverage” (Lloyd 2004, p. 189). This is especially crucial in times of conflict, the ultimate test of a journalist’s neutrality “both because of the difficulties and dangers and because of the temptation to take sides” (ibid., p. 171). The role of the media at the best of times should not be underestimated; at times of war and conflict, its role cannot be overstated.

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1.2   Palestine and Israel in the Media Reporting on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is not for the faint of heart. Any journalist contemplating this endeavour must first learn to navigate the waters between the Scylla of objectivity and respect for the craft, and the Charybdis of a bias towards Israel so extreme and deep-rooted that it defies all evidence and mocks any notion of truth. The few who opt to steer towards Syclla find themselves bullied, hounded, harassed, defamed or just plain fired, their livelihoods and reputations assailed. How much easier to let oneself be sucked into the whirlpool of Charybdis, to spiral down, unresisting, into its murky and sullying depths. This is indeed the reality of reporting on the seventy-three-year conflict which began with the Zionist project and culminated in the violent birth of the state of Israel in 1948, the Nakba, or ‘Catastrophe’, as it is known to the Palestinians. The Nakba continues apace. So much has happened since—1967, the Intifadas, an unrelenting illegal military occupation, an illegal blockade, land theft, human rights abuses, etcetera, etcetera, in an interminable list—innumerable lives lost or destroyed, being lost and being destroyed. Present continuous. Today, the occupied Palestinians live lives of despair in conditions that have no place in a civilised world. But this is largely unknown in the Western world; most certainly it is unreported in the mainstream media. The reasons for this are many, though really only one—a massive imbalance of power between Israel and the Palestinians. The Israelis have everything of which the Palestinians are deprived. Israelis enjoy statehood, military power and human rights; they have the freedom to be represented by their democratically elected government; freedom of movement by air, land or sea; access to education and health, food and water security; a flourishing economy; an army, an air force and a navy—all of this without the constant threat of illegal incursions, house raids, house demolitions, checkpoints, curfews, arrests, imprisonment without trial, torture and sniper bullets. Israel’s undeniable power ultimately derives from the unwavering support it has received from the UK and the US since its very beginnings. This support is reflected in the way events and actions are reported by the Western media, which—for a multiplicity of reasons, ranging from sympathy with Israel to fear of the Israeli lobbies and their global reach—conceal the young nation’s many crimes, both past and present. This conflict is symptomatic of many of the world’s woes, it is “a symbol of deeper crises

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in the Middle East. It symbolizes the success of Euro-American propaganda systems in distorting facts and hiding truths from members of the public. A survey conducted by IRmep and Google Consumer Surveys suggests that most Americans (49.2% to 39.8%) think that Palestinians occupy Israel, when the facts are opposite” (Coles 2017, p. 1). When Israel launched the first of three ‘wars’ on the Palestinians of Gaza in 2008, the reporting by the British media was often inaccurate and failed to convey both sides of the story. There was a clear disparity between the biased representation of the conflict in the British press and the general perception of our media’s neutrality. Israel was already subjecting Gaza to its illegal blockade, when it launched Operation Cast Lead (OCL). The Israeli air force “flew nearly three thousand sorties over Gaza and dropped one thousand tons of explosives” killing 350 children, destroying 6000 homes and leaving 600,000 tons of rubble (Finkelstein 2018, p. 13). Israel killed a total of 1400 Palestinians in OCL (Algherbawi 2018). Israeli propaganda claimed that OCL was “an act of self-defence intended to stop Hamas rocket attacks on civilians in southern Israel” but Shlaim contends that Israel’s real aim was to “drive Hamas (which had won a fair and free election in January 2006) out of power, to terrorise the people of Gaza into submission, to crush all forms of resistance to Israeli occupation, and to suppress the Palestinian struggle for independence and statehood” (2010, pp. xiii– xiv). This is commonly referred to as ‘establishing deterrence’. The Goldstone Report found that OCL was “aimed at punishing the Gaza population for its resilience and for its apparent support for Hamas, and possibly with the intent of forcing a change in such support” (Finkelstein 2018, p. 88). In 2012, Israel launched Operation Pillar of Defense—its second war on the Palestinians of Gaza—and killed 167 Palestinians, one-fifth of whom were children. As we saw in OCL, Israel claimed that the attack was self-defence and “The Western media parroted Israeli claims that it was caused by Palestinian armed groups firing rockets out of Gaza. Evidence that Israel had provoked the vast majority of incidents in which rockets were fired was ignored” (Cronin 2017, p. 157). Hamas remained undefeated and so, in 2014, Israel launched Operation Protective Edge (OPE)—a brutal military assault. Unlike the previous two ‘wars’ on Gaza, OPE would last 51 days during which Israel would kill “over twenty-one hundred Palestinians and wound[] more than eleven thousand. The vast majority of the thirteen thousand casualties were civilians, and well over

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half of them were women, children, old people, and the disabled” (Khalidi 2014/2015). Israel killed 550 children, destroyed 18,000 homes and left in its wake 2.5 million tons of rubble.2 Today, 22,000 Palestinians in Gaza remain displaced as Israel has banned the import of all and any of the materials necessary to rebuild Gaza. The secondary and tertiary repercussions of Israel’s onslaughts against Gaza go largely ignored or unreported by the mainstream media, although “Israeli violence against Palestinians is manifest not only in its immediate physical impact on Palestinian persons but in its consequences for their capacity to have a society in which they develop an economy and social services” (Shupak 2018, p. 131). As in the previous two wars on Gaza, Israel claimed yet again that it was defending itself from terrorists, arguing this time that the Israeli army “targeted only ‘terrorist’ sites” (Black 2017, p. 452). This time around, however, Israel introduced a new dimension in the propaganda justifications of OPE, namely the claim that the civilian casualties were not a result of Israel’s shooting and bombing of hundreds and thousands of tons of explosives, but as a result of Hamas using Palestinian civilians as ‘human shields’. Perversely, this brazen falsehood was parroted throughout most of the Western media. Amnesty International investigated Israel’s claim but they “found no evidence that Hamas used human shields”. Strikingly, however, Amnesty did find that Israeli soldiers “used civilians, including children, as ‘human shields,’ endangering their lives by forcing them to remain in or near houses which they took over and used as military positions” (Finkelstein 2010/2011, p. 89). The human shield argument was another way for Israel to deflect blame and reverse the reality of what really happened while simultaneously dehumanising the Palestinians by portraying them as lacking the human and natural instinct to protect their children. The coverage of the attacks on Gaza—because that is what these ‘wars’ were, in fact—was particularly damning of Western reporting, and with each fresh onslaught, the level of reporting deteriorated considerably. We can trace this back to the increasingly long arms of the Israel lobbies, but also to Israel’s Western allies who have systematically shielded Israel from being rightfully prosecuted for its actions, appealing to “the prosecutor in the international court of Justice in the Hague not to look into Israel’s crimes in Gaza”. And most of the media “followed suit and justified…Israel’s actions” (Pappe in Coles 2017, p.  95). As Finkelstein has explained, what has happened in Gaza is a “human-made disaster” that

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took place “in broad daylight and in full sight, in the complicity of so many, not just via acts of commission but also, and especially, of omission, it is moreover a distinctively evil crime” (2018, p. xiii). Gaza is a travesty in the modern world: homelessness, mental illness, depression, domestic violence, amputations, a massive surge in suicide rates and an entire generation of children who have known no other way of life all bear witness to this. Yet, this information is largely absent from reporting on Israel’s ‘wars’ on Gaza, specifically, and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, more generally.

1.3   About This Book This book explores the representation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in British newspapers by focusing on five major news stories, four within the last seven years and Operation Cast Lead (one of Israel’s wars on Hamas and the Palestinians in besieged Gaza) which took place between December 2008 and January 2009. The aim is not to detail a chronology of the events that have taken place over the last 70–80 years, but rather to explore the conflict by debunking the many myths that have plagued it and by analysing the language used to describe it. When selecting the news stories, the time frame was determined first (within the last ten years) and then it was decided that the events should involve civilians as victims and perpetrators on both sides. By examining how five key events in the Palestinian-Israel conflict (Operation Cast Lead and a further four events: two where the Israelis were the aggressors and two where the Palestinians were the aggressors) are represented in five British newspapers (left and right), differences in representation, terminology and language when describing each side can be evinced. Operation Cast Lead (OCL) was chosen in order to see whether reporting of a military operation was consistent with the reporting of individual events. In most societies, crimes committed against children are considered the most heinous and for this reason one of the stories on each side centres on the killing of children. At this most extreme end of the spectrum, it was thought that comparing the representation of the deaths of children on each side would be revealing. The coverage of each event was examined in The Daily Mail (DM), The Guardian (G), The Independent (I), The Daily Telegraph (DT) and The Times (T), unless the story was not covered by one of the newspapers. The aim was first to analyse each story as reported in each newspaper, then analyse the reporting of each story across

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newspapers. This was followed by a comprehensive look at any trends or patterns in reporting within a newspaper and across newspapers, irrespective of agent or subject. Where possible, English language articles from both Palestinian and Israeli newspapers were cross-referenced to see if there was any correlation between them and the British reporting of the same stories. The analysis is based on approximately four hundred articles. Supplementary articles about the conflict in all five newspapers were also examined. One limitation here is that the representation of the same news stories could not be analysed in Arabic or Hebrew, though this could have revealed whether and to what extent the British newspapers reflected the language of one side or the other. There are various aspects being considered here: how each side is represented when they are the aggressor, how each side is represented when they are the victim, how deaths on each side are represented, how each side is represented within the context of the conflict and the language used to describe the two sides. Ultimately, the aim was to see whether the language used in reporting the conflict revealed any bias, and if so, whom it favoured. The events chosen for this analysis were the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teenage settlers (Naftali Frankel, Gilad Shaer, Eyal Yifrach), the arson attack on a Palestinian family which killed a baby and his parents (the Dawabsheh family) and caused horrific burns to a toddler, the killing of three Israeli security guards (Har Adar settlement), the killing of an unarmed Palestinian paraplegic in Gaza (Ibrahim Abu Thurayeh) and Operation Cast Lead. As a British scholar of Palestinian ancestry, no doubt there will be those who try to taint these efforts with claims of bias or partiality. For reasons explored in this book no one takes the task of writing about this conflict lightly. In analysing the language of the conflict, I have let the linguistics do the talking, and the analysis speaks for itself. There is no pretending that any one of us exists in a vacuum, and “While one may wish to write a detached and neutral history, one’s own sympathies and affiliations remain” (Pappe 2004/2006, p. 11). I do not believe that the same can be expected of the Israelis and the Palestinians, of the occupier and the occupied, the coloniser and the colonised, but there will no doubt be those who do not share these views. Nonetheless, this analysis is, I believe, an accurate analysis. For too long now, the British media have claimed to be impartial in their reporting of this and other conflicts, when in truth they have played

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and continue to play an insidious role in shaping events. The media’s reporting has repercussions as we will see in the analysis in this book. The media can no longer be allowed to run amok. The time has come for us to demand a media that tell us the truth and that can be held accountable for their reporting. The term ‘conflict’ will be used in inverted commas throughout this work to highlight that, although this is the word most frequently used to describe the situation in Palestine and Israel, it does not accurately or fairly convey the power imbalance between the Palestinians and the Israelis. Nor does it convey the truth that Israel, possessing the might of one of the world’s most powerful and most heavily militarised armies, occupies the land and lives of the native Palestinians, a people forced to endure the longest, and last, settler colonial occupation in the world. The use of the term ‘conflict’ is a distortion of both history and reality.

1.4   Structure of the Book This book begins by looking at the myths about the Palestinian-Israeli ‘conflict’ from the creation of the state of Israel to the present day. I explore the myths that have been perpetuated in order to debunk them and, where relevant, I examine the consequences of these myths and their impact on the lives of the Palestinians. Chapter 3 focuses on the role of language in conflict and then goes on to explore the use of language in reporting the Palestinian-Israeli ‘conflict’ by looking at the headlines, voice, nominalisation, language prevarication and the use of lexicon. Chapter 4 explores the different types of censorship in the media and how censorship influences the reporting of the ‘conflict’. I look specifically at the role of censorship by omission and the role of omissions and misrepresentations in the articles. Then I discuss the Israeli lobby, censorship and its impact on reporting. Chapter 5 examines the role of propaganda, agenda setting and framing on the media. The current media role in forming and shaping our world view and in forming a nation’s view of the ‘other’ is analysed. The chapter goes on to detail how othering is used to justify Israeli violence towards the Palestinians. This is followed by a discussion of the use of sources in the newspapers, whether there is a difference in which side’s sources are used or how they are represented and how this can lead to bias. The chapter ends with a discussion of the patterns and trends evinced in the reporting of the ‘conflict’ across the newspapers. Finally, the concluding chapter sets out to examine the specificities of the

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reporting of the Palestinian-Israeli ‘conflict’ and the factors that determine or influence how each side is portrayed including any trends or patterns. I assess the difficulties faced by journalists seeking out the Palestinian narrative (as a result of the illegal military occupation), and compare the ease with which the Israeli narrative is made available through ready-made press releases and ever-ready Israeli sources. The chapter ends with a look at what needs to happen for peace to be achieved (holding Israel accountable for its actions, ending the military occupation, the illegal blockade) and how this might come about (notably the need for a new lexicon which aims to inform rather than deceive so that honest journalism can thrive in an environment that nurtures rather than ostracises journalists pursuing the truth).

Notes 1. Rather than presenting the facts and informing the public, the media chose to parrot the official narrative. In some cases, the media went a step further by actively working with the government to deceive the public. See Pilger in Cromwell 2012, p. 25. 2. See Finkelstein 2018, p. 211.

References Algherbawi, S. (2018) They Never Came Home. Retrieved December 26, 2018, from https://electronicintifada.net/content/they-­never-­came-­home/26316 Beckett, C., & Ball, J. (2012) WikiLeaks: News in the Networked Era. Cambridge: Polity Press. Beckett, C. (2008) SuperMedia: Saving Journalism so It Can Save the World. Blackwell Publishing. Foreword by Jeff Jarvis (December 2007, New York). Black, I. (2017) Enemies and Neighbours: Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel 1917–2017. Allen Lane, Penguin Books. Boczkowski, P. J., & Anderson, C. W. (Eds.) (2017) Remaking the News. Essays on the Future of Journalism. Scholarship in the Digital Age. London, England/ Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Coles, T. J. (Ed.) (2017) Voices For Peace: War, Resistance and America’s Quest for Full-Spectrum Dominance. Sussex: Clairview Books. Cromwell, D. (2012) Why Are We the Good Guys? Reclaiming Your Mind from the Delusions of Propaganda. Zero Books. Cronin, D. (2017) Balfour’s Shadow: A Century of British Support for Zionism and Israel. London: Pluto Press.

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Curran, J. (Ed) (2010/2016) Media and Society. (5th ed.). London: Bloomsbury Academic, Bloomsbury Publishing. Curran, J., & Hesmondhalgh, D. (Eds) (1992/2019) Media and Society. (6th ed.). London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, Bloomsbury Publishing. Dunsky, M. (2008) Pens and Swords: How the American Mainstream Media Report the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. New York: Columbia University Press. Entman, R.  M. (1989) Democracy Without Citizens: Media and the Decay of American Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Entman, R.  M. (2004) Projects of Power: Framing News, Public Opinion, and U.S. Foreign Policy. University of Chicago Press. Finkelstein, N.  G. (2010/2011) This Time We Went Too Far: Truth and Consequences of the Gaza Invasion. New York: OR Books. Finkelstein, N.  G. (2018) Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom. California: University of California Press. Harcup, T. (2004/2005) Journalism. Principles and Practice. 3rd ed.. London: Sage Publications. Hedges, C. (2009) Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle. New York: Nation Books. Jackson, R. (2005) Writing the War on Terrorism: Language, Politics and counter-­ terrorism. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Jenkins, H. (2006) Convergence Culture. Where Old and New Media Collide. New York and London: New York University Press. Jones, O. (2014) The Establishment. And How They Get Away With It. Allen Lane, Penguin Books. Khalidi, W. (2014/2015) The Dahiya Doctrine, Proportionality, and War Crimes. (Vol. 44). Institute for Palestine Studies. http://www.palestine-­studies.org/ jps/fulltext/186668 Lloyd, J. (2004) What the Media Are Doing to Our Politics. London: Constable. Maras, S. (2013) Objectivity in Journalism. Key Concepts in Journalism. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Pappe, I. (2004/2006) A History of Modern Palestine. One Land, Two Peoples. Cambridge University Press Philo, G., & Berry, M. (2004) Bad News from Israel. London: Pluto Press. Shlaim, A. (2010) Israel and Palestine: Reappraisals, Revisions, Refutations. London, New York: Verso Books. Shupak, G. (2018) The Wrong Story. Palestine, Israel, & the Media. Or Books. Thompson, M. (2016) Enough Said: What’s Gone Wrong With The Language of Politics? The Bodley Head, Vintage.

CHAPTER 2

Uncovering Myths About the Palestinian-­Israeli ‘Conflict’

Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs…Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home. —Gandhi (see Pappe 2017a, p. 37)

2.1   Introduction to the Palestinian-Israeli ‘Conflict’ and Its Myths The creation of the state of Israel in 1948, known as the Nakba by the Palestinians and the War of Independence by the Israelis, shifted the course of history for hundreds and thousands of Palestinians. For them, this was not a discrete event that started and ended in 1948; rather the Palestinians have lived and continue to live the Nakba every day for the past seventy years: “For more than a century, which is probably longer than any other national group in recent memory, the Palestinians have struggled for self-­ determination…the Palestinians for the most part have lived for two-thirds of a century as refugees, exiles, and minorities—both in their homeland and elsewhere” (In Zureik 2016, pp.  9–10). In the ‘conflict’ myths abound. It is the argument of this book that these myths (although believed to be true by members of Israeli society and supporters of Zionism) were invented to justify the colonisation of Palestine, the forced © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 N. R. Sirhan, Reporting Palestine-Israel in British Newspapers, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17072-1_2

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expulsion of the Palestinians and the creation of the Jewish national home (JNH). Myths have fascinated us for millennia with theories about the meaning of myth being propounded since “at least as early as the sixth century B.C.” (Kirk 1970, p. 1). The term myth has numerous definitions, from the simple and fictitious, to the sacred and true. Myths can be seen to exist along a continuum somewhere between lies and history. Indeed, Levi-­ Strauss asked, “where does mythology end and where does history start?” ((1978) 2014, p. 32). For folklorists, myths are largely tales or narratives that are shared by a community or culture. Dundes (1984, p. 1) defined myth as “a sacred narrative explaining how the world and man came to be in their present form” and for Kirk myths are “at the very least tales that have been passed down from generation to generation, that have become traditional” (1970, p.  282). “What is myth today?” asks Barthes in his seminal work. At its simplest, Barthes defines myth as “a type of speech” but he goes on to describe myth as “a system of communication” and “a message” ((1957) 2009, p. 131). Drawing on Saussure’s study of semiotics, Barthes explains that myth “cannot be an object, a concept, or an idea; it is a mode of signification, a form”. For Barthes, anything could be a myth because myths are created (ibid., p. 132). Myths are often a set of beliefs that a group or society tell themselves and they serve various functions from helping people make sense of the world to explaining why things are the way they are. According to Barthes, “myth does not deny things, on the contrary, its function is to talk about them; simply, it purifies them, it makes them innocent, it gives them a natural and eternal justification” ((1957) 2009, pp.  169–170). Thus, myth can be used to explain away actions and as a form of legitimisation. “Myth is one of the ways in which collectivities—in this context, more especially nations—establish and determine the foundations of their own being, their own systems of morality and values” (Schopflin in Hosking and Schopflin 1997, p. 19). Fulbrook argues that myth is “involved in all levels of nationhood construction” and true or false, they “have symbolic power” and are “essentially propagated for their effect rather than their truth value” (ibid., p. 73). Some nations need myths more than others: “Imperial nations invent myths in order to justify their rule over other peoples. Defeated nations invent myths to explain their misfortune and to assist their survival” (Davies in ibid., p. 141). A nation’s myths tend to serve the nation itself and therefore typically their veracity is secondary to the primary function

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of which they serve within that society and therefore “It is the content of the myth that is important, not its accuracy as a historical account” (Schopflin in ibid., p. 20). The question that arises is ‘What happens when a nation or people’s mythology is used to justify the expulsion or colonisation of another nation or people?’ In such circumstances, the truth is paramount. As used here, the term myth implies an idea or belief that is false and factually unfounded but that is presented (and often believed) to be true. From the outset, the representation of the ‘conflict’ has been plagued by myths and misrepresentations and it is through these myths that I will examine the Palestinian-Israeli ‘conflict’. Throughout the ages, the use of myths about the past has been a potent instrument of forging a nation. The Zionist movement, the forerunner of the State of Israel, was one of the most successful public relations exercises of the twentieth century. (Shlaim 2004)

There are many myths surrounding the ‘conflict’, myths that are “located at the core of the nation’s [Israel’s] self-perception” and that have come to be seen as “historical truth” (Flapan in Pappe (2014) 2015, p. 110). These myths are predominantly forged by Israel, for, “History, in a sense, is the propaganda of the victors” (Shlaim 2004). Indeed, not only are myths the preserve of the dominant force, but a colonial oppressor has more need of them than most, for they justify his existence, his origins and his actions. Myth-making is both an act of creation and destruction—the ground has to be cleared to create space for the new stories; the unacceptable account must be replaced by a more palatable one in line with the dominant narrative. And so, it is very often in the interests of the occupier or the colonial settler to forget, for forgetting absolves him of his guilt. The occupied and dispossessed, however, cannot forget; everything that they are is tied to their past and their very existence and identity are threatened if their past is forgotten. “It is typical of an imperial power to have a short memory for its less pleasant imperial acts, but for those on the receiving end, memory can be long indeed” (Johnson (2000) (2008) 2010, p. 12). As a result, “The victims of a conflict are assiduous historians and cultivators of memory” (Pinker 2012, p. 594). The Palestinian narrative has been suppressed by the dominant Israeli narrative and through the proliferation of these myths. “The language of historical forgetting proffered by the powerful essentially denies the

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experiences of an entire people living under military rule, thereby eliminating their grievances from view” (Fields 2005). Palestinian history is “a hidden history” because “The dominant agenda continues to deny the memory of the Palestinian people and their long, rich history and to erase them from the narrative of the country, forcing political decisions based on myth rather than history” (Khalidi (2006) 2007, p. xxix/Ra’ad 2010, p. 140). By looking at the history of the ‘conflict’, the aim is to dispel the myths that enshroud it and obscure it from view.

2.2   A State of Myths: The Myths That Built the State of Israel The perpetuation of myths always serves a purpose or an agenda, whether the aim is to legitimise or mislead, to silence or incite to action. In the ‘conflict’, the purpose of these myths “was not only to gain support for Israel, but also to conceal the appalling human cost to the Palestinians of Israel’s successes” (Said in Said and Hitchens (1988) 2001, p.  4). The many myths surrounding the ‘conflict’ have existed since 1948 and “the myths that had once roused terrorists to action were now the narrative of the state, and this narrative-myth remains Israel’s most powerful weapon” (Suarez 2016, p. 323). Right from the outset, the political movement that is Zionism, indeed its very foundations, were built on certain myths which were necessary to advance its aim of a JNH. In fact, “Zionism is held together by a series of myths” (Rose 2004, p. 1). Originally defined as the movement for the re-­ establishment of the Jewish nation in Palestine, following the creation of Israel, Zionism was strategically redefined as the development and protection of the state of Israel. Zionism is Israel’s national ideology and although seen by many as a national movement, it is “also an example and expression of a settler-colonial movement” (Mendel and Ranta (2016) 2018, p. 6). 2.2.1  The State of Israel Was the Result of the Holocaust One of Zionism’s greatest achievements and greatest myths is that the creation of the state of Israel was born out of the Holocaust. The Zionist movement itself “emerged in Europe in the last two decades of the nineteenth century” (Shlaim 2000, p. 1). Although it is undeniably true that

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anti-Semitism and the horrors of the Holocaust facilitated the process, as early as 1906, the Zionist congress was already looking into the establishment of a JNH in Palestine. The British had offered Argentina and Uganda to establish a JNH, but this was rejected, which seems to suggest that Zionism’s primary concern was not the increasingly hostile environment for Jews in Europe, nor their welfare. Although anti-Semitism had been fought in the past,1 the World Zionist Organisation was “convinced that anti-Semitism could not be beaten” (Brenner 2014, p. 17). Rather than fight anti-Semitism, the World Zionist Organisation focused its efforts on obtaining a Jewish state in Palestine. 2.2.2  The Colonisation of Palestine Was Justified Because It Was the Jews’ Ancestral Homeland Another Zionist myth used to justify the dispossession of the Palestinians was that it was the Jews’ ancestral homeland. “Perhaps the most fundamental lie told by Israeli propagandists is the claim that the establishment of Israel was justified because it was the original homeland of the Jews. Even if one totally accepted this statement, it is the most doubtful interpretation of laws of property I have ever heard” (Abourezk in Ghareeb 1983, p. x). The Biblical promise that the Jews would be restored to Palestine was used as the main rationale for the colonisation of Palestine: “Since the country was not empty, and you had to overcome the presence of the natives, it was good to have God on your side—even if you were an atheist” (Pappe 2017a, p. 34). Or, as articulated by the title of Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin’s short essay, “There is no God, but he promised us the land”. Further highlighting the absurdity of this myth, its hypocrisy even. It is worth noting that “in the history of Zionism from Herzl to Netanyahu, not one single leader of the movement or prime minister of the state has been a believing and observant Jew” (Stanislawski 2017, p. 116). And yet, the Jewish ‘claim’ to the land, based on a 2000-year-old Biblical promise, was given more legitimacy by the British than the very real claim the Palestinians had to the land they had been living on, and were native to, since time immemorial. 2.2.3  Zionism Is Representative of the Jewish People Collectively Related to the myth of the ancestral, divinely gifted homeland is the idea that Zionism represented the Jewish people collectively. Zionism is an

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ideology and a movement which has supporters from all countries, ethnicities and religions and likewise is opposed by people from all countries, ethnicities and religions. “Zionism is not now, nor was it ever, co-­extensive with either Judaism or the Jewish people” (Brenner 2014, p. 15). Many Orthodox Jews opposed and continue to oppose the creation of the state of Israel because according to Jewish doctrine, the realisation of this biblical claim depended on certain conditions which have not yet been fulfilled. In fact, in the early days, many European rabbis forbade their followers from participating in Zionist activities because they believed that the Jews were supposed to remain in exile until the advent of the Messiah (Chomsky (2001) 2015, p. 93). To this day, there are religious Jews—the Neturei-­ Karta, among others—who reject the state of Israel because they believe it contradicts the fundamentals of the Jewish teachings. 2.2.4   Zionism Is a Jewish Liberation Movement Zionism has managed to portray itself as a Jewish liberation movement when in reality it is a racist, supremacist ideology whose victims are not only the Palestinians (whose dispossession and ethnic cleansing is unremitting) but also the Jews in Europe and the Middle East. Clandestine Zionist agents planted bombs targeting Jews in Baghdad in order to make them feel unsafe in their native countries so that they would emigrate to Israel: “Acts like these rattled a veteran community that was probably the oldest in Iraq, an organic part of the society and its history” (Pappe (2014) 2015, p. 179). At the time, one-third of Baghdad’s population was Jewish and thus one-third of the population was expelled as a result of Zionist ‘false flag’ operations in which, according to Naeim Giladi, “Jews killed Jews” (In Suarez 2016, pp.  282/284). And, although in 1975 the United Nations equated Zionism with racism,2 this Resolution3 was later repealed. The Arabs, and particularly the Palestinians, opposed Zionism from the start because in practice it was indistinguishable from settler colonialism (Farsoun and Aruri 2006, p. 3). Edward Said described Zionism as “‘an uncompromisingly exclusionary, discriminatory, colonial praxis’” (In Ashcroft and Ahluwalia 1999, p.  118). Since the repeal of the UN Resolution, Zionism has successfully managed to block all associations between Zionism and racism with the help of the Israel lobby, the media and through the liberal use of unfounded accusations of anti-Semitism made against anyone who draws comparisons between the two.

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2.2.5  The ‘Conflict’ Is Rooted in Religious Differences A very important myth, and one that has proved itself very useful, is that the ‘conflict’ is one rooted in religious differences. This has made it possible to frame the Palestinians as both Jew-haters and anti-Semites. Not only does this particular myth fly in the face of reason and the true historical record, but it also serves to conceal the fact that anti-Semitism among the Palestinians (if it exists as anti-Semitism at all, rather than anti-colonial sentiment) is an import from Europe. Hroub asserts that “the strong anti-­ Jewish feelings that crept into the Middle East by the start of the twentieth century originated in Europe, from European ideas compounded by European actions” ((2006) 2010, pp. 34–35). In the first place, prior to the creation of the state of Israel, there existed in Palestine harmonious relations between Christians, Jews and Muslims and it was customary for Christians and Muslims to participate in Jewish celebrations and vice versa.4 When in the fifteenth-century Philip II of Spain expelled the Jews and the Muslims, the Jews “sought refuge mainly in Muslim lands” (Karim 2003, p. 109). Similarly, it is quickly forgotten that while the Christian Romans forbade Jews from entering Jerusalem, whenever Jerusalem was under Muslim rule, the Muslims reversed the Roman rules allowing Jews to enter the city. Mendel and Ranta remind us that “at the end of the nineteenth century Jews in Palestine were a small minority that lacked contemporary nationalistic sentiments” and that unlike today “violent incidents between Jews and Palestinians were few in number and dissimilarities between communities were not a source of tension or an excuse for conflict” ((2016) 2018, p. 28). Any real enmity towards the Jews was a result of the Balfour Declaration and the Zionist agenda to take over Palestine and expel the indigenous Palestinians (Rotbard 2015, p.  81). This Palestinian and Arab opposition was framed as anti-Semitism which, in the wake of the Holocaust, further weakened the Palestinian cause and simultaneously erased the memory of the Palestinian tradition of religious tolerance. Still, it has proven advantageous to represent the ‘conflict’ as one driven by anti-Semitism in order to delegitimise Palestinian resistance: “From the very beginning, Palestinian resistance was depicted as motivated by hate for Jews” (Pappe 2017a, p. 43). In many ways, this, as well as other factors, crippled the Palestinian cause from the outset.

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2.2.6  Criticism of Zionism Is the Same as Anti-Semitism Although Zionists have tried to conflate Zionism with Judaism to their advantage, and although some people argue that criticising Zionism can be used as a concealed attack on Jewish people, it could be argued that the early Zionists were themselves anti-Semites. In 1914, Chaim Weizmann, leader of the World Zionist Organisation (1921–1931/1935–1946) and later first President of Israel, told Balfour, “we too are in agreement with the cultural anti-Semites, in so far as we believed that Germans of the Mosaic faith are an undesirable, demoralizing phenomena” (Brenner 2014, p. 51). Rather than shun anti-Semites and their heinous beliefs or oppose and fight them, Zionists pandered to both anti-Semites and Nazis to the detriment of the Jewish people in order to achieve their aims of creating a JNH in Palestine. In Herzl’s own words: “the anti-Semites will be our most dependable friends, the anti-Semitic countries our allies” (In Newsinger (2006) 2013, p.  131). In 1917, in protest of the Balfour Declaration, C.G. Montefiore, President of the Anglo-Jewish Association, remarked “It is very significant that anti-Semites are always very sympathetic to Zionism” (Suarez 2016, p. 34). Arguably, Balfour himself was an anti-Semite. This may surprise the reader but, as Prime Minister, Balfour “pushed for a tough anti-­ immigration law in 1905 for the express purpose of stopping Jews fleeing Russia’s pogroms from seeking refuge in Britain” and was by no means a friend of the Jewish people (Cronin 2017a, p.  5). Balfour was an anti-­ Semite in the broadest sense: he disliked both Arabs and Jews, but it seems he disliked Arabs more. In Balfour’s own words: “The four great powers are committed to Zionism. And Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long traditions, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land” (ibid., p. 9). In fact, in some ways Balfour’s Declaration can be seen as a multi-­ layered, multi-purpose declaration that would fulfil numerous aims simultaneously: it would appease the Zionist lobby; it would provide an ally in the predominantly Muslim Middle East; and it would get rid of the Jews from the UK and Europe. As Masalha emphasises, “Balfour’s strategic and nationalist domestic motives and concerns, especially his well-documented efforts and policies to stop the influx of Eastern European Jewry into the UK, must be taken into consideration in any attempt to assess his motives

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behind the Declaration as well as the long-term catastrophic consequences for Palestine of that Balfour commitment” (2018, p. 310). In January 2018, Ken Livingstone, former Mayor of London came under fire for asserting that Hitler had supported Zionism prior to the Holocaust. For many, this claim seems absurd but Hitler’s aims and the aims of Zionism were congruent: Zionism wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine (for which it needed Jewish people) and Hitler wanted the Jews out of Europe (a Jewish nation would solve this). Although the motivations and the reasons were different, both wanted Jews to move to Palestine. Newsinger argues that in the 1930s the Zionist movement collaborated with the Nazis: “they found they had a shared interest in the eviction of Jews from Germany” ((2006) 2013, p. 137). Similarly, it has been established that “Zionists sabotaged efforts to find safe havens for Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany in order to convince the world that Jews could only be safe in a Jewish state” (Weir 2014, p. 29). Tragically, for the victims of the Holocaust who were sacrificed in astonishing numbers to the pernicious ideologies of Zionism and Nazism, this and other details amount to incontrovertible evidence that high-level Zionists used the Holocaust to achieve the goal of a Jewish state in Palestine. Ben-Gurion, who later became Israel’s first Prime Minister, is said to have been the principal decision-maker when it came to choosing between Jews and the ‘greater’ Zionist aims: If I knew that it was possible to save all the children of Germany by transporting them to England, but only half of them by transporting them to Palestine, I would choose the second—because we face not only the reckoning of those children, but the historical reckoning of the Jewish people. (In Berry and Philo 2006, p. 22)

The Zionists did not want Hitler to come to power nor did they actively support him. Some of the Zionist leaders, however, seized upon the events of the Holocaust to further their aim of a JNH in Palestine. 2.2.7  ‘A Land Without People for a People Without a Land’ One of the most staggering founding myths of Israel was the claim that Palestine was ‘a land without people for a people without a land’. In one fell swoop, Palestinians, their history and their very existence were negated.

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With this speech act, it was as though the Palestinians no longer existed: “The people of Palestine are ancient. Their ancientness is not a fabricated one. It is not assumed. It is real. They do not need to constantly assert it or to reassure themselves they are an ancient people or insist on how ancient they are” (Ra’ad 2010, p. 196). This myth was of great significance and hugely destructive because, suddenly, the onus was on the Palestinians to prove their existence, an oxymoron in itself. This myth was swallowed wholesale and was used both to justify the creation of the state of Israel and to delegitimise any Palestinian claim to the land. “Once seen as insignificant, the Palestinians were perceived after 1948 as miserable, idle “Arab refugees” who irrationally begrudged Israelis their homeland” rather than being acknowledged as Palestinians who had fled their land in 1948 primarily because of systematic terror attacks carried out by the Jews and Zionists. (Farsoun and Aruri 2006, p. 12)

Masalha argues that ‘a land without people for a people without a land’ did not “mean that there were no people in Palestine, but that there were no people worth considering within the framework of the notions of racist European supremacy that then held sway” (2018, p.  308). When Weizmann was asked about the Palestinians by Arthur Ruppin (the head of the colonisation department of the Jewish Agency), he responded, “The British told us that there are there some hundred thousand niggers [Hebrew: kushim, negroes] and for those there is no value” (ibid.). Not only was the ‘land without people for a people without a land’ myth pernicious and racist but it also instantly relegated the Palestinians to an Orwellian memory hole. Suddenly, there were no Palestinians, only Arabs. This systematic denial of the Palestinians can be traced back to the birth of Israel: “Supporters of transfer asserted that the Palestinians were not a distinct people but merely ‘Arabs’, an ‘Arab population’ that happened to reside in the Land of Israel” (Masalha 2012, p. 63). Ra’ad explains that it has been advantageous for the Israelis “to insist on calling Palestinians “Arabs” in order to diminish their native legitimacy, imply they have a nomadic nature (i.e. are naturally landless), and to associate them with “Arab” countries elsewhere, where they can always go” (2010, p. 35). In order to legitimise their existence, the Zionists had to deny that of the Palestinians: “In the formation of identities, memory is not only invented, conjured up, or reawakened, but it is also purposely suppressed, erased, and deleted” (Massad 2015, p. 313).

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This slogan was propagated by the Israelis, repeated by their allies and believed in spite of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary: the Palestinians themselves. In 1969, the Israeli prime minister, Golda Meir, made an astonishing pronouncement. “It was not as though there was a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them,” she said. “They didn’t exist”. (Karmi (2002) 2009), p. 383)

By claiming that there were no people living in Palestine, the Israelis could claim that their actions—the forced exodus and dispossession of the Palestinians—were blameless: after all, how could one dispossess a people that did not exist? In 1969, Menachem Begin explicitly acknowledged the pragmatism of this myth and counselled its use: If this is Palestine and not the land of Israel, then you are conquerors and not tillers of the land. You are invaders. If this is Palestine, then it belongs to a people who lived here before you came. (In Said and Hitchens (1988) 2001, p. 241)

Perpetuating this myth was necessary in order to establish the Zionist state and to portray its endeavour in a positive light. The Palestinians were demonised, dehumanised and denigrated so that Zionists could shift the focus away from the victims of Zionist colonisation and the destruction of “an indigenous Asian community struggling to be free” all the while portraying themselves as “the national liberation movement of the Jewish people” (ibid.). Denying the existence of the Palestinians and depriving them of their victimhood was crucial for many reasons. Firstly, victims “have a special status—they can be forgiven excesses, their anger can be understood and tolerated” (Jackson 2005, p. 37). If the Palestinians are perceived as victims then their struggle is justified, their actions are legitimised and Israel is the aggressor; or to use the much-loved cliché, Israel is the Goliath to the Palestinians’ David. If, however, the Palestinians are not perceived as victims but as aggressors, infiltrators or terrorists, then the Israelis are the victims and consequently their actions are justified. Thus, the Palestinians’ efforts “to hold onto their land became baseless violent acts against the rightful owners”, supposedly the Jews (Pappe 2017a, p. 43). This would prove to be a useful tactic, one that Ariel Sharon employed post 9/11 to

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align himself and the Israelis with the US and to conflate the Palestinians with the ‘terrorists’ (claiming, e.g., that Arafat was Israel’s Bin Laden5). Denying the Palestinians victim status goes hand in hand with remembering and cementing the victimhood of the Jewish people. “The incomprehensible horrors of the Holocaust engendered such universal, unqualified empathy for persecuted Jews, that it was easily coopted to the Zionist argument. Palestine was alleged to be the only answer to the suffering, and the Nazi identity was franchised into anyone challenging this construct” (Suarez 2016, p. 57). The continual and pragmatic focus on their status as victims of the worst crime of the twentieth century is deployed to shift the world’s lens away from Israel’s subsequent actions as aggressors and occupiers and “leads to outrageous double standards” (Cook 2017a). Hass, however, argues that “Israel’s Holocaust credit line with the world will run out” and one day “leaders of Judeo-Israeli colonialism will be put on trial” (2018). By virtue of their victimhood, Jews are beyond reproach even in their role as aggressor and as perpetrators of acts deemed illegal by international standards; simultaneously, the fate of the Palestinians falls by the wayside. “Most of all the Palestinian has suffered because he or she has been unknown, an unacknowledged victim, and worse, a victim blamed not only for his or her disasters, but for those of others as well” (Said in Said and Hitchens (1988) 2001, p. 6). The notion that the Nazi crime against the Jews gave the Zionists a moral right to displace and dispossess another people and occupy their land is both a logical and moral absurdity. “Of course acknowledging the truth of what took place in Europe can never morally justify the uprooting of another people outside of Europe and the destruction of historic Palestine” (Masalha 2012, pp. 14–15). The myth ‘a land without people for a people without a land’ was considered essential for Israel’s survival and so to annihilate the Palestinians was seen to be both desirable and justifiable. 2.2.8   The Palestinians Left of Their Own Accord Another prevalent myth is that the Palestinians were not forced out of their homes, villages and towns by the Jewish immigrants at the time but in fact left their land and homes of their own accord. This preposterous claim (that goes against every human instinct and every example of colonisation in history), Pappe rejects outright: “Palestine was colonized, not “redeemed”; and its people were dispossessed in 1947, rather than leaving

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voluntarily” (2017a, pp.  147–148). Before delving into this myth, it is worth pointing out that it directly contradicts the ‘a land without people for a people without a land’ myth, since the one claims that Palestine was empty of inhabitants while the other argues that the Palestinians left of their own accord. Or, put another way, how could it be empty of inhabitants and yet “married to another man?”6 The Palestinians, as the record shows, did not leave of their own accord. They were forced out by a campaign of Israeli scaremongering and horrific terror tactics and attacks; and by rapes, murders and massacres carried out by the Jewish terrorist groups many of whose members later formed the basis of the Israeli army, with many individuals subsequently becoming high-ranking military officials.7 Of all the many massacres, the most notorious was Deir Yassin in which more than half of the inhabitants of this village, of which a great many were women and children, were mercilessly slaughtered by Jewish immigrants: “It can safely be said that the Deir Yassin terrorist massacre…was the principal cause of the Palestinian exodus in 1948” (Cattan 1988, p. 60). By no means was Deir Yassin the worst of the massacres,8 but it was the most notorious and became synonymous with rape, slaughter and death. Deir Yassin was sufficiently horrific that those who were not forced out of their homes fled for fear of becoming victims of similar atrocities.9 The Red Cross representative who found the bodies at Deir Yassin arrived in time to see some of the killing in action. He wrote in his diary that Zionist militia members were still entering houses with guns and knives when he arrived. He saw one young Jewish woman carrying a blood-covered dagger and saw another stab an old couple in their doorway. The representative wrote that the scene reminded him of S.S. troops he had seen in Athens. (Collins and Lapierre in Weir 2014, p. 59)

In further refutation of the ‘voluntary departure’ claim, it is now common knowledge that the Jewish immigrants went from one Palestinian village to another with loudspeakers telling them to leave if they wanted to stay alive. “‘Horror recordings’ blared through loudspeakers warning those who remained that they would suffer the fate of Deir Yassin” (Suarez 2016, p. 258). Deir Yassin and other massacres culminated in the creation of the State of Israel. Over 80% of the Palestinian population was dispossessed. It is thought that close to one million Palestinians were ethnically cleansed in 1948.10

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2.2.9  Palestinians Left Palestine Because They Were Told to by Arab Leaders When the ‘voluntary departure’ claim began to fail in the face of masses of evidence to the contrary, another claim was pulled out of Israel’s proverbial hat, namely, that the Palestinians left Palestine not because of the Israeli massacres and scaremongering but because they were told to do so by neighbouring Arab countries. “Since the birth of the refugee question, Israeli propaganda has steadfastly held that, in response to Arab radio broadcasts urging flight to clear the field for the invading Arab armies, the Palestinians departed of their own volition—indeed, despite Zionist entreaties that they remain in place” (Finkelstein (1995) 2001, pp. 56–57). Although this claim was disproven in the 1960s by Erskine Wilders and Walid Khalidi, this myth is still in circulation even though, “There was not a single order, or appeal, or suggestion about evacuation from Palestine from any Arab radio station, inside or outside Palestine, in 1948. There is repeated monitored record of Arab appeals, even flat orders, to the civilians of Palestine to stay put” (In Said and Hitchens (1988) 2001, pp. 76–77). If nothing else, this highlights how much easier it is to assert a falsehood than to disprove it, even when armed with hard facts: “despite the fact that such myths can be revealed as false, once generated and expressed they can acquire a considerable life of their own” (Halliday (1996) 2003, p. 7). 2.2.10  Britain Had the Right to Make the Balfour Declaration Another myth is that Britain had the right to make the Balfour Declaration and ‘give’ Palestine to the Zionists in the first place. Described by Shlaim as “one of the worst mistakes in British foreign policy in the first half of the twentieth century,11” the Balfour Declaration of 2 November 1917 promised the Zionist movement the land of Palestine. This was in spite of the fact that Palestine had been promised its independence in return for fighting with the British against the Ottomans. Moreover, when Balfour gave his declaration to the Zionists, Palestine was not yet a British mandate, only becoming one in 1922. Cronin argues that “Britain had no moral or legal authority to make pledges on Palestine in November 1917. Palestine was not one of its imperial ‘possessions’—British forces did not capture Jerusalem until a month after the declaration was published. Yet that did

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not stop the British government from acting as if it owned Palestine and, therefore, was entitled to dictate the country’s future” (2017a, p. 9). 2.2.11  The British Role in the ‘Conflict’ Has Been an Honest and Equitable One The myth of the honest and equitable role of the British is one that has lingered for far too long. It is difficult to understand how the British maintained any such reputation in the face of their often-deplorable actions in their colonies, and this question deserves its own study.12 With regard to Palestine, the role of the British has always been a partisan one. Balfour’s fateful Declaration failed to mention the Palestinians directly only referring to them as ‘existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine’. In like manner, the Mandate made no mention of either the national rights of the Palestinians or their right to self-determination even though “they constituted the overwhelming majority, some 90 percent” of the total population (Erakat 2019, p. 39). The Palestinians appear as “sections of the population” and “non-Jewish” (ibid.). The Mandate, however, “Explicitly mentioned Jewish national rights and a national home six times. It affirmed that Jews had a “historical connection” with Palestine, and it committed to establishing a Jewish national home as a matter of legal obligation” (ibid.). The fact that the Palestinians, who had inhabited the land for thousands of years, were not referred to by name in the Declaration (or the Mandate), a declaration that would change their lives beyond measure, highlights this complete and utter disregard towards them. There can be no doubt that “British strategy in Palestine clearly favoured the Jewish population throughout the 1920s and 1930s in its sponsorship of immigration into Palestine. This changed the demographic balance in Palestine from 600,000 Arabs and 80,000 Jews in 1917 to one million Arabs and 400,000 Jews by 1938” (Curtis 2010, p. 18). Perhaps Churchill’s own words best illustrate the British attitude to the Palestinians, “if, as may well happen, there should be created in our lifetime by the banks of the Jordan a Jewish State under the protection of the British Crown, which might comprise three or four million of Jews, an event would have occurred in the history of the world which would, from every point of view, be beneficial, and would be especially in harmony with the truest interests of the British Empire” (In Brenner 2002, p. 27). The very claim that it would be considered beneficial ‘from every point of view’ highlights either that the Palestinians were considered too insignificant to

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have a point of view or that they were simply not considered. Either way, this exemplifies the complete and utter disregard for the fate of the Palestinians. From early on, the British were paving the way for the Zionist takeover of Palestine while simultaneously suppressing the Palestinians and their right to self-determination. Cronin tells how “New ordinances enabling the censorship of the Palestinian press were introduced in an attempt to prevent articles demanding a freeze on Zionist colonisation from being published” (2017a, p. 35). The suppression of the Palestinian press was swiftly followed by a suppression of Palestinian culture: The British had already outlawed anti-Zionist publications, but Weizmann now pressed them to remove Arab iconography from the region, objecting, for example, to any Arab inscription on postage stamps. Hebrew was pushed as Palestine’s official language even though, as the British governor of Jaffa commented, most Jewish settlers were having “to sit down and learn their supposedly native tongue”. (Suarez 2016, p. 43)

The British gave Hebrew and Arabic, the language of the indigenous population, equal status13 highlighting the particularly pernicious role of the British. The British, now politically aligned with the Jews because of the Declaration, heavily penalised the Palestinians for infractions that the Jews managed to get away with scot-free. Case in point—the concentration camp set up by the ruling British administration in the 1930s where they practised the mass incarceration of Palestinians.14 Another way in which the British discriminated against the Palestinians was by forbidding them from carrying arms; those found carrying arms were imprisoned in the aforementioned British concentration camps. Many Palestinians found with arms were rounded up and imprisoned: “the British brought into Palestine the much-dreaded tatwiq (round-up). This was a pernicious practice used by the authorities to root out Palestinian resistance fighters and to search for hidden arms” (Karmi (2002) 2009, p. 11). The story of British brutality in the village of Halhul in northern Hebron is legendary. In Halhul, the year 1939 is known as the year of the ‘barbed wire’ or in Arabic sant it-tayl, because the British set up detention camps surrounded by barbed wire. It was in 1939 that thirteen15 Palestinian men from Halhul were killed by the British for not being able to produce the guns they were suspected of possessing. The British troops invaded the

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village looking for the alleged weapons and in so doing they rounded up over a hundred Palestinian men whom they detained in an animal pen for three days in the scorching May sun with no shelter, no food and no water. The British army’s official account of this is described by Cronin: “Eight men died from heat exhaustion after being detained in an open-air pen…the ‘abnormally hot weather’ was listed as the first cause of their deaths. The second cause listed was that the amount of food and water provided to the men was ‘insufficient’ for several days during which they were held’” (2017a, p. 51). Newsinger explains how the “Suspects were kept in the open for five days with hardly any water as punishment. At the end of the five days many of them had collapsed and five were dead” ((2006) 2013, p. 147). Interestingly, the number of dead differs in each version and in the British accounts there is no mention of the fact that absolutely no food or water was given to the Palestinian men. (According to Palestinians who lived in Halhul at the time, Palestinian women used to surreptitiously throw sugar cubes into the pen for the men to eat.) The Palestinian version continues and it goes that the British promised to set free any man who could show or give up a gun. Driven by extreme thirst and dehydration, one of the detained Palestinians claimed to have hidden his gun down a well. And so, the British lowered him into the well inside which he claimed to have hidden his gun. He quickly drank some water while in the well and then he was brought back up by the British who expected him to produce the alleged gun. When he was brought back up his clothes were drenched in water, the other prisoners were so thirsty that they rushed to the man and started sucking on his clothes for some water and moisture. On realising that the Palestinian had not produced a gun from the well and that they had been tricked, the British shot him dead on the spot. This part of the story seems to have been omitted from the official British account. The Palestinians thus found themselves thrust into an increasingly dire situation in which they were essentially fighting both the British administration and the Jewish immigrants. In fact, “Jewish colonists were hired in significant numbers to the British police force tasked with quelling dissent. Among the tasks assigned to Jewish police officers was to guard over the huts and stores in Sarafand camp” (Cronin 2017b). The Sarafand camp refers to the concentration camp which housed ‘dissenting’ Palestinians. Newsinger adds that the British allowed the Zionists to “function as a state within a state, even to the extent of establishing its own militia, the Haganah. The British treated the Zionists’ Jewish Agency, as if it was a

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government in waiting” ((2006) 2013, p.  134). Interestingly, Brenner argues that “had it not been for the presence of the British Army during the early years of the Mandate, the Palestinians would not have had the slightest problem pushing Zionism out” (2014, p. 33). With very few options left to them, the Palestinians responded with a six-month general strike which in turn became a general revolt lasting from 1936 to 1939. British reign became more and more repressive towards the Palestinians, and ultimately, the British crushed the revolt with cruelty and savagery, killing thousands of Palestinians. “The use of torture against Palestinian detainees was approved at a high level in the British administration; villagers were forced into cages; patients were shot dead in their hospital beds” (Cronin 2017b). Indeed, many of the forms of ‘punishment’ carried out today against the Palestinians by the Israelis were first introduced by the British: “The British response to Palestinian terror was brutal and uncompromising: suspects were summarily hung, hundreds of houses of innocent people demolished, and Palestinians were used as human shields” (Suarez 2016, p. 12). The common Israeli practice of not returning bodies to Palestinian families also has its origins in the British mandate: “Chancellor [Britain’s high commissioner for Palestine] was adamant that some of the Palestinians who participated in the 1929 riots be executed…The bodies of the men ‘shall not be handed over to their relatives but shall be buried in the prison precincts’” (Cronin 2017a, pp.  29–30). Similarly, the current Israeli practice of ‘collective punishment’ is a relic from the British16 and “collective punishments were often drastic” (Newsinger (2006) 2013, p. 147). In fact, the British imprisoned Palestinians without trial and “harsh collective punishments were imposed on whole communities, routine use was made of Arab hostages as human shields, and ID cards were introduced” (ibid., pp.  146–147). Using Palestinians as human shields is another British practice recycled and employed by the Israelis. The British role in the dispossession of the Palestinians did not end there. In fact, Rabinowitz and Abu-Baker have shown that the British played a direct role in the Palestinian exodus: “To the end of April 1948, leaflets circulated by the British in the Arab parts of Haifa promised the Palestinian residents an imperial guarantee of safety if they would leave for Lebanon or Syria. Escorted army trucks were made available to those who wanted to go, and some made their way east in small convoys” (2005, p. 33). In this way, the British “became deeply implicated in the Israelis’ ethnic cleansing of other parts of Palestine” (Curtis 2010, pp.  37–38).

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Cronin asserts that “By the time they had decided to quit, the British had already created the conditions necessary for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine” (2017a, p. 64). By 1948, the British, having already sown the seeds of disaster, no longer had any real interest in Palestine—and so they washed their hands of it and slinked away, leaving it to the UN to muddle through this disaster which the British had both created and supported. 2.2.12  Palestine Was Barren Land Before Jewish Immigration Palestine, according to another Israeli myth, was barren land prior to Jewish immigration, and the Palestinians had not cultivated its lands but instead had let the land lie fallow. In fact, former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres described Palestine as being “mostly an empty desert, with only a few islands of Arab settlement; and Israel’s cultivable land today was indeed redeemed from swamp and wilderness”. Israel’s third Prime Minster Levi Eshkol claimed that “It was only after the Zionists made the desert bloom that they [the Palestinians] became interested in taking it from us” (George 1979, p. 88). This is in spite of the fact that in 1891 when Ahad Ha-Am, a famous Jewish writer, visited Palestine for three months he remarked that it was “difficult to find fields that were not sown” by the Palestinians (In Rose 2004, p. 95). As far back as 1857, in his journal of his visit to Palestine, Herman Melville wrote that “All who cultivate the soil in Palestine are Arabs” (In Ra’ad 2010, p. 83). As George explains, the purpose of this myth was to convince the world that Jewish immigrants “could settle [in Palestine] without prejudice to anybody’s interests” (1979, p. 88). Despite being a blatant lie and entirely unsubstantiated, this myth gained traction, fitting neatly both with the myth that there were no native Palestinians “which presumed the nonexistence of an entire people” and the myth that it was the Israelis who made the desert bloom:17 “implying that the six hundred thousand industrious Palestinian peasants and townspeople who inhabited their homeland in the centuries before the relatively recent arrival of modern political Zionism were desert nomads and wastrels” (Khalidi 2013, p. x). Churchill, when asked about the injustice of a JNH in Palestine, argued that “The injustice…is when those who lived in the country leave it to be desert for thousands of years” (In Rose 2004, p. 129). This is particularly interesting as citrus fruits had been grown for years in Palestine and the Palestinians were already exporting oranges in the early twentieth century. Mendel and Ranta explain that citrus

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production in Palestine rapidly increased in the mid-nineteenth century and that in “1882, the year in which the first Zionist settlers arrived in Palestine, the Jaffa orange was already a known brand and made up about a fifth of the total exports of Palestine” ((2016) 2018, p. 57). This is significant in the light of the fact that the Jaffa Orange brand is “now the most widely recognized Israeli brand in the world, and is protected as a trademark in over twenty countries” (Rotbard 2015, p. 135). Doumani explains that the reason the agricultural methods and technology “remained largely unchanged” was because “they were eminently suited to the thin topsoil and rocky ground of the hill regions, the heartland of Palestinian peasantry” (1995, p. 4). As a result of these traditional methods, Palestine was “integrated into the world capitalist economy as an exporter of wheat, barley, sesame, olive oil, soap, and cotton during the 1856–1882 period” (ibid.). In fact, Masalha describes how in the 1700s and 1800s “wheat and cotton shipments from the Palestinian port of Acre to Italy, southern France…and England helped save the growing population of France from famine and fueled the English Industrial Revolution and the rise of commodity capitalism in Europe” (2018, p. 219). In this way, the Nakba suffered by the Palestinians was disparaged and the Zionists could claim to have more right to Palestine “because they have exploited its agricultural potential more efficiently than the Palestinians could have done” (George 1979, p.  89). A lone voice, President Roosevelt did not accept this to be true or valid, arguing: “If you are looking to determine the rights to a land on the basis of who could most efficiently develop that land, then you are going to have a pretty disastrous series of world shifts and revolutions. And if that was our theory, then on what grounds did we, for instance, oppose the Nazis?” (Suarez 2016, p. 239). In fact, the Israeli state’s very existence was as a result of “its wholesale theft of the Palestinians’ worldly possessions— land, homes, assets, money, orchards, quarries, business establishments, olive groves and machinery” (ibid., p. 288). Nothing was left in the homes of the approximate one million Palestinians who were forced out or fled. For the Israelis, 1948 is depicted as a ‘War of Independence’, a war in which Israel triumphed over adversity in order to create the Jewish State, with little mention of the fact that it was built on the backs of the Palestinians. As Ofir has expressed, “We [the Israelis] have established a state on the mass grave of others” (2016).

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2.3   Israeli Myths: From 1967 to the Present Day 2.3.1  Israel Has Tried to Make Peace with the Palestinians Similarly, the myth of the benevolent Israel always trying to make peace with the Palestinians, constantly making ‘concessions’ to the Palestinians who ungratefully reject peace in favour of war, needs to be addressed. “A mistake too often made by those examining Israel’s behaviour in the occupied territories—or when analysing its treatment of Arabs in general—is to assume that Israel is acting in good faith” (Cook 2008, p. 200). Perpetuated since 1948, and again at every negotiation or peace process to date, this myth makes the mistake that Cook warns us against. “The Western mantra is that Israel seeks negotiations without preconditions while the Palestinians refuse such terms. The opposite is more accurate: the United States and Israel demand strict preconditions which are, furthermore, designed to ensure that negotiations will lead either to Palestinian capitulation on crucial issues or nowhere” (Chomsky 2016, p. 78). In fact, Pappe18 argues that Israel’s diplomatic efforts have never been genuine attempts to seek peace but rather false endeavours with the ultimate goal of reinforcing the ‘open-prison’ model. There is a double standard when it comes to the peace talks: “The Israeli leadership has also shown exceptional hostility to Israelis and Palestinians who hint at the possibility and desirability of mutual recognition. But for some unexplained reason, Israeli “super-rejectionism” is never designated “sterile rejectionism” and the burden of successfully opening a diplomatic track is always on the PLO” (Herman 1992, p. 47). The reality is that Israel does not want peace with the Palestinians and it never has as highlighted by Zalman Aran when he said, “We should say something, not necessarily mean something”. Pappe explains that “what he meant was that they should say something about their wish to seek peace, but not really mean it” (2017b, p.  68). Levy asserts that “Rejectionism is embedded in Israel’s most primal beliefs. There, at the deepest level, lies the concept that this land is destined for Jews alone” (2014). Richard Falk, former UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Occupied Territories, confirms this: “Despite lip service to the contrary, Israel does not accept the supposed global consensus…that a sovereign Palestinian state should be established within the 1967 borders” (2017, pp. 26–27). In reality, what Israel says in negotiations, and what it does, are two completely different things.

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It is interesting that Israel can continue portraying itself as a ‘partner in peace’ while simultaneously carrying out actions and formulating laws that necessarily hinder peace. In fact, “settlement construction and expansion has gone forward even during times of peace negotiations between the two sides of the conflict” (Peterson 2015, p.  66). Since the 1993 Oslo peace process there has been a 200% increase in the Israeli settler population in the West Bank (Erakat 2019, p. 211). As Reinhart explains, Sharon “proved that Israel can imprison the Palestinians, bombard them from the air, steal their land in the West Bank, stall any chance for peace—and yet still be hailed by the Western world as the peaceful side in the Israel-­ Palestine conflict” (2006, p. 14). This myth, which “has been adopted by the United States and reinforced by Western media” has achieved “the status of objective truth in many people’s minds” (Reinhart (2002) 2005, p. 22). Israel continues to pay lip service to the peace process while doing precisely what it wants. Interestingly, it is claimed by the Israelis that Ehud Barak made an incredibly generous peace offer to Arafat at Camp David but that it was turned down by Arafat who was uninterested in peace.19 At the time, the deal was negotiated behind closed doors but from details that have since emerged we know that it was not a ‘generous’ offer and that “Israel wished to annex enough of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) to retain its large settlement blocs and to allow 80 per cent of its settlers (the numbers of whom doubled during the 1990s) to stay put” (Cronin 2017a, p. 140). At every process the Palestinians have been framed as peace rejectionists, when in reality they have never been offered anything worth accepting. One of Israel’s chief negotiators at Camp David, Ben-Ami, is quoted as having said: “If I were Palestinian I would have rejected Camp David as well” (Finkelstein (2010) 2011, p. 20). Language manipulation has been key in this deception.20 The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines a rejectionist as “A person who rejects a proposed policy, in particular a supporter of Palestinian independence who rejects the possibility of a negotiated peace with Israel”. One wonders whether a similar word exists for Israelis who refuse a negotiated peace with the Palestinians? At each point, the Palestinians have been expected to negotiate from the new status quo and concede whatever new ‘facts on the ground’ Israel has created since the previous peace process. Bertrand Russell observed that for over 20  years Israel had expanded by force of arms and, after every stage in this expansion, it had appealed to

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‘reason’ and suggested ‘negotiations’. ‘Every new conquest’, he said, ‘became the new basis of the proposed negotiation from strength, which ignores the injustice of the previous aggression’. (Cattan 1988, p. viii)

In fact, Finkelstein refers to the peace process as an ‘annexation process’. Israel is essentially ‘rewarded’ with more land at each stage or, as Suarez explains, “Israel has since its birth been rewarded for its non-compliance. With every newly emasculated ruling, the previous, unenforced ones are forgotten, effectively ‘giving’ Israel the difference” (2016, p.  326). By asking the impossible of the Palestinians, by making them an offer that they cannot but refuse, the failure of peace can be blamed squarely on them. It goes largely unrecognised that for the Palestinians to accept the pre-1967 borders (borders Israel has long since penetrated) they would still only have approximately one-fifth of historic Palestine. In other words, “the Palestinian mainstream is effectively prepared to agree that the Israeli state would occupy 78  percent of the original Palestine, leaving the Palestinians with the remaining 22 percent” (Friel and Falk 2007, p. 5). Essentially, any negotiating on the Palestinian side is to push the Israelis back to the pre-1967 boundaries which are considered the legal borders separating Israel from Palestine and from other Arab countries (Suleiman 2004, p. 138). The reality is that by withdrawing from the occupied territories Israel is not making any ‘concessions’—it would simply be complying with international law. In all of the peace negotiations to date, little or no mention is made of the fact that Israel is occupying the West Bank and Gaza: “What was particularly annoying and unhelpful was the paradigm of parity on which the peace process was based: it divided the blame between the two parties and treated them as equally responsible for the conflict while offering, allegedly, an equitable solution” (Pappe in Chomsky and Pappe 2015, p. 33). The treatment of both sides as equals means that each side is expected to make ‘concessions’, equal concessions, and often the Palestinians are expected to make most of the concessions. “Whereas the Israelis are asked and are ostensibly (presented as) willing to negotiate about property, the recognized (Western) bourgeois right par excellence, Palestinians and other Arabs are asked to give up violence” (Massad 2010). Palestinians, who are permitted under international law to use violence to resist the illegal military occupation, are asked to renounce violence; yet no

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requirement is made of the Israeli occupiers, who are contravening international law with their use of violence against the Palestinians, to do the same. Most recently, the Israelis have cast aside the pretence of peace: “The time has come to think about the day after, and the time has come for us all to internalise the end of the era of the Palestinian state, and the beginning of the era of sovereignty”, says Israeli Education Minister, Naftali Bennet (Middle East Monitor 2018). This hugely significant paradigm-­ shifting change has largely been unreported in the mainstream media, perhaps deliberately, given all it suggests about Israel’s intentions. What this assertion highlights is the very incompatibility of Zionism with a Palestinian state. Zionism is a colonial project and as such it is “impelled by an imperative to disinherit and disperse the Palestinians, and to control those who have not yet been forced to leave. Simultaneously, it wants to make the Palestinians disappear, or be as invisible and as valueless as possible” (Ra’ad 2010, p. 124). Israel has rendered a two-state solution impossible and “obsolete” (Erakat 2019, p. 211). A one-state solution is inconceivable as even the most liberal of Zionists oppose it because it would mean the end of an ethnically and exclusively Jewish state. As far back as 2007 Ehud Olmert argued that “If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South-African-style struggle for equal voting rights, then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished” (Mohamed 2018). All the while Israel’s ideology is rooted in Zionism, it seems that the Palestinians will continue to struggle for equal rights or statehood. For “any prospects of Arab-Jewish reconciliation depend upon its [Zionism’s] removal” (Rose 2004, p. 2). A related but largely unmentioned and unreported point is that of the refugees and the right of return—an issue that is never addressed in these peace negotiations. The Palestinian refugee problem is the direct result of the creation of the state of Israel which resulted in the dispossession of approximately 75% of the Palestinian population. Israel blankly refuses to allow the dispossessed Palestinians to return even though United Nations (UN) General Assembly Resolution 194 recognises and recommends the right of return. In fact, “much of the reporting on the refugee issue construes the refugees themselves as an obstacle to peace rather than that obstacle being the failure to resolve their status according to the expressly stated international will to do so” (Dunsky 2008, p. 113). The irony of the right of return is that the Palestinians are denied it, and yet the Israeli

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law of return promises Israeli citizenship to any and every Jew anywhere in the world. Moreover, those Palestinians living in historic Palestine are denied the rights afforded to a Jew who may well have just stepped off an El-Al flight, and is likely to be the first person in his family to have ever set foot in historic Palestine. 2.3.2  Israel Is a Democracy In the light of Israel’s appalling human rights record, and in the light of its continual flouting of international law, with its military occupation and other crimes, that Israel is considered to be ‘the only democracy in the Middle East’ beggars belief. Yet Israel has managed to market this myth internationally. Israel is not the only democracy in the Middle East because Israel is not a democracy. Levy explains that there are three different governing systems in Israel: “a democratic one for Jews, discrimination for Israeli Arabs, and dictatorship for Palestinians”. He adds that “calling Israel a democracy when less than half its subjects live in freedom is a propaganda trick that has worked better than one would have thought” (2018). Although Palestinians in Israel do not live under military rule, they nonetheless face discrimination on a daily basis. According to an investigation commissioned by the Israeli government, since 1948 “the Arab citizens of Israel have lived in a reality in which they have been discriminated against just for being Arab” (In Mendel 2014, p. 12). Israel operates a system of tiered rights whereby Palestinian citizens of Israel do not have the same rights as its Jewish citizens. Israel does this by differentiating between nationality and citizenship. There are two nationalities ‘Jew’ and ‘Arab’ rather than ‘Israeli’, and this allows Israel to claim that citizenship rights are enjoyed by all, while mostly reserving ‘national rights’ only for Jewish citizens.21 While it is possible that Jews in Israel have the full rights of a democratic state, the Palestinian minority as well as other ethnic or religious minorities in Israel certainly do not. Levy calls Israeli democracy “an electoral trick”: “What it imagines as democratic is an electoral trick. A fundamental rule in democracies is the universal right to vote. One person, one vote. Equality. There’s no democracy without that. There’s no such thing as democracy in installments for one ethnic group or one geographic area” (2019). Weizman argues that it is precisely this vast array of differing types of government that enables Israel to claim that it is a democracy: “The layering of democracy (for Israelis and Jews in the West Bank) and military dictatorship (in the areas between settlements)

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also makes this form of apartheid more resilient because it enables its apologists to deny its total nature and concentrates criticism on a different part of it every time” ((2007) 2017, p. xx). In early 2017, the Israeli Knesset voted to pass the Nation-State Law, a law which would confirm Israel’s status as a “state that belongs not to its citizens—as is the case in a liberal democracy—but to all Jews around the world, including those with no connection to Israel” (Cook 2017b). Massad explains that “Israel and Zionism have not changed nor has their opposition and antipathy to democracy changed at all” but what has changed is “Israel’s ability, and not its desire, just its ability, to change the demography of the country through expulsions that has become more constrained” (In Abunimah 2019). In other words, since Israel cannot expel the approximately 7 million Palestinians en masse, as it did in 1948 and 1967, in order to “ensure Jewish supremacy in the country regardless of the number of Jews who live there”, Israel has introduced the Nation-­ State Law (ibid.). In a democratic state, all citizens are considered equal under the law and citizens may not be discriminated against based on race, religion, ethnicity or gender. The Nation-State Law makes it clear that all Israeli citizens are not equal and that there is systematic discrimination based on race, ethnicity and religion. Furthermore, unlike other democratic and even non-democratic countries, Israel “is a nation without a Constitution, a fact unknown to most Americans, and a state without officially declared borders. It is the kind of state that Israel has become which goes to the heart-core of the problem and has blocked progress toward peace in the region” (Lilienthal 2003, p. xix). The reason that this is particularly troublesome is that by not defining its borders Israel continues to expand its land-mass by occupying and stealing more Palestinian land, making both the possibility of peace and the possibility of a Palestinian state impossible. A second reason why Israel cannot be considered a democracy is its treatment of the Palestinians within Israel and in the occupied West Bank and besieged Gaza. A country whose treatment of the Palestinians has been likened to those in South Africa’s apartheid and in the former European colonies cannot credibly be described as a democracy: “In an apartheid state…the state enforces racism through the legal system, criminalized expressions of humanitarian concern and obligates the citizenry through acts of parliament to make racist choices and conform to racist behaviour” (David 2003, p.  37). Although there is a resistance by politicians and the media to refer to Israel as such and in spite of pressure

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from the Israel lobby to continue using sanitised language and to avoid terms like apartheid and colonisation, “it does seem that worldwide, especially in the wake of Jimmy Carter’s clear reference to Israeli policy in the Occupied Territories as an apartheid regime, the need for such a comparison is deemed not only legitimate but even helpful” (Pappe 2015, p. 3). The existence of one set of laws for Palestinians (military law) and another set of privileged laws for the Israelis (Israeli law), together with different access to amenities—roads, education, food, water and so on— fits very well the description of an apartheid or settler colonial state. Many people (Chomsky and Desmond Tutu among them) including those who witnessed or experienced apartheid first-hand argue that what is happening now in Palestine has surpassed that of apartheid South Africa in its exclusion and discrimination. Professor John Dugard, in a 2004 UN General Assembly report, wrote that the Israeli apartheid regime is “worse than the one that existed in South Africa” and that Israeli crimes were “infinitely worse than those committed” in apartheid South Africa (Ofir 2017). The late Nelson Mandela observed that “Never in the darkest days of South Africa’s apartheid have there been separated roads for blacks and whites” (In Falk 2014, p.  226). But such things are commonplace in Palestine and Israel where there is “a network of separated roads for Israeli settlers and the Palestinians, as well as a discriminatory dual legal administrative structure” (ibid.). As Masalha asserts, “Zionist settler-colonialism is at the heart of the conflict in Palestine; settler-colonialism is a structure not an episode” (2018, p. 307). Levy argues that if the military occupation is not temporary (which it clearly is not given that it is now over 50 years old) then “it would be clear that Israel isn’t a democracy but rather an apartheid state par excellence…even if it hides behind excuses ranging from temporariness to security grounds, from the right to the land to the concept of the chosen people” (2018). For while Israel might have the semblance of a democracy because its government is democratically elected, scratch the surface and this façade quickly falls apart. Apart from the obvious racism towards the Palestinians within the state of Israel, and aside from the lack of equal rights shared by its Jewish and Palestinian/non-Jewish citizens (referred to as weeds22 or said to have genetic problems23), there is also institutionalised racism and discrimination within Israeli Jewish society. Tahunia Rubel, Ethiopian-born Israeli model and actress, has described Israel as “one of the most racist countries in the world” (Iyov 2016). She argues that she faces discrimination and

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oppression for being black and for being a woman. This is not a surprise given that anti-black and anti-African racism in Israel is rife. One of Israel’s two chief rabbis, the Sephardic chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, referred to black people as ‘monkeys’ in his weekly sermon (Surkes 2018). Indeed, racism is endemic in Israel and it has been present from the early days of the state of Israel, as evinced by the treatment of Sephardic or Mizrahi Jews which is deplorable to say the least. In her book the Yemenite Babies Affair, which relates the much hushed and heart-breaking experience of Yemeni Jewish mothers whose babies were stolen from them on arriving in Israel (and then given to childless Ashkenazi families), Madmoni-Gerber cites racism as the driving force behind the theft of these babies. This, in itself, and the fact that, to this day, the affair has not been investigated, highlights how systemic the racism is within Israeli Jewish society. Many Sephardic Jews have documented how, when they first arrived in Israel, they were quarantined, hosed down and “sprayed with DDT” because they were ‘dirty’ and they came from Arab countries (Suarez 2016, p.  285). It seems that they were sprayed with DDT “to rid them of their ‘Arabness’” (Alcalay in Rose 2004, p. 197). For the Mizrahi Jews to be “considered ‘Israeli’, by the Ashkenazi leadership” they had to “renounce the ‘Arab’ aspects of their identity” (Mendel 2014, p.  6). Madmoni-Gerber explains that “The results of decades of discriminatory policies indicate a strong correlation between ethnicity, lower social status, and poverty” (2009, p. xii). Ashkenazi Jews continue to dominate “the Israeli economic, political, and judicial systems, the academia, and the media” and Israel “through its Ashkenazi leaders, chooses to suppress both the Arab and Arab Jewish cultural presence in its immediate environment” (ibid., pp. 4/19). Other issues that prevent Israel from being a democracy (whatever it may claim) include its censorship and banning of journalists, as it has done regularly during its wars on Gaza. “In November 2006 Israel shut down all communication with the Gaza Strip. Israeli journalists have been denied access ever since” (Levy 2010, p. ix). More recently, Israel has been trying to close the Al-Jazeera offices in Israel and prevent its journalists from working there by reverting all press cards (Al-Jazeera 2017). Israel has also been known to cancel the visas of journalists in what many see as an attempt to silence critics of Israel, its policies and its military occupation as the case of Australian journalist Antony Loewenstein shows (Abunimah 2016).

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In 2008, esteemed scholar Norman G.  Finkelstein was banned entry into Israel and deported back to the US. In 2010, celebrated linguist and thinker Noam Chomsky was barred entry to the occupied West Bank. Ironically, Lowenstein, Finkelstein and Chomsky are all Jewish and therefore qualify for citizenship under the Israeli law of return. More recently Israel has banned pro-BDS supporters from entering the country. What all these people and groups have in common is that they have spoken out about Israel and the illegal military occupation at some point in time. Yet in the face of all this, the myth of Israel being a democracy is still going strong, with former British Prime Minister Theresa May describing Israel as “a thriving democracy” and “a beacon of tolerance” in a clear demonstration of her preference for “myths to reality” (Cronin 2017a, p. 1). 2.3.3  Criticism of Israel Is Anti-Semitic Of all the myths that Israel has established, one of the most insidious is that any criticism of Israel (or Zionism) is anti-Semitic. In this work, a clear distinction is made between Zionism, anti-Semitism and what is known as the ‘New anti-Semitism’ (the misuse of anti-Semitism to shield Israel from any criticism and in turn muting such criticism). Equating or conflating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism is injurious to all and the idea that criticism of Israel (or Zionism) can be described as anti-Semitic because Jewish people identify with Israel and therefore the Jewish identity is being attacked, is yet another way in which Israel immunises itself from criticism or prosecution. As Beinart argues, “Anti-Zionism is not inherently anti-Semitic—and claiming it is uses Jewish suffering to erase the Palestinian experience” (2019). If criticism of Israel or its policies can be termed anti-Semitic, then all legitimate criticism of a country or its government could be deemed racist because most citizens identify with their countries. According to such thinking, any criticism of Saudi Arabia or its government’s policies, for example, could be described as Islamophobic. It is important not to allow Zionist propaganda to make us believe that being critical of Israel is tantamount to anti-Semitism and hostility to Jews as a religious and ethnic minority in this country and elsewhere. Because anti-Semitism did produce such horrible historical abuses of Jews, it is a cruel and opportunistic tactic to mislead public opinion in this manner. (Falk 2014, p. 136)

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As U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum asks: “why can’t I hold a foreign government accountable for how they abuse an entire population of people under their control?” (Weiss and Robbins 2018). Moreover, the misuse of anti-Semitism does a great injustice to those who are or have been victims of real anti-Semitism, both past and present, and inevitably results in the weakening and undermining of real instances of anti-Semitism. As Gerald Kaufman, British MP and former shadow foreign minister movingly declared in a Gaza debate in the House of Commons: “My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town of Staszow. A German soldier shot her dead in her bed. My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza” (In Finkelstein (2010) 2011, p. 120). In other words, any criticism of Israel or even Zionism is labelled anti-­ Semitic and anyone who criticises Israel is labelled an anti-Semite, a truly ruinous accusation. Francis A.  Boyle, professor of International law at the University of Illinois and vocal supporter of Palestinian rights, explains that he has been accused of everything except of being “a child molester” for his support of the Palestinian people. He adds that when it comes to asserting the rights of the Palestinian people under international law, “there is no such thing as academic integrity and academic freedom in the United States” (In Findley (1985) (1989) 2003, p. 247). The use of ad hominem attacks and the bandying about of the ‘anti-Semite’ label transforms the perpetrator into a victim, deflects the focus away from the suffering of the Palestinians and refocuses attention on the historical persecution of the Jews. All criticism of Israel becomes “an irrational loathing of Jews” (Finkelstein (2005) 2008, p. xxxiii). Despite the obvious injustice of conflating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, the tactic has been successful and has without a doubt stifled criticism of Israel. It has not just been individuals that have been labelled anti-Semitic; Friel and Falk explain that this tactic has also been used to discredit human rights organisations: “The common ADL tactic…is to attach heavy political baggage to reports issued by respected human rights organizations by harpooning them with inflammatory charges of “bias,” “bigotry,” and “anti-Semitism” as soon as they are released” (2007, p.  163). Human rights organisations are a target because their reports often contradict the official Israeli rhetoric and their statistics are often at variance with Israeli statistics—as was seen in the Wars on Gaza. ““For the first time,” the director of HRW’s Middle East division rued, “the Israeli government is

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taking an active role in the smearing of human rights groups”” (Finkelstein 2018, p.  112). Unfortunately, some have not been able to stand their ground as Finkelstein has documented (2015a). The recanting of the Goldstone Report by respected South African jurist Richard Goldstone who chaired the UN Human Rights Report Council commissioned to investigate OCL made it chillingly clear to all that no one was immune from Israel’s tactics. Goldstone, previously a judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and former prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, was asked to chair the UN fact-finding committee and to investigate allegations of war crimes. Goldstone accepted the job on the condition that the Committee’s mandate was broadened from only investigating Israeli violations to investigating the violations of both Israel and Hamas, “Still Israel refused to cooperate with the Mission on the grounds that it was biased” (Finkelstein 2018, p. 87). The Goldstone report was released in September 2009 and it “proved to be a searing indictment not just of Cast Lead but also of the ongoing Israeli occupation” (ibid.). Israel’s reaction to the Goldstone report was vitriolic and very quickly the vilification of Goldstone had begun. Goldstone was subjected to a barrage of abuse and was denounced a ‘traitor’, an ‘evil man’ and a “small man, devoid of any sense of justice, a technocrat with no real understanding of jurisprudence” (Shimon Peres in ibid., p.  93). As a self-declared Zionist who worked for Israel all of his adult life and who fully supports Israel’s right to exist, Goldstone could not be dismissed as a self-hating Jew, an anti-Semite or a Holocaust denier (ibid., p. 104). In April 2011, however, Goldstone recanted: The former judge wrote, in the Washington Post, that the Goldstone Report would have been different if he had known then what he came to know now. This was an arrogant assertion considering that he was but one of four panel members designated by the UN Human Rights Council; the other three publicly reaffirmed their confidence in the report’s original conclusion. (Falk 2014, pp. 160–161)

It is believed that Goldstone recanted because of intense ad hominem attacks by Israel and its supporters.24 Finkelstein explains that “Goldstone’s fate served as a cautionary tale for the human rights community” (2018, p. 285). This is testament to Israel’s long arm which manages to suppress

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information about Israel by smearing and defaming anyone who dares speak out. In the UK, the former leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, stated that as Prime Minister he would immediately recognise the state of Palestine. “Due to his positions on Palestine, throughout 2016 Corbyn faced a relentless, manufactured campaign charging that under his leadership the Labour Party was rife with anti-Semitism” (Winstanley 2017). Although this did not undermine Corbyn’s credibility, it caused ripples within the Labour Party and has led to accusations of anti-Semitism. Stephen Law explains that these claims are based on “a few hundred complaints to the Labour Party, out of well over half a million members”, which amounts to approximately 1% of the membership (2018). Anti-­ Semitism in Great Britain is amongst the lowest in the world and while anti-Semitism exists in the Labour Party and in society in general, as does Islamophobia and other forms of racism, the Institute for Jewish Policy Research found that levels of anti-Semitism “among those on the left-­ wing of the political spectrum, including the far-left, are indistinguishable from those found in the general population.25” This alleged anti-Semitism crisis in the Labour Party has been spread and disseminated by journalists and the mainstream media. Pro-Israeli groups such as Labour Friends of Israel have helped bolster claims of an anti-Semitism problem within the Labour party and it came to light in the Al-Jazeera documentary about the Israel lobby that the pro-Israel lobby was very keen to ‘bring down’ MPs who were not friendly to Israel. The Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs, Israel’s Propaganda and anti-BDS Ministry, has created the ACT.IL app and it has urged “social media users to make comments against Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, accusing him of anti-Semitism” (Winstanley 2018). ACT.IL has a budget of over one million dollars and boasts that it can “direct an army of more than 15,000 propagandists via its app” (Winstanley 2019b). Cohen argues that “It is impossible to understand the hostility against Corbyn from the Jewish community without acknowledging Corbyn’s long standing support for the Palestinian people and the need for their rights to be respected and international law implemented” (Cohen 2018). Apart from being unfounded, these accusations of anti-Semitism against Jeremy Corbyn himself are ridiculous and fly in the face of his many years of fighting racism and its many ugly faces. Winstanley argues that the “real target of this manufactured crisis is not genuine anti-Semites, but Jeremy Corbyn and the wider Palestinian solidarity movement” (2019a). The ad

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hominem attacks on Corbyn have taken on new proportions with Tory Health secretary Matt Hancock likening Corbyn to Hitler (In Singh 2019). Meanwhile, Israel is proposing to formally redefine anti-Semitism in such a way that it would include any legitimate criticism of Israel. The UK, as Israel’s loyal progenitor, is contemplating adopting this new definition. 2.3.4  The ‘Conflict’ Is Complex and Unsolvable In many ways, one of the biggest myths is that this ‘conflict’ is extraordinarily complex to the point of intractability when really this is an open-­ and-­shut case of dispossession, colonisation and military occupation. This myth, which is still prevalent (even within scholarly circles), is an attempt to throw dust in our eyes while Israel continues its illegal military occupation of the Palestinians and their land. Chaos has its particular structural advantages. It supports one of Israel’s foremost strategies of obfuscation: the promotion of complexity—geographical, legal or linguistic. Sometimes, following a terminology pioneered by Henry Kissinger, this strategy is openly referred to as ‘constructive blurring’. This strategy seeks simultaneously to obfuscate and naturalize the facts of domination. (Weizman (2007) 2017, p. 8)

It serves to remove the discussion of the ‘conflict’s’ resolution away from the obvious, and into the realm of experts, professionals and linguistic magicians whose sole purpose is to further mythologise the ‘conflict’. “The last paradox is that the tale of Palestine from the beginning until today is a simple story of colonialism and dispossession, yet the world treats it as a multifaceted and complex story—hard to understand and even harder to solve” (Pappe in Chomsky and Pappe 2015, p. 13). The framing of this ‘conflict’ as an intractable one is a propaganda win for the Israelis because it confuses the discussion and allows the Israelis to shift the narrative away from one of colonisation, dispossession, ethnic cleansing, resistance and illegal military occupation to one of self-defence, terrorism and anti-Semitism based on irrational hatreds and false claims.

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2.4   The Impact of These Myths on the ‘Conflict’ What is interesting about these myths is that they masquerade as ‘truths’, in spite of the fact that many of them are contradictory. What is perhaps most interesting is that the contradictions do not call into question the veracity of the myths, and they are still largely believed simultaneously. Thus, for example, the myth that there were no Palestinians in Palestine happily coexists with the myth that the Palestinians left Palestine because they were told to do so by neighbouring Arabs. Seventy years on, some of these claims have been debunked in the West and are no longer considered to be true by most. It is no longer contested, for example, that there was a country called Palestine where the Palestinians had been living for thousands of years prior to the creation of the state of Israel. However, this may not be the case for Israelis in Israel or staunch supporters of Israel worldwide,26 for whom each myth is a comfort that allows them to truly believe that Israel is blameless despite the weight of evidence to the contrary. Israel has a very comprehensive propaganda system in place,27 but the resources are nonetheless available for those Israelis or friends of Israel who really want to discover the truth about Israel’s settler colonial rule. Shehadeh argues that “It is difficult to see how peace can come as long as Israeli leaders continue to hold on to and perpetuate a mythologised history of their country, refusing to recognise that there was a nation prospering there before and that to build their own state they had to replace this nation” (2015, p. 78). Cohen explains that Israel maintains “elaborate myths” in order to keep themselves and others ignorant and unaware of what is happening (Cohen 2001, p. 11). What these myths have managed to do is cause a considerable amount of confusion so that the average person cannot bear the thought of this ‘conflict’, considering it to be too complicated, too complex and unsolvable. Or, as Finkelstein so lucidly observes, “the vast preponderance of controversy surrounding the Israel-Palestine conflict is a contrivance to divert attention from, and sow confusion about, the documentary record” ((2005) 2008, p. xi). The current representation of the ‘conflict’ by the media allows Israel to occupy Palestine, to contravene International Law (collective punishment; illegal detention; the use of illegal substances on a civilian population, e.g. white phosphorous; the use of administrative detention: detaining Palestinians without charge; and the building of settlements) and to control every aspect of life in Palestine (e.g. food, water, electricity,

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building) and every aspect of Palestinian life (e.g. movement, education,28 medicine). All the while, the world stands idly by. These myths shield Israel from criticism by promoting a mendacious alternative narrative that holds both truth and language hostage, and displaces reality, just as the Palestinians themselves have been displaced and dispossessed. By attempting to address these myths, it is hoped that a more honest narrative can be heard; for it is not a matter of a difference of opinion, but a question of facts and the facts must be brought to light. “First let’s reject perspectivism, the notion that everything is point of view, that ‘truth’ is a meaningless concept: those who say that generally do so because reality doesn’t suit them. There are such things as facts and it is still the job of journalists to report them” (Thompson 2016, p. 308). It is most unfortunate for the Palestinians that they became the victims of the archetypal victims, the victims of the victims of what is considered to be the worst crime of the twentieth century. “Perhaps this is the most extraordinary of exile’s fates: to have been exiled by exiles—to relive the actual process of up-rooting at the hands of exiles” (Said 2001, p. 178). It is this that has made things so difficult for the Palestinians, and made it impossible for them to resist Israel and its military occupation without opposition. The Palestinians are the prototypical ‘unpeople’, and the tragedy that has befallen them is seemingly without end. The Nakba is not a discrete event that took place in 1948 and then ended; “it is happening today” (White 2019). Not only does the past permeate the Palestinian present but a series of ethnic cleansing policies by Israel ensure that the Nakba continues unabated: “The ongoing confiscation of lands in East Jerusalem and the West Bank today is part of the continuing Nakba. Zionism’s plans to make Israel Arabrein29 also continue apace” (Massad 2008). And yet, the Palestinians are expected to forget the Nakba and are admonished for ‘living in the past’, a very present past, although, as Bishara astutely observes, “No ethical person would admonish the Jews to forget the Holocaust…yet in dialogues with Israelis, and some Americans, Palestinians are repeatedly admonished to forget the past, that looking back is not constructive” (In Abdo 2014, p. 102). For real change to take place in the Palestinian-Israeli ‘conflict’, the Nakba needs to be acknowledged and the Nakba needs to end. Rather than end the Nakba, however, “the Israeli government has been attempting and continues to attempt to erase the memory of the Nakba at least from Jewish consciousness and from Western public discourse and official media as well” (Abdo 2014, p.  77). Israel has done this by

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systematically re-classifying and removing declassified documents from its archives. In this way, Israel censors, conceals and erases its war crimes against the Palestinians while simultaneously delegitimising and suppressing Palestinian history (Shezaf 2019). Volf explains what the Palestinians have always known; that “If no one remembers a misdeed or names it publicly, it remains invisible. To the outside observer, its victim is not a victim and its perpetrator is not a perpetrator; both are misperceived because the suffering of the one and the violence of the other go unseen. A double injustice occurs—the first when the original deed is done and the second when it disappears” (2006, p. 29). Without acknowledging the wrongs of the past and the huge injustices that the creation of the state of Israel caused to the Palestinians, without seeking to right the wrongs of the past that continue into the present, there will be no lasting peace between Palestinians and Israelis. The general thrust these days is: “Oh, come on, it’s all in the past, nobody’s interested any more, it didn’t work, everyone knows what the Americans are like, but stop being naïve, this is the world, there’s nothing to be done about it and anyway fuck it, who cares?” But let me put it this way—the dead are still looking at us, waiting for us to acknowledge our part in their murder. (Pinter 1997)

By attempting to erase the memory of the past, Israel is simultaneously trying to erase the Palestinians and their identity. Rather than colluding with the Israeli project of obliterating the Palestinians and their identity, if we instead understand the true meaning of the Nakba and that it continues to this day, then the myths are destroyed and the actions of both sides become clearer. It is through this lens that this ‘conflict’ should be viewed.

Notes 1. Brenner explains that anti-Semitism had been “defeated in France, Russia and the Ukraine without any help from the World Zionist Organisation” (Brenner 2014, p. 33). 2. See David 2003, p. 3. 3. General Assembly Resolution 3379 of November 1975. 4. See Cronin 2017a, p. 14. 5. See Fisk 2014, p. 111. 6. Claiming that they were merely Arabs from neighbouring countries is one way this contradiction has been dealt with: “Chaim Herzog, the Governor

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General of Jerusalem and later the President of Israel, talked about Palestinians’ desire to be united with their families in Jordan” (Pappe 2017b, p. 113). 7. David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister, was directly involved in the Nakba and the dispossession and murder of the Palestinians and, indirectly, in the murder of Jews (as discussed earlier in this chapter). Menachem Begin who later became sixth Prime Minister of Israel was the leader of the Zionist terrorist group, the Irgun (a breakaway group from the Haganah). Yitzhak Shamir, seventh Prime Minister of Israel and third longest-serving Prime Minister, was a leader of the militant terrorist Lehi group (commonly known as the Stern gang), an offshoot of the Irgun. It is worth highlighting to the reader that the Lehi and the Irgun were jointly responsible for the Deir Yassin massacre. On the creation of the state of Israel, the Lehi terrorist group was disbanded and its members became official members of the so-­called Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). 8. The Al-Dawaymeh massacre of 28 October 1948, for example, is believed to have been worse than Deir Yassin. It is believed that the Israelis killed hundreds of Palestinians including many women and children. This massacre is largely unknown probably because it was carried out by the State’s ‘army’ rather than a ‘terrorist’ organisation, although in practice many of these terrorist organisations were forerunners of the Israeli army and their members transitioned smoothly from terrorists to ‘soldiers’ or politicians. 9. Rape, however, did not end with statehood: “in 1950, Ben-Gurion still referred to an IDF battalion that “is prone to” raping and murdering Arab girls” (Suarez 2016, p. 290). 10. See Suarez 2016, p. 278, for a discussion of this. 11. See Shlaim (2007) 2008, p. 8. 12. In the eighteenth century, the British slaughtered up to 20 million people in the Bengal alone (see Davidson 1999 in Rose 2004, p. 140). See also Newsinger ((2006) 2013) The Blood Never Never Dried for a concise history of the British Empire and its cruelty. 13. See Masalha 2012, p. 26. 14. See Cronin 2017b. 15. The thirteen men were Rasheed Sleiman Nawfal, Haj Abdul-Qader Al-Atrash, Muhammed Muhammed Naim, Abdullah Yunis Al-Ku‘ub, Abid Abdul-Hadi ‘Awad, Hasan Muhammed Al-Darshakhi, Muhammed Mahmoud Nawfal, Hassan Mohammed Al-Darshakhi, Muhammed Abd-­ Rabbu Sabah, Abdul-Rahman Muhammed Al-Hatabeh, Hadba Muhammed Abu Saimeh, Hussein Muhammed Al-Qat and Abdul-Qader Shneywir. 16. See Cronin 2017a, p. 57.

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17. According to Rotbard “the ruling British government did more for the country’s infrastructure than the State of Israel has done in all its years of existence” (2015, p. 91). This serves to negate the Israeli belief that the Israelis made the desert bloom and that, given the chance, the Palestinians would not have been able to do the same. 18. See Pappe 2017b, p. 5. 19. Similarly, at a debate in London in 2018, Ehud Olmert reiterated again and again the ‘generous’ peace deal he had offered Mahmoud Abbas. 20. Reinhart exposes the language manipulation or ‘verbal trickery’ used to perpetuate the deception that, at Camp David, Barak agreed to divide Jerusalem between the Israelis and Palestinians. Barak whose “campaign promises included a “unified Jerusalem as the capital forever”” never intended to relinquish any part of Jerusalem, “the whole formulation rests on a verbal trick”. This trick relied on the fact that Jerusalem’s municipal borders under Jordanian rule included “the village of Abu-Dis and two other neighbouring villages” and so these three villages would be renamed “Al-Quds”. In this way, Barak could claim that the city of Jerusalem would be divided “into the Jewish part, “Jerusalem” and the Palestinian part, “Al-Quds”” (Reinhart (2002) 2005, p. 35). 21. See Cook 2017b. 22. Denigrating and dehumanising language is commonly used to describe the Palestinians: “In April 2014, an Israeli colonel told a Knesset committee meeting that in areas of the Jordan valley “where we significantly reduced the amount of training, weeds have grown”—referring to Palestinian communities” (White 2019). 23. Rabbi Eliezer Kashtiel referred to the Palestinians as having “genetic problems” and wanting to be under Israeli occupation: “There are around us people with genetic problems. Ask any average Arab where he wants to be. He wants to be under occupation. Why? Because they have genetic problems, they don’t know how to run a country, they don’t know how to do anything – look at the state of them” (In Ofir 2019). 24. See Finkelstein (2015b) for a discussion of this (https://www.byline. com/project/13/article/261). 25. See Institute for Jewish Policy Research 2017 report Antisemitism in Contemporary Great Britain by Daniel Staetsky (http://www.jpr.org.uk/ documents/JPR.2017.Antisemitism_in_contemporar y_Gr eat_ Britain.pdf). 26. In an Intelligence-squared debate in London, a speaker for the motion The World Should Recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s Capital argued that there were, in fact, no Palestinians only Arabs. 27. It is illegal for Israeli citizens to visit the occupied West Bank and besieged Gaza and so, as Shehadeh argues, “it is much easier to impose your view of

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the people living behind the ghetto walls when you don’t allow your citizens to encounter them personally and see for themselves” (Shehadeh (2012) 2013, p. 34). 28. More recently Israel has refused to issue work permits for “international academics working at Palestinian universities in the occupied West Bank” in violation of both Israeli law and international law (Adalah 2019). This is just another way in which Israel restricts Palestinian access to education. 29. The term Arabrein meaning ‘free/clean of Arabs’ is based on the German term Judenrein meaning ‘free/clean of Jews’ which drove Nazi policies towards the Jews in Nazi Germany and which ultimately resulted in the Holocaust. Arabrein was coined in reference to Israeli policies towards the Palestinians which seek to expel and ethnically cleanse the Palestinians from their land.

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Falk, R. (2014) Palestine: The Legitimacy of Hope. Virginia, Charlottesville: Just World Books. Falk, R. (2017) Palestine’s Horizon: Toward a Just Peace. London: Pluto Press. Farsoun, S. K. & Aruri, N. H. (2006) Palestine and the Palestinians: A Social and Political History. Second Edition. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press. Fields, G. (2005) Power, propaganda and the promised land. (http://electronicintifada.net/content/power-­p ropaganda-­a nd-­p romised-­l and/5613) (02/06/2005). Findley, P. ((1985) (1989) 2003) They Dare To Speak Out: People and Institutions confront Israel’s Lobby. Third Edition. Chicago, Illinois: Lawrence Hill Books. Finkelstein, N.  G. ((1995) 2001) Image and Reality of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. London, New York: Verso. Finkelstein, N. G. ((2005) 2008) Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History. London, New York: Verso. Finkelstein, N.  G. ((2010) 2011) This Time We Went Too Far: Truth and Consequences of the Gaza Invasion. New York: OR Books. Finkelstein, N.  G. (2015a) Has Amnesty International Lost Its Way? (Part 1). (https://www.byline.com/project/13/article/149) (09/07/2015). Finkelstein, N. G. (2015b) Amnesty’s betrayal of a forsaken people. (https://www. byline.com/project/13/article/261) (18/08/2015). Finkelstein, N.  G. (2018) Gaza: An Inquest Into Its Martyrdom. California: University of California Press. Fisk, R. (2014) Robert Fisk on Israel: The Obama Years: A unique anthology of reporting and analysis of a crucial period of history. UK: The Independent Print Limited. Friel, H. & Falk, R. (2007) Israel-Palestine on record: how the New  York Times Misreports Conflict in the Middle East. London, New York: Verso. George, A. (1979) “Making the Desert Bloom” A Myth Examined. Journal of Palestine Studies. Vol. 8, No. 2 (Winter, 1979), pp.  88–100. University of California Press on behalf of the Institute for Palestine Studies. Ghareeb, E. (Ed) (1983) Split Vision: The Portrayal of Arabs in the American Media. USA: Washington D.C.: American-Arab Affairs Council. Halliday, F. ((1996) 2003) Islam and the Myth of Confrontation. London: I.B. Tauris. Hass, A. (2018) Opinion: Israel’s Holocaust Credit Line Is Running Out. (https:// www.haaretz.com/amp/israel-­news/.premium-­israel-­s-­holocaust-­credit-­line-­ running-­out-­1.6280267) (18/07/2018). Herman, E.  S. (1992) Beyond Hypocrisy: Decoding the News in an Age of Propaganda. Including A Doublespeak Dictionary for the 1990s. Canada, Montreal: Black Rose Books.

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Hosking, G. & Schopflin, G. (Eds.) (1997) Myths and Nationhood. New York and London: Routledge. (In association with the School of Slavonic and East European Studies.) Hroub, K. ((2006) 2010) HAMAS: A Beginner’s Guide. London: Pluto Press. Iyov, R. (2016) Israel Is a Racist Country. Take It From Me, an Ethiopian Israeli. (https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-­i srael-­i s-­a -­racist-­c ountry-­ take-­i t-­f rom-­a n-­e thiopian-­i sraeli-­1 .5403332?v=E7514D363A284406F22 FD83CB9190D68) (30/06/16). Jackson, R. (2005) Writing the War on Terrorism: Language, Politics and counter-­ terrorism. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Johnson, C. ((2000) 2008) 2010) BLOWBACK: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire. London: Sphere. Karim, K.  H. (2003) Islamic Peril: Media and Global Violence. Canada: Black Rose Books. Karmi, G. ((2002) 2009) In Search of Fatima: A Palestinian Story. London: Verso Books. Khalidi, R. ((2006) 2007) The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood. Great Britain: Oneworld Publications. Khalidi, R. (2013) Brokers of Deceit: How the US has undermined Peace in the Middle East. Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press. Kirk, G. S. (1970) Myth. Its meaning and functions in ancient and other cultures. London: Cambridge University Press. Law, S. (2018) Understanding Anti-Semitism Today. Battle of Ideas Festival. (https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/ar ticle/when-­e vidence-­ contradicts-­the-­belief-­double-­down/) (14/10/18). Levi-Strauss, C. ((1978) 2014) Myth and Meaning. London and New  York: Routledge. Levy, G. (2010) The Punishment of Gaza. London: New York: Verso. Levy, G. (2014) Israel Does Not Want Peace. (https://www.haaretz.com/amp/ israel-­d oes-­n ot-­w ant-­p eace-­1 .5253291?_twitter_impression=tr ue) (04/07/14). Levy, G. (2018) Opinion Undemocratic From the River to the Sea. (https://www. haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-­u ndemocratic-­f rom-­t he-­r iver-­t o-­t he-­ sea-­1.5995873) (15/04/2018). Levy, G. (2019) Opinion: Democracy for Every Israeli and Palestinian. It’s Not Hard. (https://www.haaretz.com/amp/opinion/.premium-­democracy-­for-­ everyone-­it-­s-­not-­hard-­1.7312557?_twitter_impression=true) (02/06/19). Lilienthal, A. M. (2003) What Price Israel? 50th Anniversary Edition 1953–2003. USA: Infinity Publishing. Madmoni-Gerber, S. (2009) Israeli Media and the Framing of Internal Conflict: The Yemenite Babies Affair. U.S.: New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Masalha, N. (2012) The Palestine Nakba: Decolonising History, Narrating the Subaltern, Reclaiming Memory. London: Zed Books. Masalha, N. (2018) Palestine. A Four Thousand Year History. London: Zed Books. Massad, J.  A. (2008) Resisting the Nakba. (https://electronicintifada.net/content/resisting-­nakba/7518) (16/05/2008). Massad, J. A. (2010) How surrendering Palestinian rights became the language of ‘peace’. (https://electronicintifada.net/content/how-­surrendering-­ palestinian-­rights-­became-­language-­peace/8640) (27/01/2010). Massad, J. A. (2015) Islam in Liberalism. Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press. Mendel. Y. (2014) The Creation of Israeli Arabic. Political and Security Considerations in the Making of Arabic Language Studies in Israel. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Mendel, Y. & Ranta, R. ((2016) 2018) From the Arab Other to the Israeli Self. Palestinian Culture in the Making of Israeli National Identity. Oxford & New York: Routledge. Middle East Monitor. (2018) Israel minister: Era of Palestinian state is over, era of annexation has begun. (https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180116-­ israel-­minister-­era-­of-­palestinian-­state-­is-­over-­era-­of-­annexation-­has-­begun/) (16/01/2018). Mohamed, M. (2018) Two-State Hypocrisy. (https://electronicintifada.net/content/two-­state-­hypocrisy/25446) (07/09/2018). Newsinger, J. ((2006) 2013) The Blood Never Dried. A People’s History of the British Empire. London: Bookmark Publications. Ofir, J. (2016) To my fellow Israelis: We can stop this. (https://mondoweiss. net/2016/02/to-­my-­fellow-­israelis-­we-­can-­stop-­this/) (08/02/2016). Ofir, J. (2017) Zionism is apartheid, and worse. (http://mondoweiss. net/2017/08/zionism-­apartheid-­worse/) (07/08/2017). Ofir, J. (2019) Israeli rabbis at military prep school are caught on video praising Hitler. (https://mondoweiss.net/2019/04/israeli-­military-­praising/) (30/04/19). Pappe, I. ((2014) 2015) The Idea of Israel: A History of Power and Knowledge. London, New York: Verso. Pappe, I. (Ed) (2015) Israel and South Africa: The Many Faces of Apartheid. London: Zed Books. Pappe, I. (2017a) Ten Myths About Israel. London: Verso. Pappe, I. (2017b) The Biggest Prison On Earth: A History of the Occupied Territories. London: Oneworld Publications. Peterson, L. (2015) Palestine-Israel in the Print News Media: Contending Discourses. London & New York: Routledge. Pinker, S. (2012) The Better Angels of Our Nature: A history of violence and humanity. London: Penguin Books.

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Pinter, H. (1997) It Never Happened. (http://thirdworldtraveler.com/Terrorism/ Never_happened.html) (02/1997). Ra’ad, B.  L. (2010) Hidden Histories. Palestine and the Eastern Mediterranean. London and New York: Pluto Press. Rabinowitz, D. & Abu-Baker, K. (2005) Coffins On Our Shoulders: The Experience of the Palestinian Citizens of Israel. Berkeley, LA: University of California Press. Reinhart, T. ((2002) 2005) Israel/Palestine. How to end the war of 1948. New York: Seven Stories Press. Second edition. Reinhart, T. (2006) The Road Map to Nowhere: Israel/Palestine since 2003. London, New York: Verso. Rose, J. (2004) The Myths of Zionism. London: Pluto Press. Rotbard, S. (2015) White City Black City. (Translated from Hebrew by Orit Gat). London: Pluto Press. Said, E. W. (2001) Reflections on Exile. And Other Literary can Cultural Essays. London: Granta Books. Said, E. W. & Hitchens, C. (Eds) ((1988) 2001) Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestine Question. London, New York: Verso Books. Shehadeh, R. ((2012) 2013) Occupation Diaries. London: Profile Books. Shehadeh, R. (2015) Language of War, Language of Peace: Palestine, Israel and the Search for Justice. London: Profile Books. Shezaf, H. (2019) Burying the Nakba: How Israel Systematically Hides Evidence of 1948 Expulsion of Arabs. (https://www.haaretz.com/amp/israel-­news/.premium.MAGAZINE-­h ow-­i srael-­s ystematically-­h ides-­e vidence-­o f-­1 948-­ expulsion-­of-­arabs-­1.7435103?_twitter_impression=true) (05/07/19). Shlaim, A. (2000) The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World. London: Penguin Books. Shlaim, A. (2004) The War of the Israeli Historians. (http://users.ox.ac. uk/~ssfc0005/The%20War%20of%20the%20Israeli%20Historians.html) (Avi Shlaim) Annales, 59:1, January–February 2004, 161–167. Shlaim, A. ((2007) 2008) Lion of Jordan: The Life of King Hussein in War and Peace. London: Penguin Books. Singh, A. (2019) Jeremy Corbyn Likened to Hitler By Tory Leadership Candidate Matt Hancock. (https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/jeremy-­corbyn-­ matt-­hancock-­hitler_uk_5cf7f902e4b0e63eda9479b4) (05/06/19). Stanislawski, M. (2017) Zionism. A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Suarez, T. (2016) State of Terror: How terrorism created modern Israel. U.K.: Oxon: Skyscraper Publications. Suleiman, Y. (2004) A War of Words. Language and Conflict in the Middle East. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Surkes, S. (2018) Chief rabbi calls black people ‘monkeys’. (https://www.timesofisrael.com/chief-­r abbi-­c ompares-­a frican-­a mericans-­t o-­m onkeys/amp/) (20/03/18). Thompson, M. (2016) Enough Said: What’s Gone Wrong With The Language of Politics? U.K.: London: The Bodley Head, Vintage. Volf, M. (2006) The End of Memory: Remembering Rightly in a Violent World. UK: Cambridge: William. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. Weir, A. (2014) Against Our Better Judgement: The hidden history of how the U.S. was used to create Israel. USA: Ifamericansknew.org Weiss, P. & Robbins, A. (2018) Israel practices ‘apartheid’ – Rep. Betty McCollum. (https://mondoweiss.net/2018/10/practices-­a partheid-­m ccollum/) (02/11/18). Weizman, E. ((2007) 2017) Hollow Land: Israel’s Architecture of Occupation. London: Verso Books. White, B. (2019) Israel’s ethnic cleansing in Palestine is not history – it’s still happening. (https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israels-­ethnic-­cleansing-­ was-­not-­historical-­exception-­palestine-­it-­happening-­today) (22/05/19). Winstanley, A. (2017) How Labour Friends of Israel tried to undermine Jeremy Corbyn. (https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-­winstanley/how-­labour-­ friends-­israel-­tried-­undermine-­jeremy-­corbyn) (13/06/2017). Winstanley, A. (2018) Israel running campaign against Jeremy Corbyn. (https:// electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-­winstanley/israel-­r unning-­campaign-­against-­ jeremy-­corbyn) (07/08/2018). Winstanley, A. (2019a) Fake Labour accounts fueling “anti-Semitism crisis”. (https://electronicintifada.net/content/fake-­labour-­accounts-­fueling-­anti-­ semitism-­crisis/26441) (17/01/19). Winstanley, A. (2019b) Yes of course Israel is interfering in British politics. (https:// electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-­winstanley/yes-­course-­israel-­interfering-­ british-­politics) (11/02/19). Zureik, E. (2016) Israel’s Colonial Project in Palestine: Brutal Pursuit. London and New York: Routledge.

CHAPTER 3

Language Use in the Reporting of the ‘Conflict’

People don’t actually read newspapers. They step into them every morning like a hot bath. Marshall McLuhan (See Keane 2013, p. 12.)

3.1   Language and Conflict Language influences how we view and understand the world; “it plays a major role in the perpetuation of culture, particularly in its printed form” (Kramsch 1998, p. 8). It follows that language plays a significant, if not instrumental, role in both politics and conflict, and that, however “debased political discourse may become, however disingenuous diplomacy often is, the words employed by politicians and diplomats define situations and determine outcomes” (Khalidi, R. 2013, p. ix). Language is central to conflict, but one can go further and argue that language and the manipulation of language lie at the root of many conflicts both past and present. In conflicts, “the words chosen from a vast lexicon to describe events, actions, peoples, places and social phenomena reverberate with, uphold or contest power” (Peteet in Zureik 2016, p. 75). In times of war, language can get you killed or it can save you, as Cowman’s example attests: “In the confusion of trench warfare some vocabulary could ensure survival…a soldier who had been separated from his regiment and fired on by the French because he did not know to shout Anglais; three of his companions were killed in this incident” (2014). © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 N. R. Sirhan, Reporting Palestine-Israel in British Newspapers, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17072-1_3

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As far back as the Tower of Babel, we learn of the importance of language. When, in their arrogance, the people of Babel, decided to build a tower reaching to the Heavens in an attempt to equal God’s might, God did not smite or strike them down; rather he confounded their language. They no longer spoke one unified language, but instead they became people of different tongues, no longer able to communicate with each other. This story highlights the importance not only of language but also communication, and it emphasises the fundamental role of language in both uniting and dividing people. Language is commonly employed as a political tool because language, communication and “linguistic exchanges can express relations of power” (Thompson in Bourdieu 1991, p.  1). The language used to describe the world, to describe conflicts, and to describe ourselves and others, influences how we interpret and perceive them. An example of this can be seen in the peace treaty between Israel and Jordan in which it was stipulated that the “two countries undertake to remove all hostile language from their media and school curricula” (Suleiman 2004, p. 215). Indeed, as a result of the peace treaty and the control of language used to describe the other, tensions thawed. To control language is to control perception: what is considered true or false, what is revealed and what is concealed, and ultimately who is relevant and who is not. Language is always enmeshed in a set of power relations, and history is written by the victors who have assimilated the language of power. After all, language is “a proxy of power” (Orwell in Fields 2005). The way the ‘conflict’ is reported is of paramount importance, and the way each side of the ‘conflict’ is portrayed is in and of itself telling. While different perspectives are to be expected with any event, the aim here is not so much to explore the facts themselves but rather how the facts are presented within the narratives; how the British press—supposedly an impartial third party—reports on this ‘conflict’. The choice of lexicon, syntax, tense, grammatical structure and linguistic devices used in reporting helps to frame an event in order to elicit a particular interpretation from the reader. This interpretation can be manipulated to introduce or perpetuate bias. Since its inception, the state of Israel has managed to get away with murder (literally and metaphorically) while professing a ‘purity of arms’, a myth which the media have helped to spread. As we shall see, language has played a key role in the misrepresentation of this ‘conflict’. In short, this analysis looks at how the story of the ‘conflict’ is told in the British newspapers and the media’s role in constructing, promoting and perpetuating falsehoods, knowingly and unknowingly.

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3.1.1  Language, Names and Renaming Names, naming and renaming are of paramount significance when navigating power relations and in conflict situations. Indeed, as Camus remarked, “naming things badly adds to the misfortunes of the world” (In Kishan Thussu and Freedman 2003, p. 1). Masalha explains that naming and renaming are not innocuous processes: “State authorities deploy renaming strategies to erase earlier political, social and cultural realities and to construct new notions of national identity” (2018, pp.  43–44). Indeed, naming, renaming and remapping were tools used extensively by European colonial powers (ibid., p. 319). Names can influence the way we think, and the name given to something can affect what is expected and what is accepted. In the Palestinian-Israeli ‘conflict’, Israel has employed language, naming and “manipulate[ed] terminology” to increase its perceived legitimacy, to lay greater claim to the land and “to create a linguistic map that conditions people’s perceptions of the facts on the ground” (Suleiman 2004, p. 137). Since 1948, the Israelis have renamed Palestinian villages and towns with Israeli or biblical names in order to “make the former Palestinian presence invisible” (Cook 2008, p.  55). For example, Jabal al-Ṭ or was renamed Mount Gerizim, and El-Mutesellim was renamed Megiddo.1 The use of Biblical names serves to reinforce a link between the biblical return, Israel and their ‘claim’ to the land; they “sustain the belief in the Jewish people’s historic-religious right to the Land of Israel” (Gavriely-Nuri 2013, p. 40). At the same time, replacing Palestinian names with Israeli names quietly asserts Israel’s legitimacy both symbolically and practically: “In order to implant an exclusive national identity in that space, Zionists had gradually to eliminate the sites that memorialized the Palestinians’ past and embodied their relation to this territory” (Swedenburg 2003, p. 8). Ben-Gurion saw the Hebraising of names as “part of the Israeli army’s occupation of the land” as revealed in a speech he gave to the Negev Names Committee: “I want you to continue your work until every space in the land of Israel is rescued from foreign linguistic control” (Kidman in Amara 2018, p. 105). To demonstrate the scale of this project, consider that in 1949, Ben-Gurion held a committee to discuss the renaming of Palestinian villages whose inhabitants had been forced out in one way or another. Only the names of 8 villages out of 533 Palestinian village names were transliterated unchanged (See Chowers in Zureik 2016).

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Ra’ad explains that “Place-naming in Palestine and Israel takes on an unusual character in that while Zionist organizers were not natives of Palestine they assumed nativity for themselves in their claim system, at the same time denying native status to the indigenous inhabitants who originally coined the names or continued them, and from whom the Zionists often took place names in order to translate them” (2010, p. 175). Masalha has termed this “Nakba memoricide”: “the systematic erasure of the expelled Palestinians and their mini-holocaust from Israeli collective memory and the excision of their history and deeply rooted heritage in the land, and their destroyed villages and towns from Israeli official and popular history” (2012, p. 10). Perhaps this is best described by Moshe Dayan himself, more accurately described as an architect of war rather than peace: “Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You don’t even know the names of these Arab villages, and I don’t blame you, because these geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahalal arose in the place of Mahlul, Gvat in the place of Jibta, Sarid in the place of Haneifa, and Kfar-Yehoshua in the place of Tel-Shaman. There is not one single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population2”. (In Massad 2008)

The fact that Arabic and Hebrew are both Semitic languages means that Palestinian Arabic names can be easily Hebraicised by simply changing a letter or two. The illegal Israeli settlements that tower over Palestinian villages are often given the “village names with the addition of the Hebrew word for ‘upper’, and often the Arabic has been distorted to make it unrecognisable as such” (Karmi 2007, pp.  18–19). For example, the Palestinian villages of Bayt Dajan and Ein Houd became the Israeli villages of Beit Dagon and Ein Hod.3 This is a convenient way of bolstering the myth that the illegal settlements have been there continuously and uninterruptedly. In a similar vein, Israel classifies all archaeological sites as Israeli national heritage sites; “the terminology performs a sleight-of-hand: subliminally, the ancient ruins are made artifacts not of a transient kingdom that flourished for a period in antiquity, but of the 1948 nation-state” (Suarez 2016, p.  24). By eradicating Palestinian place names, the aim is to also erase Palestinian history and with it any Palestinian claim to the land and “‘sets the stage’ for future land expropriation” (ibid.).

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3.2   The Language Used to Report the ‘Conflict’ Typically, the newspaper someone reads can reveal a significant amount about their political leanings. Newspapers in the U.K. can be differentiated politically from left to right with The Guardian being considered a left-wing newspaper, The Independent a centre-left newspaper, The Times a centre-right newspaper, and The Daily Telegraph and The Daily Mail right-­ wing newspapers. There is also a discernible difference between the readers of broadsheets and tabloids. Although a Daily Telegraph reader and a Daily Mail reader may have similar political views, the former would be considered a more serious or intellectual reader than the latter. So, when one is referred to as a ‘Guardian reader’ or a ‘Times reader’, this can act as a shorthand for their political leanings.4 As a result, it is believed that a wide range of views are represented across the numerous newspapers and other media. But, as our analysis has shown, and as many commentators have observed, in reality the accepted debate is confined to a narrow band, beyond which the discussion is not permitted to stray. A left-right spectrum in the media no longer exists in any meaningful way, but the pretence is maintained, to give the impression that the views of both ends and everything in between are voiced. As Edwards and Cromwell explain, “Dissident appearances in the mainstream act as a kind of liberal vaccine inoculating against the idea that the media is subject to tight restrictions and control. Thus, many people see papers like the Guardian and Independent as genuinely enlightened and honest…As a result, the atrocious performance of these media in failing to challenge even the most banal government deceptions goes unnoticed” (2006, p. 192). In this way, a semblance of a free press is maintained, when in truth, “the transmitters are so powerful that they merely amplify the currently prevailing opinion, drowning out any other point of view. And admittedly, the flood of words and images doesn’t always encourage a spirit of criticism” (Maalouf (1996) 2000) 2012, pp.  111–112). Chomsky calls this the ‘liberal bias’ and he explains that “the liberal bias says, thus far and no further, I’m as far as you can go, and look how liberal I am” (1989). In the reporting of the ‘conflict’, although the five newspapers supposedly cover the left-right spectrum, surprisingly, there were only minor differences between their reporting of the events. Indeed, much of the reporting was overwhelmingly similar in a number of important features. Another point worth mentioning is that there was a significant difference in The Guardian’s reporting of OCL (2008–2009) and in its

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reporting of the other four events which took place between 2014 and 2017. Language can change the course of history or at least how it is written, recorded and remembered. We see this most clearly in the reporting of this ‘conflict’ where words constantly try to persuade and narratives continually compete for audiences and credibility. In this chapter, I will focus on the language used when reporting the ‘conflict’ by looking at the headlines, voice, nominalisation, language prevarication and the lexicon used to describe actions by both sides. 3.2.1  Headlines The headline of an article plays an important role in drawing the reader’s attention and enticing the reader to read the full article. Headlines serve “as an important strategic cue to control the way readers process and make sense of the report. Part of this involves the activation of relevant background knowledge from our long-term memory that is needed to contextualize the meaning of the text” (Talbot et  al. 2003, p.  38). Headlines must be self-explanatory so that even if the reader does not read the article, the headline nevertheless makes sense and frames the information in a particular way. Hazony, managing director of The Israel Project (TIP), explains that: “We know that people get their news mostly through scanning headlines. So, the headlines are very carefully messaged” (Al-Jazeera 2018). Talking about Israel and its supporters, Abunimah argues that: “They understand that it’s just the five-word headline or the six-word headline that carries the message. The point is never to get to the real debate” (ibid.). In other words, headlines encapsulate the main thrust of what is being reported and, at times, they can be used to steer and direct how it will be interpreted. Analysing the headlines of the articles where the Israelis were aggressors versus those where the Palestinians were aggressors, it emerged that the Israelis tended to dominate the headlines in some way or another regardless. Palestinians rarely made the headlines and if they did it was usually as aggressors where the active voice was typically used. In the articles where the Israelis were the victims, the headlines were largely focused on the Israelis, their actions and their viewpoint. The active voice was often used with Israel and the Israelis as the subject of the action. This was also the case when Palestinians were victims of Israel’s actions but where Israeli actions were deemed ‘positive’.

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In The Daily Mail headlines about the kidnapping of the Israeli teenage settlers Israel dominates the headlines: “Israel combs West Bank for teens feared abducted”. Occasionally, Palestinian deaths made the headlines but only in the passive voice: “Two Palestinians, including 13-year-old boy, killed during West Bank raids linked to search for three ‘abducted’ Israeli teenagers”. The Guardian headlines focused completely on Israel with Israel featuring as the agent in the headlines using the active voice: “Hunt for missing Israeli boys stirs up familiar recriminations”. The Palestinians only warranted mention in the headlines if they were dead, and then they would be in the object position or rendered in the passive voice: “Israeli forces kill two Palestinians suspected of murdering teenagers”. Similarly, the headlines in The Independent, The Times and The Daily Telegraph concentrated on Israel and the Israelis except to mention Palestinians negatively, “Now Palestinian rage spreads to Gaza Strip” (I), “Palestinian rage engulfs Israel over boy ‘burnt alive’” (T), or as dead perpetrators, “Israel kills Palestinians suspected of teenagers’ murders” (I), “Appeal for calm after Palestinian boy murdered in ‘revenge killing’” (T). In the articles reporting the killing of three Israelis at the Har Adar illegal settlement,S where the perpetrator was a Palestinian, Palestinians appeared as agents in the headlines. Moreover, the active voice was used in order to explicitly link the Palestinian with the action or crime: “Palestinian gunman shoots three Israeli soldiers dead and injures a fourth in terror attack at Jewish settlement near Jerusalem” (DM) and “Palestinian gunmen [sic] kills three at Israeli settlement Har Adar” (T). In instances where the headlines were in the passive, the Palestinian agent was nevertheless consistently mentioned and never obscured: “Three Israelis killed in gun attack by Palestinian assailant” (G) and “Three Israelis killed by Palestinian gunman in settlement near Jerusalem” (DT). Although one would expect the headlines of articles covering events in which Palestinians were victims to feature the Palestinians more prominently in the headlines, this was not the case. In the articles on the Dawabsheh arson attack, the active voice was used when Israel was the agent of a positive action: “Israel approves jailing Jewish militants without trial to resolve lethal arson” (DM). There is no mention of the Palestinian victims. The active voice was only used for Palestinians when they were being portrayed negatively: “Palestinian vigilantes patrol villages amid fear of more arson attacks” (DM).

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The same pattern was witnessed in The Guardian headlines where, although the Palestinians are the victims, Israel is represented in the headline in the active voice: “Israel jails two Jewish extremists for six months without charge”. The killing of Palestinians was depicted in the passive or through nominalisation: “Death of 18-month-old in arson attack heightens tensions in West Bank”. In The Independent articles about the arson attack, not one headline used the word Palestinian. The headlines were as follows: “Duma arson attack is terrorism, says Israel’s opposition leader”, “Outcry after Israel extends detention without trial to Jewish citizens” and “Jewish extremist held over attack in which baby was burned alive”. Only one headline was in the passive voice: “Jewish extremist held over attack in which baby was burned alive”. The baby only makes a secondary appearance and anyone reading the headline would be completely unaware that it was a ‘Palestinian’ baby. It is quite something that the word Palestinian does not appear in four headlines about an attack on Palestinians. In the first article with the headline “Duma arson attack is terrorism, says Israel’s opposition leader”, the sub-headline, which reads “Call for far-right Jewish groups to be outlawed after murder of 18-month-old Palestinian boy” did refer to the boy as Palestinian. Note the use of ‘boy’ which is less emotive than baby or child typically used in the Israeli context. The headlines in The Daily Telegraph were somewhat more even-­ handed in that they do mention Palestinians, but again, only in the passive or through nominalisation. None of the headlines mention or give the names of the Palestinian family who were killed/injured in the arson attack. The headlines were “Palestinian baby killed in arson attack ‘by Israeli settlers’”, “Death of Palestinian woman from fire ‘started by settlers’ sparks grief and anger”, “Israeli minister ‘knows who started fire that killed Palestinian toddler’ but no arrests made”, “Israel ‘investigates radical group seeking Jewish monarchy’ over Palestinian family deaths” and “Two Israelis charged over arson attack that killed Palestinian family”. The active voice is only used in these headlines with Israel as the agent. In all five headlines (as in the body of the articles) the passive is used to convey the killing of the Palestinians as shown by the use of the verb ‘killed’ in three of the headlines. In the remaining two headlines, the noun ‘death’ was used instead of a verb. The choice of the word ‘death’ over the more accurate ‘killing’ or ‘murder’ is noteworthy as it conceals the deliberate nature of the act.

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The headlines of the four articles on the Dawabsheh arson in The Times were as follows: “Palestinian baby killed in ‘barbaric’ West Bank arson attack”, “Israel hunts West Bank arson killers of Palestinian baby”, “Extremist settlers rounded up by Israelis” and “Two Israelis charged over arson attack that killed Palestinian family”. Three out of the four headlines were in the passive voice and the only one in the active voice had Israelis as the subject. The same patterns were found in the headlines of articles about Abu Thurayeh, the Palestinian paraplegic whom Israel killed by shooting him in the head as he protested in besieged Gaza. Thus, we find that only one newspaper, The Independent, named him in two of three headlines: “Ibrahim Abu Thuraya: Disabled Palestinian activist killed by Israeli gunfire, finds autopsy” and “Ibrahim Abu Thuraya: Disabled Palestinian activist shot dead by Israeli troops in Jerusalem protest”. Otherwise, he was referred to as “Disabled Palestinian activist shot dead by Israeli troops in Jerusalem protest”, “UN denounces ‘excessive’ force used by Israeli soldiers in killing of disabled Palestinian protester”. The Daily Mail refers to him as ‘Gaza amputee’ and ‘disabled Palestinian in Gaza’ but The Daily Telegraph headline surpasses the rest by referring to Abu Thurayeh as ‘dead man in a wheelchair’. The exact headline reads, “How a dead man in a wheelchair became a symbol of Palestinian anger over Donald Trump’s Jerusalem decision”. Not only does this headline obscure both the method and agent of his murder, but it also seems to imply that he was always dead, that it was somehow his state—it could just as easily read ‘tall man’ or ‘old man’. This headline completely strips the victim of all his humanity and reduces him to his disability. It was very difficult to find The Times article about Abu Thurayeh, and having trawled the archives, eventually, with the help of The Times themselves, the one article written about Abu Thurayeh was found. The headline, like the article, tells us very little about Abu Thurayeh or who killed him: “Fake bomber and amputee among West Bank Dead” referring to Abu Thurayeh simply as ‘amputee’. Also, it is not at all clear from the headline that the ‘fake bomber and amputee’ are not one and the same, nor that he is not a fake amputee as well as a fake bomber! In the article only one line is devoted to Abu Thurayeh: “A second Palestinian man was shot dead at a protest near Ramallah, and two others were killed in clashes on the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip, one of them Ibrahim Abu Thuraya, 29, a wheelchair-bound protester who lost both legs in the Gaza conflict in 2014”. Again, no agent is mentioned and the passive is

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used to convey both his death and how he lost his legs but instead the reader is left to wonder how he ‘lost his legs’. In analysing the headlines, it was found that in some articles in The Daily Mail and The Guardian, speech marks were used in a way that differed from their conventional use of marking direct speech or highlighting quotations. Rather, they were used to cast doubt on the information within the speech marks and to imply that the information is unverified, that it was a matter for debate or that the journalist disagrees with what is being said. We read that: “Palestinian youth shot dead by Israeli troops during protest after toddler was killed in West Bank firebombing by ‘Jewish extremists’” (DM). The speech marks around ‘Jewish extremists’ makes the reader question whether it was in fact ‘Jewish extremists’ who carried out the arson attack or whether there is such a thing as ‘Jewish extremists’. In The Guardian, speech marks are used around ‘Jewish terror group’ in order to suggest that the information in the speech marks is at best, unconfirmed, at worst erroneous or fallacious: “Israel arrests members of ‘Jewish terror group’”. This appears to be a courtesy that was only extended to Jewish perpetrators5 as speech marks were never used in this way to cast doubt that a Palestinian had committed a crime or the like. Speech marks were used conventionally in other headlines and articles. In the articles about OCL, the headlines followed similar patterns with Israeli dominating the headlines except when the killing of Palestinians was mentioned. In The Daily Mail, for example, we see the following headlines: “Israel calls up reserve troops and sends tanks to Gaza border after killing more than 280 in ‘one of the bloodiest days in 60 years’” and “Israel promises ‘war to the bitter end’ against Hamas as navy blasts Gaza and tanks mass on border”. It is worth noting that the word ‘Palestinian’ is largely absent when the killing of Palestinians is mentioned: “14 more children killed in the terror of Gaza as Israel defies demands for ceasefire” and “Israel plans ceasefire as tank fire kills two boys at UN school—but Hamas vows to fight on”. Neither the children nor the boys are referred to as Palestinian. If Israel is mentioned alongside the killing of Palestinians, they are not directly linked to the killing or the Israeli human agent is obscured: “Inside Gaza: First pictures of devastation caused by air strikes as Israeli troops begin rapid pull-out”. The ‘Israeli troops’ are linked to the pulling out but not to the air strikes. When Palestinians appear in the headlines, they are either Hamas members or portrayed negatively: “Bodies of Hamas leader’s children

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paraded as group promises ‘painful’ revenge for their deaths”. In some headlines, the word Palestinian is only used for clarification or disambiguation: “Gaza offensive ‘in final act’ says Israel as Palestinian death toll swells to 1,132”. In the following headline, we do see the use of ‘Palestinian’ to describe toddlers but the Israeli agent of killing is absent and the passive is used: “Yes, Israel has a right to exist. But so did those blood-soaked Palestinian toddlers on the mortuary slab”. Israel also dominates in The Guardian headlines covering OCL. We read that “Israel launches deadly Gaza attacks”, “Israel’s hammer blow in Gaza” and “Israeli cabinet calls up reservists as Gaza strikes continue”. In the following example, we read that “Israel admits troops may have used phosphorous shells in Gaza” but the use of ‘may have’ introduces doubt and lessens the impact of what is being admitted. If Palestinians are referred to in the headlines, it is only as Hamas: “The recklessness of Hamas” and “Israel says its army is fighting war to the bitter end against Hamas”. Otherwise, Palestinians are not mentioned in The Guardian headlines: “Gaza’s day of carnage—40 dead as Israelis bomb two UN schools”. There are no Palestinians in The Independent headlines: “Israeli air strikes kill 227 and leave 700 injured”, “Israel attacks Gaza, more than 140 reported killed”, “Five sisters killed in Gaza while they slept” and “Two strikes, and another family lay buried in rubble”. Failing to refer to the ‘dead’ as Palestinians conceals the fact that the majority of those killed are Palestinian which in turn diverts the reader’s sympathy away from the Palestinians. In contrast, when Israelis are killed, the reader is made aware that they are Israeli: “Three Israelis killed as Hamas launches revenge attacks” and “Fifth Israeli soldier killed in Gaza”. In instances when Palestinians are referred to as ‘innocents’ or ‘victims’, the adjective Palestinian is not used: “Massacre of innocents as UN school is shelled” and “Israel accused over access to Gaza victims”. Contrariwise, when Israeli soldiers kill Hamas members, the fact that they are Hamas member is made known to the reader because killing Hamas members is considered justified: “Hamas leader killed amid escalating offensive”. In the majority of The Daily Telegraph headlines Israel appears as the subject as the following examples show: “Israel accused of downplaying food crisis” and “Israel bombs Gaza for seventh day after killing Hamas leader”. In some headlines, we see the Palestinians referred to as Palestinians rather than just as ‘dead’, ‘people’ or ‘killed’: “Israeli forces kill five Palestinian children in Gaza”. In other headlines, however, the adjective

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Palestinian is notably absent: “Gaza medics describe horror of strike which killed 70” and “Israel kills 30  in attack on UN school in Gaza”. Once again, when the strikes are attributed to Israel, the Palestinians are not mentioned. Similarly, whether Hamas appears in the headlines as the object (“Israeli tanks roll into Gaza to halt Hamas rocket attacks”) or as the subject (“Hamas continues to bombard Israel with rockets”), it is always portrayed as a perpetrator of some sort: “Hamas is the obstacle to Middle East peace”, “Hamas vows ‘Day of Wrath’ to avenge death of leader” and “Hamas relishing chance to take on Israeli forces”. The Palestinians do not figure in the headlines of The Times articles except as Hamas members: “Hamas leader killed in airstrike as Israelis reject ceasefire call” and “Hamas roadside bomb shakes fragile ceasefire with Israel”. Israel is mentioned in some of the headlines (“Israel Gaza blitz kills 290, as ground troops mobilise”) but there is no mention that the victims are Palestinian. The active voice is used with the Israeli subject since the Palestinian victim has been obscured. 3.2.2  Voice: Active and Passive Verbs can be either active or passive and the choice of voice depends on the desired outcome. Typically, the use of the active voice is the more common of the two. An active verb is when the subject of the verb does or is doing the action, whereas, with a passive verb, the meaning of the verb is enacted on the subject of the sentence. In the active, the agent is identified whereas the agent can be concealed or omitted in the passive, and, as such, the active is considered to be more direct and bolder than the passive. Transitivity is closely linked to voice and it describes the way in which a verb relates to the noun phrase in its clause and whether or not it has an object. A transitive verb takes a direct object whether explicit or implied and an intransitive verb does not take a direct object; a transitive verb has a subject and an object whereas an intransitive verb has a subject but no object. Transitivity allows for the same event to be described in different ways (Richardson in Franklin et  al. 2005, p.  265). These choices have been shown to have “social or ideological significance” as they “not only illustrate journalists’ point of view” but they “also construct and reconstruct social points of view” (ibid., pp. 265–266). It is worth noting that only transitive verbs can be passive. The passive is used either with a

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prepositional phrase revealing the agent6 (where the agent is nonetheless separated from the action) or without the prepositional phrase.7 In examining the articles of the five events it became apparent that there were discernible trends in how the events were reported. Consistently, and irrespective of the nationality of the victim and aggressor, the active voice was used for Israeli actions and violence in two types of situations: when the action is deemed positive or justified, and when it was important for Israel to be associated with the action to show Israel being proactive. We are told that Netanyahu has accused “the Islamic militant group Hamas of kidnapping the teenagers” (DM) and that “Israeli police have charged two suspects over an arson attack of a Palestinian family’s home in the West Bank which killed a toddler and his parents” (T). The active voice tells us that “Troops sweep through West Bank towns and cities” in the search for the teenagers (DM). Here, the use of the verb ‘sweep’ makes the Israeli army’s action appear harmless and innocuous. Only in two Daily Telegraph articles was the active voice used to portray Israeli actions negatively: “Once again, the Israelis bomb the starving and imprisoned population of Gaza. The world watches the plight of 1.5 million Gazans live on TV and online; the western media largely justify the Israeli action” and “Israeli airstrikes killed two Palestinian ambulance crew on Wednesday”. Contrariwise, the active is used for the negative portrayal of Palestinian actions or for highlighting Palestinian violence. For example, “masked youths some of them bare-chested in the blazing heat, burnt tyres and used slingshots to target Israeli security forces” (I). The wording makes slingshots seem more menacing than they are, and the verb ‘target’ is used to suggest that the Israeli soldiers are vulnerable to the attack. The active voice is used to emphasise the Palestinian agent: “Palestinian militants continued to fire rockets across the border” (DM), “Hamas vowed to avenge what it called “the Israeli slaughter””, “Retaliatory Palestinian fire killed one woman in southern Israel—underlining the unequal military balance” (G) and “On Wednesday suspected Hamas militants launched rockets into the Israeli border town of Sderot” (DT). On the other hand, the passive voice was used for Israeli acts of violence in order to conceal the agent and therefore to convey the killing of Palestinians (often without the prepositional phrase in order to omit the Israeli agent). The passive helps to diminish Israeli culpability. We learn, for example, that “Mr Thuraya was shot just east of Gaza city” (I) and “Outrage after double amputee among of [sic] eight Palestinians killed

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since Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital” (I) but there is no mention of who shot or killed him. Similarly, in the following example, the Israeli agent is completely omitted: “Five Palestinians died, including a 14-year-old boy in Dura, near Hebron, and the Israeli military activity touched off inter-Palestinian tensions”. The language fails to convey that the Palestinians were killed and did not just die of natural causes. In an article about the kidnapping of the Israelis teenage settlers, we are told that “In one raid, in the town of Dura near Hebron, Palestinian youths threw stones at soldiers, drawing army fire” (DM). Not only is the active voice used to convey Palestinians throwing stones but the Palestinians are also the subject of the present continuous verb ‘drawing’. The use of this verb seems to imply that it was the Palestinian youths’ fault that the army fired on them. In the reporting of the three missing Israeli teenager settlers, The Guardian tells us of a fifteen-year-old Palestinian called Mohammed Dudeen, who “was shot through the heart after climbing out of his bedroom window to join a stone-throwing demonstration against a raid in his village by Israeli soldiers looking for the missing teenagers”. The passive voice is used to describe Dudeen’s shooting (‘was shot’) but the active voice is used to depict the Israeli soldiers (‘looking for missing teenagers’). The Israeli soldiers are only tenuously linked to the killing but directly linked to the search. The following are clear examples of the contrasted use of the passive and active: “After the raid in Ramallah, in which a Palestinian was killed and eight people were wounded, dozens of Palestinians hurled stones at a Palestinian police station, incensed about the security coordination with Israel” (I). The passive is used to describe the killing of a Palestinian with the Israeli agent omitted (‘Palestinian was killed’) but the active is used for Palestinian violence (‘Palestinians hurled stones’). Another example: “Riham Dawabsha has died from injuries sustained in attack in July that claimed life of her husband and son and sparked street protests” (G). Riham and her husband did not just spontaneously die, Israeli settlers killed them, though you would not necessarily know this from reading the above. The use of the passive in this way facilitates agent-deletion. Voice was used in the same way in the reporting of OCL. The active was used when Israel or its actions were viewed in a positive light or as justified: “Today warplanes struck a house next to the Hamas prime minister’s home and flattened a building at a university linked to militants” (DM), “Once again, the Israelis bomb the starving and imprisoned

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population of Gaza” (G), “Israel reopened border crossings with the Gaza Strip today” (I) and “Israeli warplanes killed a senior Hamas leader and several members of his family yesterday in an airstrike” (T). Once again, the passive was used to portray the killing of Palestinians often with the Israeli agent obscured. We read that “The five sisters, Dena, Iman, Ikram, Tahrir and Samar Balousha, died when a bomb destroyed their home and a next-door mosque in a refugee camp north of Gaza City” (DM). There is no Israeli agent and we are told that the girls ‘died’, not that they were ‘killed’. The passive was used invariably to portray the killing of Palestinians: “In the West Bank village of Ni’lin a 22-year-old Palestinian, Arafat Rateb Khawje, died after being shot when Israeli police used live rounds at a protest rally” (DT). The Israeli police are distanced from the killing; his death is mentioned first while the shots are linked to the protest. When the passive is used to convey the killing of Israelis, the Palestinians nonetheless take the subject position and are directly linked to the killing as we see here: “Hamas kept up its rocket barrages, which have killed four Israelis since the weekend, and sent many more in running for bomb shelters—some of them in cities under threat of attack for the first time, as the range of the rockets grow. A medium-range rocket hit the city of Beersheba for the first time, travelling 28 miles into Israel and hitting an empty kindergarten” (DT). No detail is spared when Israelis are the victims. To summarise, when Palestinians kill, the active is used, when Israelis kill, the passive is used, unless they are killing Palestinians deemed deserving of being killed, in which case the active is used. Similarly, when Israeli actions are seen as ‘retaliatory’ or ‘justified’, the active is used. 3.2.3  Nominalisation Nominalisation is a process whereby nouns are used instead of verbs, and it is commonly used to distance or completely remove the agent from the action, to reduce the emotional charge and to conceal context. It results in a more detached depiction and its effect is very similar to the use of the passive—namely to remove the agency of the action.8 By contrast, the use of verbs makes direct associations between the action and the agent. In the articles, the Israeli agent was concealed by the use of the passive and through the process of nominalisation. Nominalisation is used when reporting the killing of Palestinians in order to omit the Israeli agent: “The death of a man in Ramallah, in

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addition to the reported death of another in the northern West Bank city of Nablus, brought the total number of Palestinians killed after the eruption of clashes this month to four” (I) and “The death of Abu Thuraya came on the bloodiest day of protests since Trump’s controversial announcement earlier this month, with no sign of the unrest dying down” (G). In these examples, the noun ‘death’ is used instead of the verb ‘killing’ or ‘murder’; the Israeli agent of death is absent and a link is made between the ‘clashes’/‘bloodiest day of protests’ and the ‘death’ of Palestinians as though the clashes/protests caused their death rather than the Israeli soldiers. We see this again in the following example: “The arson attack last year in the village of Duma killed Ali Dawabsheh, who was 18 months old. His mother, Riham, and father, Saad died later of their wounds” (T). The subject is the ‘arson attack’ (nominalisation), the Israeli agents are omitted making it seem as though the arson killed the Dawabsheh family, not the Israeli settlers. Nominalisation is also used to make events seem more distant, to make events seem as though they were quick or instantaneous: “A smashed window, a flaming Molotov cocktail, a whoosh of fire and piercing screams followed” (G). Its use in this way fails to convey the extent of the fear and excruciating pain the Dawabsheh family must have endured as they were being burned alive. In the reporting of OCL, nominalisation was used in the same way. We read, for example, that “Among those who bore the brunt of the ferocious attack were 40 Palestinian cadets who had gathered for their passing-out parade at the police headquarters in Gaza City” (DM) and that “The attack on the Palestinian refugee family became the third since the aerial bombardment of Gaza started 10 days ago to prompt a specific call for an independent investigation by the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA)” (I). In these examples, nominalisation (‘the attack’) allows the Israeli agent to be omitted which in turn distances the Israeli agent from the killing in order to play down Israeli violence and Palestinian suffering.

3.3   Language Prevarication in the Reporting of the ‘Conflict’ In the articles analysed, it was found that information from Israeli sources is treated as fact whereas an element of doubt is introduced with Palestinian sources either through the way the information is quoted or through the language used. We read that a “Palestinian youth was fired upon by Israeli

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soldiers after he threw a fire-bomb at them, the military said” (DM). (In other words, the youth started it and deserved to be shot dead.) The source of this information is the Israeli army but no verbs such as ‘alleged’, ‘claimed’ or ‘according to the Israeli military’ are used to inform the reader that this is from a partisan source. If we contrast this to the way the arson attack is portrayed in the same article, the difference is obvious: “The clash came after an 18-month-old Palestinian boy was killed on Friday in a house fire in the West Bank village of Duma, near Nablus, that was thought to have been started by Jewish settlers”. Here, the writer makes a point of using ‘thought to have been’ to let the audience know that this has not yet been confirmed. Such caveats and prevarication in language use is something we do not see in the reproduction of Israeli military claims as the following example about OCL shows: “Overnight, Israeli aircraft hit more than 40 targets throughout Gaza, including rocket-launching sites, weapons-storage facilities and smuggling tunnels, a military spokesman said” (DT). Another example of the prevarication used with Palestinian sources: “In the Gaza Strip, Israeli soldiers also shot dead a Palestinian teenager on Friday near the border fence in the northern part of the coastal territory, according to Palestinian medical officials” (DM). The journalist makes a point of telling us that this information is “according to Palestinian medical officials” rather than the definite ‘Palestinian medical officials said’ we see with Israeli sources. This casts doubt on the impartiality and reliability of information from Palestinian sources. Prevarication is frequently used when reporting on the number of Palestinians killed by Israel, with approximate numbers being given for Palestinian deaths but exact numbers quoted for Israeli ones: “More than 300 of the dead are children with a further 1,500 among the 3,500 wounded, Ann Veneman, the head of the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF claimed yesterday” (DM). Here we are only given an approximate number and ‘claimed’ is used rather than ‘said’ or ‘stated’. In the following example, we are told that Mohammed Dodeen “is believed to have been killed by a bullet to the chest during army raids in Dura refugee camp in the Palestinian territory” (DM). The use of the verb ‘believed’ here introduces doubt in the reporting of Palestinian killings, doubt as to both how he was killed and whether it was by army raids. This was not unique to The Daily Mail but was common to the reporting of the ‘conflict’.

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In The Independent, regarding the murder of Abu Khdeir (the Palestinian teenager who was burnt alive by Israeli settlers), we are told that “He is believed by Palestinians to have been murdered as a reprisal for the deaths of three Israeli teenagers abducted and killed in the West Bank”. If this were an Israeli source, it would almost certainly be reported as fact rather than ‘believed by Palestinians’. In reporting the murder of Abu Thurayeh, we are told about “a spokesman for the organisation tasked with gathering evidence of alleged Israeli crimes”. The use of ‘alleged’ here casts doubt on the truth of these Israeli crimes. Although it is customary to refer to things being investigated and yet unproven by using ‘allegedly’, the fact that these terms are not used in the same way to qualify unproven Palestinian crimes that are still under investigation makes their use in the Israeli instance more marked: “Israel’s military said a Palestinian was shot dead when he threw a grenade at forces carrying out an arrest raid after the discovery of the bodies of the Israeli teenagers”. The Palestinian, we are told to understand, definitely threw the grenade. The Times also used the Israeli army as a source for acts it was directly involved in, and in the following example, we are told the source twice: “An army spokesman said that the goal was to arrest the two men, but they refused to surrender. Instead the pair shot at the troops outside, who returned fired, the army said”. In an article about OCL, we read that “Israel yesterday launched its largest raid on Gaza with two waves of air attacks that killed at least 225 people and injured more than 700, according to Palestinian doctors” (T). Once again, ‘according to’ is used with Palestinian sources. Compare this with the more definitive language used with Israeli sources: “The Israeli military said troops killed or wounded dozens of militant fighters” (DM). There were only two instances when prevarication was used with Israeli sources: “Israel’s decision to hit what it called “terrorist infrastructure” reflects a deep reluctance to mount large-scale ground operations in the narrow coastal strip, home to 1.5 million Palestinians. Israeli spokesmen claimed that the casualties—reported to include up to 150 fatalities and 400 injured—were Hamas fighters” (G) and “Several targets were then attacked overnight by Israeli warplanes including a mosque near Shifa hospital in Gaza City which Israel claimed was being used for “terrorist activities”” (DT). In these examples, we see the use of ‘what it called terrorist infrastructure’ and ‘claimed’ to describe Israeli claims.

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3.3.1  Modality and Language Prevarication Prevarication in language can also be conveyed using modality. Modality “refers to the comment and attitude in language, and the degree to which a speaker or writer is committed to the claim s/he is making” and it is usually expressed through the use of modal verbs like ‘may’, ‘could’, ‘should’, ‘will’, ‘must’ and their opposites ‘may not’, ‘could not’ or ‘couldn’t’, ‘should not’ or ‘shouldn’t’, ‘will not’ and ‘must not’ or through adverbs like certainly (Richardson in Franklin et al. 2005, p. 150). The choice of modals “are an indication of the attitudes, judgements or political beliefs of the writer/speaker” and consequently they “provide a window into the political functions, and the potential political effects, of the language of journalism” (ibid., p.  151). Modality sits along a continuum from the “absolutely categorical” to “varying degrees of hedging” and to “reduced certainty” (ibid., p. 150). In the reporting of the ‘conflict’, we see the use of categorical modal truths when reporting Palestinian actions but we see the use of hedging when reporting Israeli actions: “Even before Reham Dawabshe succumbed early on Monday to the horrific burns suffered in an arson attack believed to have been carried out by radical Jewish settlers” (DT). The use of the verb ‘believed’ in this way is a form of hedging. In the following examples about the perpetrators of the arson attack, the use of prevarication is particularly noticeable: “Attackers thought to be Jewish extremists” and “almost certainly Jewish settlers”, “the outrage appeared to be the latest spate of so-called “price-tag”” and “perceived slights”. The use of the verbs ‘thought’ and ‘appear’, the adverb ‘almost’ and the use of ‘perceived’ are used to express vagueness; they all contribute to give the impression that we are dealing with speculation and not facts. In The Guardian, we are told that “Two settlers wearing black balaclavas allegedly entered Duma through a nearby gate, smashed a widow and threw a Molotov cocktail into Reham and Saad’s bedroom”. The use of ‘allegedly’ casts doubt as to whether the illegal settlers carried out the arson killing. We see this again in the following Times article: “Yuval Diskin, the former head of the Shin Bet internal security service, urged political leaders and rabbis to tone down their rhetoric after Muhammad Hussein Abu Khdeir, 16, was kidnapped by alleged Jewish settlers in eastern Jerusalem, and bundled into a car. His body was found an hour later in a forest, charred, and beaten”.

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Unusually, we see the use of ‘allegedly’ used when the perpetrators are Palestinian in two articles. In an article about the kidnapping of three Israeli teenage settlers, we read: “The Israeli military found the bodies of three missing teenagers on Monday, just over two weeks after they were abducted in the West Bank, allegedly by Hamas militants” (DM). In a Times article, we read: “Israel was preparing a massive retaliatory attack on Gaza and the West Bank last night after the bodies of three teenage boys allegedly kidnapped by Palestinian militants were found murdered”. To summarise, the use of non-committal language is closely tied to the journalistic voice as it is the journalist who makes the choice of how to report and whether or not they inform the reader that what is being reported is a claim by one side or whether they report it as fact. Interestingly, the journalistic voice is notably absent when reporting about Palestinian victims but visibly present in reporting about Israeli victims, with the journalists reporting the Palestinian view as claims, but validating and asserting the Israeli view as fact. 3.3.2  The Depiction of Both Sides as Equal in the Reporting of the ‘Conflict’ The analysis of the articles revealed that much of the reporting portrayed the two sides as equal, in spite of (or perhaps because of) the huge asymmetry in power. The war on Gaza in 2008–2009 is described by The Times as an “offensive”: “Operation cast Lead claimed 13 Israelis and up to 1,400 Palestinian lives in a three-week offensive against Hamas that ended in January 2009”. The Times also describes the war on Gaza in 2014 as a “51-day war between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza”. Even referring to what happened in 2014 as a war on Gaza does not accurately describe what happened, nor do justice to the memory of the thousands of Palestinians that Israel killed. By referring to it as a war between Israel and Hamas militants, the reality is completely skewed and the implication is that they were on an equal footing. Israel killed 2100 Palestinians and injured more than 11,000 Palestinians, almost all civilians; meanwhile 72 Israelis were killed, 67 of them Israeli soldiers. These are not the statistics of a war ‘between’ two sides. Another article informs the reader that “the Israeli army killed two Palestinians suspected of kidnapping and murdering three Israeli teenagers in the occupied West Bank in June—the trigger for the Gaza conflict this summer in which 2,200 people were killed” (T). By referring to it as a

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‘conflict’, the huge scale of destruction is downplayed and both sides are seen to be equally culpable. Moreover, by stating that 2200 people were killed makes it seem that the death toll was probably relatively equal on both sides, give or take, rather than that a staggering 97% of the deaths were Palestinian. Using language in this way allows for the Palestinians and Israelis to be presented as equally matched opponents. As Kennedy highlights, “What’s going on in Gaza is an American financed slaughter” (2006). Certainly, slaughter is a much more accurate description. The Times is not alone in its depiction of both sides as equal. In The Daily Mail we read about “a 50-day war between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza” implying equal military capabilities. In another article, OCL is described as “the deadliest Israeli-Palestinian fighting in decades” (DM) suggesting once again that both sides are equally matched even though Israel killed 1398 Palestinians during OCL and Hamas killed 6 Israelis. Another article states that “After bombarding Gaza for seven days to stop the attacks, Israel admitted Hamas still had thousands of rockets as fears grew that longerrange missiles could reach its nuclear facility at Dimona” (DM). What is most interesting is that even though Israel has a nuclear facility (Dimona), Hamas rockets are nonetheless the topic of discussion. The Daily Telegraph tells us of three ‘wars’ between Hamas and Israel. Despite the colossal difference in military capabilities, we read that “At nightfall, power was cut to the northern Gaza strip and heavy exchanges of fire were heard” (DT). The use of ‘exchanges’ makes both appear to be on an equal footing. In The Independent, we read that “The United Nations last night backed a milestone resolution calling for an end to military action by all sides in the Gaza Strip”. The use of ‘military action’ implies that both the Palestinians and the Israelis have a military, which they do not as the disparity in deaths highlights. Only in one Guardian article is the depiction of both sides as equal questioned: “The looming general election is another reason Israel is not keen to send troops into Gaza on a large scale, which would expose its own forces to heavy casualties. Instead Israel prefers to use its unchallenged aerial superiority—clearly a blunt instrument that cannot distinguish between fighters and civilians”. In the same article we read that “Retaliatory Palestinian fire killed one woman in southern Israel—underlining the unequal military balance”. This type of reporting, where the journalist questions the Israeli narrative, is both unusual and welcome.

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The terms ‘clashes’ and ‘confrontations’ are used in the same way as ‘war’—to portray a contest of equals; ignoring the fact that “one of the most powerful militaries in the world is arrayed against an essentially defenceless civilian population in Gaza” (Kennedy 2006). ‘Clashes’ conveniently conceals the disparate military capabilities between Palestine and Israel and makes it seem as though these are spontaneous occurrences, divorced from context and for which no one is to blame, except probably the Palestinians who are typically in the subject position. We read that: “Almost every Friday he would set aside his sponges and join other young Palestinian men in routine clashes with Israeli troops at the Gaza border fence” (DT). Palestinians clash with Israelis and not the other way around, portraying the ‘Israeli troops’ as harmless sentinels being provoked by the Palestinians. Similarly, The Independent informs us that “Palestinians clash with Israeli troops during ‘Day of Rage’”. In some instances, there is no mention of Israelis or Israeli soldiers with Palestinians simply being injured in clashes: “Another 82 Palestinians were injured, five of them seriously, in clashes along Gaza’s border with Israel, the health ministry said” (I) and “The invasion set off fierce clashes with Palestinian militants” (DM). The term ‘clashes’ facilitates the narrative of equals making it seem as though both sides are killing each other instead of the truth that Israelis are overwhelmingly killing Palestinians. These patterns in reporting were observable across the newspapers. It is worth noting that when Israeli settlers clash with the Israeli army, there are no casualties: “The attack appeared to be an act of revenge for the recent demolition of two buildings in the nearby settlement Beit El, where settlers and Israeli police clashed” (G). As Finkelstein has observed, “Isn’t it odd that only Palestinians get killed and wounded in these “clashes?”” The term ‘clashes’ is a euphemism for the asymmetrical dominance of one people over another, used to obscure the picture of what is actually going on. Correspondingly, the terms ‘raids’, ‘confrontations’ and ‘operations’ are catch-all phrases for any interaction between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers in which only Palestinians are killed. These terms can be used together in order to completely obscure the agent: “The widespread West Bank operations sparked clashes overnight in the northern cities of Jenin and Nablus, with Palestinians throwing petrol bombs and firing at the soldiers, the army said” (DT). This information is courtesy of the Israeli army.

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In the reporting, the media create the illusion that both sides are given the opportunity to give their version of events. The reality, however, is that all it does is give Israel the opportunity to mitigate its crimes. As judge, jury and executioner, the Israelis provide the information that suits them and demonises the Palestinians. The so-called balance that is being sought by the media really only provides a platform for Israel to perpetuate its lies under the guise of both sides being equal. The ‘both sides’ reporting results in a huge injustice towards the Palestinians. 3.3.3  Terminology and Lexicon Reading the British newspapers, one cannot be blamed for thinking that whether a crime or attack is considered to be murder, a massacre or a terrorist attack depends on the race and religion of the perpetrator, rather than the act itself. The language used to report on this ‘conflict’ is central to our understanding of it and many of the terms we use to describe the ‘conflict’—lazy terms that act as shorthand for a catalogue of associations—are intrinsically biased. Control of language’s two opposing powers—its ability to communicate human thought, but more significantly for our topic its power to dictate human thought by stealth—is a perk of statehood, and thus one wielded by Zionism since 1948 but still denied the Palestinians. (Suarez 2016, p. 10)

Since its inception, Israel has dominated the media and controlled the narrative; thus, it has been able to influence the language used to describe and report it. Israeli names and terminology are favoured over Palestinian ones as seen by the use of Jerusalem based on the Hebrew Urshalim rather than the Arabic Al-Quds, and Temple Mount, a translation of the Hebrew term, rather than the Arabic Haram al-Shareef. Similarly, the June War is known as ‘the Six-Day War’ and the October War is known as the ‘Yom Kippur War’, both of which are based on the Israeli terms. The Israeli army is referred to as the ‘Israeli Defense Forces’ (IDF) by Western governments and media, and it implies that their function is to ‘defend’ Israel rather than attack or occupy the Palestinians, and serves also to bolster the myth of Israel’s vulnerability. The Palestinians, however, refer to the Israeli army as the Israeli occupation army as it is more representative

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of their experience. At the very least, the media should use the more standard term the ‘Israeli army’. Neutralising the language, or “linguistic cover-ups” as Pappe9 calls them, has long been an Israeli priority as it helps to conceal Israel’s actions, which in turn protects it from accusations and prosecution for its numerous breaches of international law. This is done through the art of deceptive naming, using terms like ‘Summer Rains’ and ‘Mowing the Lawn’ to describe the horrific wars on Gaza. Finkelstein expounds on the meaning of ‘mowing the lawn’ and ‘mowing the grass’: “It was time to take out the big club and crack a few skulls to remind the locals who was in charge” (2014, p. 124). The use of such phrases first dehumanises the Palestinians, then conceals and whitewashes Israeli brutality. The use of terms associated with nature is no accident but, as Gavriely-­ Nuri explains, is underpinned by the “basic theoretical assumption…that military naming is a simple and useful mechanism that might be employed to blur undesired aspects—such as the human and economical costs— associated with the respective practices” (In Shehadeh (2012) 2013, p. 183). Gavriely-Nuri found that over 60% of the names of Israeli military operations referred to the Bible or nature in order to give the impression that they are God’s will or a force of nature (ibid.). A clear example of the importance of the choice of terminology can be seen in the reporting of the kidnapping of the three Israeli teenage settlers where the Israeli teenage settlers were referred to as either teenagers or students, but the term settler was notably absent. Only one article referred to the teenagers as settlers, and then almost in passing when explaining that hitchhiking is “a common activity among young Israeli settlers in the West Bank” (DT). The omission of the fact that these teenagers were settlers is significant: the teenagers were kidnapped not because they were Israelis, but because they were settlers, living illegally in the occupied West Bank on land stolen from Palestinians. In The Guardian, the teenagers are not referred to as settlers and we are told in an addendum at the end that “This article was amended on 16 June 2014 to remove references to the missing teenagers as settlers”. The Guardian goes on to tell the reader that “Israelis were deeply insulted by foreign media organisations which seemed to be downplaying the kidnapping, or, by describing the teenagers as “three settlers”, to be putting them into a political context”. Ignoring that they are settlers essentially makes the kidnapping appear to be a random act of hate rather than symptomatic of the wider ‘conflict’ and of the Israeli military occupation.

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On the other hand, if the teenagers are referred to as settlers then the reader might rightly ask, what are settlers? Why are they and their families living on land that doesn’t belong to them? In other words, the kidnapping would be contextualised within the wider illegal military occupation and the Palestinian struggle against it. Without it, the very context needed to understand the ‘conflict’ is omitted. This amendment is also significant because the teenage settlers are not soldiers and so by removing any reference to the fact that they live in illegal settlements, they can be portrayed as completely innocent. While this does not justify their murder, it does show how reporting is skewed in favour of Israel. The change is likely to have been a result of complaints made by the Israel lobby. Although amending articles is becoming less common because journalists have learned to write in a way that is favourable to Israel on the first attempt (Idrees Ahmad 2009). In the reporting of the five events there is a disparity in how the crimes committed by each side are described and the words used to describe them. When Israelis were killed, words like ‘murder’ and ‘terrorism’ abound across the board. We read that “Israel charges Palestinian man over murder of three kidnapped teenagers” (G) and that “Israel kills Palestinians suspected of teenagers’ murders” (I). When Palestinians kill Israelis, the verb of choice is murder; when Israelis kill Palestinians, this is not necessarily the case. If, for example, Israeli citizens (rather than soldiers) kill Palestinians there is more chance that the verb ‘murder’ will be used: “Israeli prosecutors file murder charges against a man and a minor for arson attack in occupied West Bank that killed three members of a Palestinian family” (DT). Justifications are typically sought when Israelis kill Palestinians. We are told that there was “Appeal for calm after Palestinian boy murdered in ‘revenge killing’” (T) and that the Israeli police were investigating whether the killing of Abu Khdeir was “criminal or nationalistically motivated” (I). Can it not be both? In the very same article, however, we are told that Abu Khdeir (although not mentioned by name at this point) “fell victim to Israelis avenging the deaths of three abducted Jewish youths”. The use of the verb ‘fell victim’ minimises Israeli agency and puts some blame and agency on Abu Khdeir himself as ‘fell victim’ seems to imply the clumsy old sod. Here we see that Abu Khdeir’s murder is being justified as revenge for the kidnapping and killing of the three Israeli teenage settlers. An article about the Dawabsheh arson ends with a selection of possible motives for the arson as though looking for excuses to justify the attack,

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with the last motive given being the “murder last month of a settler” for which “Two suspects, from Silwad and Kusra, villages near Ramallah, have been arrested for the crime” (DT). What is most notable here is that in an article about the Dawabsheh arson attack, the only real reference to murder or crime is not in reference to the arson attack but in reference to the motivation for the arson attack and, unsurprisingly, for the killing of an Israeli. In a Times article about the Dawabsheh arson attack, we read that “Ali Dawabsheh’s parents and four-year-old brother were also injured in the fire in Douma, a village near Nablus in the occupied West Bank”. The use of the adjective ‘injured’ is a huge understatement given that two Palestinian adults and one Palestinian baby were murdered, and the surviving toddler was left with over 60% burns. Remarkably, even in instances where Netanyahu or other Israeli officials have used the words ‘murder’ or ‘terrorism’ in reference to Israeli crimes towards Palestinians (often a green light that it can be referred to as such by journalists), the newspapers are slow to repeat these terms, only doing so indirectly by way of quotes or through indirect speech. Netanyahu described the arson attack on the Dawabsheh family as a ‘terrorist act’, and although the newspapers reported that he had called it a ‘terrorist act’, the attack was not directly referred to as such: “The long-awaited indictment follows months of investigations into Jewish extremists operating in the West Bank following an incident which sparked international outrage” (T). Here, the terror attack is referred to as a mere ‘incident’. “Can the murder of defenceless children really be called an ‘incident’?” (Gilbert (2014) 2015, p. 142). When Palestinians kill, their motivations are rarely sought out and when they are it does not influence the language used to describe it. In articles about the shooting and killing of three Israelis at the Har Adar illegal settlement, we are invariably told that Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security, believed that the Palestinian perpetrator had psychological issues: “the attacker was plagued with personal issues” and that according to the preliminary investigation it was clear “there was significant violence in his family” and that “his wife had recently fled to Jordan and left him with their four children” (I). In spite of this, the attack is still referred to as terrorism and the coverage is largely the same as if it had been an actual terror attack. In fact, Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman uses it as a chance to argue that there is no difference between “Palestinian terrorism” and “radical Islamic terrorism targeting sites in Europe and elsewhere” (I).

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Israel falsely portrays any struggle of self-determination as a security concern and has done its utmost to delegitimise Palestinian resistance. By conflating Palestinian resistance and ‘radical Islamic terrorism’ and particularly by referring to sites targeted in Europe, the reader is made to further link ‘Palestinian terrorism’ with other terrorism which in turn strengthens the ties of sympathy with the Israeli side. As Shupak argues, the stories about Palestine-Israel “are told in an ideological climate that is deeply Islamophobic, anti-Arab, and permeated by fears of terror attacks” (2018, p. 6). What is arguably most extraordinary is that when there is a clear, discernible reason for an attack (mental health problems) carried out by a Palestinian, the reasons are minimised whereas when there are no clear, discernible reasons for an attack carried out by an Israeli, even the most tenuous justifications are sought and promulgated. In death, as in life, language takes sides; typically, Israeli deaths are described using harsher and more criminal language than Palestinian deaths, which are either made to seem as though they ‘just happened’ or which are often minimised by explaining or justifying the Israeli perpetrators’ motives. As Fisk observes, “Israelis are invariably ‘murdered’ or ‘lynched’ by Palestinians…but Palestinians were inevitably killed in those ‘clashes’ with which I was so familiar” (2006, p. 551). The selective and exclusive use of emotive words for the actions of one side serves to manipulate and sway public opinion: the occupying forces are now the ‘good’ guys, and the occupied Palestinians are now ‘terrorists’. Israeli terrorism, apparently an oxymoron, is often referred to as attacks, ‘nationalist attacks’, ‘nationalist crimes’, ‘crimes with nationalist motive’, ‘hate assaults’ (I), ‘nationalist hate crimes’ (G), ‘price tags’ and ‘revenge killing’, and the perpetrators are usually labelled as ‘Jewish extremists’, ‘ultranationalists’, ‘hard-line settler population’ or ‘Jewish ultra-­nationalist attacks’ (G/DM), ‘violent far-right Jewish groups’, ‘Far-right Jews’, ‘Jewish zealots’, ‘outlaw settlers’ (DM), ‘perpetrators’, ‘suspects’ or ‘assailants’ (DT/G), whereas Palestinians were ‘terrorists’, ‘militants’ and ‘extremists’. The Palestinians who kidnapped and killed the three Israeli teenage settlers were labelled as ‘terrorists’ not ‘murderers’ or ‘kidnappers’ while the Israelis who burned alive the Dawabsheh family are called ‘hard-­ line settlers’, ‘ultranationalists’ or ‘Jewish extremists’. The terms used to describe Israeli terrorism are less emotive and have fewer trigger associations than the more loaded “terrorists” even though Israel “has killed and injured far more people than any of the Palestinian armed factions” (Shupak 2018, p. 52). In one article, Israeli terrorism is

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described as “Jewish violence”: “The torching of a West Bank home that burned a Palestinian toddler to death marks one of the most serious cases of suspected Jewish violence against Arabs”10 (DM). We are told, for example, that the arson attack is being investigated as a ‘nationalist crime’, but we are not told what a nationalist crime is. Nationalist crimes usually refer to crimes committed against Palestinians by illegal Israeli settlers who believe that they have a right to the occupied West Bank and besieged Gaza. In other words, they are a euphemism for Israeli terrorism. The term ‘resistance’, which accurately describes the Palestinian struggle, was never used to describe any actions by Palestinians. Meanwhile the terrorism of the Israelis has been framed as nationalistic, driven by the doctrine that essentially seeks to make the whole of the occupied West Bank and besieged Gaza part of ‘Greater Israel’. In the arson attack on the Dawabsheh family we are told that the phrase ‘price-tag’ was painted on the walls of the house by the Israeli perpetrators but the term is not clearly explained. A ‘price tag’ (a translation of the Hebrew term) is often defined as being a ‘crime with a nationalist motive’ and so we see that euphemisms are used to explain other euphemisms. As Collins and Glover explain, however, “the need for such language derives from the simple fact that the violence itself is abhorrent” (2002, p. 7). We are told that “price tags” are “crimes carried out in recent years by radical Right-wing settlers, who have attacked Palestinian and Christian targets as retribution for a multitude of perceived slights” (DT). The distinction between Palestinian and Christian is interesting here because it suggests that the former precludes the latter, even though many Palestinians are Christian, and ‘Palestinian’ is a national not religious identity. Meanwhile, The Times defines “price tags” as “attacks against Palestinians” that are “meant to exact a “price” after Israeli authorities demolish unauthorised structures in settlements”. The Daily Mail describes “price tags” as attacks that “have been used by Jewish settlers for years to avenge, in a sense, both Palestinian attacks and also official Israeli steps they see as favoring the Palestinians”. This definition seeks to blame the Palestinians both directly (‘attacks’) and indirectly (‘official Israeli steps they see as favoring the Palestinians’). This last point is blatantly untrue as the Israeli government never favours Palestinians over Jewish Israeli citizens. The term ‘price tag’ is a dehumanising, euphemistic term that diminishes the perceived violence of these attacks and portrays violence towards Palestinians as mere inconsequential collateral.

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The use of euphemisms when describing Israeli terrorism achieves the dual aim of concealing the reality of the crime, while simultaneously blaming the victims. Implicit in the phrase ‘price tags’ is the idea of vengeance for a preceding crime or offence, and thus these ‘price tags’ are, to continue the financial metaphor, paybacks to the Palestinians, for crimes previously committed. We are told via The Guardian that right-wing Naftali Bennet, a former Israeli minister who has called for the complete annexation of the occupied West Bank and besieged Gaza no less, managed to bring himself to describe the arson attack on the Dawabsheh family as ‘murder’ and ‘terror’. Yet, the simpering British press nonetheless write of ‘price tags’ and ‘nationalistic crimes’. This refusal to designate any Israeli crime as terror is consistent across the articles in all the newspapers.

3.4   Summary Language helps construct thought and by controlling language it becomes easier to control thought. Language is commonly used as a political tool and through the shaping of language we learn what is relevant and what is irrelevant, what is important and what can be discarded, and above all, what to believe. Journalists consistently distort meaning in order to present the Israeli narrative and, as such, Israel enjoys nigh complete immunity in the media. This has been facilitated by the reproduction of the Israeli terminology in reporting. This has also meant that the Palestinians have had to describe their own oppression and ethnic cleansing using the terms defined by their oppressor, putting them at a great disadvantage (Khalidi, R. 2013, pp. x– xi). In truth, it is no real surprise that this ‘conflict’ is considered confusing and complicated by readers when there is a constant assault, linguistic and otherwise, on reality, truth, and understanding, as engineered by the Israeli government and executed by a willing media. In the beginning was the Word; but the word is also there at the end, when the fighting has finished and the dust has settled. When it comes to the Palestinians “time and again during their modern history, corrupted phraseology has profoundly obscured reality. The Zionist movement decisively established a discursive hegemony early on in the conflict” (Khalidi, R. 2013, p. x). The ‘conflict’ requires a new lexicon and new terms to define what is really going on. It should no longer be acceptable to parrot words that are purposefully trickled down for us to repeat, words that

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invert reality by blurring lines, muddying the waters and confusing issues. By accepting the Israeli terminology, the Israeli viewpoint is being validated and accepted as fact, in spite of all the evidence and scholarship to the contrary.

Notes 1. Masalha (2018, p. 359). 2. This appeared in Ha’aretz on 4 April 1969 as a transcription of an address Moshe Dayan gave to Technion University students on 19 March 1969. It was later quoted by Edward Said in The Question of Palestine (1980, p. 14). The Arabic village names were said and written in Hebrew then translated into English. The names are, therefore, likely to be subject to various pronunciations and spellings. (Personal Communication with Joseph Massad.) 3. Although the names have only undergone small changes, the villages themselves have undergone radical ones. See Masalha (2012) and Slyomovics (1998). 4. Greenslade argues that while people do tend to read papers which reflect their political view, “there is no simple correlation between buyer and a paper’s political line”. He adds that for many people, “the reason for reading a given paper may have nothing at all to do with politics: they may prefer its crossword, astrology column or sports coverage” (Greenslade 2005). 5. In an Independent article about Har Adar the inverted commas are also used in this way: “One million Palestinian children in ‘unlivable’ conditions amid power shortage”. Here, the inverted commas serve to cast doubt as to whether the conditions are really ‘unlivable’. 6. This is also known as the long passive. 7. This is also known as the short passive. 8. This effect can also be achieved through the use of abstract nouns because they render what is being described less tangible and harder to visualise. 9. See Pappe (2017, p. 68). 10. Moreover, the use of the superordinate echoes Israeli claims that there were no Palestinians, only Arabs. By framing Palestinians as Arabs, Israel has argued and continues to argue that the Arabs (of Palestine) have many countries they can go to, but the Jews only have one. Similarly, in The Daily Mail, the Palestinian-Israel ‘conflict’ is referred to as “the ArabIsraeli conflict” or the “Arab-Israeli dispute”. Using the superordinate here is in line with Israeli terminology and referring to the ‘conflict’ as a ‘dispute’ (a ­disagreement or an argument (OED)) trivialises the Nakba and the suffering of the Palestinians both past and present.

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References Al-Jazeera. (2018) The Lobby  – USA. (https://m.youtube.com/ watch?v=3lSjXhMUVKE) (03/11/2018). Amara, M. (2018) Arabic In Israel. Language, Identity and Conflict. London and New York: Routledge. Bourdieu, P. (1991) Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge: Polity Press. Edited and Introduced by John B. Thompson. Translated by Gino Raymond and Matthew Adamson. Chomsky, N. (1989) Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. (https://chomsky.info/19890315/) (15/03/1989). Collins, J. & Glover, R. (Eds) (2002) Collateral Language: A User’s Guide to American’s New War. New York & London: New York University. Cook, J. (2008) Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair. U.K.: London: Zed Books. Cowman, K. (2014) Getting stuck in the trenches: From makeshift lessons to trench phrasebooks, how troops learnt French on the Western Front By Krista Cowman. The Linguist Vol/53 No/5 October/November 2014). Edwards, D. & Cromwell, D. (2006) Guardians of Power. The Myth of the Liberal Media. London: Pluto Press. Fields, G. (2005) Power, propaganda and the promised land. (http:// electronicintifada.net/content/power-­propaganda-­and-­promised-­land/5613) (02/06/2005). Finkelstein, N. G. (2014) Method and Madness: The hidden story of Israel’s assaults on Gaza. New York, London: OR Books. Fisk, R. (2006) The Great War For Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East. London: Harper Perennial. Franklin, B., Hamer, M., Hanna, M., Kinsey, M. & Richardson, J. E. (2005) Key Concepts in Journalism Studies. London, New Delhi: Thousand Oaks, Sage Publications. Gavriely-Nuri, D. (2013) The Normalization of War in Israeli Discourse, 1967–2008. Maryland, USA/Plymouth, UK: Lexington Books. Gilbert, M. (2014) 2015) Night in Gaza. Warwickshire: Skyscraper Publications Limited. Translated from Norwegian by Guy Puzey. Introduction by Max Blumenthal. Greenslade, R. (2005) Seeking Scapegoats. The coverage of asylum in the UK press. Asylum and Migration Working Paper 5. Institute for Public Policy Research. (May 2005). Idrees Ahmad, M. (2009) The BBC: Eyeless in Gaza. (http://electronicintifada. net/content/bbc-­eyeless-­gaza/7926) (06/01/2009). Karmi, G. (2007) Married to Another Man: Israel’s Dilemma in Palestine. London: Pluto Press.

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Keane, J. (2013) Democracy and Media Decadence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kennedy, S. (2006) Language and the crimes we permit in Gaza. (http:// electronicintifada.net/content/language-­and-­crimes-­we-­permit-­gaza/6628) (20/12/2006). Khalidi, R. (2013) Brokers of Deceit: How the US has undermined Peace in the Middle East. Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press. Kishan Thussu, D. & Freedman, D. (Eds) (2003) War and Media. London: Thousand Oaks/New Delhi: Sage Publications. Kramsch, C. (1998) Language and Culture. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. Oxford Introduction to Language Study. Maalouf, A. (1996) 2000) 2012) In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong. Translated by Barbara Bray. New York: Arcade Publishing. Masalha, N. (2012) The Palestine Nakba: Decolonising History, Narrating the Subaltern, Reclaiming Memory. London: Zed Books. Masalha, N. (2018) Palestine. A Four Thousand Year History. London: Zed Books. Massad, J.  A. (2008) Resisting the Nakba. (https://electronicintifada.net/ content/resisting-­nakba/7518) (16/05/2008). Pappe, I. (2017) The Biggest Prison On Earth: A History of the Occupied Territories. London: Oneworld Publications. Ra’ad, B.  L. (2010) Hidden Histories. Palestine and the Eastern Mediterranean. London and New York: Pluto Press. Shehadeh, R. (2012) 2013) Occupation Diaries. London: Profile Books. Shupak, G. (2018) The Wrong Story. Palestine, Israel, & the Media. New York/ London: OR Books. Slyomovics, S. (1998) The Object Of Memory: Arab and Jew Narrate the Palestinian Village. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. (PENN). Suarez, T. (2016) State of Terror: How terrorism created modern Israel. U.K.: Oxon: Skyscraper Publications. Suleiman, Y. (2004) A War of Words. Language and Conflict in the Middle East. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Swedenburg, T. (2003) Memories of Revolt. The 1936–1939 Rebellion and the Palestinian National Past. With a New Afterword. Fayetteville: The University of Arkansas Press. Talbot, M., Atkinson, K., & Atkinson, D. (2003) Language and Power in the Modern World. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Zureik, E. (2016) Israel’s Colonial Project in Palestine: Brutal Pursuit. London and New York: Routledge.

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Articles Analysed Kidnapping

of

Three Israeli Teenage Settlers

Associated Press. Jerusalem. 14 June 2014a. Israel combs West Bank for teens feared abducted. The Daily Mail. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article­2657713/Israel-­combs-­West-­Bank-­teens-­feared-­abducted.html) (Accessed on 14/04/2018). Daily Mail Reporters. 15 June 2014. Israeli prime minister directs military to use ‘all measures’ to find three Israeli teens believed kidnapped by Islamic terror group as he demands Palestinian government to help find them. The Daily Mail. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-­2 658233/Israeli-­p rim…rror-­ group-­demands-­Palestinian-­government-­help-­them.html) (Accessed on 14/04/2018). David Mccormack and Associated Press Reporter. 15 June 2014. Pictured: The 16-year-old American boy who has been ‘kidnapped with two others by Hamas militants’ as Israel continues desperate hunt to find them. The Daily Mail. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-­2 658246/Israel-­a rrests-­8 0-­ Palestinians-­search-­teens.html) (Accessed on 14/04/2018). Damien Gayle. 17 June 2014. ‘We’ll turn membership of Hamas into a ticket to Hell’: Palestinians’ homes trashed as Israeli troops make 40 new arrests in hunt for three ‘kidnapped’ Jewish teenagers. The Daily Mail. (http://www.dailymail.co. uk/news/article-­2660176/Well-­turn-­m…ll-­Israel-­arrests-­40-­Palestinians-­ hunt-­missing-­teenagers.html) (Accessed on 14/04/2018). John Hall. 20 June 2014. Two Palestinians, including 13-year-old boy, killed during West Bank raids linked to search for three ‘abducted’ Israeli teenagers. The Daily Mail. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-­2663748/Two-­Palest…k-­raids-­linked-­search-­three-­abducted-­Israeli-­teenagers.html) (Accessed on 14/04/2018). Associated Press. Jerusalem. 26 June 2014b. Israel identifies suspects in alleged kidnapping. The Daily Mail. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article­2671171//Israel-­identifies-­suspects-­alleged-­kidnapping.html) (Mohammad Daraghmeh reported from Ramallah, West Bank.) (Accessed on 14/04/2018). Associated Press. Jerusalem. 30 June 2014c. Bodies of missing Israeli teens found in West Bank. The Daily Mail. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article­2674797/Bodies-­missing-­Israeli-­teens-­West-­Bank.html) (Associated Press writers Josh Lederman in Washington and Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this report.) (Accessed on 14/04/2018). Peter Beaumont & Paul Lewis. Jerusalem & Washington. 13 June 2014. Israelis launch search around Hebron after teenagers go missing. The Guardian. (https:// www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/13/israel-­s earch-­m issing-­ teenagers-­hebron) (Accessed on 14/04/2018).

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Peter Beaumont. Dura. 26 June 2014a. Hunt for missing Israeli boys stirs up familiar recriminations. The Guardian. (https://www.theguardian.com/ world/2014/jun/26/hunt-­missing-­israeli-­boys-­recriminations) (Accessed on 14/04/2018). Peter Beaumont & Orlando Crowcroft. Jerusalem & El Ad. 30 June 2014. Bodies of three missing Israeli teenagers found in West Bank. The Guardian. (https:// www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/30/bodies-­m issing-­i sraeli-­ teenagers-­found-­west-­bank) (Accessed on 14/04/2018). Agence France-Presse (AFP). 01 July 2014. Israel vows to make Hamas pay for alleged murder of three teenagers. The Guardian. (https://www.theguardian. com/world/2014/jul/01/israel-­v ows-­h amas-­p ay-­m urder-­t eenagers) (Accessed on 14/04/2018). Peter Beaumont. Modi’in. 01 July 2014b. Israeli teenagers buried as Binyamin Netanyahu declares ‘day of mourning’. The Guardian. (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/01/israeli-­teenagers-­funeral-­netanyahu-­day-­of-­ mourning) (Accessed on 14/04/2018). Anshel Pfeffer. 01 July 2014. These murders reawaken Israel’s deepest fears. The Guardian. (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/01/ murders-­israel-­jewish-­state) (Accessed on 14/04/2018). Peter Beaumont. Jerusalem. 01 July 2014c. Israeli jets pound Gaza as Netanyahu blames Hamas for teenagers’ deaths. The Guardian. (https://www.theguardian. com/world/2014/jul/01/israeli-­j ets-­g aza-­n etanyahu-­h amas-­t eenagers-­ deaths) (Accessed on 14/04/2018). Peter Beaumont. Jerusalem. 04 September 2014d. Israel charges Palestinian man over murder of three kidnapped teenagers. The Guardian. (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/04/israel-­c harges-­h ussam-­q awasmeh-­ kidnapped-­teenagers-­murder) (Accessed on 14/04/2018). Harriet Sherwood (and agencies). 23 September 2014. Israeli forces kill two Palestinians suspected of murdering teenagers. The Guardian. (https://www. theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/23/israel-­k ills-­p alestinian-­s uspects-­ teenagers-­murder) (Accessed on 14/04/2018). Ben Lynfield. Ramallah. 23 June 2014a. Arrests, anger and a deadly raid. The Independent, p. 24–25. Issue 8644. The Independent Digital Archive. (http:// tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/6Larj4) (Accessed on 16/04/2018). Ben Lynfield. Jerusalem. 01 July 2014b. Bodies of Israeli teenagers found. The Independent, p20–21. Issue 8651. The Independent Digital Archive. (http:// tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/6Ldzs7) (Accessed on 16/04/2018). Rob Williams. 01 July 2014. Israeli missing teenagers: Hamas warns ‘gates of hell will open’ as Israel bombs Gaza strip. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-­e ast/israe…-­o f-­h ell-­w ill-­o pen-­a s-­i srael-­ bombs-­gaza-­strip-­9574940.html) (Accessed on 14/04/2018).

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Ben Lynfield. Jerusalem. 03 July 2014c. An eye for an eye: body of Palestinian teenager found in forest. The Independent, p6–7. Issue 8653. The Independent Digital Archive. (http://tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/6LbhE2) (Accessed on 16/04/2018). Ben Lynfield. Jerusalem. 04 July 2014d. Now Palestinian rage spreads to Gaza Strip. The Independent, p27. Issue 8654. The Independent Digital Archive. (http://tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/6LbrB3) (Accessed on 16/04/2018). Ben Lynfield. Hebron. 24 September 2014e. Israel kills Palestinians suspected of teenagers’ murders. The Independent, p35. Issue 8724. (http://tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/6Laza1) (Accessed on 16/04/2014). Robert Tait. Hebron. 16 June 2014a. The bus stop that voices Israel’s anguish over missing teenagers. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ worldnews/middleeast/israel/10904095/The-­bus-­stop-­that-­voices-­Israels-­ anguish-­over-­missing-­teenagers.html) (Accessed 14/04/2018). Reuters. 20 June 2014. 30 new arrests as Israel presses West Bank hunt for hostage teens. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/ middleeast/israel/10913608/30-­new-­arrests-­as-­Israel-­presses-­West-­Bank-­ hunt-­for-­hostage-­teens.html) (Accessed on 14/04/2018). Robert Tait. Jerusalem. 30 June 2014b. Bodies of three kidnapped Israeli teenagers found in West Bank. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/10936365/Bodies-­of-­three-­kidnapped-­ Israeli-­teenagers-­found-­in-­West-­Bank.html) (Accessed on 14/04/2018). Robert Tait. Jerusalem. 30 June 2014c. Israeli teenagers: Netanyahu warns Hamas will pay. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/10937009/Israeli-­t eenagers-­N etanyahu-­w arns-­ Hamas-­will-­pay.html) (Accessed on 14/04/2018). Robert Tait & Damien McElroy. Modi’in. 01 July 2014. Israel buries its three kidnapped teenagers amid tears and anger. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www. telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/10939348/Israel-­ buries-­its-­three-­kidnapped-­teenagers-­amid-­tears-­and-­anger.html) (Accessed on 14/04/2018). Josie Ensor. 01 July 2014. The men Israel blames for the deaths of Jewish teenagers. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/10937210/The-­men-­Israel-­blames-­for-­the-­deaths-­of-­Jewish-­ teenagers.html) (Accessed on 14/04/2018). Hugh Tomlinson. 01 July 2014. Israel vows to smash Hamas as kidnapped students found dead. The Times. (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/israel-­vows-­to-­ smash-­hamas-­as-­kidnapped-­students-­found-­dead-­d6tlbs52g2x) (Accessed on 16/02/2018). Josh Mitnick. 03 July 2014. Appeal for calm after Palestinian boy murdered in ‘revenge killing’. The Times. (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/appeal-­for-­ calm-­after-­palestinian-­boy-­murdered-­in-­revenge-­killing-­tzzqvgnjlxv) (Accessed on 16/04/2018).

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Tony Bonnici. 03 July 2014. Israeli teenager’s family condemn ‘revenge act’. The Times. (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/israeli-­teenagers-­family-­condemn-­ revenge-­act-­0r5zs7g5srp) (Accessed on 16/04/2018). Inna Lazareva. Tel Aviv. 06 July 2014. Palestinian rage engulfs Israel over boy ‘burnt alive’. The Times. (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/palestinian-­ rage-­engulfs-­israel-­over-­boy-­burnt-­alive-­plrhnmqv0hb) (Accessed on 16/04/2018). Gregg Carlstrom. 02 September 2014a. Israel makes biggest land grab in 30 years after teen murders. The Times. (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/israel-­ makes-­b iggest-­l and-­g rab-­i n-­3 0-­y ears-­a fter-­t een-­m urders-­x pm63cjgzg8) (Accessed on 16/04/2018). Gregg Carlstrom. 23 September 2014b. Israeli army kills suspects of teen murders. The Times. (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/israeli-­army-­kills-­suspects-­ of-­teen-­murders-­kzj7dxb5mj2) (Accessed on 16/04/2018).

Arson

on

Dawabsheh Family

Associated Press. Duma, West Bank. 31 July 2015a. Attack in West Bank kills Palestinian child, homes torched. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article-­3 180853/Israel-­P alestinian-­c hild-­k illed-­West-­B ank-­a ttack.html) (Mohammed Daraghmeh reported from Ramallah, West Bank and Tia Goldenberg reported from Tel Aviv.) (Accessed on 14/04/2018). Associated Press. Washington. 31 July 2015b. US condemns terrorist attack that killed Palestinian toddler. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article­3 181424/US-­c ondemns-­t errorist-­a ttack-­k illed-­P alestinian-­t oddler.html) (Accessed on 14/04/2018). Ali Sawafta. Reuters. Duma, West Bank. 31 July 2015. Palestinian toddler killed in West Bank; Jewish arsonists suspected. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ reuters/article-­3180842/Pal…-­toddler-­killed-­suspected-­Jewish-­extremist-­ attack-­police.html) (Accessed on 14/04/2018). Associated Press. Jerusalem. 31 July 2015c. Q&A: A look at violent Jewish attacks on Palestinians. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/ article-­3 181590/Q-­A -­A -­l ook-­v iolent-­J ewish-­a ttacks-­P alestinians.html) (Accessed on 14/04/2018). Imogen Calderwood & Reuters. 01 August 2015. Palestinian youth shot dead by Israeli troops during protest after toddler was killed in West Bank firebombing by ‘Jewish extremists’. ­(http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-­3182254/ Palestinian-­…oops-­protest-­toddler-­killed-­firebombing-­Jewish-­settlers.html) (Accessed on 14/04/2018). Dan Williams. Jerusalem. Reuters. 3 August 2015. Israel approves jailing Jewish militants without trial to resolve lethal arson. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/

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wires/reuters/article-­3183138/Isra…ailing-­Jewish-­militants-­without-­trial-­ resolve-­lethal-­arson.html) (Accessed on 14/04/2018). Associated Press. Jerusalem. 04 August 2015d. Israeli arrested after West Bank arson that killed toddler. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article­3184819/Israeli-­arrested-­West-­Bank-­arson-­killed-­toddler.html) (Accessed on 14/04/2018). Agence France-Presse (AFP). 04 August 2015a. Israel court extends detention of extremist Jewish leader. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article­3 185017/Israel-­c ourt-­e xtends-­d etention-­e xtremist-­J ewish-­l eader.html) (Accessed on 14/04/2018). Ali Sawafta & Ari Rabinovitch. Reuters. Jerusalem. 08 August 2015. Father of Palestinian toddler killed in arson attack dies of wounds. (http://www.dailymail. co.uk/wires/reuters/article-­3 190122/Father-­P alestinian-­t oddler-­k illed-­ arson-­attack-­dies-­wounds.html) (Accessed on 14/04/2018). Hassan Titi. Qusra, West Bank. Reuters. 11 August 2015. Palestinian vigilantes patrol villages amid fear of more arson attacks. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ wires/reuters/article-­3193938/Pal…tinian-­vigilantes-­patrol-­villages-­amid-­ fear-­arson-­attacks.html) Accessed on 14/04/2018). Kate Shuttleworth & Mairav Zonszein. Duma. 31 July 2015. Palestinian child dead in suspected Jewish extremist arson attack on home. (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/31/child-­d ies-­a fter-­s uspected-­j ewish-­ extremist-­attack-­on-­palestinian-­home) (Accessed on 14/04/2018). Associated Press. Jerusalem. 09 August 2015e. Israel jails two Jewish extremists for six months without charge. (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/ aug/09/israel-­imprisons-­two-­jewish-­extremists-­administrative-­detention-­ arson-­attack-­palestinian-­west-­bank) (Accessed on 14/04/2018). Agence France-Presse (AFP). 07 September 2015b. Mother of Palestinian baby killed in West Bank arson attack dies. (https://www.theguardian.com/ world/2015/sep/07/mother-­of-­palestinian-­baby-­killed-­in-­arson-­attack-­dies) (Accessed on 14/04/2018). Peter Beaumont. Duma. 07 September 2015a. Grief and anger as Palestinian teacher killed in arson attack is laid to rest. (https://www.theguardian.com/ world/2015/sep/07/grief-­and-­anger-­as-­palestinian-­teacher-­killed-­in-­arson-­ attack-­is-­laid-­to-­rest) (Accessed on 14/04/2018). Kate Shuttleworth. Duma. 29th November 2015. Death of 18-month-old in arson attack heightens tensions in West Bank. (https://www.theguardian.com/ world/2015/jul/31/death-­1 8-­m onth-­o ld-­i n-­a rson-­a ttack-­h eightens-­ tensions-­west-­bank-­israel) (Accessed on 14/04/2018). Peter Beaumont. Jerusalem. 03 December 2015b. Israel arrests members of ‘Jewish terror group’ over West Bank arson attack. (https://www.theguardian.com/ world/2015/dec/03/israel-­arrests-­members-­of-­jewish-­terror-­group-­over-­ west-­bank-­arson-­attack) (Accessed on 14/04/2018).

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Ben Lynfield. Jerusalem. 02 August 2015a. Duma arson attack is terrorism, says Israel’s opposition leader. The Independent on Sunday, p36. Issue 1326. The  Independent Digital Archive. (http://tinyurl.galegroup.com/ tinyurl/6LaCu2) (Accessed on 16/04/2018). Ben Lynfield. Jerusalem. 04 August 2015b. Outcry after Israel extends detention without trial to Jewish citizens. The Independent, p24. Issue 8992. The Independent Digital Archive. (http://tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/6LaKK5) (Accessed on 16/04/2018). Ben Lynfield. Jerusalem. 05 August 2015c. Jewish extremist held over attack in which baby was burned alive. The Independent, p24–25. Issue 8993. The Independent Digital Archive. (http://tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/6LaFH0) (Accessed on 16/04/2018). Ben Lynfield. Jerusalem. 10 August 2015d. Israel intensifies crackdown on Jewish extremists. The Independent, p18. Issue 8997. The Independent Digital Archive. (http://tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/6La5G4) (Accessed 16/04/2018). Robert Tait. Duma. 31 July 2015a. Palestinian baby killed in arson attack ‘by Israeli settlers’. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ worldnews/middleeast/israel/11774900/Palestinian-­b aby-­d ies-­i n-­f ire-­ started-­by-­Israeli-­settlers.html) (Accessed on 14/04/2018). Robert Tait. Duma. 07 September 2015b. Death of Palestinian woman from fire ‘started by settlers’ sparks grief and anger. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www. telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/11848789/Death-­of-­ Palestinian-­woman-­from-­fire-­started-­by-­settlers-­sparks-­grief-­and-­anger.html) (Accessed on 14/04/2018). Robert Tait. Jerusalem. 11 September 2015c. Israeli minister ‘knows who started the fire that killed Palestinian toddler’ but no arrests made. The Daily Telegraph. ( h t t p s : / / w w w. t e l e g r a p h . c o . u k / n e w s / w o r l d n e w s / m i d d l e e a s t / israel/11858171/Israeli-­m inister-­k nows-­w ho-­s tarted-­f ire-­t hat-­k illed-­ Palestinian-­toddler-­but-­no-­arrests-­made.html) (Accessed on 14/04/2018). Inna Lazareva. Tel Aviv. 27 December 2015. Israel ‘investigates radical group seeking Jewish monarchy’ over Palestinian family deaths. The Daily Telegraph. ( h t t p s : / / w w w. t e l e g r a p h . c o . u k / n e w s / w o r l d n e w s / m i d d l e e a s t / israel/12070715/Israel-­investigates-­radical-­group-­seeking-­Jewish-­monarchy-­ over-­Palestinian-­family-­deaths.html) (Accessed on 14/04/2018). Inna Lazareva. Tel Aviv. 03 January 2016. Two Israelis charged over arson attack that killed Palestinian family. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/12078972/Two-­Israelis-­charged-­over-­ arson-­attack-­that-­killed-­Palestinian-­family.html) (Accessed on 14/04/2018). Gregg Carlstrom. 31 July 2015a. Palestinian baby killed in ‘barbaric’ West Bank arson attack. The Times. (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/palestinian-­

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baby-­killed-­in-­barbaric-­west-­bank-­arson-­attack-­88cpxrwlzph) (Accessed on 16/04/2018). Gregg Carlstrom. 01 August 2015b. Israel hunts West Bank arson killers of Palestinian baby. The Times. (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/israel-­hunts-­west-­bank-­ arson-­killers-­of-­palestinian-­baby-­2cz3dlbk9v2) (Accessed on 16/04/2018). Gregg Carlstrom. 10 August 2015c. Extremist settlers rounded up by Israelis. The Times. (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/extremist-­settlers-­rounded-­up-­ by-­israelis-­k6j70jzj698) (Accessed on 16/04/2018). John Reynolds. 03 January 2016. Two Israelis charged over arson attack that killed Palestinian family. The Times. (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/two-­ israelis-­c harged-­o ver-­a rson-­a ttack-­t hat-­k illed-­p alestinian-­f amily-­ wb95s0gb88m) (Accessed on 16/04/2018).

Killing in Har Adar Illegal Settlement Sara Malm. (For Mailonline and Associated Press) 26 September 2017. Palestinian gunman shoots three Israeli soldiers dead and injures a fourth in terror attack at Jewish settlement near Jerusalem. The Daily Mail. (http://www.dailymail.co. uk/news/article-­4920014/Shooting-­attack-­town-­outside-­Jerusalem-­kills-­3-­ Israelis.html) (Accessed on 15/04/2018). Associated Press. Har Adar, West Bank. 28 September 2017. Attacking Israelis seen as way out for troubled Palestinians. The Daily Mail. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article-­4929190/Attacking-­Israelis-­seen-­way-­troubled-­ Palestinians.html) (Associated Press writer Mohammed Daraghmeh contributed reporting from Beit Surik, West Bank.) (Accessed on 15/04/2018). Peter Beaumont. Jerusalem. 26 September 2017a. Three Israelis killed in gun attack by Palestinian assailant. The Guardian. (https://www.theguardian. com/world/2017/sep/26/israelis-­killed-­gun-­attack-­jerusalem) (Accessed on 15/04/2018). Independent Staff and Agencies. 26 September 2017. Israel shooting: Palestinian kills three at Jewish settlement in occupied West Bank. The Independent. (https:// www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-­east/israe…ewish-­west-­bank-­ settlers-­settlement-­har-­adar-­a7967131.html) (Accessed on 15/04/2018). Raf Sanchez. Har Adar. 26 September 2017a. Three Israelis killed by Palestinian gunman in settlement near Jerusalem. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www. telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/09/26/three-­i sraelis-­k illed-­p alestinian-­ gunman-­attack-­near-­jerusalem/) (Accessed on 15/04/2018). David Rankin. 26 September 2017. Palestinian gunmen [sic] kills three at Israeli settlement Har Adar. The Times. (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ palestinian-­g unmen-­k ills-­t hree-­a t-­i sraeli-­s ettlement-­h ar-­a dar-­5 lwfh83wd) (Accessed on 16/04/2018). Serena Huda. 27 September 2017. Three guards shot dead by Palestinian at Har Adar settlement. The Times. (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/three-­

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israeli-­g uards-­s hot-­d ead-­b y-­p alestinian-­a t-­h ar-­a dar-­s ettlement-­n ear-­ jerusalem-­30qcsbsz3) (Accessed on 16/04/2018).

Killing of Abu Thurayeh Tom Miles. Reuters. Geneva. 19 December 2017. UN decries Israel’s killing of Gaza amputee, Israel denies he was targeted. The Daily Mail. (http://www. dailymail.co.uk/wires/reuters/article-­5195653/UN…ries-­Israels-­killing-­ Gaza-­amputee-­Israel-­denies-­targeted.html) (Additional reporting by Ori Lewis in Jerusalem.) (Accessed on 15/04/2018). Maayan Lubell. Reuters. Jerusalem. 04 January 2018. Israeli military to probe death of disabled Palestinian in Gaza. The Daily Mail. (http://www.dailymail. co.uk/wires/reuters/article-­5234455/Israeli-­military-­probe-­death-­disabled-­ Palestinian-­Gaza.html) (Accessed on 15/04/2018). Peter Beaumont. 16 December 2017b. Funeral of Palestinian amputee killed by Israeli fire takes place in Gaza. The Guardian. (https://www.theguardian. com/world/2017/dec/16/funeral-­of-­palestinian-­amputee-­killed-­by-­israeli-­ fire-­takes-­place-­in-­gaza) (Accessed on 15/04/2018). Reuters. Geneva. 19 December 2017. ‘A shocking and wanton act’: Israel accused over death of wheelchair user. The Guardian. (https://www.theguardian.com/ world/2017/dec/19/un-­o fficial-­q uestions-­k illing-­of-­wheelchair-­user-­i n-­ jerusalem-­protest) (Accessed on 15/04/2018). Rachel Roberts. 16 December 2017. Ibrahim Abu Thuraya: Disabled Palestinian activist shot dead by Israeli troops in Jerusalem protest. The Independent. ( h t t p s : / / w w w. i n d e p e n d e n t . c o . u k / n e w s / w o r l d / m i d d l e -­e a s t / ibrah…rusalem-­p rfconotest-­d isabled-­n o-­l egs-­w heelchair-­a 8114766.html) (Accessed on 15/04/2018). Tom Embury-Dennis. 19 December 2017. UN denounces ‘excessive’ force used by Israeli soldiers in killing of disabled Palestinian protester. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-­east/un-­i…g-­idf-­ soldiers-­excessive-­force-­palestine-­gaza-­a8117946.html) (Accessed on 16/04/2018). Samuel Osborne. 16 January 2018. Ibrahim Abu Thuraya: Disabled Palestinian activist killed by Israeli gunfire, finds autopsy. The Independent. (https://www. independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-­east/ibr…activist-­israel-­gunfire-­ killed-­idf-­soldiers-­gaza-­a8161496.html) (Accessed on 16/04/2018). Raf Sanchez. Gaza City. 19 December 2017b. How a dead man in a wheelchair became a symbol of Palestinian anger over Donald Trump’s Jerusalem decision. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/12/19/ dead-­m an-­w heelchair-­b ecame-­s ymbol-­p alestinian-­a nger-­d onald-­t rumps/) (Accessed on 15/04/2018).

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Anshel Pfeffer. Jerusalem. 16 December 2017. Fake bomber and amputee among West Bank dead. The Times. (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/fake-­bomber-­shot-­ dead-­after-­west-­bank-­stabbing-­x2pp77t3b) (Accessed on 17/04/2018).

Operation Cast Lead Jane Flanagan & Jonathan Petre. 27 December 2008. Israel calls up reserve troops and send tanks to Gaza border after killing more than 280 in ‘one of the bloodiest days in 60 years’. The Daily Mail. (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article­1102100/Israel-­calls-­r eserve-­troops-­sends-­tanks-­Gaza-­border-­killing-­280-­ bloodiest-­days-­60-­years.html) (Accessed on 26/10/2019). Mark Almond. 27 December 2008. Can Obama really solve this crisis in the Middle East. The Daily Mail. (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-­1102184/ Massacres-­Gaza-­Even-­Obama-­solve-­this.html) (Accessed on 26/10/2019). Daily Mail Reporter. 28 December 2008a. The Gaza backlash hits London as anti-­ Israel demonstrators clash with police. The Daily Mail. (https://www.dailymail. co.uk/news/article-­1102317/The-­Gaza-­backlash-­hits-­London-­anti-­Israeli-­ demonstrators-­clash-­police.html) (Accessed on 26/10/2019). Paul Thompson. 29 December 2008. Obama risks anger by sitting on sidelines over Gaza attacks. The Daily Mail. (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article­1102603/Obama-­risks-­anger-­sitting-­sidelines-­Gaza-­attacks.html) (Accessed on 26/10/2019). Daily Mail. 29 December 2008. Israeli attack on Gaza sparks rise in price of gold and oil. The Daily Mail. (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/article-­1102461/ Israeli-­attack-­Gaza-­sparks-­rise-­price-­gold-­oil.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Mail Foreign Service. 29 December 2008a. Israel promises ‘war to the bitter end’ against Hamas as navy blasts Gaza and tanks mass on border. The Daily Mail. (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-­1102421/Israel-­promises-­war-­ bitter-­end-­Hamas-­navy-­blasts-­Gaza-­tanks-­mass-­border.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Daily Mail Reporter. 29 December 2008b. Demonstrator burns policeman’s cap as thousands try to storm Israeli embassy in London. The Daily Mail. (https://www. dailymail.co.uk/news/article-­1102784/Demonstrator-­burns-­policemans-­cap-­ thousands-­try-­storm-­israeli-­embassy-­London.html) (Accessed on 26/10/2019). Mail Foreign Service. 30 December 2008b. Shhhh! As the world waits for Obama to voice his opinion on Gaza, America’s President-elect hits the golf course. The Daily Mail. (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-­1102951/Shhhh-­As-­the-­ world-­waits-­for-­Obama-­to-­voice-­his-­opinion-­Gaza-­Americas-­President-­elect-­ hits-­golf-­course.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Paul Harris & Matthew Kalman. 30 December 2008. ‘We will fight you to the bitter end’: Israel poised to invade Gaza in all-out war with Hamas. The Daily Mail.

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(https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-­1102843/We-­fight-­bitter-­end-­ Israel-­poised-­invade-­Gaza-­war-­Hamas.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Michael Theodoulou. 30 December 2008. Israeli Navy Gaza-bound aid boat, forcing it to dock in Lebanon. The Daily Mail. (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ news/article-­1 103227/Israeli-­N avy-­r ams-­G aza-­b ound-­a id-­b oat-­f orcing-­ dock-­Lebanon.html) (Accessed 27/10/2019). Jane Flanagan. 30 December 2008. Israel rolls its tanks into Gaza to storm Hamas rocket bases. The Daily Mail. (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article­1103314/Israel-­rolls-­tanks-­Gaza-­storm-­Hamas-­rocket-­bases.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Daily Mail Reporter. 31 December 2008c. Britain pledges £7m aid to Gaza. The Daily Mail. (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-­1103632/Britain-­ pledges-­7m-­aid-­Gaza.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Sami Abedl-Shafi. 31 December 2008. ‘The first bomb was like being punched by a ghost…’: How the Gaza strikes felt on the ground. The Daily Mail. (https://www. dailymail.co.uk/news/ar ticle-­1 103423/The-­b omb-­l ike-­p unched-­ ghost%2D%2D-­How-­Gaza-­strikes-­felt-­ground.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Daily Mail Reporter. 03 January 2009a. Bodies of Hamas leader’s children paraded as group promises ‘painful’ revenge for their deaths. The Daily Mail. (https:// www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-­1 104296/Bodies-­H amas-­l eaders-­ children-­paraded-­group-­promises-­painful-­revenge-­deaths.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). David Williams. 03 January 2009a. Exodus of foreigners from Gaza amid fears of invasion. The Daily Mail. (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article­1104528/Exodus-­foreigners-­Gaza-­amid-­fears-­invasion.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Daily Mail Comment. 04 January 2009. Israel was provoked into attack, yet the bloodshed in Gaza puts lasting peace in peril. The Daily Mail. (https://www. dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-­1105212/Israel-­provoked-­attack-­bloodshed-­ Gaza-­puts-­lasting-­peace-­peril.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Matthew Kalman and David Williams. 04 January 2009. 14 more children killed in the terror of Gaza as Israel defies demands for ceasefire. The Daily Mail. (https:// www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-­1105127/At-­14-­children-­killed-­Gaza-­ terror-­Israel-­defies-­demands-­ceasefire.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Matthew Kalman. 05 January 2009. As Gaza is torn apart by war, where is Middle East peace envoy Tony Blair? He’s been on HOLIDAY. The Daily Mail. (https:// www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-­1 105250/As-­G aza-­t orn-­a part-­w ar-­ Middle-­East-­peace-­envoy-­Tony-­Blair-­Hes-­HOLIDAY.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Daily Mail Reporter. 07 January 2009b. The British woman who lost 15 members of her family in one Israeli bomb. The Daily Mail. (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/

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news/article-­1108122/The-­British-­woman-­lost-­15-­members-­family-­Israeli-­ bomb.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Daily Mail Reporter. 07 January 2009c. Miliband renews calls for immediate ceasefire as he urges end to Gaza ‘horror’. The Daily Mail. (https://www.dailymail. co.uk/news/article-­1107426/Miliband-­r enews-­calls-­immediate-­ceasefire-­ urges-­end-­Gaza-­horror.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Melanie Philips. 09 January 2009. Violent Gaza protests reveal how gentle civilised Britain has changed into something very ugly indeed. The Daily Mail. (https:// www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-­1110573/Violent-­Gaza-­protests-­reveal-­ gentle-­civilised-­Britain-­changed-­ugly-­indeed.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Daily Mail Reporter. 09 January 2009d. Two Egyptian children injured by Israeli bombs with another 29 Palestinians killed in Gaza. The Daily Mail. (https://www. dailymail.co.uk/news/article-­1110212/Two-­Egyptian-­children-­injured-­Israeli-­ bombs-­29-­Palestinians-­killed-­Gaza.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Mail Foreign Service. 09 January 2009a. Barack Obama ‘to open up talks with Hamas’ in radical departure from American foreign policy. The Daily Mail. (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-­1110345/Barack-­Obama-­open-­ talks-­Hamas-­radical-­departure-­American-­foreign-­policy.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Daily Mail Reporter. 10 January 2009e. Gas row and Gaza war set to push up petrol prices. The Daily Mail. (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-­1111184/ Gas-­row-­Gaza-­war-­set-­push-­petrol-­prices.html) (27/10/2019). Suzanne Moore. 11 January 2009. Yes, Israel as a right to exist. But so did those blood-soaked Palestinian toddlers on the mortuary slab. The Daily Mail. (https:// www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-­1111549/Yes-­Israel-­has-­right-­to-­exist-­ But-­did-­bood-­soaked-­Palestinian-­toddlers-­mortuary-­slab.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). David Williams. 13 January 2009b. Israeli leaders split over continuing Gaza offensive. The Daily Mail. (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-­1113722/Israeli-­ leaders-­split-­continuing-­Gaza-­offensive.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Mail Foreign Service. 13 January 2009b. Israeli PM: I ‘shamed’ Rice into abstaining on UN ceasefire vote after forcing her into U-turn. The Daily Mail. (https://www. dailymail.co.uk/news/article-­1114022/Israeli-­PM-­shamed-­Rice-­abstaining-­ UN-­ceasefire-­vote-­forcing-­U-­turn.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Mail Foreign Service. 16 January 2009c. U.S. and Israel sign agreement aiming to stop weapons being smuggled into Gaza Strip. The Daily Mail. (https://www. dailymail.co.uk/news/article-­1120042/U-­S-­Israel-­sign-­agreement-­aiming-­ stop-­weapons-­smuggled-­Gaza-­strip.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Mail Foreign Service. 16 January 2009d. Gaza offensive ‘in final act’ says Israel as Palestinian death toll swells to 1,132. The Daily Mail. (https://www.dailymail.

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co.uk/news/article-­1 118782/Gaza-­o ffensive-­i n-­f inal-­a ct-­s ays-­I srael-­ Palestinian-­death-­toll-­swells-­1-­132.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Daily Mail Reporter. 17 January 2009f. Hamas announces immediate ceasefire and gives Israel a week to leave Gaza. The Daily Mail. (https://www.dailymail. co.uk/news/article-­1120732/Hamas-­announces-­immediate-­ceasefire-­gives-­ Israel-­week-­leave-­Gaza.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Kerry Mcqueeney. 17 January 2009. ‘This shelter is safer than my home’, says Palestinian boy as school is destroyed by Israeli fire. The Daily Mail. (https:// www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-­1120612/This-­shelter-­is-­safer-­than-­my-­ home-­says-­Palestinian-­boy-­school-­destroyed-­Israeli-­fire.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Daily Mail Reporter. 17 January 2009g. Israel plans ceasefire as tank fire kills two boys at UN school – but Hamas vows to fight on. The Daily Mail. (https://www. dailymail.co.uk/news/article-­1120582/Israel-­plans-­ceasefire-­tank-­kills-­boys-­ UN-­school%2D%2DHamas-­vows-­fight-­on.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Ian Drury. 18 January 2009. As Israel begins withdrawal – but more rockets are fired from Gaza  – Brown demands drive for ‘permanent peace’. The Daily Mail. (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-­1 121203/As-­I srael-­b egins-­ withdrawal-­but-­rockets-­fired-­Gaza-­Brown-­demands-­drive-­permanent-­peace. html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Ed Harris. 19 January 2009. Inside Gaza: First pictures of devastation caused by air strikes as Israeli troops being rapid pull-out. The Daily Mail. (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-­1121823-­Gaza-­first-­pictures-­devastation-­caused-­air-­ strikes-­Israeli-­troops-­begin-­rapid-­pull-­out.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Daily Mail Reporter. 21 January 2009h. Israeli troops completely out of Gaza one day after Obama’s inauguration. The Daily Mail. (https://www.dailymail.co. uk/news/article-­1 126037/Israeli-­t roops-­c ompletely-­G aza-­d ay-­O bamas-­ inauguration.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Melanie Phillips. 25 January 2009. The BBC won’t show the Gaza appeal to protect its impartiality. But how many viewers really believe it is impartial? The Daily Mail. (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debatesearch/article-­1127433/ MELANIE-­P HILLIPS-­T he-­B BC-­w on-­8 217-­t -­G aza-­a ppeal-­p rotect-­ impartiality-­But-­viewers-­really-­believe-­impartial.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Jenny Percival and agencies. 27 December 2008. Israel launches deadly Gaza attacks. The Guardian. (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/ dec/27/israelandthepalestinians) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Ian Black. 27 December 2008. Israel’s hammer blow in Gaza. The Guardian. (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/dec/27/gaza-­attacks-­analysis-­ ian-­black) (Accessed on 27/10/2019).

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Seth Freedman. 28 December 2009. The recklessness of Hamas. The Guardian. (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/dec/28/gaza-­ attacks-­israel) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). 160 December 2008. World reaction. The Observer/The Guardian. (https:// www.theguardian.com/world/2008/dec/28/israel-and-the-palestiniansmiddle-­east) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Rory McCarthy. Jerusalem. 28 December 2008a. Israeli cabinet calls up reservists as Gaza strikes continue. The Guardian. (https://www.theguardian.com/ world/2008/dec/28/gaza-­israel-­palestinians-­middle-­east) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Ian Black. 29 December 2009. Six months of secret planning – then Israel moves against Hamas. The Guardian. (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/ dec/29/israel-­attack-­hamas-­preparations-­repercussions) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Nir Rosen. 29 December 2008. Gaza: the logic of colonial power. The Guardian. (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/dec/29/gaza-­hamas-­ israel) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Mark Tran. 29 December 2008. Israeli strikes on Gaza: What are the motives? The Guardian. (https://www.theguardian.com/world/blog/2008/dec/29/israel-­ gaza-­attacks-­motives) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Rory McCarthy & Ewen MacAskill. Jerusalem & Washington. 29 December 2008. Israel says its army is fighting war to the bitter end against Hamas. The Guardian. (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/dec/29/gaza-­i srael-­ palestinians-­middle-­east) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Rory McCarthy. Jerusalem. 30 December 2008b. Gaza: Israel’s previous attacks. The Guardian. (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/dec/30/ israelandthepalestinians-­middleeast) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Patrick Wintour. 31 December 2008. UK ministers urge Israel to agree Gaza ceasefire. The Guardian. (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2008/dec/31/ gaza-­ceasefire) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Mitchell Prothero. 3 January 2009. Analysis: Who will come out on top? The Guardian. (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jan/03/islamic-­jihad-­israel-­ gaza) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Chris McGreal. Jerusalem. 03 January 2009a. Israeli ground forces cross border. The Guardian. (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jan/03/middleeast-­ israelandthepalestinians) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Chris McGreal. Jerusalem. 04 January 2009b. Why Israel went to war in Gaza. The Observer/The Guardian. (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/ jan/04/israel-­gaza-­hamas-­hidden-­agenda) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Chris McGreal & Hazem Balousha. Jerusalem & Gaza City. 07 January 2009. Gaza’s day of carnage – 40 dead as Israelis bomb two UN schools. The Guardian.

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(https://theguardian.com/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-­i srael-­o bama) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Chris McGreal. At the Gaza border. 11 January 2009c. Why Israel’s war is driven by fear. The Observer/The Guardian. (https://www.theguardian. com/world/2009/jan/11/gaza-­israel-­political-­attitudes) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Jo Adetunji, Peter Walker & Rory McCarthy and agencies. Jerusalem. 15 January 2009. Hamas interior minister reported dead in Gaza attack. The Guardian. (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jan/15/israel-­gaza-­offensive-­ truce-­talks) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Chris McGreal & Toni O’Loughlin. Jerusalem. David Batty and agencies. 18 January 2009. Israel begins Gaza withdrawal after Hamas calls ceasefire. The Guardian. (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jan/18/israel-­gaza-­ ceasefire-­fragile) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Peter Beaumont. Jerusalem. 21 January 2009. Israel admits troops may have used phosphorous shells in Gaza. The Guardian. (https://www.theguardian.com/ world/2009/jan/21/gaza-­phosphorus-­shells) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Robert Fisk. 20 December 2008a. One missing word sowed the seeds of catastrophe. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/ fisk/robert-­o ne-­m issing-­w ord-­s owed-­t he-­s eeds-­o f-­c atastrophe-­1 205017. html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Ben Lynfield. 22 December 2008a. Livni and Netanyahu vow to oust Hamas after Gaza rocket strikes. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/ news/world/middle-­east-­livni-­and-­netanyagu-­vow-­to-­oust-­hamas-­after-­gaza-­ rocket-­strikes-­1207398.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Nidal al-Mughrabi & Reuters. 26 December 2008. Israel opens Gaza crossings. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-­east/ israel-­opens-­gaza-­crossings-­1211946.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Robert Fisk. 27 December 2008. How can anyone believe there is ‘progress’ in the Middle East? The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/ commentators/fisk/robert-­how-­can-­anyone-­believe-­there-­is-­progress-­in-­the-­ middle-­east-­1212434.html) (Accessed 27/10/2019). Stephen Foley. New York. 28 December 2008a. Gaza violence pushes Middle East to top of Obama’s agenda. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co. uk/news/world/americas/gaza-­v iolence-­p ushes-­m iddle-­e ast-­t o-­t op-­o f-­ obamas-­agenda-­1214830.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). 28 December 2008. Israel pounds Gaza for second day. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-­pounds-­ gaza-for-second-day-1214624.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Donald Macintyre. 28 December 2008a. Israeli air strikes kill 227 and leave 700 injured. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/ middle-­east/israeli-­air-­strikes-­kill-­227-­and-­leave-­700-­injured-­1213838.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019).

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28 December 2008. Gaza: the cycle can be broken. The Independent. (https:// www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/leading-article-gaza-the-cycle-canbe-broken-1213662.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Reuters. 29 December 2008a. Israel in ‘all-out war against Hamas’. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-­east/israel-­in-­all-­out-­ war-­against-­hamas-­1215691.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Matt Dickinson. 29 December 2008. Israel mounts third day of Gaza raids. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-­east/ israel-­mounts-­third-­day-­of-­gaza-­raids-­1215323.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Andrew Woodcock & Matt Dickinson. 29 December 2008. Miliband voices ‘grave concern’ over Israeli attacks. The Independent. (https://www.independent. co.uk/news/world/middle-­east/miliband-­voices-­grave-­concern-­over-­israeli-­ attacks-­1215442.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Robert Fisk. 29 December 2008b. Leaders lie, civilians die, and lessons of history are ignored. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/ commentators/fisk/robert-­leaders-­lie-­civilians-­die-­and-­lessons-­of-­history-­are-­ ignored-­1215045.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Jerome Tyler. 29 December 2008. ‘For the children, it is like living in hell’. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-­east/for-­ the-­children-­it-­is-­like-­living-­in-­hell-­1215060.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Katharine Butler. 29 December 2008. Explainer: Israel’s attack on Gaza. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-­east/ explainer-­israelis-­attack-­on-­gaza-­1215044.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). 29 December 2008. Israel prepares to invade Gaza. The Independent. (https:// www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-prepares-to-invadegaza-­1215048.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). 29 December 2008. Leading Article: The bombardment of Gaza will destroy lives, not Hamas. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/ editorials/leading-article-bombardment-of-gaza-will-destroy-lives-not-­ hamas-1214983.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Reuters. 30 December 2008b. Israel warns Gaza attacks will go on. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-­east/israel-­warns-­gaza-­ attacks-­will-­go-­on-­1216843.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Stephen Foley. New York. 30 December 2008b. White House blames Hamas for Gaza violence. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/world/ americas/white-­h ouse-­b lames-­h amas-­f or-­g aza-­v iolence-­1 216302.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). PA. 30 December 2008. Hundreds in London Israeli embassy protests. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-­news/hundreds-­in-­london-­ israeli-­embassy-­protests-­1217704.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019).

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Donald Macintyre. 30 December 2008b. Now Israel declares ‘war to the bitter end’. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-­ east/now-­israel-­declares-­war-­to-­the-­bitter-­end-­1216220.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Donald Macintyre. 30 December 2008c. Five sisters killed in Gaza while they slept. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-­ east/five-­sisters-­killed-­in-­gaza-­while-­they-­slept-­1216224.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Sami Abdel-Shafi. 30 December 2008. Sami Abdel-Shafi: Israel puts security before peace. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/commentators/ sami-­abdel-­shafi-­israel-­puts-­security-­before-­peace-­1216229.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Robert Fisk. 30 December 2008c. Why bombing Ashkelon is the most tragic irony. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/ fisk/robert-­why-­bombing-­ashkelon-­is-­the-­most-­tragic-­irony-­1216228.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Ben Lynfield. 30 December 2008b. Three Israelis killed as Hamas launches revenge attacks. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/ middle-­east/three-­israelis-­killed-­as-­hamas-­launches-­revenge-­attacks-­1216226. html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Ben Russell. 30 December 2008. Blair visits Middle East amid pressure to broker ceasefire. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/ politics/blair-­visits-­middle-­east-­amid-­pressure-­to-­broker-­ceasefire-­1216227. html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Kim Sengupta. Jerusalem. 31 December 2008. Israel ordered to allow journalists into Gaza. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/ middle-­east/israel-­o rdered-­t o-­allow-­j ournalists-­i nto-­gaza-­1219795.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Andy Philip & PA. 31 December 2008. Brown calls for Gaza ceasefire. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-­east/ brown-­calls-­for-­gaza-­ceasefire-­5460962.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Robert Bex & PA. 31 December 2008. Embassy protesters chant for justice in Gaza. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-­ east/embassy-­protesters-­chant-­for-­justice-­in-­gaza-­1219455.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Reuters. 31 December 2008c. Britain pledges $10m in emergency aid to Gaza. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-­east/ britain-­pledges-­10m-­in-­emergency-­aid-­to-­gaza-­5460987.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Robert Fisk. 31 December 2008d. Robert Fisk: The self delusion that plagues both sides in this bloody. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/

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voices/commentators/fisk/robert-­self-­delusion-­that-­plagues-­both-­sides-­in-­ this-­bloody-­conflict-­1218224.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Rupert Cornwell. 31 December 2008. Obama maintains silence in first major test. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/ obama-­maintains-­silence-­in-­first-­major-­test-­1218223.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Fares Akram. 31 December 2008. Fares Akram: As waves of F-16s swoop, Gaza is no place to be nine. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/ commentators/fares-­akram-­waves-­f-­16s-­swoop-­gaza-­is-­no-­place-­to-­be-­nine-­ months-­pregnant-­1218222.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Ben Lynfield. 31 December 2008c. Israelis mourn rocket victim and unite against Hamas. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/ middle-­east/israelis-­mourn-­rocket-­victim-­and-­unite-­against-­hamas-­1218221. html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Ann Penketh. 31 December 2008. Pressure grows on Israel for ceasefire. The  Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-­ east/pressure-grows-­on-­israel-­for-­ceasefire-­1218217.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Ibrahim Barzak & Amy Tiebel & AP. 01 January 2009. Hamas leader killed amid escalating offensive. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/ n e w s / w o r l d / m i d d l e -­e a s t / h a m a s -­l e a d e r-­k i l l e d -­a m i d -­e s c a l a t i n g -­ offensive-­1220461.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Donald Macintyre. 01 January 2009a. Israel defies peacemakers and prepares for invasion. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/ middle-­east/israel-­defies-­peacemakers-­and-­prepares-­for-­invasion-­1220046. html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Reuters. 04 January 2009a. Egypt condemns Israeli ground offensive in Gaza. The Independent. ­(https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-­east/ egypt-­condemns-­israeli-­ground-­offensive-­in-­gaza-­1225050.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). AP. 04 January 2009a. Israeli forces bisect Gaza and surround biggest city. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-­east/ israeli-­forces-­bisect-­gaza-­and-­surround-­biggest-­city-­1224897.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Donald Macintyre. 04 January 2009b. Israel invades Gaza: Heavy fighting as tanks cross border. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/ world/middle-­e ast/israel-­i nvades-­g aza-­h eavy-­f ighting-­a s-­t anks-­c ross-­ border-­1224470.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). 05 January 2009. Mapping the crisis in Gaza. The Independent. (https://www. independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/mapping-the-crisis-ingaza-­1226554.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019).

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Leonard Doyle. Washington. 05 January 2009. Obama holds silence over Gaza. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/ obama-­holds-­silence-­over-­gaza-­1225992.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Donald Macintyre. 05 January 2009c. Donald Macintyre: Is regime change the ultimate goal? The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/donald-­macintyre-­is-­regime-­change-­the-­ultimate-­goal-­1225797. html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Robert Fisk. 05 January 2009a. Robert Fisk: Keeping out the cameras and reporters simply doesn’t work. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/ voices/commentators/fisk/robert-­keeping-­out-­the-­cameras-­and-­reporters-­ simply-­doesnt-­work-­1225800.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Agencies. 06 January 2009. ‘Concerned’ Obama breaks silence on Gaza. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/ concerned-­obama-­breaks-­silence-­on-­gaza-­1229575.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). AP. 06 January 2009b. Fifth Israeli soldier killed in Gaza. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-­e ast/fifth-­i sraeli-­ soldier-­killed-­in-­gaza-­1228755.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Said Ghazali & Donald Macintyre. Jerusalem. 06 January 2009. Two strikes, and another family lay buried in rubble. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-­east/two-­strikes-­and-­another-­family-­lay-­ buried-­in-­rubble-­1228136.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Donald Macintyre. 06 January 2009d. Hamas takes fight to the streets of Gaza. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-­east/ hamas-­takes-­fight-­to-­the-­streets-­of-­gaza-­1228134.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Reuters. 07 January 2009b. Gaza clashes resume after truce. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-­east/gaza-­clashes-­ resume-­after-­truce-­1230406.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). 07 January 2009. Sderot faces increased rocket attacks. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/sderot-faces-­ increased-rocket-attacks-1230845.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Andrew Woodcock & PA. 07 January 2009. Clegg urges Israel arms exports ban. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ clegg-­urges-­israel-­arms-­exports-­ban-­1230445.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Robert Fisk. 07 January 2009b. Robert Fisk: Why do they hate the West so much, we will ask. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/fisk/robert-­w hy-­d o-­t hey-­h ate-­t he-­w est-­s o-­m uch-­w e-­w ill-­ ask-­1230046.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Donald Macintyre. 07 January 2009e. Massacre of innocents as UN school is shelled. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-­

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east/massacre-­of-­innocents-­as-­un-­school-­is-­shelled-­1230045.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Donald Macintyre. 07 January 2009f. Donald Macintyre: So what will it take for Israel to stop fighting? The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/ voices/commentators/donald-­macintyre-­so-­what-­will-­it-­take-­for-­israel-­to-­ stop-­fighting-­1230043.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Nidal al-Mughrabi & Reuters. 08 January 2009. Israel accused over access to Gaza victims. (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-­east/israel-­accused-­ over-­access-­to-­gaza-­victims-­1232397.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Fares Akram. 08 January 2009. Fares Akram: Three fleeting hour of respite; so we rushed out looking for bread. The Independent. (https://www.independent. co.uk/voices/commentators/fares-­akram-­three-­fleeting-­hours-­of-­respite-­so-­ we-­rushed-­out-­looking-­for-­bread-­1232058.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Kim Sengupta. 08 January 2009. Babies cling to life in stricken hospital. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-­east/ babies-­cling-­to-­life-­in-­stricken-­hospital-­1232056.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). Donald Macintyre. 08 January 2009g. Bombs rain down as peace deal accepted ‘in principle’. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/ middle-­east/bombs-­rain-­down-­as-­peace-­deal-­accepted-­in-­principle-­1232055. html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). AP. 09 January 2009c. Gaza hopes die under barrage from both sides. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/gaza-­hopes-­die-­under-­ barrage-­from-­both-­sides-­1242976.html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). David Usborne. New York. 09 January 2009. UN demands immediate ceasefire in Gaza Strip. The Independent. (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/ world/politics/un-­d emands-­i mmediate-­c easefire-­i n-­g aza-­s trip-­1 242582. html) (Accessed on 27/10/2019). 18 December 2008. Israel threatens Gaza incursion as Hamas violence flares. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/ middleeast/israel/3831230/israel-threatens-Gaza-incursion-as-Hamasviolence-­flares.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). 26 December 2008. Palestinian rocket kills two Gaza schoolgirls. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/ israel/3966259/Palestinian-rocket-kills-two-Gaza-schoolgirls.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Tim Butcher. Jerusalem. 26 December 2008a. Egypt bolsters border amid fears of Israeli attack on Gaza. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/egypt/3966231/Egypt-­bolsters-­ border-­amid-­fears-­of-­Israeli-­attack-­on-­Gaza.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). David Blair. 27 December 2008a. Israeli leaders face crucial choice in Gaza. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middlee-

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ast/israel/3982508/Israeli-­l eaders-­f ace-­c rucial-­c hoice-­i n-­G aza.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Tim Butcher. Jerusalem. 28 December 2008b. Israel poised for ground assault as it calls up 6,500 troops. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/3999857/Israel-­p oised-­f or-­g round-­ assault-­as-­it-­calls-­up-­6500-­troops.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Tim Butcher. Jerusalem. 28 December 2008c. Gaza buries its dead as the bombing continues. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/3999673/Gaza-­buries-­its-­dead-­as-­the-­bombing-­ continues.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). David Blair. 28 December 2008a. Analysis: Israeli politics lies behind Gaza attacks. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/3999523/Amalysis-­Israeli-­politics-­lies-­behind-­Gaza-­atttacks. html) (Accessed 28/10/2019). Tim Butcher. Jerusalem. 28 December 2008d. Israel launches more raids as Gaza death toll rises. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ worldnews/middleeast/palestinianauthority/3983336/Israel-­launches-­more-­ raids-­as-­Gaza-­death-­toll-­rises.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Tim Butcher. Jerusalem. 29 December 2008e. Israel pounds Gaza in preparation for ground assault. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4008468/Israel-­p ounds-­G aza-­i n-­ preparation-­for-­ground-­assault.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Tim Butcher. Jerusalem. 29 December 2008f. ‘All out war’ declares Israel as it pounds Hamas in Gaza. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4014767/All-­out-­war-­declares-­Israel-­as-­ it-­pounds-­Hamas-­in-­Gaza.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Andrew Wander. Beirut. 29 December 2008. Israel faces threat of Gaza conflict spreading to northern frontier with Lebanon. The Daily Telegraph. (https:// www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4013913/Israel-­ faces-­threat-­of-­Gaza-­conflict-­spreading-­to-­northern-­frontier-­with-­Lebanon. html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). David Blair. 29 December 2008b. Gaza conflict: A president caught between his people and Western allies. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4014768/Gaza-­conflict-­A-­president-­ caught-­between-­his-­people-­and-­Western-­allies.html) (Accessed 28/10/2019). Tim Butcher & Toby Harnden. Jerusalem & Washington. 29 December 2008a. Israel declares ‘war to the bitter end’ as death toll rises. The Daily Telegraph. ( h t t p s : / / w w w. t e l e g r a p h . c o . u k / n e w s / w o r l d n e w s / m i d d l e e a s t / israel/4016432/Israel-­declares-­war-­to-­the-­bitter-­end-­as-­death-­toll-­rises.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). 29 December 2008. Gaza attacks: Israeli strikes spark protests across world. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/

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middleeast/israel/4016850/Gaza-attacks-Israeli-strikes-sparl-protests-acrossworld.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Tim Butcher. Jerusalem. 30 December 2008g. Witnesses describe horror of Gaza attacks as Israeli air strike kills two girls. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www. telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/palestinianauthority/4032280/Witnesses-­describe-­horror-­of-­Gaza-­attacks-­as-­Israeli-­air-­strike-­ kills-­children.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Tim Butcher & Toby Harnden. Jerusalem & Washington. 30 December 2008b. Israel embarks on fourth day of Gaza attacks. The Daily Telegraph. (https:// www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4019017/Israel-­ embarks-­on-­fourth-­day-­of-­Gaza-­attacks.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). David Blair. 30 December 2008b. Analysis: Israel’s assault on Gaza continues but the goal is not to overthrow Hamas. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/palestinianauthority/4031143/ Analysis-­Israels-­asault-­on-­Gaza-­continues-­but-­the-­goal-­is-­not-­to-­overthrow-­ Hamas.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Dina Kraft. Tel Aviv. 30 December 2008. Hamas continues to bombard Israel with rockets. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/palestinianauthority/4031994/Hamas-­c ontinues-­t o-­ bobard-­Israel-­with-­rockets.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). 30 December 2008. Israel has left the peace process in ruins. The Daily Telegraph. ( h t t p s : / / w w w. t e l e g r a p h . c o . u k / n e w s / w o r l d n e w s / m i d d l e e a s t / israel/4031326/Israel-has-left-the-peace-process-in-ruins.html) (Accessed on 28/10/19). Tim Butcher. Jerusalem. 30 December 2008h. Israel mulls ‘aid window’ and 48-hour Gaza ceasefire but continues pressure on Hamas. The Daily Telegraph. ( h t t p s : / / w w w. t e l e g r a p h . c o . u k / n e w s / w o r l d n e w s / m i d d l e e a s t / israel/4031396/Israel-­mulls-­aid-­window-­and-­48-­hour-­Gaza-­ceasefire-­but-­ continues-­pressure-­on-­Hamas.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Tim Butcher. Jerusalem. 31 December 2008i. Gaza attacks continue as Brown warns of ‘humanitarian crisis’. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph. co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4046500/Gaza-­attacks-­continue-­ as-­Brown-­warns-­of-­humanitarian-­crisis.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Ron Prosor. 31 December 2008. Hamas is the obstacle to Middle East peace. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/4045000/Hamas-­ is-­the-­obstacle-­to-­Middle-­East-­peace.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Tim Butcher. Jerusalem. 31 December 2008j. Gaza truce hopes fade as Israel rejects ceasefire calls. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ news/4044260/Gaza-­truce-­hopes-­fade-­as-­ISrael-­rejects-­ceasefire-­calls.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). 31 December 2008. Gaza conflict: Diplomatic pressure increases on Israel to halt attacks. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/

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worldnews/middleeast/israel/4043647/Gaza-conflict-Diplomatic-pressureincreases-­on-Israel-to-halt-attacks.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). 31 December 2008. Gaza conflict: £7.5m in emergency aid pledged by Britain. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/ middleeast/israel/4043670/Gaza-conflict-7.5m-in-emergency-aid-pledgedby-Britain.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). 31 December 2008. Israeli military post footage of Gaza attacks on YouTube. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/ middleeast/israel/4032360/Israeli-military-post-footage-of-Gaza-attacks-on-­ YouTube.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Tim Butcher. Jerusalem. 01 January 2009a. Israel accused of downplaying food crisis. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/ middleeast/israel/4060914/Israel-­accused-­of-­downplaying-­food-­crisis.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Tim Butcher. Jerusalem. 01 January 2009b. Gaza ground invasion looks likely as weather clears. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ worldnews/middleeast/israel/4059586/Gaza-­ground-­invasion-­looks-­likely-­ as-­weather-­clears.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Tim Butcher. Israel’s Erez crossing into Gaza. 02 January 2009c. Gaza health risk as sewage floods streets as Israeli attacks continue. The Daily Telegraph. (https:// www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4076787/Gaza-­ health-­risk-­as-­sewage-­floods-­streets-­as-­Israeli-­attacks-­continue.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Tim Butcher. Jerusalem. 02 January 2009d. Hamas vows ‘Day of Wrath’ to avenge death of leader. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ worldnews/middleeast/israel/4075974/Hamas-­v ows-­D ay-­o f-­Wrath-­t o-­ avenge-­death-­of-­leader.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Tim Butcher & agencies. Jerusalem. 02 January 2009. Israel bombs Gaza for seventh day after killing Hamas leader. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4071272/ Israel-­b ombs-­G aza-­f ro-­s eventh-­d ay-­a fter-­k illing-­H amas-­l eader.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Tim Butcher. Jerusalem. 03 January 2009e. Israeli tanks roll into Gaza to halt Hamas rocket attacks. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4093389/Israeli-­tanks-­roll-­into-­Gaza-­ to-­halt-­Hamas-­rocket-­attacks.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Dina Kraft & Angus McDowall. Tel Aviv. 03 January 2009. Gaza: Hamas relishing chance to take on Israeli forces. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/palestinianauthority/4093390/ Gaza-­Hamas-­relishing-­chance-­to-­take-­on-­Israeli-­forces.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019).

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Sir Malcolm Rifkind. 03 January 2009. Hamas rockets block the birth of a Palestinian state. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/4092665/ Hamas-­blocks-­the-­birth-­of-­a-­Palestinian-­state.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Tim Butcher. Jerusalem. 03 January 2009f. Israel invades Gaza in attempt to destroy Hamas. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ worldnews/middleeast/palestinianauthority/4093083/Israel-­invades-­Gaza-­ in-­attempt-­to-­destroy-­Hamas.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). 03 January 2009. Israel raises military stakes with artillery barrage into Gaza Strip. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middle east/palestinianauthority/4092719/Israel-raises-militar y-stakes-with-­ artillery-barrage-into-Gaza-Strip.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Dina Kraft. Tel Aviv. 03 January 2009. Hamas aims rockets with eye to future deals. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/palestinianauthority/4092596/Hamas-­a ims-­r ockets-­with-­e ye-­to-­ future-­deals.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Tim Butcher. Jerusalem. 03 January 2009g. Israeli leaders gamble all on Gaza invasion. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4092577/Israeli-­l eaders-­g amble-­a ll-­o n-­G aza-­ invasion.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). 03 January 2009. Bush: Hamas to blame for Gaza crisis. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/ 4078022/Bush-Hamas-to-blame-for-Gaza-crisis.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). 04 January 2009. Israel takes on Hamas in Gaza: what they said. The Daily Telegraph. ­(https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/ israel/4109990/Israel-takes-on-Hamas-in-Gaza-what-they-said.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Alex Spillius. Washington. 04 January 2009. Bush gives Israel diplomatic support over Gaza offensive. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/4109746/Bush-­gives-­Israel-­diplomatic-­ support-­over-­Gaza-­offensive.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Tim Butcher. Israel-Gaza border. 04 January 2009h. Israeli tanks and infantry slice the Gaza Strip in two in battle against Hamas. The Daily Telegraph. ( h t t p s : / / w w w. t e l e g r a p h . c o . u k / n e w s / w o r l d n e w s / m i d d l e e a s t / israel/4109466/Israeli-­tanks-­and-­infantry-­slice-­the-­Gaza-­Strip-­in-­two-­in-­ battle-­against-­Hamas.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Tim Butcher. Israel-Gaza border. 04 January 2009i. How Israel attacked Hamas in Gaza. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/4109259/ How-­Israel-­attacked-­Hamas-­in-­Gaza.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Tim Butcher. Israel-Gaza border. 04 January 2009j. Israel consolidates ground attack on Gaza. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/

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worldnews/middleeast/israel/4108520/Israel-­consolidates-­ground-­attack-­ in-­Gaza.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). 04 January 2009. Gaza siege: Fierce fighting as Israel’s troops battle Hamas in the streets. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ worldnews/middleeast/israel/4107109/Gaza-siege-Fierce-fighting-asIsraels-troops-battle-Hamas-in-the-streets.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Phil Sherwell. New York. 04 January 2009. Barack Obama: Gaza crisis will not distract from fixing America’s economy. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www. telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/4094031/Barack-­Obama-­ Gaza-­crisis-­will-­not-­distract-­from-­fixing-­Americas-­economy.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Damien McElroy. Jerusalem. 05 January 2009a. Street battles break out in Gaza City. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/ middleeast/palestinianauthority/4127652/Street-­battles-­break-­out-­in-­Gaza-­ City.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Damien McElroy. Jerusalem. 05 January 2009b. Israel rebuffs a series of calls for a ceasefire. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4127153/Israel-­r ebuffs-­a -­s eries-­o f-­c alls-­f or-­ ceasefire.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Damien McElroy. Jerusalem. 05 January. Israel drawn into gunbattles in the streets of Gaza. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ worldnews/middleeast/israel/4126547/Israel-drawn-into-gunbattles-in-thestreets-of-Gaza.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Damien McElroy & Tim Butcher. Jerusalem & Israel-Gaza border. 05 January 2009a. Israeli troops close in on Hamas stronghold. The Daily Telegraph. ­( h t t p s : / / w w w. t e l e g r a p h . c o . u k / n e w s / w o r l d n e w s / m i d d l e e a s t / israel/4124028/Israeli-­t roops-­c lose-­i n-­o n-­H amas-­s tronghold.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). 05 January 2009. Israeli forces kill five Palestinian children in Gaza. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/ israel/4123767/Israeli-forces-kill-five-Palestinian-children-in-Gaza.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Tim Butcher. Israel-Gaza border. 05 January 2009k. Israeli tanks push deeper into Gaza Strip in battle against Hamas. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4110688/Israeli-­tanks-­ push-­deeper-­into-­Gaza-­Strip-­in-­battle-­against-­Hamas.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Damien McElroy & Tim Butcher. Jerusalem. 06 January 2009b. Civilian deaths in Gaza put Israel under huge pressure to halt attacks. The Daily Telegraph. ( h t t p s : / / w w w. t e l e g r a p h . c o . u k / n e w s / w o r l d n e w s / m i d d l e e a s t / israel/4143861/Civilian-­deaths-­in-­Gaza-­put-­Israel-­under-­huge-­pressure-­to-­ halt-­attacks.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019).

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Tim Butcher. Jerusalem. 06 January 2009l. Israel strike kills up to 60 members of one family. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4143303/Israel-­strike-­kills-­up-­to-­60-­members-­of-­ one-­family.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Damien McElroy. Jerusalem. 06 January 2009c. Israel kills 30 in attack on UN school in Gaza. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ worldnews/middleeast/israel/4142493/Israel-­kills-­30-­in-­attack-­on-­UN-­ school-­in-­Gaza.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Colin Freeman. Gaza. 06 January. Inside Gaza’s secret smuggling tunnels, the underground route to riches  – or to death. The Daily Telegraph. (https:// www.telegraph.co.uk/news/3089338/Inside-Gazas-secret-smugglingtunnels-­the-underground-route-to-riches-or-to-death.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). 06 January 2009. Israeli strike on UN-run school in Gaza kills 40. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/ israel/4141828/Israeli-strike-on-UN-run-school-in-Gaza-kills-40.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Tim Butcher. Jerusalem. 06 January 2009m. ‘Friendly-fire’ deaths test Israel’s will in Gaza offensive against Hamas. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4140744/Friendly-­fire-­ deaths-­tests-­Israels-­will-­in-­Gaza-­offensive-­against-­Hamas.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Damien McElroy. Jerusalem. 06 January 2009d. Israeli forces enter Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ news/worldnews/middleeast/palestinianauthority/4139710/Israeli-­forces-­ enter-­Khan-­Younis-­refugee-­camp-­in-­Gaza.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Damien McElroy. Jerusalem. 06 January 2009e. Israeli tanks enter southern Gaza’s largest city. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/palestinianauthority/4136667/Israeli-­t anks-­e nter-­ southern-­Gazas-­largest-­city.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Damien McElroy. Jerusalem. 06 January 2009f. Israeli soldiers killed by ‘friendly fire’ in Gaza. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ worldnews/middleeast/palestinianauthority/4128089/Israeli-­soldiers-­killed-­ by-­friendly-­fire-­in-­Gaza.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2009). Tom Leonard. New  York. 07 January 2009. Israel faces deluge of criticism over Gaza at UN. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ worldnews/middleeast/israel/4163135/Israel-­faces-­deluge-­of-­criticism-­over-­ Gaza-­at-­UN.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). David Blair. 07 January 2009a. Israel faces long road out of Gaza. The Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/4163028/Israel-­faces-­long-­road-­out-­ of-­Gaza.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019).

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Tim Butcher. Jerusalem. 07 January 2009n. Israel accepts outline deal on Gaza ceasefire. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/4162923/ Israel-­accepts-­outline-­deal-­on-­Gaza-­ceasefire.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Tim Butcher. Jerusalem. 07 January 2009o. Gaza medics describe horror of strike which killed 70. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ worldnews/middleeast/israel/4162193/Gaza-­medics-­describe-­horror-­of-­ strike-­which-­killed-­70.html) (Assessed on 28/10/2019). Tim Butcher. Jerusalem. 07 January 2009p. Gaza ceasefire hopes as Israel halts attacks. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4161598/Gaza-­c easefire-­h opes-­a s-­I srael-­h alts-­ attacks.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Damien McElroy. Jerusalem. 07 January 2009g. Israel to open humanitarian corridor in Gaza Strip. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4148013/Israel-­to-­open-­humanitarian-­ corridor-­in-­Gaza-­Strip.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Damien McElroy & Tom Leonard. Jerusalem & New  York. 08 January 2009. Gaza ceasefire hopes dashed amid more killing. The Daily Telegraph. (https:// www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4177817/Gaza-­ ceasefire-­hopes-­dashed-­amid-­more-­killing.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). 08 January 2009. Israel condemned by Red Cross over wounded. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/4175880/Israel-­condemnedby-Red-Cross-over-wounded.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). 08 January 2009. Israel bombs ‘smuggling tunnels’ in southern Gaza. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/ israel/4165264/Israel-bombs-smuggling-tunnels-in-southern-Gaza.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Tim Butcher. Jerusalem. 08 January 2009q. Israel resumes Gaza bombing after first truce. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/4165480/ Israel-­resumes-­Gaza-­bombing-­after-­first-­truce.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Tim Butcher. Jerusalem. 09 January 2009r. Gaza bombing witnesses describe horror of Israeli strike. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ worldnews/middleeast/israel/4209550/Gaza-­bombing-­witnesses-­describe-­ horror-­of-­Israeli-­strike.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Damien McElroy. Jerusalem. 09 January 2009h. Israeli strikes intensify despite ceasefire resolution. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ news/4209304/Israeli-­strikes-­intensify-­despite-­ceasefire-­r esolution.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). David Blair. 09 January 2009b. America found itself caught between Britain and Israel over Gaza. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ worldnews/middleeast/israel/4208207/America-­f ound-­i tself-­c aught-­ between-­Britain-­and-­Israel-­over-­Gaza.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Damien McElroy. Jerusalem. 09 January 2009i. Israel bombed Gaza ‘safe’ house full of evacuees, says UN. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/

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news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4206913/Israel-­bombed-­G aza-­safe-­ house-­full-­off-­evacuees-­says-­UN.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Damien McElroy. Sa’ad on the Israel-Gaza border. 10 January 2009j. Gaza children suffer as Israel fights Hamas. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4213848/ Gaza-­children-­suffer-­as-­Israel-­fights-­Hamas.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Damien McElroy. Sa’ad on the Israel-Gaza border. 10 January 2009k. Israel warns of imminent escalation of war on Hamas in Gaza. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/palestinianauthority/4213398/Israel-­warns-­of-­imminent-­escalation-­of-­war-­on-­Hamas-­in-­ Gaza.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). 10 January 2009. Israeli troops close in on Gaza City. The Daily Telegraph. ( h t t p s : / / w w w. t e l e g r a p h . c o . u k / n e w s / w o r l d n e w s / m i d d l e e a s t / israel/4212956/Israeli-troops-close-in-on-Gaza-City.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Damien McElroy. Jerusalem. 11 January 2009l. Israel ‘close to destroying military wing of Hamas’. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ worldnews/middleeast/israel/4218348/Israel-­close-­to-­destroying-­military-­ wing-­of-­Hamas.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Tim Butcher. Ramallah. 11 January 2009s. Injured Gaza Palestinians unable to receive hospital treatment. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4218274/Injured-­Gaza-­Palestinians-­ unable-­to-­receive-­hospital-­treatment.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Damien McElroy. Jerusalem. 11 January 2009m. Israel accused of using illegal white phosphorous shells in Gaza. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4218237/Israel-­accused-­of-­using-­illegal-­ white-­phosphorous-­shells-­in-­Gaza.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Damien McElroy & Dina Kraft. Jerusalem & Ashdod. 12 January 2009. Israeli troops move into Gaza City as talks are held up. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www. telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4224105/Israeli-­troops-­ move-­into-­Gaza-­City-­as-­talks-­are-­held-­up.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Tim Butcher. Tel Aviv. 13 January 2009t. Israeli soldiers shocked by tunnel network. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4229042/Israeli-­soldiers-­shocked-­by-­tunnel-­network.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Damien McElroy. Jerusalem. 14 January 2009n. Palestinian death toll in Gaza over 1,000. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4240950/Palestinian-­death-­toll-­in-­Gaza-­over-­1000. html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Martin Beckford. 14 January 2009. Catholic bishop says Gaza is an ‘open prison’. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/4240980/ Catholic-­bishop-­says-­Gaza-­is-­an-­open-­prison.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019).

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Tim Butcher. Jerusalem. 14 January 2009u. Gaza doctor describes horrific child injuries. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/4240343/ Gaza-­doctor-­describes-­horrific-­child-­injuries.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Damien McElroy. Jerusalem. 14 January 2009o. Israel prepares for ceasefire but threatens full-scale invasion. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph. co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4241399/Israel-­prepares-­for-­ ceasefire-­but-­threatens-­full-­scale-­invasion.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Tom Whitehead & Martin Beckford. 15 January 2009. Gaza conflict could fuel radicalization in UK, Home Office fears. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www. telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/4248951/Gaza-­c onflict-­c ould-­f uel-­ radicalisation-­in-­UK-­Home-­Office-­fears.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Tim Butcher. Jerusalem. 15 January 2009v. Israel kills senior Hamas leader in Gaza. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4248889/Israel-­kills-­senior-­Hamas-­leader-­in-­Gaza. html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Tim Butcher. Jerusalem. 15 January 2009w. Israeli strikes hit Gaza hospitals and UN aid headquarters. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4247659/Israeli-­s trikes-­h it-­G aza-­ hospitals-­and-­UN-­aid-­headquarters.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Damien McElroy. Jerusalem. 15 January 2009p. Israel and Hamas under increased pressure to agree Gaza ceasefire. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph. co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4243844/Israel-­a nd-­H amas-­ under-­increased-­pressure-­to-­agree-­Gaza-­ceasefire.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Damien McElroy. Jerusalem. 16 January 2009q. Gaza conflict in ‘final act’ as Hamas and Israel edge closer to ceasefire. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www. telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4269587/Gaza-­ conflict-­i n-­f inal-­a ct-­a s-­H amas-­a nd-­I srael-­e dge-­c loser-­t o-­c easefire.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Damien McElroy & Sean Rayment. Jerusalem. 17 January 2009a. Israel declares Gaza ceasefire but Hamas still defiant. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www. telegraph.co.uk/news/4280232/Israel-­declares-­Gaza-­ceasefire-­but-­Hamas-­ still-­defiant.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Tim Butcher. Jerusalem. 17 January 2009x. Israel’s assault will leave a festering wound of resentment. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4280073/Israels-­assault-­will-­leave-­a-­ festering-­wound-­of-­resentment.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Damien McElroy & Sean Rayment. Jerusalem. 18 January 2009b. Hamas and Israel exchange further attacks in Gaza, just hours after the declaration of a ceasefire. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/ middleeast/israel/4282135/Hamas-­and-­Israel-­exchange-­further-­attacks-­in-­ Gaza-­despite-­ceasefire.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019).

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18 January 2009. Israel must let aid workers into Gaza, urges Britain. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/ israel/4282450/Israel-must-let-aid-workers-into-Gaza-urges-Britain.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Damien McElroy. Jerusalem. 18 January 2009r. Hamas agrees Gaza ceasefire as Israeli troops withdraw. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4284748/Hamas-­agrees-­Gaza-­ceasefire-­ as-­Israeli-­troops-­withdraw.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Tim Butcher. Gaza City. 18 January 2009y. Gaza City: a scene of destruction as ceasefire signals end of Israeli offensive. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www. telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4285332/Gaza-­City-­a-­ scene-­o f-­d estruction-­a s-­c easefire-­s ignals-­e nd-­o f-­I sraeli-­o ffensive.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Tim Butcher. Zeitoun, Gaza. 19 January 2009z. Gaza: Palestinian family mourns 48 dead. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/palestinianauthority/4290553/Gaza-­Palestinian-­family-­ mourns-­48-­dead.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). David Blair. 19 January 2009c. Analysis: Hamas did not win conflict but did Israel? The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4291500/Analysos-­Hamas-­did-­not-­win-­conflict-­but-­did-­Israel. html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Damien McElroy. Jerusalem. 19 January 2009s. Hamas declares victory in Gaza but vows to rearm against Israel. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph. co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4292804/Hamas-­d eclares-­ victory-­in-­Gaza-­but-­vow-­to-­rearm-­against-­Israel.html) (Accessed 28/10/2019). Damien McElroy. Jerusalem. 19 January 2009t. Hamas declares victory in Gaza claiming it lost only 48 fighters. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph. co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4288511/Hamas-­d eclares-­ victory-­in-­Gaza-­claiming-­it-­lost-­only-­48-­fighters.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Damien McElroy. Jerusalem. 19 January 2009u. Calm returns to Gaza Strip as Israeli troops withdraw. The Daily Telegraph. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4287054/Calm-­returns-­to-­Gaza-­Strip-­ as-­Israeli-­troops-­withdraw.html) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). 25 December 2008. Pope appeals for peace in Middle East against backdrop of violence. The Times. (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/pope-appeals-for-­ peace-in-middle-east-against-backdrop-of-violence-tvhvc2m9rxk) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). David Byers & James Hider. Jerusalem. 28 December 2009. Israel Gaza blitz kills 290, as ground troops mobilise. The Times. (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/israel-­g aza-­b litz-­k ills-­2 90-­a s-­g round-­t roops-­m obilise-­t p070tjstn6) (Accessed 28/10/2019).

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Marie Colvin, Tony Allen-Mills & Uzi Mahnaimi. Tel Aviv. 28 December 2008. Israeli jets kill ‘at least 225’ in strikes on Gaza. The Times. (https://www.thet i m e s . c o . u k / a r t i c l e / i s r a e l i -­j e t s -­k i l l -­a t -­l e a s t -­2 2 5 -­i n -­s t r i k e s -­o n -­ gaza-­7vxt2pmrb39) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Gerard Baker. 02 January 2009. Don’t expect Obama to get tough with Israel. The Times. (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/dont-­expect-­obama-­to-­get-­ tough-­with-­israel-­t25zn3gzjtr) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). James Hider. Beersheba. Hamas leader killed in airstrike as Israelis reject ceasefire call. The Times. (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hamas-leader-killedin-airstrike-­as-israelis-reject-ceasefire-call-csmjpg0lj83) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Daniel Finkelstein. 07 January 2009. Israel acts because the world won’t defend it. The Times. (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/israel-­acts-­because-­the-­ world-­wont-­defend-­it-­26h3b9t0qfr) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Richard Owen. Rome. 08 January 2009. ‘Concentration camp’ remark threatens Pope’s visit to Israel. The Times. (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ concentration-­c amp-­r emark-­t hreatens-­p opes-­v isit-­t o-­i srael-­p tw2299tlcd) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Corelli Barnett. 08 January 2009. Victory through air attack? It’s pie in the sky. The Times. (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/victory-­through-­air-­attack-­its-­ pie-­in-­the-­sky-­52c8q39b0nk) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Patrick Foster. 26 January 2009. BBC rejects please of 50 MPs and 11,000 viewers over broadcast. The Times. (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/bbc-­rejects-­ please-­of-­50-­mps-­and-­11000-­viewers-­over-­broadcast-­k9qpzqq7lqb) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Andrew Roberts. 26 January 2009. The charities are guilty, not the BBC. The Times. (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-­charities-­are-­guilty-­not-­the-­ bbc-­dk3qpb8gkht) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). James Hider & Sheera Frankel. Jerusalem & Gaza City. 27 January 2009a. US Middle East envoy George Mitchell heads straight for Israel. The Times. (https:// www.thetimes.co.uk/article/us-­middle-­east-­envoy-­george-­mitchell-­heads-­ straight-­for-­israel-­pvprc827cfj) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). 28 January 2009. Politics and charities are uneasy bedfellows. The Times. (https:// www.thetimes.co.uk/article/politics-and-charities-are-uneasy-bedfellowsgzfxqtlww8w) (Accessed 28/10/2019). James Hider & Sheera Frankel. Jerusalem & Gaza City. 28 January 2009b. Hamas roadside bomb shakes fragile ceasefire with Israel. The Times. (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hamas-­r oadside-­b omb-­s hakes-­f ragile-­c easefire-­w ith-­ israel-­056wt3kq7w8) (Accessed on 28/10/2019). Philip Webster. 31 January 2009. Hamas must be brought into peace process, says Tony Blair. (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hamas-­must-­be-­brought-­into-­ peace-­process-­says-­tony-­blair-­b0mwnnbmml3) (Accessed on 28/10/2019).

CHAPTER 4

Media Censorship in the Reporting of the Palestinian-Israeli ‘Conflict’

Nothing…can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper Huxley (See Huxley (1959) 1994, p. 46.)

4.1   Media Censorship The subject of censorship is an old one that has come to the fore once more in recent years because of the internet and the various ways in which governments are trying to control it. Prior to this, the word had largely fallen into disuse in the Western ‘democratic’ world except when referring to the regimes of ‘others’. Although in reality censorship is used to varying degrees in all types of governments, there is no doubt that censorship has become rife in democracies and dictatorships alike. Censorship can influence a journalist and their reporting and “journalists have historically seen censorship as the primary force opposing their role as critical watchdogs who hold power accountable by publishing uncomfortable truths” (Ananny in Boczkowski and Anderson 2017, p. 135). There are various types of censorship and numerous reasons or justifications given for its use. The most obvious of these is the suppression of communication, speech and the dissemination of information by governments or other influential groups. The reasons given for such censorship vary from the information being considered harmful, offensive, and politically incorrect or a threat to national security. In some instances, the above reasons are falsely given for censorship that is motivated by © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 N. R. Sirhan, Reporting Palestine-Israel in British Newspapers, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17072-1_4

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other factors such as the desire to conceal information from the public or the desire to influence public thought. Censorship is of two types, direct and indirect. Direct censorship includes harassment, intimidation, arrests and violence towards journalists, threat of or actual lawsuits, criminalisation and the imposition of gag laws. Governments can limit access to public officials, they can restrict licences to journalists or media companies,1 they can pass laws to restrict the media and they can arrest journalists. Israel, for example, routinely withdraws the visas of journalists whose reporting they consider to be not in line with the image Israel wants to project to the rest of the world. These practices have been described as undemocratic and “an attack on all critical independent journalism” (Al-Jazeera 2017). Other forms of direct censorship can take the form of surveillance of journalists and media companies, controlling or blocking content, and the bribing or pressuring of members of media companies (journalists, editors and even the owners). Governments may also put pressure higher up the chain in a media company so that dissenting editors and journalists are fired. Indirect censorship, as its name suggests, is less direct and therefore less visible. It includes, for example, such things as: controlling access to credit or subsidies; conferring preferential treatment; controlling access to stories, equipment and newsprint; exerting financial pressures through taxes and fines; restricting who is allowed to own and control the media; and heavily ‘influencing’ journalists to censor themselves. It can also include the purchase of media companies by covert government agencies or proxies; creating fake news sites; having people who work for the government masquerading as private citizens blogging or in chat rooms and promoting the ‘government’ narrative (colloquially known as ‘shills’); government agencies hacking and suspending online or independent news sites; the withdrawal of government advertising; or influencing private companies to withdraw advertising from companies they believe to be too ‘outspoken’. 4.1.1  Internet Censorship Governments see the internet as Janus-faced, “both a threat and a means of control” (Bennet and Naim 2015). The many ways the internet can be controlled include blocking or taking down websites, redirecting traffic to ‘managed’ sites masquerading as independent websites, and infiltrating social media, and online conversations. Another way of controlling information online is by hacking and sabotaging the websites and social media

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accounts of ‘dissenting’ voices. China is often given as the example of the most extreme censorship because of the ‘Great Firewall of China’ which allows the Chinese government to control and regulate the internet through a series of laws. Yet many democratic countries have unashamedly written internet surveillance laws into their countries’ security laws. Facebook, twitter and Google, amongst others, control what we see of the world, generally, and the news, specifically, through such things as search engine optimisation and blacklisting. By deleting posts, monitoring and censoring what is put online, these corporations essentially control what we see. In some ways this censorship is the most insidious because of the recreational way in which these platforms are used. In other words, these platforms are commonly used when we are not thinking critically, which means that we are being influenced and manipulated when we least expect it. The Israeli government, for example, has enlisted Facebook to help monitor Palestinians online and the content they post. Essentially, Facebook is helping Israel whitewash its crimes and silence its critics (Greenwald 2016). Israeli security agencies monitor Palestinians on Facebook and anything that displeases them, they ask Facebook to remove and typically Facebook obliges (Greenwald 2017). Facebook shut down (and later reinstated) the Facebook page of Palestinian political party Fatah which has millions of followers because “of an old photo posted of former leader Yasser Arafat holding a rifle” (ibid.). This is blatant and audacious quashing of free speech. People who oppose Israel’s illegal military occupation and speak out on these platforms are often a target (Strickland 2015). Israel routinely arrests and imprisons Palestinians it has spied on via Facebook under the false pretext of ‘threat to national security’. In December 2018, the Israeli army arrested an 18-year-old Palestinian boy, Anwar Makhtoob, for old Facebook posts even though the “military prosecutor readily admitted that there wasn’t even a suspicion that he had committed a crime”. Instead of releasing him, the Israeli judge ordered that he be held in administrative detention. In other words, he will be held for a guaranteed six months which can be renewed indefinitely (Konrad 2019). Facebook’s censorship is only unidirectional:2 it submits to the desires of the powerful which means that it will always favour the US and its allies. This is a clear indication of bias by Facebook because it is only censoring Palestinian posts when in reality “it’s actually very common for Israelis to use Facebook to urge violence against Palestinians, including settlers

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urging “vengeance” when there is an attack on an Israeli” (Greenwald 2016). Naturally, these have not been removed. Greenwald describes Facebook as “far and away the most dominant force in journalism. It is indescribably significant to see it work with a government to censor the speech of that government’s opponents” (ibid.). Facebook’s global influence is vast and therefore its collaboration with the Israeli government or any government, for that matter, is cause for concern. Facebook and other internet giants are private companies concerned with profit maximisation and are therefore more likely to cast aside the moral stance and yield to those in power. Yet this does not obviate the fact that a few small companies control and shape our discourse; nor does it absolve them of their moral responsibility. 4.1.2  Censorship by Media Companies The owners of media companies can censor the content of their newspapers or media outlets either because of pressure on them from external agents3 or because they themselves have an agenda, bias or opinion that they want to promote. It is instructive to look at Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp to explore the role and influence of the chairman on reporting and journalistic freedom. News Corp owns three newspapers in the UK: The Times, The Sunday Times and The Sun; and by the end of 2015 “News Corp accounted for 33.6% of the total circulation of national newspapers in the U.K., and 29.3% of total revenues” (Murdock in Birkinbine et al. 2017, p. 92/94). News Corp accounts for approximately 40% of national newspaper sales.4 Murdoch may be a media mogul but first and foremost he is a businessman and he has “adopted the language of neoliberalism as respectable clothing for the otherwise naked ambition of his plans for global corporate expansion” (Davies in ibid., p.  106). When he first took over the now defunct News of the World he was quoted as saying: “I did not come all this way not to interfere” and this ethos continues to guide his involvement in his functioning newspapers (In Edwards (1998) 2012, p. 63). Murdoch’s own opinions are echoed in, or rather imposed on, his newspapers as was clearly demonstrated by the fact that he was one of the greatest advocates of the Iraq war and “All of Murdoch’s 175 newspapers across the world backed the war” (Jones 2014, p.  94). That not one journalist in all of Murdoch’s 175 international newspapers opposed a war (or was able to voice opposition in his newspapers) that generated more global

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demonstration than any other is a clear example of the power that Murdoch directly exerts over his newspapers and indirectly over public opinion. In the Leveson inquiry, the editor of The Daily Mail, Paul Dacre, stated that “I’m not sure that the Blair government…would have been able to take the British people to war if it hadn’t been for the implacable support provided by the Murdoch papers. There’s no doubt that came from Mr Murdoch himself” (McSmith 2016). This succinctly sums up the immense power Murdoch wields through his papers, the power to influence whether or not Britain goes to war in the face of overwhelming public opposition. Another example of Murdoch’s views filtering down through his media corporations can be seen in his pro-Israel stance. His Fox News, for example, is notorious for its biased reporting, including but not limited to its coverage of the Palestinian-Israeli ‘conflict’. Fox News “tried…to rename suicide bombers, ‘homicide bombers’, in case the word ‘suicide’ elicited viewers’ sympathy for young Palestinians driven to take their own lives. Much of its reporting was also factually incorrect and, unsurprisingly, as a recent survey found, Fox news watchers ended up both biased and ill-­ informed” (Karmi 2007, p. 93). There is no doubt that as chairman of News Corp, Murdoch has incredible influence on reporting. Journalists who work for media corporations can be restricted in what they write and if they are not willing to conform, they risk losing their jobs. Cronin explains how when he started writing for The Guardian, he could openly express opinions, except when it came to Palestine: “Although The Guardian did publish a few of my articles denouncing Israeli atrocities, I began to encounter obstacles in 2009” (Cronin 2015). Instead, The Guardian has Jonathan Freedland justifying the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians: “Freedland has tried to justify how “400 [Palestinian] villages” were “emptied” by Zionist forces in 1948 on the grounds that “the creation of a Jewish state was a moral necessity”” (ibid.). 4.1.3  Self-Censorship Self-censorship is when a journalist censors what they say either due to personal views or through direct pressure, indirect pressure, fear of ad hominem attacks,5 fear of physical attacks, fear of slander or defamation, fear of being called an anti-Semite and even fear of death. All of these things can push a journalist to self-censor or risk destroying their career. The job of real journalists (as opposed to mouthpieces for hire) is not easy: they face persecution, violence, metaphoric death (of their career) or

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actual death. Talking about the Iraq War, Dan Rather explained that “there was a fear in every newsroom in America, a fear of losing your job…the fear of being stuck with some label, unpatriotic or otherwise” (Pilger 2010). As far back as the Vietnam War, journalists were labelled as ‘unpatriotic’ and it was claimed that “the news media lost the war in Vietnam” (Bagdikian in Macarthur (1992) 2004, p. xi). This is pure rhetoric and according to Bagdikian never in the last fifty years has war reporting endangered “plans or troops” (ibid.). Nevertheless, being accused of being unpatriotic is one reason why a journalist might self-censor. Journalists in the field have even more to fear as shown by the shooting of Reuters’ photographer Namir Noor-Edeen in Baghdad in 2007, the bombing of the Al-Jazeera offices in both Kabul and Baghdad, the killing of Palestinian journalists in the Great Return March in besieged Gaza in 2018 and the numerous murders of journalists worldwide. In some, albeit rare, instances, self-censorship may be motivated by nationalism. In such cases the government only has to ask, rather than twist arms to ensure ‘loyalty’ as the following illustrates: “after a deadly attack on the army by Islamic militants, top editors at more than a dozen Egyptian newspapers pledged to withhold criticism of the government and block “attempts to doubt state institutions or insult the army or police or judiciary”” (Bennet and Naim 2015). Journalists may self-censor because they think reporting the information could be damaging to public interests “as Israeli journalists do when they determine the scope of investigative reporting collaboratively with government representatives” (Ananny in Boczkowski and Anderson 2017, p. 135). Similarly, editors and publishers “might bow to state requests to avoid or delay publication, as the New York Times’s Bill Keller did when he agreed to Bush administration requests not to publish information on weapons of mass destruction or war-on-terror tactics” (ibid.). At times, self-censorship can be a result of a journalist’s own views or opinions “not necessarily for bribes but out of conviction, political bias, personal friendships, or ethnic solidarity” (Fenton 2005, p.  98). Self-­ censorship is routinely carried out by journalists who have to walk a fine line between staying true to their profession by telling the truth, and not losing their career because of an ‘inconvenient’ truth: “Often fearful of offending powerful interests, journalists have censored themselves” (Williams (1997) 2010, p. 7). This ties in with censorship by media moguls or from higher up, where it is understood that a particular line of reporting is not just favoured but expected.

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4.1.4  Tacit or Implied Censorship This type of censorship is unspoken but nonetheless prevents people from saying certain things. Similar to self-censorship, tacit censorship is self-­ imposed, but here, the censorship is usually shared and understood by members of a community, culture or society. This type of censorship relies on people knowing what is or isn’t ‘the done thing’. Chomsky gives the War on Iraq as an example of when tacit censorship has been used; he argues that many ‘permissible’ terms were used to describe it, from “dumb war” to “the greatest strategic blunder in the recent history of American foreign policy” but that one could not call it “what it was, the crime of the century” (Chomsky 2017). In other words, tacit censorship is akin to being subject to the prevailing orthodoxy. 4.1.5  Censorship by Omission Another type of censorship is censorship by omission (also referred to as absences in reporting), which involves the partial or full omission of facts, context or history, to direct the reader’s interpretation of a situation. As with many things, “Once you look for them, the networked press is rife with absences” (Ananny in Boczkowski and Anderson 2017, p. 144). In instances where the media fail to cover an event altogether, this is referred to as a media blackout. Censorship by omission could come about if the people being reported on are deemed to be ‘irrelevant’ or ‘unworthy’ victims or it could be because the subject or events “are considered too deviant from public norms or newsroom cultures” (ibid., p.  136). Richardson argues that “textual meaning is communicated as much by absence as by presence; as much by what is ‘missing’ or excluded, as by what is remembered and present” (In Franklin et al. 2005, p. 3). In some instances, it is difficult to know how rife this type of censorship is simply because it is hard to measure the absence of something. Censorship by omission could be a result of restricted journalistic freedom, organisational pressures, lack of time to verify details, concern for safety or for livelihood, or a lack of access to people or places. As such, “many people, organizations, and locations are regularly and predictably absent from coverage” (Ananny in Boczkowski and Anderson 2017, p. 136). Censorship by omission, whatever the motivation, is becoming increasingly pervasive and it is “often a goal, result, or accident of

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journalism. Censorship, self-censorship, organizational routines, implicit collaborations, competition, access restrictions, taboos, and reporting style all create journalistic whitespace” (ibid., p. 137). Power determines not only what is reported and how, but also what is buried: “Another aspect of manipulation is censorship and the exclusion or control of information” (O’Shaughnessy 2004, p. 7).

4.2   Media Censorship in Reporting the ‘Conflict’ Although these different forms of censorship are at play at various stages in the reporting of the ‘conflict’, in the analysis of the articles censorship by omission was the most prevalent. Censorship by omission is a powerful form of censorship because most of us do not even know whether or when it is happening. Castells explains that “What does not exist in the media does not exist in the public mind, even if it could have a fragmented presence in individual minds. Therefore, a political message is necessarily a media message” (In Curran (2010) 2016, p. 5). Thus, this type of censorship is particularly insidious, an invisible hand that steers us towards certain events and away from others, towards the ‘barbaric cruelty’ and massacres carried out by the enemy ‘other’, and away from those of our own governments and their allies. The omission of context from the reporting of the Palestinian-Israeli ‘conflict’ is an example of censorship by omission. 4.2.1  Context, Its Absence and Other Misrepresentations Context plays a crucial role in understanding any narrative and specifically in giving insight into people’s motivations and actions. Events cannot be divorced from their context if we are to really understand them. Without context, events become open to incorrect interpretation. That the media can influence cognitions of society is demonstrated by a longstanding tradition of research…one notable study (Iyengar, 1991), based on experimental research, found that when crime and terrorism were reported as a series of discrete events, it encouraged responsibility to be attributed to the individuals involved. But when crime and terrorism were reported in a contextualized way, it encouraged attribution to societal causation. (Curran (2010) 2016, p. 44)

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Context is thus key to how things are interpreted and understood. The omission of context can be a result of censorship, framing or agenda setting. I will discuss framing and agenda setting in the next chapter. In addition to analysing the language used to report the ‘conflict’ (as seen in Chap. 3), the articles were analysed to see whether the five events were reported within their historical context, whether or not references were explained and whether both sides’ views were given equal representation and validity. Context, however, was largely absent from these articles, replaced instead by several pro-Israeli mantras that were repeated again and again. Although the occurrence of the events themselves were rarely disputed, it was the information surrounding them that resulted in conflicting narratives: “stories about Palestine-Israel are as notable for what they exclude as they are for what they include” (Shupak 2018, p. 4). There were, for example, differences in the reasons given as to why or how someone was killed, whether or not they posed a threat, and whether or not they were a member of Hamas, and so on. The depiction of the events themselves showed the greatest bias, and at times the depiction of events served to confuse, misrepresent, or obscure the facts. The omission of context was a significant part of this misrepresentation. There were ample opportunities missed by journalists to elaborate on a point or explain the context, for example, failing to elaborate in instances when the West Bank was referred to as ‘occupied’. The Palestinian plight remains largely underreported because the Israeli version predominates. Israel puts forth its narrative and the media repeat it. The Palestinian viewpoint was only properly expressed in one Guardian article about OCL where the journalist actually contextualised Palestinian suffering, resistance and violence within Israel’s illegal military occupation: Attacking civilians is the last, most desperate and basic method of resistance when confronting overwhelming odds and imminent eradication. The Palestinians do not attack Israeli civilians with the expectation that they will destroy Israel. The land of Palestine is being stolen day after day; the Palestinian people is being eradicated day after day…When the native population sees that there is an irreversible dynamic that is taking away their land and identity with the support of an overwhelming power, then they are forced to resort to whatever methods of resistance they can (G).

In this article, the journalist goes on to reference the Nakba of 1948 and the ethnic cleansing (past and present) of the Palestinians. The

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background here is simply unparalleled in other articles. It is nonetheless interesting to observe the use of the passive and the absence of the Israeli agent in the destruction of villages and waging war. The only mention of Israelis is in reference to the equation of Israeli Zionists with the “dispossession of entire people” (G). Apart from this article, very little context or information was given about the Palestinian reality of the Nakba, the military occupation, the blockade of Gaza and how this permeates each and every part of Palestinian life. Rarely was context given to clarify or explain Palestinian actions or general points. If context was given, it was used to explain the Israeli perspective, Israeli actions or to exonerate Israelis of crimes. 4.2.2   The Absence of the Israeli Military Occupation from Reporting The most glaring and significant omission of context in the reporting of these five events was the illegal military occupation. Given that three out of the five events involve Israeli settlers (the two stories where the Palestinians are the perpetrators and one where the Israelis are perpetrators), the fourth event involves the Israeli army as the perpetrator and the fifth event involves both the Israeli army and Hamas as perpetrators, one would have expected the military occupation and the illegal settlements to figure repeatedly in these narratives. This, however, was not the case. Some articles did refer to the West Bank as ‘occupied’, but the military occupation and what it actually means for the Palestinians was absent from the articles. The term ‘occupation’ is largely absent from the reporting even though it is a mild term for the situation in Palestine. For an occupation is supposed to be a temporary solution to secure a territory, but Israel has been occupying Palestine now for over fifty years. “On Israel’s 70th birthday, the time has come to recognize that the occupation of the territories in 1967 is not temporary. It was never meant to be and never will be. The 1967 border has been erased” (Levy 2018). Secondly, the term ‘occupation’ gives the impression that Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories are distinct and separate whereas in reality they are not.6 Moreover, Israel has not followed any of the rules of engagement of an occupation nor has it fulfilled any of its obligations as the occupier. Under international law, an occupying force does not gain sovereignty over the land it occupies, it cannot forcibly transfer people out of the occupied territory nor bring its own people to live within it, and collective

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punishment is forbidden. The occupier is supposed to ensure that the standards of hygiene and public health are sufficient, to provide access to medical care and to ensure the provision of food. Not one of these conditions does Israel fulfil. Israel continues to breach the laws of occupation and, consequently, the term ‘occupation’ is a woefully inadequate term for the reality of the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and besieged Gaza. In fact, Pappe argues that the term “occupation” has actually “allowed the State of Israel to evade any serious global rebuke or condemnation” (2017, p. 3). It is difficult to convey the pervasiveness and suffocating effect of the military occupation to people who have only known the democracies of the West, but it is nonetheless incumbent on journalists to try. The blatant injustice, discrimination, apartheid and racism codified by law are the realities of Palestinian life, and this is concealed in most of the reporting of the ‘conflict’. “When you encounter face to face the systems of oppressions that are imposed by Israel on Palestinians, the shock leaves you searching for words” (Peled 2018). When the reporting fails to even mention its existence, it is no surprise that most people cannot fathom the implications of living under a military occupation, in an apartheid state. 4.2.3  Occupation, What Occupation? Fewer than half of the articles about the four events made any reference to the West Bank as ‘occupied’, and those that did usually only referred to the West Bank as ‘occupied’ once within the article. Only a few of the articles reporting on OCL made any mention of the occupation and many of them seemed to falsely imply that since Israel pulled its settlers out from Gaza, Gaza was no longer occupied by the Israelis. Consequently, in articles about OCL the Israelis were not referred to as occupiers and there were only a few mentions of occupation. In the reporting of the four events, Israelis were only ever referred to as occupiers indirectly or via Hamas as we see in following examples. A Hamas spokesman is quoted as saying “If the occupiers carry out an escalation or a war, they will open the gates of hell on themselves” (G/DT). (The spokesman is named, Abu Zuhri, in the DT.) These are the only references to the Israelis as occupiers. Given that Hamas has been severely delegitimised since Israel and the West branded it a ‘terrorist’ organisation, what Hamas says will inevitably carry less weight and have less impact. These two examples are particularly relevant, not simply because they

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reference the occupiers but also because the Hamas quotes are reported in full rather than simply paraphrased and misrepresented as seen elsewhere. One wonders whether this anomaly is because the fire and brimstone language used by Abu Zuhri is distasteful to the Western reader. Strikingly, The Times (46%—6/13) mentioned the occupation more than any of the other newspapers, closely followed by The Independent (43%—6/14) and The Daily Mail (38%—8/21). The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph had the fewest mentions of the occupation at 28% (5/18) and 23% (3/13), respectively. In The Times, we read that “Ali Dawabsheh’s parents and four-year-old brother were also injured in the fire in Douma, a village near Nablus in the occupied West Bank” (T). Elsewhere, the West Bank is referred to as occupied when mentioning illegal settlements: “The raids, on the settlements of Adei Ad and Baladim in the occupied West Bank, come as Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, and senior ministers are increasingly concerned that they are losing control of radical members of settlements built in the occupied West Bank” (T). The mention of ‘occupied’ twice in this example is unusual. In other articles, as in the following example, the West Bank is not referred to as occupied but a reference is made to the “occupied territories”: “At least 150 people were hurt in clashes in the occupied territories. In the West Bank large groups of Palestinian protesters confronted Israeli troops” (T). This is confusing because it makes it seem as though the ‘West Bank’ and the ‘occupied territories’ are different places. The only background information provided is that Israel first occupied the West Bank in 1967 and that in 1980 the Knesset declared Jerusalem “including the occupied east—to be the capital of Israel” (T). In The Daily Mail, most references to the ‘occupied’ West Bank were seen in reporting the arson attack: “Suspected Jewish attackers torched a Palestinian home in the occupied West Bank on Friday, killing an 18-month-old child and seriously injuring his parents and brother, an act that Israel’s prime minister described as terrorism”. A rare mention is made to the ‘military occupation’ in discussing Hamas’ origins: “Palestinian Sunni fundamentalist” and they were founded in 1987 “during the First Intifada uprising against Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian territories”. The vaguer term ‘occupied territory’ is also used: “Armed men stopping cars at checkpoints in the West Bank are usually Israeli security forces policing the occupied territory, but in some areas they are Palestinian civilians patrolling their own villages” (DM). The use of the single ‘territory’ rather than ‘territories’ makes it seem as though Israel is only

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occupying an itty-bitty bit of land. Meanwhile, claiming that the Israeli army “has overall responsibility for security in the area” is a convoluted way of saying that the Israelis occupy and control the West Bank and Gaza. Furthermore, the word ‘responsibility’ fails to even come close to the notion of occupation and may even imply care and benevolence. In The Guardian, three references to the occupation were made by way of quotes. For example, the UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process Nikolay Mladenov is quoted in two articles as saying, “This reinforces the need for an immediate resolution of the conflict and an end to the occupation”. In another article, we read that “amid a period of escalating tension in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories that has seen some 400 Palestinians—mainly Hamas members—arrested in the hunt for the missing teenagers”. The Independent refers to the West Bank as occupied in reporting the Dawabsheh arson attack as we are told that Israeli politicians call “for a crackdown against violence by Jewish extremists a day after an 18-month-­ old Palestinian boy was burned alive during an attack in the occupied West Bank” and that “In the aftermath of an arson attack that killed an 18-month-old Palestinian boy in the occupied West Bank, Israel is set to resort to a controversial tactic seldom before deployed against its Jewish citizens: detention without trial”. The occupation is mentioned in reporting the Har Adar illegal settlement shooting: “Israel shooting: Palestinian kills three at Jewish settlement in occupied West Bank”. Otherwise, we are told about the occupation through Sahar Francis of Palestinian human rights group ad-Dameer who explains that “administrative detention is used to silence opposition against the occupation”. A few references to the occupation can be seen in The Daily Telegraph. We read that the bodies of the Israeli teenagers who went missing near Hebron (no mention yet of the occupation) “have reportedly been found near the city in the occupied West Bank” and that “Israeli prosecutors file murder charges against a man and a minor for arson attack in occupied West Bank that killed three members of a Palestinian family”. 4.2.3.1 The Misrepresentation of the Military Occupation Closely related to the general omission of the occupation is the misrepresentation of the occupation in the reporting. Rather than refer to the West Bank as occupied or omit altogether any reference to the occupation, some journalists prefer to use misleading terms. In the following examples, we are told that the occupied West Bank city of

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Hebron “remains divided between Palestinians and Israeli settlers” (T) and that “The Palestinians seek a state in the West Bank, East Bank and the Gaza Strip. In the West Bank, they have limited self rule but nearly 60 percent of the territory remains under control of the Israeli military” (DM). This is a colossal lie: Hebron is under extreme military occupation, a city where 800 Israeli illegal settlers reside amidst over 150,000 Palestinians. In order to accommodate these settlers, they are segregated, and to achieve this, the Israeli military imposes the harshest restrictions on the movement of Palestinians, undertakes house raids and has set up interminable checkpoints. Hebron is not ‘divided’ nor is the West Bank simply ‘under control of the Israeli military’; they are illegally occupied by the Israelis. In The Independent we read of “disputed territories”: “Protests have raged for the past 10  days in the disputed territories since Mr Trump’s announcement—highly controversial because Jerusalem is a holy place to Jews, Christians and Muslims”. ‘Disputed’ here makes it appear as though two equal sides are arguing over land that each side has an ‘equal’ claim to. It is particularly surprising to see this in The Independent especially given it is widely accepted that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank is unlawful. In the reporting of OCL, most of the articles failed to mention the military occupation and only scant reference was made to the cruel Israeli siege of Gaza. When the occupation was mentioned, it was to imply that Israel no longer occupies Gaza: “In 1967, Israel took both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in the Six-Day War but never annexed them to Israel itself—unlike the eastern part of Jerusalem. The Israelis pulled out of Gaza in 2005” (DM). There is no mention of occupation but only that Israel ‘took’ them, and the language used makes it all seem very casual and harmless. This would have been the perfect place to mention that Israel (and Egypt) still controls all of Gaza by land, by sea and by air. In another article, we are told that Israel “ended its military rule in 2005, although it still controls the borders” (DM). The implication here is that it is just ‘borders’ that Israel controls and not every aspect of Palestinian life. Likewise, The Times explains that Israel “left Gaza in 2005 after a 38-year occupation, but the withdrawal did not lead to better relations with Palestinians in the territory as Israeli officials had hoped”. Once again, this type of reporting is misleading as it makes it seem that Israel no longer controls Gaza while perpetuating the myth that Israel wants ‘better relations’ with the Palestinians who are unwilling to make peace with them. This is no accident as we learn that “Hand in hand went a strategy

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to remove the issue of occupation from discussion. Gaza was freed in 2005 when the Jewish settlers and army were pulled out, the Israelis said. It could have flourished as the basis of a Palestinian state, but its inhabitants chose conflict” (G). By removing the military occupation from the discussion, Israel can rewrite the narrative and blame the Palestinians for the ‘conflict’ in Gaza. The Daily Telegraph refers to the occupation a couple of times. “The numbers of casualties on Saturday made it the single deadliest day in the Gaza Strip since Israel’s occupation of the territory in 1967” and “Gaza has been run by Hamas since the Islamic militant group won parliamentary elections in 2006. A year later it expelled the more moderate Fatah party, which still runs the West Bank” (DT). In another article, the occupation is referenced through the paraphrased speech of Nizar Rayan, a Hamas leader. We see similar language being used in the following examples: “Gaza has been under Hamas rule since the militant group overran it in June 2007; the West Bank has remained under the control of moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who has been negotiating peace with Israel for more than a year but has no influence over Hamas” (I). Referring to the occupied West Bank as ‘under the control’ of ‘moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ facilitates the exclusion of the military occupation from reporting. Furthermore, the use of ‘moderate’ or ‘Western-backed’ in reference to Mahmoud Abbas serves to contrast him with Hamas, who have been misrepresented by Israel as terrorists. Only in The Guardian is plain language used to describe Israel’s actions: “The Bush administration began its tenure with Palestinians being massacred and it ends with Israel committing one of its largest massacres yet in a 60-year history of occupying Palestinian land”. The reference to the occupation is refreshing, as is the straightforward terminology used to describe Israeli violence as a “massacre”: “The international community is directly guilty for this latest massacre” (G). The occupation and the siege are also mentioned in a quote by Hanan Ashrawi, ““This is nothing short of a massacre, an outrage,” the independent Palestinian MP Hanan Ashrawi—no friend of the Islamists—told the BBC from her Ramallah home. “The cycle of violence is generated by the occupation and by the ongoing state of siege that is attempting to collectively punish a whole people”” (G). There were no real patterns determining when the occupation was mentioned or omitted but, by and large, it seemed to be mentioned more

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when referring to the Palestinians and where they lived, and only a few times in reference to the settlements. In other words, the occupation was more likely to be referenced within the Palestinian context and omitted within the Israeli one. On the whole, articles would only ever make one reference to the occupation and rarely in the headlines. Even when the West Bank was referred to as occupied, there was no exploration of the oppressive reality of the military occupation, nor any clarification that it was imposed only on the Palestinians. 4.2.3.2 The Military Occupation Is the Root of All Violence In the same way, the fact of Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians which started with the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 and continues to this day, the fact that everything that happens today in Palestine and Israel has its root cause in the military occupation which started in 1967 and has continued ever since—all this historical background is completely omitted from the reporting. Omitting the historical context works to Israel’s advantage and further facilitates future omissions and misrepresentations. Even though Israel commonly frames its actions as ‘retribution’ or ‘retaliation’ for an initial Palestinian crime or offence, it should be understood that all actions and events, all violence begins (and ends) with the Israeli military occupation: “Palestinian terrorism was then, and remains today, a reaction to Zionist ethnic subjugation and expropriation of land, resources, and labour” (Suarez 2016, p.  11). Palestinian ‘terrorism’ is denuded from the context of military occupation and “Palestinian suicide bombers, for instance, are represented as rabid lunatics rather than as people driven to extreme measures under conditions of occupation” (Asad in Kumar 2012, pp. 49–50). Israel tries to reduce the ‘conflict’ to rocket attacks from Hamas to which it merely ‘responds’, while ignoring the very reasons Palestinians blow themselves up or fire rockets. This allows responsibility to be put squarely on the shoulders of the Palestinians. Retracing Israeli attacks on Palestinians to initial Palestinian attacks is misleading as it implies that the buck stops with the Palestinians. In reality, however, each act of Palestinian violence can ultimately be traced back to either the military occupation or the Nakba. Hass explains that “So long as we don’t get that the occupation is one continuous terror attack, we won’t know how to end the attacks on Israelis” (2015). And it is this that is missing from reporting. Omitting the background and historical context, each incident is represented as isolated from the Palestinian struggle for survival and

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self-­ determination against a backdrop of Israel’s unrelenting ethnic cleansing policies. It allows the Palestinians to be demonised or to be blamed for ‘starting it’. To ignore the military occupation in the articles on the ‘conflict’ or on the reporting of any violence (regardless of which side is the perpetrator) is to ignore the Palestinian reality of the last seventy years. In this way, Palestinian resistance is criminalised, depicted as ‘terrorism’ and framed within the wider War on Terror, rather than the more accurate portrayal of the Palestinian plight as one of resistance against a brutal military occupation. Nor is this omission an oversight. That the military occupation is markedly absent in the reporting of the ‘conflict’ serves only to shield Israel from criticism, allowing its illegal actions to remain hidden and the reader uninformed. Israeli violence is downplayed while Palestinian violence is exaggerated. We read that “Though the attacks rarely kill and are smaller in scope than past Palestinian attacks, Jewish extremists have for years been attacking Palestinian property, as well as mosques, churches and even Israeli schools and military bases” (DM). It is clear that the violence of the Israeli army towards Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza has been completely ignored and disregarded. It means that the narrative can be manipulated to portray the Palestinians as violent aggressors forcing Israel’s ‘reluctant’ hand to ‘retaliate’. The United Nations refers to the West Bank as occupied, but rather than follow the UN lead, the British newspapers tend to omit or obfuscate this key detail. They also fail to inform the reader that East Jerusalem is occupied and has been illegally annexed by Israel, or that the settlements are illegal under international law. The omission is clear evidence of a pro-­ Israel bias, particularly in light of the fact that Israel denies that it occupies the West Bank or Gaza. Tzipi Hotovely, the Israeli Foreign Minister, claimed that Israel does not occupy anyone’s land and demanded that the UN stop using the term ““occupation” in reference to Israel’s control over Palestinian lands. The senior official claimed that the international organisation has been lured to repeating the “Palestinian propaganda vocabulary”” (Middle East Monitor 2017). 4.2.3.3 T  he Omission of the Siege and Blockade on Gaza from Reporting on the ‘Conflict’ Like the omission of the Israeli military occupation, reference to the Israeli blockade and siege of Gaza in the articles on OCL was largely absent.

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When the Israeli blockade was mentioned, there was very little examination of the blockade and its impact on the Palestinians in Gaza. Failing to mention the Israeli blockade strips the reporting of context and background and seeks to deprive the Palestinians and their struggle of its validity and legitimacy. This, in turn, facilitates the misrepresentation of Palestinian resistance as ‘terrorism’ or violence for violence’s sake. In some articles, the blockade is linked to Hamas, directly or indirectly, in order to frame the blockade as the only way Israel can ‘defend’ itself from Hamas rockets. In The Times, Gaza is referred to as “besieged”: “The Islamists called on all Palestinians outside the besieged Gaza Strip to start marches from mosques across the West Bank and Jerusalem”. In other articles, the blockade is mentioned either as a consequence of Hamas’ actions (“Israel has enforced a large-scale blockade of Gaza since Hamas seized power”) or through the paraphrased speech of Hamas members (“Ayman Taha, a Hamas negotiator, said after discussions in Egypt that Israel must lift its blockade of the impoverished territory if it wanted to avoid renewed Palestinian rocket fire into its southern towns”) (T). At times, the blockade is mentioned indirectly, “Hamas says that it will keep up the barrage until Israel opens its borders” but there is no explanation as to why Israel has closed the borders or why it controls Gaza’s borders. In The Daily Mail, the blockade is mentioned directly in a few articles although it is not always clear that it is Israel that has imposed the blockade: “Gaza’s closure, boycott, siege, blockade and unfolding war have got us to a point that can no longer be articulated”. At times, Hamas is blamed for the blockade: “Although aid agencies said they planned a massive influx of supplies through Israeli crossings, help will be complicated by the Western boycott of Hamas as a ‘terrorist’ organization and an Israeli blockade on many items, including building materials, that can be used to make weapons”. The following example is particularly interesting: “In Gaza, which is controlled by the Islamist Hamas group, basic food supplies are running low and power cuts are affecting much of the territory”. The wording here is likely to leave the reader thinking that ‘basic food supplies’ are running low because Gaza is controlled by Hamas since there is no mention of Israel. The representation of the blockade in The Guardian articles was the most detailed as the following examples show: “At the same time, Israel has imposed tighter and tighter economic restrictions, which now amount to a blockade of the Gaza Strip under which only limited humanitarian supplies are allowed in” and “But Israel did not end the siege that was

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wrecking the economy and causing desperate shortages of food, fuel and medicine. Gazans concluded that the blockade was not so much about rocket attacks as punishment for voting for Hamas”. In one Guardian article, Informed Comment blogger is quoted as saying “Since fall of 2007, Israel has kept 1.5 million Gazans under a blockade, interdicting food, fuel and medical supplies to one degree or another. Wreaking collective punishment on civilian populations such as hospital patients denied needed electricity is a crime of war”. This candid reporting in The Guardian is noteworthy as we do not see it in The Guardian reporting of the other four events that take place some years later highlighting a change perhaps in its stance. The Israeli blockade is mentioned in The Daily Telegraph articles but Hamas, not Israel, is blamed for the blockade. We read in one article that “Israel’s crossings with Gaza have been largely clamped tight since Hamas militants seized control of the coastal strip in June 2008, with only the barest essentials allowed in since a June 19 truce with Gaza gunmen began unraveling six weeks ago”. The blockade is linked to Hamas ‘seizing control’. In the following example, the Palestinians are blamed for the Israeli blockade: “Israel has blockaded Gaza of all but essential humanitarian supplies and launched regular military raids. On the rare occasions when the territory’s border posts have been open, Palestinian fighters have occasionally attacked them, forcing their closure and maximizing Gaza’s isolation and the ordeal of its people”. The use of ‘border posts’ makes it seem as though it is not the whole of Gaza that is cut off by the blockade. This depiction is insightful because it seems to echo the Israeli narrative: “Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, National Infrastructures Minister, said the aid shipment was intended to send a clear political message that the Hamas-­ run government of Gaza is to blame for the suffering of the besieged Palestinian population”. Only in one Daily Telegraph article do we read about the effect of the Israeli blockade on the Palestinians: “Israel is also aware of the worsening humanitarian plight of the 1.5 million-strong Palestinian population inside the Gaza Strip who are enduring grim conditions. Many are without power, mains water or access to fresh food”. In The Independent articles, when the blockade is mentioned some background information is given: “On 4 November, more than a month before the stated end of the truce, the Israeli army’s incursion into Gaza drew renewed rocket fire and signaled the end of the ceasefire. Israel’s Defence Minister, Ehud Barak, then offered Gaza two unfair choices. It

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would either be a dehumanising siege with bombs and rockets or a dehumanising siege with trickles of supplies under a ceasefire. These two scenarios clearly produce no benefit for ordinary people”. Unlike in other articles, in The Independent the Israeli blockade is linked to the lack of fuel and basic supplies in Gaza: “But the shortage of fuel to run the generators, after the months of the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip, is now the biggest problem facing Shifa and other medical facilities in Gaza”. In one Independent article, when the tunnels are mentioned they are linked to the Israeli blockade and the need for “vital supplies”: “The Palestinian death toll rose to 296 as the Israeli attack widened to include more than 40 tunnels used by Hamas to circumvent an Israeli blockade and smuggle vital supplies across the border from Egypt”. In most articles, however, when the tunnels were mentioned they were often presented separately from the Israeli blockade showing them to be unrelated. In fact, causation is ignored and concealed even though if there were no Israeli blockade, there would be no need for the ‘smuggler tunnels’. 4.2.3.4 O  mitting the Fact That There Was a Media Blackout During Operation Cast Lead Along with the crucial omission of the blockade, many articles failed to inform the reader that Israel imposed a complete media blackout during OCL. This is relevant because the vast majority of journalists reporting on OCL were not in Gaza at the time. In articles where the media blackout was mentioned (twelve articles in total), it was rarely referred to as a media blackout and it was only mentioned to the end of the article: “Israel yesterday banned foreign journalists from entering Gaza. Israeli journalists have been banned for more than two years” (G) and “At the same time, Israel in effect barred foreign journalists from witnessing the results of its strategy” (G). This is interesting as it is only in The Guardian that Israel’s motives for the media blackout are questioned. In The Daily Mail, we read that “Israel yesterday declared areas around the Gaza Strip a ‘closed military zone’, ordering out journalists observing the build-up of its armoured forces” and “Foreign media have been banned from entering Gaza despite an order from the Israeli supreme court to allow in a limited number” (DM). Essentially, Israel has gone against its own supreme court ruling yet this does not prompt further comment by the reporter. Informing the reader of the media blackout is essential because it allows the reader to understand that the journalists

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reporting are doing so based on information from sources that they cannot necessarily verify. Interestingly, when the media blackout was mentioned to explain that information could not be verified, this was usually done in reference to Palestinian sources, not Israeli ones: “Israel is barring foreign journalists from Gaza so it is difficult to verify completely the survivors’ accounts about an incident that left up to 70 civilians dead” and “With Israel banning foreign journalists from reaching Gaza, it is impossible to verify the account of what happened to the Samouni family emerging from eyewitness testimony provided by survivors” (DT). By mentioning the media blackout with Palestinian sources only, the veracity of the Palestinians sources/witnesses, and what they have said, is called into question. Surprisingly, however, the media blackout is mentioned to cast doubt on Israeli claims in a single article: “With Israeli barring foreign journalists from reaching Gaza it was impossible to verify Israel’s claim that it was not targeting civilians” (DT). Interestingly, here the media blackout is mentioned to confirm Israel’s claim that it was not doing something rather than its claim that it was doing something. The media blackout is mentioned in three Independent articles: “Excluding the press could help Israel keep under wraps its preparations for a Gaza incursion following three days of air strikes that have caused chaos, turned some buildings to rubble and left hospitals struggling to cope”. Claiming that media blackouts protect military intelligence is an old excuse used by governments when they do not want the media to report on their crimes against civilians. We are told that “The Foreign Press Association protested at the closure of the Erez crossing into Gaza, saying that the “world’s media is unable to report accurately on events inside Gaza at this critical time”. Journalists were excluded from Israeli communities adjacent to the border, fueling speculation that a ground operation could be in preparation” and “Israel yesterday refused foreign journalists entry into Gaza to report on the aftermath of one of the bloodiest days for Palestinians in 60 years of conflict”. It is worth highlighting that there was no mention of a media blackout in any of The Times articles reporting on OCL. 4.2.3.5 Al-Quds: Jerusalem Is an Occupied City Jerusalem is an occupied city that Israel is rapidly ethnically cleansing of its Palestinian inhabitants—two key details largely absent from the articles. Nowhere is the reader made aware of the true status of the city of Jerusalem

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within the parameters of international law. Jerusalem is a corpus separatum and is supposed to remain as such until a just resolution to the ‘conflict’ can be agreed on; however, Israel has been occupying West Jerusalem since 1948 and East Jerusalem since 1967. Although Jerusalem is referenced numerous times within these articles, both as a location and because one of the chosen events took place at a protest against Trump’s ‘recognition’ of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, we are told very little about Jerusalem as an occupied city. Jerusalem is not referred to as either annexed or occupied anywhere in The Daily Mail, but we are given some extra information in two articles. In one article, we are told that “Israel considers all of Jerusalem to be its capital. Palestinians want the eastern part of the city as the capital of a future independent state of their own”. The verb ‘considers’ is used for the Israelis but ‘want’ for the Palestinians. While neither side has achieved their hopes for Jerusalem, the use of the more sophisticated ‘considers’ gives more validity to the Israeli side than the verb ‘want’ (with its connotations of greed and childish petulance) does to the Palestinian one. In the second article, we read that “The three teens are from settlements in the West Bank, territory Israel captured from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast war and that Palestinians are demanding as part of their future state along with the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem”. There is no mention of the fact Jerusalem is illegally occupied, and only in a very roundabout way is the reader told that east Jerusalem is separate from west Jerusalem. The fact that we are told that it was captured from Jordan seems to imply that it was never the Palestinians’ in the first place. This serves to further conflate Palestinians and other Arabs, diminishing the individuality and legitimacy of the Palestinian people. Two Independent articles mention Jerusalem as occupied and another mentions that Jerusalem has been annexed. We are told that “Israeli forces seized control of East Jerusalem from Arab forces in the 1967 Middle East War and later annexed it in a move considered illegal under international law”. The use of ‘considered’ here is noteworthy as (unlike its use above) it is ambiguous and implies that international law is subject to debate or opinion rather than law and facts. Compare with the less ambiguous ‘in a move which is illegal under international law’. Furthermore, the use of ‘seized control’ eliminates the violent nature and conceals the numerous forced expulsions of the Palestinians. The second Independent article tells us that “Violent clashes erupted in occupied East Jerusalem for a second day amid Palestinian rage over the murder of a sixteen-year-old boy as

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Israel moved troop reinforcements to edge of the Gaza Strip”. Here, Jerusalem is referred to as ‘occupied’. Jerusalem is referred to as “annexed East Jerusalem” in a single Daily Telegraph article. In The Times, Jerusalem is referred to as “annexed east Jerusalem” in reference to the murder of Abu Khdeir, and it is referred to as “occupied east Jerusalem” in a further two articles. Interestingly, The Guardian, which one would typically expect to refer to East Jerusalem as occupied or annexed, made no reference to Jerusalem as either annexed or occupied, while surprisingly, The Daily Telegraph and The Times, both considered to be more right-wing newspapers, did. The Daily Mail, like The Guardian, made no mention of Jerusalem being occupied or annexed. Given that Israel does indeed illegally occupy East Jerusalem, that The Times and The Daily Telegraph mention this is less shocking than the fact that the ‘liberal’ Guardian does not. Although notably absent from The Daily Mail’s coverage, this is also less surprising than its absence in The Guardian articles. The question of Al-Quds/Jerusalem is quite possibly one of the most contentious in this ‘conflict’. Every peace process has stumbled over the question of Jerusalem. Since the Nakba in 1948, UN resolution (III) of 11 December 1948 affirmed the principle of internationalisation and existing rights. The Israelis, however, refused to recognise the UN resolution. Israel declared Jerusalem its capital but this was never recognised by the international community and, since 1967, the Israelis have been illegally occupying East Jerusalem. The UN has determined that Israel’s actions in Jerusalem are null and void and that its military occupation and imposition of rule of law is illegal. 4.2.4  Illegal Israeli Settlements on Stolen Palestinian Land Conspicuously absent from the articles is any mention of the illegal nature of the settlements and any reference to international law. Settlements are effectively townships made up of houses built for Israelis in the occupied West Bank, and they are illegal under international law. As an occupying military power, Israel is forbidden from appropriating, confiscating or expropriating public or private property from the occupied West Bank and besieged Gaza. Settlements violate “the Hague Convention on the Laws and Customs of War on Land of 18 October 1907 and the Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 12 August 1949” (Cattan 1988, p. 206) According to the Rome Statute

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of the International Criminal Court, “The transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies, or the deportation or transfer of all or parts of the population of the occupied territory within or outside this territory” is a war crime.7 Illegal settlements are one of the biggest obstacles to peace. They are often sprawling Israeli communities with large homes, schools, hospitals and businesses that squat on Palestinian hilltops. Even Yitzhak Rabin compared settlements to “a cancer in the social and democratic tissue of the State of Israel” (In Shehadeh 2017, p. 64). Settlements often have unlimited access to water (swimming pools and water parks) which is achieved by diverting Palestinian water, leaving the Palestinians in the same occupied West Bank with heavily restricted access to water. In some parts, Israel restricts Palestinian access to water to as little as a few hours a week. Settlements cut Palestinians off from their land and from other Palestinians. Palestinians are not allowed on roads that lead to settlements which in practice means that their movement is severely restricted with many roads closed to them. Meanwhile, settlers are free to go wherever they please. Illegal settlers are actively encouraged by the government to settle in the occupied West Bank through a range of financial incentives, including cheaper mortgages, better repayment models and tax breaks (Cook 2018). Both settlements and outposts are illegal under international law. The difference between the two is that outposts (which are small satellites set up by settlers) are technically considered illegal under Israeli law whereas settlements are set up and built by the Israeli government itself. Although the Israeli government claims to “oppose” these outposts they “invariably become legal over time” and are yet another way in which Israel steals even more Palestinian land (Cook 2008, p. 5). Given that three of the events analysed involved settlers, either as perpetrators or victims, it is incredible that the true nature of settlements is not explained properly to the reader nor is it made clear that they are illegal under international law. One Daily Mail article tells us that “Israeli settlements are considered illegal under international law”. Once again the use of ‘considered’ in this way implies that they are ‘believed to be’ illegal rather than a fact that they are. Compare this with ‘Israeli settlements are illegal under international law’ where a definitive statement is being made. Only two articles state that settlements are illegal and both articles were from The Times. In the first, it is slipped in: “the defence minister, who called for an expansion of illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank in

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honour of the dead Israeli boys” and in the second article, we are told that “the annexation of 1000 acres of the occupied West Bank” is a move that “is likely to be a precursor to illegal settlement construction”. (Annexation is a euphemism for theft.) No further background or exploration is given about the settlements. Nevertheless, the accurate use of ‘illegal’ is certainly refreshing. When the illegal settlements are referred to, they are described in such a way as to make it seem that they are only encroaching ‘ever so slightly’ on Palestinian land; a blatant deception. In the description of the illegal Har Adar settlement, we read that it is “an upscale community west of Jerusalem, straddling the seam line between the West Bank and Israel proper” (DM), “northwest of Jerusalem and just over the “green line” that separates Israel from the occupied West Bank” (DT) and “on the border seam line between the West Bank and Jerusalem” (T). By saying that the settlement is “just over the “green line””, that it ‘straddles’ or is ‘on the border’ of the seam line makes it seem as though the settlement is not built on stolen Palestinian land. These articles lack historical background, they lack an exploration of historical events or any real reference to international law. One would think that the easiest way to maintain balance in a ‘conflict’ such as this would be by resorting to what international law says and recommends, especially with regard to matters disputed by both sides. Failing to mention the illegal settlements and omitting any real explanation about what they are and how they (and the settlers) impact the daily lives of the Palestinians facilitates the concomitant omission of the Palestinian viewpoint.

4.3   The Israeli Lobby and Its Influence on the Reporting of the ‘Conflict’ One of the main reasons for censorship in the reporting of the ‘conflict’ is as a result of pressure, direct or indirect, from the Israeli Lobby. Pressure groups have existed for as long as there has been a need to influence or sway those in power. In many ways, it was the Zionist lobby’s pressure that brought about the Balfour Declaration. In 1930, Sidney Webb, the colonial secretary “proposed a retreat from the Balfour commitment in deference to Arab objections. He was repudiated by the now prime minister, [Ramsay] MacDonald, after frantic Zionist lobbying” (Newsinger (2006)

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2013, p.  143). The influence of the pro-Israel lobby has always been a force to be reckoned with. Today, as yesterday, the pro-Israel lobby is doubtless one of the most significant influences on the reporting of the ‘conflict’, playing a crucial role in how information is disseminated and what journalists write: “Wide sections of the Western media have followed suit and have justified by and large Israel’s actions…This is not surprising, since pro-Israel lobby groups continue to work tirelessly to press Israel’s case in France and the rest of Europe as they do in the United States” (Pappe in Chomsky and Pappe 2015, pp. 152–153). The lobby’s influence is evident in its ability to affect policy both in the UK and the US which it does by ensuring that its aim is the easiest option while simultaneously making alternative options fraught with peril. So successful is the Israel lobby at smear campaigns that it has become customary for politicians to vote in favour of Israel to avoid trouble for themselves. The Palestinians have no such lobby and so there are far fewer potential consequences to pushing the Israeli agenda rather than the Palestinian one, or even a more neutral one. Until recently, the British pro-Israel lobbies operated more clandestinely and their existence was largely unknown. In 2009, Oborne and Jones described the pro-Israel lobby as “an almost completely unexplored topic” that is “systematically ignored in British reporting” (Oborne and Jones 2009). There have been two main documentaries about the Israel Lobby in the UK, the first was Channel 4’s Dispatches (2009): Inside Britain’s Israel Lobby presented by Peter Oborne and the second was Al-Jazeera’s The Lobby (2017), a four-part series that was based on a six-­ month undercover investigation into the extent the Lobby penetrates British democracy. There are three main politically affiliated pro-Israel lobbies in the UK and they are the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI), the Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) and the Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel (LDFI). Bar Hillel (2014) argues that the UK lobby deliberately keeps a low profile “sheltering under the harmless-sounding titles of Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) and Labour Friends of Israel (LFI)” but that these lobbies are “incredibly powerful”. CFI is active at every level of the Conservative Party and the use of the term ‘friends’ is no exaggeration: “In 2006, when senior Conservative official William Hague dared to criticise Israel’s attacks on Lebanon as ‘disproportionate’, the Conservative Friends of Israel reportedly ‘complained in person to David Cameron’ and thereby ‘obtained a promise that the word would never be used again’” (Finkelstein

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2016). CFI is considered to be “beyond doubt the best connected, and probably the best funded, of all Westminster lobbying groups”, and the most active (Oborne and Jones 2009). Meanwhile, joining the Labour Friends of Israel is a rite of passage for eager Labour MPs, and it is often remarked that one of the first things Blair did on becoming an MP was to join LFI. The Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel is equally virulent but less influential, only because they rarely win enough votes at the general elections. Other major pro-Israel lobbies include BICOM, the Zionist Federation, the Jewish Leadership Council, Board of Deputies of British Jews and HonestReporting. These lobbies build relationships with journalists and editors, regularly taking them on trips to Israel to meet high-level officials there. The shared aim of these pro-Israel lobbies is to control how Israel is portrayed and to manage any information released about the nation and its actions. This is done by directing and influencing the language used to describe Israel, which, of course, necessarily means media manipulation. Much effort is put into blocking Israel from being held accountable for its crimes against the Palestinians, and the pro-Israel lobbies wage huge campaigns against friends and enemies alike in order to get their way. For example, following the Goldstone report, the UN was proposing to vote on a resolution criticising both Hamas and the Israeli forces for their human rights abuses in Gaza. In response, the CFI rang up William Hague’s office (who had already received his sharp dressing down for calling Israel’s actions ‘disproportionate’), and, following a discussion with David Cameron’s office, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, Rt. Hon. William Hague, MP, 16 October 2009 stated that: “Unless the draft resolution is redrafted to reflect the role that Hamas played in starting the conflict, we would recommend that the British Government vote to reject the resolution” (Oborne and Jones 2009). In 2015, former UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon succumbed to “Israeli and American pressure and removed Israel from a UN list of serious violators of children’s rights”. And again, in May 2017, current UN General Secretary Antonio Guterres “bowed to US pressure and suppressed a report that found Israel practices apartheid against Palestinians” (Abunimah 2017). Oborne and Jones explain that the mainstream media and ‘political publishing’ in Britain ignore the influence of Israel. They found that it was difficult to get people to even speak about the Israel lobby because “they had too much to lose by confronting it” (2009). Even The Independent

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described the Israeli embassy as having “mounted a huge drive to influence the British media” (Philo and Berry 2004, p. 248). A short anecdote: in November 2015, browsing The Daily Mail online (the world’s most read online newspaper), I came across a headline that read as follows: “Video of Palestinian boy given flick knife”. The gist of it was that this supposedly Palestinian toddler had been given a flick knife by his parents who were inciting him to kill Jews and spill Jewish blood. The title seemed bizarre and didn’t sit well. Palestinians tend not to scare or incite their children because they have enough terror in their everyday lives. As a linguist, Arabic dialects have always been one of my interests and I have analysed Arabic and Palestinian dialects at great length and in great detail. Simply put, it was immediately apparent that the boy was not Palestinian; nor was anyone else in the video. Yes, they were speaking Arabic, but they were speaking a North African Arabic dialect. The adults were jokingly taunting this scared little boy, but they were not urging him to do anything and there was certainly no mention of Jews in any way, shape or form. I decided to email The Daily Mail editor and explain that these people were not Palestinian and that they should be more careful with what they put out there, especially given the tense situation in Palestine and Israel. I quickly received a response asking how I knew that they weren’t Palestinian and saying that they would look into it. I explained briefly and it was immediately apparent that this was an attempt to make the Palestinians appear barbaric and anti-Semitic when this had nothing to do with Palestinians or Jews but was an example of bad parenting. The next email I received stated that they had followed two leads one from an Israeli website called Isreallycool and another called LiveLeak whose job is clearly to spread propaganda and disinformation. The fact that the UK’s most read online newspaper had done nothing to verify a story was shocking. The headline and story were quickly amended to ‘shocking video shows tiny boy given flick knife and egged on to fight by adults poking him with their own blades…before he runs away to hide in cupboard’. The reality is that in some cases all that matters is the shock factor and attracting readers, with little or no effort going into verifying the veracity of these stories. This example serves to highlight the shoddy work being done—the lack of research or evidence into stories which hugely influence public opinion. What is most revealing here is that had the supposed perpetrators been Israelis or Jews calling for the spilling of the blood of Arabs or Palestinians there would be no way that the story would have been published without verifying and checking the

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authenticity of the story, once, twice and thrice. In fact, even if such a story had been verified it is possible that the story would not have made it to press for fear of the Israeli lobby. Since no real Palestinian lobby exists, a false story can be published, then retracted or reworded and no one is the wiser. This is also a failing on the part of Palestinians in the West who have been slow to address their own misrepresentation by the media.8 The most influential pro-Israel lobby in the world is not to be found in the UK, but in the US: the American AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. In the censored Al-Jazeera Documentary about the Israel Lobby in the US, we learn from Eric Gallagher, a top official at AIPAC from 2010 to 2015, that “Getting $38 billion in security aid to Israel matters, which is what AIPAC just did” and that “Everything AIPAC does is focused on influencing Congress” (Grim 2019). Lobbies function by using money to influence politicians into supporting their political agenda. More recently, the Israel lobby has taken its fight to colleges, universities and online: a Palestine course at UC Berkeley was suspended because of pressure from pro-Israel groups (Barrows-Friedman and Abunimah 2016). The importance of influencing opinion on the Middle East especially at colleges and universities where opinions about Israel and the Palestinian-Israeli ‘conflict’ are still being formed cannot be underestimated and “as in its dealings on Capitol Hill, pro-Israeli organizations and activists frequently employ smear tactics, harassment, and intimidation to inhibit the free exchange of ideas and views” (Findley (1985) 1989) 2003, p. 209). Israel has established an undercover team to surf the internet all day and night in order to spread positive lies about Israel. This team is largely made up of students and recent graduates from all over the world who pretend to be ordinary people9 who just happen to be pro-Israeli and just happen to deliver a message that puts Israel in a positive light. Cook explains that “the team will fall under the authority of a large department already dealing with what Israelis term “hasbara”, officially translated as “public explanation” but more usually meaning propaganda” (2009). These online ‘soldiers’ repeat the Israeli message to spread disinformation and confusion about the ‘conflict’ in order to whitewash Israel’s actions. In 2017, in Edinburgh, the Network of Photographers for Palestine (NPP) put together a documentary exhibition called ‘The Legacy of Balfour’, which highlighted international human rights abuses in the Occupied Territories. Uncomfortably for Israel, the exhibition displayed a

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photograph of Israeli soldier Elor Azaria shooting dead Palestinian youth ‘Abd al-Fatah Al-Sharif who was already lying on the road injured when Azaria went up to him and shot him point blank. Yvonne Ridley explains that since the exhibition opened “it has been targeted by vandals suspected to be from pro-Israeli lobby groups” (2017). Meanwhile, in 2017, a play about Rachel Corrie (the American activist who went to besieged Gaza with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM)) was shown at the Young Vic in London. Rachel Corrie was killed by an Israeli soldier who ran her over with a bulldozer in Rafah, Gaza. The Israelis dispute this claiming that it was an accident but eye-witness accounts from other ISM protestors confirm she was killed deliberately. Every day, before the start of the performance there were people from pro-Israel lobbies standing outside the theatre handing out leaflets denigrating and smearing Rachel Corrie, her character, and her state of mind. Similarly, PayPal crumbled under pressure from Israeli lobbies when it closed the account of a Palestinian solidarity group in France, Association France Palestine Solidarité (AFPS). PayPal previously came under criticism for its refusal “to provide services to Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation” which is seen to be a result of pressure from Israel and its lobbying groups (Abunimah 2018). YouTube also heavily censors videos that depict or criticise Israeli brutality towards Palestinians by deleting videos. Most recently, HSBC blocked donations to the Palestinian aid charity Interpal without offering a reason or explanation (Oborne and Westad 2020). Pro-Israel Lobbies have targeted various Palestinian events or Palestinian supporters with some success. At the end of 2018, Dr Marc Lamont Hill, African-American activist and college professor, was fired from his role as political contributor at CNN for giving a speech at the UN in which he “called for solidarity with Palestinians to go beyond sloganeering towards active participation in the non-violent Boycott, Divestment and Solidarity (BDS) movement” (Winstanley 2018). Angela Davis was also targeted by the Israel lobby for her solidarity with the Palestinians. Davis, who is originally from Birmingham, was supposed to receive a prestigious human rights award from the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute but after protests and pressure from the local Jewish community and pro-Israel groups, the Institute cancelled its annual gala (Abunimah 2019a). These are just a few examples of the ways in which Palestinian supporters are being targeted. The influence of the pro-Israel lobby is such that there ends up being a double standard in reporting, whereby Israel escapes criticism and scrutiny

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because it resorts to tactics ranging from the childish to the sinister, including persecution through ad hominem attacks against anyone who speaks out. The Israel lobby has many weapons in its armoury to silence negative information about Israel, but its go-to smear tactic is equating criticism of Israel and its illegal occupation of Palestinian land with anti-Semitism. 4.3.1  Criticism of Israel Misrepresented as Anti-Semitism One of the primary motivations for self-censorship when it comes to this ‘conflict’ is the fact that any criticism of Israel is likely to be termed anti-­ Semitism by the Israelis: “anybody who expresses criticism of Israel’s policies is immediately silenced as an anti-Semite” (Reinhart 2006, p. 1). This has become the go-to accusation and is often employed for even mildly negative coverage of Israel. By labelling people as anti-Semites, Israel slowly and systematically silences critical voices and, understandably, journalists do whatever they can to avoid such a horrific accusation. The so-called ‘New anti-Semitism’ describes the current phenomenon where any criticism of Israel is said to be anti-Semitism. “Whenever Israel commits another atrocity, its propagandists stage a revival of the “New Anti-Semitism” extravaganza to deflect or squelch global condemnation” and in order to “stifle criticism of Israel’s atrocious human rights record” (Finkelstein 2015b/2015a). Israel has purposefully tried to blur the lines between Israel and Judaism, and Netanyahu has appointed himself spokesman for all Jews. Thus, criticising him could be seen as criticising “all Jews around the world”: “it is impermissible to speak of Jewish violence or Jewish terror when it comes to Israel, even though everything done by Israel is done in the name of the Jewish people, by and for a Jewish state” (Said 2000). Netanyahu, however, does not speak for all Jews worldwide; he may have been elected Prime Minister of Israel but he was never elected leader of the Jewish people. Although heavily criticised for the analogy, Jeremy Corbyn rightly noted that “blaming Judaism for Netanyahu’s policies is like blaming Islam for the actions of the Islamic State”. To be falsely labelled an anti-Semite has very real repercussions and it can ruin someone’s life, career and prospects. Many of those who have spoken out against Israel have had hate campaigns launched against them and have suffered considerably. In the US, respected academic, Norman G.  Finkelstein, was targeted for criticising Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians and vilified as a self-hating Jew and an anti-Semite, a ridiculous and insulting attack on someone both of whose parents were

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Holocaust survivors. Finkelstein was denied tenure at DePaul University on political grounds despite meeting both the academic and publishing requirements for tenure.10 Similarly, Steven Salaita, a Palestinian-American academic had his conditional employment offer at the University of Illinois withdrawn after he tweeted comments critical of Israel that were labelled anti-Semitic. In the UK, numerous pro-Palestinian, Labour Party members and MPs have been targeted with false claims of anti-Semitism. Jackie Walker, an activist and anti-racist campaigner whose father was an Askhenazi Russian Jew, has been smeared as both a self-hating Jew and anti-Jewish. Chris Williamson, former Labour MP for Derby North, also an anti-racist activist, has been repeatedly smeared as an anti-Semite. Both Walker and Williamson have since been suspended from the Labour Party as a result of these false accusations. Chomsky argues that “This witch hunt has sunk to scandalous accusations of antisemitism against long-term anti-racist activists and supporters of Palestinian rights” (In Elmaazi 2019). Equating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism or simply criminalising the criticism of Israel has meant that would-be critics of Israel and its illegal military occupation are either hounded or silenced. As Journalist Harold R. Piety observed, “the ugly cry of anti-Semitism is the bludgeon used by Zionists to bully non-Jews into accepting the Zionist view of world events, or to keep silent” (In Findley (1985) 1989) 2003, p. 322). In essence the Israel lobbies are trying to control public opinion and perception by controlling how the media represent Palestine and Israel. Findley argues that false claims of anti-Semitism have been “responsible for compelling journalists to give Israel better-than-equal treatment in coverage of Middle East events” ((1985) 1989) 2003, p.  322). Simply stated, if a journalist who speaks out about Israel can be labelled an anti-­ Semite, then various aims are achieved simultaneously: the journalist will no longer be considered credible and therefore his opinions are discredited; the journalist can lose his/her career, and therefore they will no longer be able to publicly criticise Israel or influence public opinion; or the journalist will see the ‘error’ of his/her ways and start to represent Israel more ‘positively’. It’s a win-win situation for Israel. In this and other ways, anti-Semitism is misused to shield Israel from any criticism. In the words of Holocaust survivor Hajo Meyer, “an anti-­ Semite used to be someone who hates Jews, now an anti-Semite is someone whom Jews hate”. This is particularly applicable given that Netanyahu seems to be embracing real anti-Semites and Nazi sympathisers like

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Hungary’s Viktor Orban (In Mackey 2019). To equate anti-Semitism— the hatred of Jews—with criticism of Israel—a state that oppresses and occupies the Palestinians—not only puts free speech at risk, it also sets the parameters of permissible debate and criticism of Israel within very narrow confines. The ramifications of this are enormous: “Media self-censorship over many years has enabled the United States and Israel to block what has long been a possible political settlement of one of the world’s most explosive and threatening issues” (Chomsky 2003, p.  88). The result is that Israel enjoys an immunity that other countries and other people do not. Although journalists should be able to express their opinions and report freely on Israel, Israel is systematically trying to obstruct free press. As Israel has no constitution, free speech is not enshrined and is not “considered unassailable” which means that “the Knesset can still pass laws that infringe on free speech” (Silver 2017). As a result, journalists who try to report the Palestinian viewpoint can find themselves at the centre of hate campaigns, lawsuits, false accusations, intimidation or actual physical harm. In turn, this results in the underrepresentation of the Palestinian narrative. 4.3.2  The Criminalisation of BDS Another way in which the Israel lobby is attempting to silence anyone who speaks out about Israel’s crimes is through the criminalisation of BDS. The Palestinian non-violent movement for freedom, justice and equality known as Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) is being criminalised in countries all over the world. The UK government, for example, plans to make it illegal for “local [city] councils, public bodies, and even some university student unions…to refuse to buy goods and services from companies involved in the arms trade, fossil fuels, tobacco products, or Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank” (Greenwald and Fishman 2016). Not only does this show the British government’s pro-Israel bias but it is also a colossal infringement of the British public’s free speech and freedom of choice. The anti-BDS Laws are so pervasive that after Hurricane Harvey in Texas, only firms that did not support a boycott of Israel could apply for a rebuilding contract (ibid.). To date, over twenty-six states have enacted some sort of anti-boycott law to “insulate Israel from criticism, part of a broader Israel lobby effort focused squarely on combating the BDS

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movement. Some of the measures have been pilloried for restricting free speech, but many have passed without issue” (Lacy 2019). Germany recently passed a law criminalising BDS by equating it with anti-Semitism. Levy describes Germany’s actions as criminalising justice: “A blend of warranted guilt feelings orchestrated and taken to sickening extremes by cynical and manipulative Israeli extortion, caused the federal parliament on Friday to pass one of the most outrageous and bizarre resolutions since the end of World War II” (2019). Every supporter of BDS will be considered by Germany “to be a Jew-hater” and talking about or mentioning the Israeli occupation “will be like saying “Heil Hitler”” (ibid.). Essentially, this law seeks to criminalise free speech and political activism and demonise vocal supporters of Palestinian rights. As a form of unarmed resistance, based on the South African anti-­ apartheid movement, BDS jeopardises Israel’s framing of the ‘conflict’ and the Palestinians. The BDS movement is at variance with Israel’s claims that the Palestinians do not want peace and are violent terrorists. The Israeli government perceives BDS as a considerable threat and it has dedicated a whole ministry, the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, to target BDS worldwide. In 2016, Netanyahu allocated $26 million from Israel’s budget to tackle BDS or, in Israeli terminology, to tackling “‘delegitimization’ of Israel” (Cronin 2017, p. 175). Meanwhile, the BDS movement is being attacked for its work in the cultural sphere, its successes in this area are rattling Israel and its friends. The cultural boycott has started urging artists, musicians and sportspeople, for example, not to cross the picket-line by performing in Israel. The British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES) has joined the academic boycott of Israeli universities “over their complicity in planning, implementing and justifying Israel’s grave human rights violations”. The Dutch Trade Union, FNV, dropped Hewlett-Packard as a partner over its complicity “in Israel’s apartheid and violations of international law”. In Chile, the National Congress voted to ban all products from illegal Israeli settlements. A subsidiary of AXA insurance “divested from Israeli drone manufacturer Elbit Systems, which sells weapons used by the Israeli military in attacks on Palestinians” and HSBC also fully divested from Elbit Systems (BDS Movement). Alstom, the French train manufacturer, has pulled out from the bidding to extend the Jerusalem light rail which links illegal Israeli settlements within the occupied West Bank to one another, as well as connecting them to Jerusalem, “citing concerns over how the settler railway violates Palestinian human rights and international law” (Abunimah 2019c). Similarly, French energy company Total decided not

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to invest in Israel drawing criticism and ire from Israel. George P. Smith, the 2018 winner of the Nobel Prize in chemistry, urged students and mentors “not to participate in the next International Physics Olympiad in Israel and to stand for human rights of the young Palestinian pupils and students, including their right to education” (Abunimah 2019d). There is still a long way to go especially as tourism companies including TripAdvisor, AirBnB, Expedia and Booking.com continue to profit from Israel’s illegal military occupation (Amnesty 2019). The settlements are a violation of international humanitarian law and a war crime. By listing properties in the illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, these companies are contributing and fuelling human rights violations against the Palestinians (ibid.). Israel has its own more stringent anti-boycott law, the Israeli Anti-­ Boycott law,11 which can see anyone being sued under the law, regardless of their nationality (Holmes 2018). This act is designed to stifle legitimate criticism of Israel and to make an example of people and organisations, so that people think twice before boycotting Israel or any businesses in the occupied West Bank. This is especially important at a time when “there is also a growing consensus among international legal scholars that trade in settlement goods violates international law” (Ruebner 2017). Israel continues to breach UN resolutions and international law on a daily basis. Rather than change its policies, end the military occupation and dismantle the settlements, Israel has spent a fortune criminalising free speech and political activism in order to shield its actions from criticism. Freedom in its various forms is essential to the democratic process, whether the freedom to report the truth without pressure or fear, the freedom to have access to accurate information or the freedom to hear or read about different views; all of these are fundamental to democracy and should be guaranteed by an objective and non-partisan media.

Notes 1. The British Foreign Office, for example, recently banned “Russian outlets RT and Sputnik from attending the upcoming Global Conference on Media Freedom in London, citing their predilection for “disinformation”.” The irony and hypocrisy of purposely banning media outlets from a conference on media freedom is not lost on us (see Johnstone 2019). 2. Facebook, for example, has failed to censor the accounts of ultra-­nationalist Buddhists inciting violence and hatred against the Muslim Rohinga and other ethnic minorities. The United Nations went as far as to blame

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Facebook for “playing a leading role” in “textbook ethnic cleansing” in Myanmar (see Werleman 2018). 3. Typically, as a result of what Herman and Chomsky termed ‘flak’, the negative responses to media in the form of letters, phone calls, lawsuits, threat or actual withdrawal of advertising. 4. See Williams, K. (1997) 2010, p. 231. 5. When the argument cannot be attacked, the person is attacked instead. 6. See Pappe (2017, p. 2). 7. International Criminal Court (ICC) Article 8. 2b (viii). 8. Greenslade’s observation comes to mind: “If a well-funded, well-­organised, professional bureaucracy cannot successfully correct false stories, what chance have the poorly-funded, voluntary organisations representing refugees and asylum-seekers to stop the spreading of myths?” (2005). 9. This practice is known as ‘astroturfing’: “the deceptive practice of presenting an orchestrated marketing or public relations campaign in the guise of unsolicited comments from members of the public” or a grassroots campaign (OED). 10. Dershowitz led the campaign of hate against Finkelstein by lobbying professors, alumni and the administration at DePaul. It is also likely that there is a personal dimension to the witch-hunt, as it came after a debate between Norman Finkelstein and Alan Dershowitz on Democracy Now, in which Dershowitz’s 2003 book The Case for Israel was being discussed and reviewed. Finkelstein, whose work has been lauded by no less than Noam Chomsky and the late Raul Hilberg (considered to be the world’s foremost authority on the Holocaust), systematically destroyed the claims of the work, revealing them to be, amongst other things, unsubstantiated and founded on the fabricated myths propounded in the long-since discredited (but bestselling) work of Joan Peters, From Time Immemorial. There was also evidence that much of the writing had been carried out by student researchers working for Dershowitz, and that some sections, including quotations, had been lifted wholesale from Peter’s book. It was a massive blow to Dershowitz’s ego, and his actions since suggest that he has not yet recovered. 11. Also known by the Orwellian term Law for Prevention of Damage to State of Israel through Boycott.

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Abunimah, A. (2019a) Angela Davis is latest Black target of Israel lobby. (https:// electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-­abunimah/angela-­davis-­latest-­black-­target-­ israel-­lobby) (07/01/19). Abunimah, A. (2019c) Israel’s settler railway could be going nowhere fast. (https:// electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-­abunimah/israels-­settler-­railway-­could-­be-­ going-­nowhere-­fast) (25/05/2019). Abunimah, A. (2019d) Nobel Prize winner calls for boycott of Israel physics contest. (https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-­abunimah/nobel-­prize-­winner-­ calls-­boycott-­israel-­physics-­contest) (03/06/2019). Al-Jazeera. (2017) Israel moves to close Al Jazeera, ban its journalists. (http:// www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2017/08/israel-­seeks-­close-­al-­jazeera-­ban-­ journalists-­170806130215616.html) (07/08/2017). Amnesty International. (2019) Why TripAdvisor continues to contribute to the suffering of Palestinians? (https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/ news/2019/07/israelopt-­why-­tripadvisor-­continues-­to-­contribute-­to-­the-­ suffering-­of-­palestinians/) (16/07/2019). BDS Movement. (2019) BDS@14: Hope in the face of Israeli apartheid. (https:// bdsmovement.net/news/bds-­14-­hope-­face-­israeli-­apartheid) (09/07/19). Bar Hillel, M. (2014) The truth about the UK’s pro-Israel lobbies. (http://www. independent.co.uk/voices/comment/the-­t ruth-­a bout-­t he-­u ks-­p owerful-­ jewish-­lobbies-­9702262.html) (01/09/2014). Barrows-Friedman, N. & Abunimah, A. (2016) Israel linked to suspension of Palestine course at UC Berkeley. (http://electronicintifada.net/content/israel-­ linked-­suspension-­palestine-­course-­uc-­berkeley/17936) (16/09/2016). Bennet, P. & Naim, M. (2015) 21st-century censorship. Governments around the world are using stealthy strategies to manipulate the media. (http://archives.cjr. org/cover_story/21st_century_censorship.php) (January/February 2015). Birkinbine, B.  J., Gomez, R., & Wasko, J. (Eds) (2017) Global Media Giants. New York and London: Routledge. Boczkowski, P. J., & Anderson, C. W. (Eds) (2017) Remaking the News. Essays on the Future of Journalism. Scholarship in the Digital Age. London, England/ Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. Cattan, H. (1988) The Palestine Question. London, New  York, Sydney: Croom Helm. Chomsky, N. (2003) Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies. Canada: Toronto: House of Anansi Press. Chomsky, N. (2017) Independence of Journalism. Chomsky.info. (https:// chomsky.info/01072017) (07/01/2017). Chomsky, N. & Pappe, I. (2015) On Palestine. Chicago, Illinois: Haymarket Books. Edited by Frank Barat. Cook, J. (2008) Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair. U.K.: London: Zed Books.

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Cook, J. (2009) Internet users paid to spread Israeli propaganda. (https:// electronicintifada.net/content/inter net-­u sers-­p aid-­s pread-­i sraeli-­ propaganda/8355) (21/07/2009). Cook, J. (2018) Breaking the Silence about Israel’s occupation of Hebron. (https:// amp.thenational.ae/world/mena/breaking-­t he-­s ilence-­a bout-­i srael-­s -­ occupation-­of-­hebron-­1.778392?_twitter_impression=true) (08/10/2018). Cronin, D. (2015) How The Guardian told me to steer clear of Palestine. (http:// electronicintifada.net/blogs/david-­cronin/how-­guardian-­told-­me-­steer-­clear-­ palestine) (11/03/15). Cronin, D. (2017) Balfour’s Shadow: A Century of British Support for Zionism and Israel. London: Pluto Press. Curran, J. (Ed) (2010) 2016) Media and Society. London: Bloomsbury Academic, Bloomsbury Publishing. 5th Edition. Edwards, D. (1998) 2012) The Compassionate Revolution: Radical Politics and Buddhism. Devon: Green Books. Elmaazi, M. (2019) WitchHunt: The smearing of the anti-racist Left. (https:// www.thecanary.co/opinion/2019/03/04/witchhunt-­the-­smearing-­of-­the-­ anti-­racist-­left) (05/03/19). Fenton, T. (2005) Bad News: The Decline of Reporting, The Business of New, and the Dangers to us all. New York, London: Harper Collins. Findley, P. (1985) 1989) 2003) They Dare To Speak Out: People and Institutions confront Israel’s Lobby. Third Edition. Chicago, Illinois: Lawrence Hill Books. Finkelstein, N. G. (2015a) Amnesty’s betrayal of a forsaken people. (https://www. byline.com/project/13/article/261) (18/08/2015). Finkelstein, N. G. (2015b) A New “New Anti-Semitism”? Part 1. (https://www. byline.com/project/13/article/594) (24/11/2015). Finkelstein, N. G. (2016) Norman Finkelstein interview by Jamie Stern-Weiner on David Cameron’s Dodgy Friends. (https://www.byline.com/project/13/article/1025) (05/05/2016). Franklin, B., Hamer, M., Hanna, M., Kinsey, M., & Richardson, J. E. (2005) Key Concepts in Journalism Studies. London, New Delhi: Thousand Oaks, Sage Publications. Greenslade, R. (2005) Seeking Scapegoats. The coverage of asylum in the UK press. Asylum and Migration Working Paper 5. Institute for Public Policy Research. (May 2005). Greenwald, G. (2016) Facebook Is Collaborating With the Israeli Government to Determine What Should Be Censored. (https://theintercept.com/2016/09/12/ facebook-­is-­collaborating-­with-­the-­israeli-­government-­to-­determine-­what-­ should-­be-­censored/) (12/09/2016). Greenwald, G. (2017) Facebook says it is deleting accounts at the direction of the U.S. and Israeli governments. (https://theintercept.com/2017/12/30/ facebook-­says-­it-­is-­deleting-­accounts-­at-­the-­direction-­of-­the-­u-­s-­and-­israeli-­ governments/) (30/12/17).

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Greenwald, G. & Fishman, A. (2016) Greatest Threat to Free Speech in the West: Criminalizing Activism Against Israeli Occupation. (https://theintercept. com/2016/02/16/greatest-­threat-­to-­free-­speech-­in-­the-­west-­criminalizing-­ activism-­against-­israeli-­occupation/). Grim, R. (2019) Pro-Israel Lobby Caught on Tape Boasting That Its Money Influences Washington. (https://theintercept.com/2019/02/11/ilhan-­omar-­ israel-­lobby-­documentary) (11/02/19). Hass, A. (2015) Does the Israeli Army Plant Knives on Palestinians? (http://www. haaretz.com/israel-­news/.premium-­1.686280?v=57F2A0C6A61510C746 9B400703E85B9E) (16/11/15). Holmes, O. (2018) Lorde: Israeli fans sue activists over tour cancellation. (https:// www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/31/lorde-­israeli-­fans-­sue-­activists-­ over-­tour-­cancellation) (01/02/2018). Huxley, A. (1959) 1994) Brave New World Revisited. London: Vintage. International Criminal Court (ICC) Elements of Crimes. (Article 8. 2b (viii) (https://www.icc-­c pi.int/resourcelibrary/official-­j ournal/elements-­o f-­ crimes.aspx#article8-­2b-­vii-­3). Johnstone, C. (2019) Government That Tortures Journalists Bans RT From Media Conference. (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/government-­ that-­t ortures-­j ournalists-­b ans-­r t-­f rom-­m edia-­c onference-­6 1ea96cb6962) (09/07/19). Jones, O. (2014) The Establishment. And How They Get Away With It. U.K.: London: Allen Lane, Penguin Books. Karmi, G. (2007) Married to Another Man: Israel’s Dilemma in Palestine. London: Pluto Press. Konrad, E. (2019) IDF admits teen didn’t commit crime, locks him up for Facebook post anyway. (https://972mag.com/administrative-­detention-­israeli-­army-­ palestinian-­teen-­facebook/139610/) (10/01/19). Kumar, D. (2012) Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire. Chicago: Haymarket Books. Lacy, A. (2019) Ilhan Omar, AIPAC, and the 2020 Democratic Presidential Contenders. (https://theintercept.com/2019/02/17/ilhan-­omar-­aipac-­2020-­ democratic-­party/) (17/02/19). Levy, G. (2018) Opinion Undemocratic From the River to the Sea. (https://www. haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-­u ndemocratic-­f rom-­t he-­r iver-­t o-­t he-­ sea-­1.5995873) (15/04/2018). Macarthur, J. R. (1992) 2004) Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the 1991 Gulf War. Foreword by Ben H. Bagdikian. California, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Mackey, R. (2019) Beto O’Rourke Slams Benjamin Netanyahu, Saying Israeli Has “Openly Sided With Racists”. (https://theintercept.com/2019/03/20/beto-­ orourke-­s lams-­b enjamin-­n etanyahu-­s aying-­i sraeli-­o penly-­s ided-­r acists/) (20/03/19).

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McSmith, A. (2016) Iraq and the Rupert Murdoch connection: The media mogul’s network of pro-war campaigners. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/ m e d i a / p r e s s / c h i l c o t -­i n q u i r y -­r e p o r t -­i r a q -­w a r-­r u p e r t -­m u r d o c h -­ connection-­a7125786.html) (07/07/2016). Middle East Monitor. (2017) Israeli politician calls on UN to stop using the term occupation. (https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20170609-­israeli-­ politician-­calls-­on-­un-­to-­stop-­using-­the-­term-­occupation/) (09/06/2017). Newsinger, J. (2006) 2013) The Blood Never Dried. A People’s History of the British Empire. London: Bookmark Publications. O’Shaughnessy, N. J. (2004) Politics and propaganda: Weapons of mass seduction. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Oborne, P. & Jones, J. (2009) The pro-Israel lobby in Britain. (https://www. opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/peter-­o borne-­j ames-­j ones/pro-­i srael-­ lobby-­in-­britain-­full-­text) (13/11/2009). Oborne, P. & Westad, J-P. (2020) HSBC to block donations to Palestinian aid charity Interpal. (https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/exclusive-­hsbc-­ block-­donations-­palestinian-­aid-­charity-­interpal) (27/04/2020). Pappe, I. (2017) The Biggest Prison On Earth: A History of the Occupied Territories. London: Oneworld Publications. Peled, M. (2018) Four Days in Palestine: My Time with Bassem Tamimi (https:// www.mintpressnews.com/four-­d ays-­i n-­p alestine-­m y-­t ime-­w ith-­b assem-­ tamimi/237031/) (01/02/18). Philo, G. & Berry, M. (2004) Bad News From Israel. London: Pluto Press. Pilger, J. (2010) Why are wars not being reported honestly? (https://www. theguardian.com/media/2010/dec/10/war-­media-­propaganda-­iraq-­lies) (10/12/2010). Reinhart, T. (2006) The Road Map to Nowhere: Israel/Palestine since 2003. London, New York: Verso. Ridley, Y. (2017) Censorship of photographic exhibition exposing Israeli brutality angers Scots. (https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20170827-­censorship-­of-­ photographic-­e xhibition-­e xposing-­i sraeli-­b r utality-­a ngers-­s cots) (27/08/2017). Ruebner, J. (2017) New US bill would punish settlement boycotters. (https:// electronicintifada.net/blogs/josh-­r uebner/new-­u s-­b ill-­w ould-­p unish-­ settlement-­boycotters) (18/04/2017). Said, E. W. (2000) America’s Last Taboo. (https://newleftreview.org/ll/6/edward-­ said-­america-­s-­last-­taboo) (New Left Review 6, November-­December 2000). Shehadeh, R. (2017) Where The Line is Drawn: Crossing Boundaries in Occupied Palestine. London: Profile Books. Shupak, G. (2018) The Wrong Story. Palestine, Israel, & the Media. New York/ London: Or Books.

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Silver, C. (2017) Journalist David Sheen faces lawsuit from Israeli general Israel Ziv. (https://electronicintifada.net/content/journalist-­david-­sheen-­faces-­ lawsuit-­israeli-­general-­israel-­ziv/21471) (23/08/2017). Strickland, P. (2015) Israel jails Palestinians for Facebook comments. (https:// www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/05/israel-­j ails-­p alestinians-­f acebook-­ comments-­150521082135363.html) (23/05/2015). Suarez, T. (2016) State of Terror: How terrorism created modern Israel. U.K.: Oxon: Skyscraper Publications. Werleman, C.  J. (2018) It’s Not Enough to Condemn Myanmar’s Generals, Something Urgent Must Be Done to Save Rohinga Muslims! (https://extranewsfeed.com/its-­n ot-­e nough-­t o-­c ondemn-­m yanmar-­s -­g enerals-­s omething-­ urgent-­must-­be-­done-­to-­save-­rohinga-­50abdb0efc13) (28/08/2018). Williams, K. (1997) 2010) Get Me a Murder a Day! A History of Media and Communication in Britain. Second Edition. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Winstanley, A. (2018) Marc Lamont Hill should be reinstated without delay. (https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20181220-­marc-­lamont-­hill-­should-­ be-­reinstated-­without-­delay/) (20/12/18).

CHAPTER 5

Media Framing and Sourcing Techniques Used in the Reporting of the ‘Conflict’

We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves. —George Orwell (1984)

5.1   Propaganda and the Media The use and manipulation of language in propaganda and swaying opinion is as old as language itself, used to varying degrees across both place and time, and to various ends, whether that be to unify, to divide, or to incite and call to action. Its power is best illustrated with what is undoubtedly the most infamous example of our time, namely the way in which Hitler used language “to turn many of his nation’s people into racist murderers” (Collins and Glover 2002, p. 3). There are still many who express utter astonishment at this vile feat, the expertness with which Hitler rallied, in effect, an entire nation behind the most inhuman and inhumane persecution of a number of groups, most notably the Jews of Germany and beyond. But this is to underestimate the power of language and its manipulation. Propaganda is the dissemination of information of a biased or misleading nature to promote a political cause or point of view. Controlling what people think about is the first step to controlling how they think and how they behave: “That is why ideology, an attempt to interpret the condition of man, is always a prominent feature of revolutions, wars” (Milgram 1974/2009, p. 146). It is no accident that governments invest so much © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 N. R. Sirhan, Reporting Palestine-Israel in British Newspapers, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17072-1_5

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time and money into propaganda “which constitutes the official manner of interpreting events” (ibid.). Propaganda is a means by which people’s beliefs, opinions and attitudes are shaped. It flourishes best under two conditions: where censorship, which limits the range of permissible opinions and viewpoints, is in place; and where there are well-established and reliable conduits for the dissemination of the official narrative. At a time when “Knowledge is increasingly the most important resource in modern societies” controlling what people know (and what they do not) is paramount (Lunt and Livingstone 2012, p. 13). What distinguishes propaganda from other ways of communicating information, ideas or opinions is its intention to mislead and deceive the masses, and this it does by highlighting and exaggerating certain facts, while simultaneously omitting others. The result is that information is presented in such a way that will promote and reinforce the idea being put forth. In order to maximise the desired effect on the audience, one idea or view must be promoted with the factual background removed. For propaganda to prove effective, the media must be brought in, or co-opted, whether willing or unwilling, for propaganda is close to pointless if it is attempted against the backdrop of a well-functioning media advancing various voices and views. The media can advance propaganda by continuing to give it credence or by omitting counter-opinions and dissenting voices—essentially delimiting what is considered acceptable debate: “the true object of propaganda is neither to convince nor even to persuade. But to produce a uniform pattern of public utterances in which the first trace of unorthodox thought reveals itself as a jarring dissonance” (Shapiro in Varoufakis 2016, p. 245). In other words, by restricting acceptable debate and limiting the narrative, propaganda has the effect of highlighting ‘unorthodox thought’ as a glaring deviation. O’Shaughnessy explains that propaganda is “a form of social control” and “a substitute for social coercion and for more passive forms of social persuasion”. He classifies propaganda as “‘soft’ social control” (compared to, e.g. prison, which is “hard” social control) (2004, p. 49). The term ‘propaganda’ is rarely used in the context of the West because, put simply, it does not occur to most people that Western governments practise it; it is a term reserved for the media manipulations of the despotic, fascistic governments of the ‘other’, past and present. Instead, in our democratic nations, it has been replaced by euphemistic terms like ‘disinformation’, ‘manufacturing consent’, ‘national security’ and ‘perception management’. Nevertheless, while the term ‘propaganda’ may only

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be used to refer to the actions of non-Western countries, the practice remains the same. The euphemistic term ‘perception management’, for example, is “designed to counter the major threat to Britain’s foreign policy: the public” (Curtis 2004, p. 101). The reality is that propaganda is used by all governments. In fact, Chomsky argues that British propaganda via the “Ministry of Information” essentially won the First World War. So effective was this propaganda that even Hitler was impressed by its success.1 Propaganda is the most effective way of convincing the public that governments are doing the right thing, and in this the media’s role is key: “A regular feature of corporate media manipulation involves the launching of what we call a propaganda blitz, attacking and discrediting ‘Official Enemies’, often preparing the way for ‘action’ or ‘intervention’ of some kind” (Edwards and Cromwell 2018, p. 1). Propaganda is most successful when it makes use of a compliant media to play on existing prejudices, beliefs, stereotypes or fears, in order to appropriate the public mind. The media oblige by accepting propaganda as fact, without probing, questioning or investigating the issues, quashing all possible debate. By working propaganda into everyday language the public is largely unaware of its existence. This is aided in no small part by the fact that “an estimated 98 percent” of thought “is completely unconscious” (Lakoff in Lakoff and Wehling 2016, p. 2). Like propaganda, manufacturing consent, disinformation, thought-­ control, indoctrination and spin all serve to manipulate information in order to guide, distort and mislead public opinion. According to Chomsky and Herman, manufacturing consent, a term first coined by Walter Lippmann, necessitates that ‘Necessary Illusions’ are in place. To “manufacture consent” according to Lippmann, was “to bring about agreement on the part of the public for things that they didn’t want by the new techniques of propaganda” (In Chomsky 1991/1997/2002, pp. 14–15). As societies have become freer and it is no longer acceptable to coerce or force the general public into submission, governments sought “more sophisticated indoctrination and propaganda” (Chomsky 1989). As with propaganda, the media’s role in manufacturing consent is vital. Disinformation is the spread of false information concocted by government organisations, opposition parties or rivals via the media. It is similar to propaganda in that its aim is to mislead, direct or influence public opinion and thought. The difference lies in that it always uses false information whereas propaganda can include the use of accurate information selectively chosen or worded. As Jones et  al. argue, disinformation must be

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countered quickly and vigorously because “Failing to respond tends to validate the disinformation” (In Welch 2014/2015, p.  160). Similarly, spin is another form of propaganda commonly used to manipulate public opinion, usually through the biased interpretation of events to aggrandise or demonise a person, a people or an organisation. Like all types of propaganda, spin is impossible without the media’s complicity.

5.2   Agenda Setting and Framing in the Media 5.2.1  Agenda Setting Agenda setting and framing are two major propaganda techniques. Agenda setting refers to the idea that the media determine which stories are reported and which are not, thereby controlling the content of public opinion. “The media…can set agendas in the sense of highlighting some news stories and topics, but they can also severely limit the information with which we understand events in the world” (Philo and Berry 2004, pp. 94–95). Chomsky explains that “the most important ones, like The New York Times and The Washington post, big national media, they set the agenda” (1989). He adds that the government leaks the stories they want reported and the ‘important newspapers’ pick them up. The mere fact that a story is on the front page of the Washington Post or The New York Times will mean that other national media will cover it. Needless to say, the media hold great power, and Chomsky’s example serves to highlight both the media’s agenda setting role, and the extent of their relationship with governments (Chomsky 1989). The result is that only a very narrow range of stories actually reaches the general public. The agenda setting role serves two main functions: to make the public aware of something or to conceal something specific from the public. Curtis, for example, argues that through the use of agenda setting and framing (which I discuss below), and by “ignoring relevant history”, the media manage to distort the truth about Britain’s role in the rest of the world (2003, pp. 376–377). The agenda setting role of the media is not to be downplayed: if the media decide that a subject warrants their attention, they will make a lot of noise about it and we, the readers, will know everything they want us to know; but if the media decide that a subject or event does not warrant their attention or is best kept under wraps, then

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there will be complete silence and the reader will not even know that it exists. While it is true that the media can purposefully mislead the public, they can also unintentionally mislead the public. In some instances, the media have even been known to tell the truth. Agenda Setting and framing explore the ways in which the media determine what the public should think about, and are closely linked. However, the latter extends further because it determines how the public should think about what they have been told to think about. “Selecting what will be communicated is as influential upon the formation of knowledge as the selection how it will be communicated” (Peterson 2015, p. 24). I will take a closer look at framing to explore the ‘how’ that Peterson describes above. 5.2.2  Media Frames Narratives help us understand and interpret the world around us and it is through our own past experiences and pre-existing narratives that we understand new ones or interpret those of others. “What we see and hear will always depend on what we bring and experience” (Foley 2002, p. 19). We think in terms of frames which are effectively unconscious structures “physically realized in neural circuits in the brain” (Lakoff 2010, p. 71). Frames are necessary in order to understand narratives and interpret events: “A frame is a set of beliefs and assumptions that you carry in your head to help you understand and negotiate some part of your world” (Bolman and Deal 2014, p. 11). It is these experiences, pre-existing narratives and frameworks that we have collected, stored and interpreted over the years that are drawn on in ‘framing’. In order to understand the world around us, we use our conceptual frames to make inferences and fill in gaps in narratives. In fact, “all thinking and talking involves “framing”” (Lakoff 2010, p. 71). Frames help organise how information is processed and how meaning is understood; they are, in essence, the lens through which we view the world. Frames start being formed from a young age and they are shaped by education and culture. People who share a culture often have “an already existing cultural repertoire”, and therefore a frame can be drawn on simply through allusion in order to elicit the desired emotion, feeling or reaction (Storey 1997/2018, p. 129). While frames can and do vary between individuals, “frames that employ more culturally resonant terms have the greatest potential for influence” (Entman 2004, p. 6). The more embedded the frame within a culture, the more likely the frame will evoke

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the desired thoughts and feelings in the audience. In short, framing can be a very effective means of manipulating the reader. An example of this can be seen in the increased representation of the drug issue by the news media. Although “there was no change at all in the actual incidence of drug use”, through framing and agenda setting, the public were made to think that drug use was out of control and that it was increasingly becoming a social problem (McCombs 2014, p. 28). Frames that are frequently repeated become ingrained in our brains until they become “our primary way of perceiving the issue at hand” (Lakoff and Wehling 2016, p. 24). The more a frame is used, the more credible it becomes. Moreover, even negating a frame activates it (Lakoff 2010, p.  72). The constant telling and retelling of an event fixes our thoughts and beliefs about a specific event: “When a topic is presented in a similar fashion widely and frequently, these approaches coalesce into relatively coherent narratives through which those segments of the public that depend on news media to comprehend the world around them come to understand the subject” (Shupak 2018, p. 1). The linguist J.R. Firth said that “you shall know a word by the company it keeps” and often the use of collocations2 is one way in which frames can be established or triggered. In other words, “the function and meaning of a word are fixed, from a range of possibilities by the words which surround it” and so when certain words are mentioned, others are expected (Richardson in Franklin et al. 2005, p. 37). For example, if, as Richardson does, we take the word ‘blonde’, one would typically expect ‘hair’ to follow (blonde hair) and after the word ‘excruciating’ one would typically expect the word ‘pain’ (ibid., p. 38). The use of collocations like these can help establish certain frames. Essentially, framing controls thought by using language to trigger ready-made associations: “Drawing on ready-to-use political language is unlikely to yield anything other than pre-formed, off-the-shelf, conventional thinking, because that’s precisely the kind of thinking that ready-to-use political language is designed for” (Makdisi 2006). Framing can be used to create bias and to promote certain views and agendas and the type of frame used will depend on the desired aim. “The frames through which stories are presented direct audiences toward specific understanding of issues by highlighting some details at the expense of the others” (Shupak 2018, p.  4). The media focus attention on certain events (rather than others) and then place them within a familiar semantic field or context. “Mainstream journalists tend to highlight the “factual”

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evidence that buttresses society’s dominant discourses by placing events into ideologically preferred frames” (Karim 2003, p. 6). Their use determines what is highlighted and what is concealed, encourages certain interpretations while discouraging others: “the media do not tell us what to think, but they do tell us what to think about” (Cohen 2001, p. 169). Identifying these media frames, as Robinson et al. argue, can reveal “the influence of power on news media representations” (2010/2016, p. 8). Media framing is common practice: “It isn’t necessary, to subscribe to a ‘conspiracy theory’, for instance, in order to accept that media reporting ideologically frames stories to favour and represent the views of dominant groups” (Talbot et al. 2003, p. 5). Iyengar distinguishes between two types of framing, episodic and thematic and he states that “episodic news predominates”. Episodic framing “considers issues at the level of concrete events or persons” whereas thematic framing “presents issues at the level of the collectivity”. Episodic framing is favoured over thematic framing because the former holds the audience’s attention with “anecdotal account” better than the “in-depth and interpretive reporting” required of thematic reporting which is also expensive. Interestingly, the use of one over the other can influence how the audience perceives and interprets the information: “Exposure to episodic framing breeds individualistic as opposed to societal attributions of responsibility; national issues such as crime, terrorism or poverty are traced to private actions and motives rather than deep-seated societal or structural forces” (Iyengar in Curran 2010/2016, pp.  279–280). In other words, episodic framing allows events to be portrayed as though they are isolated incidents for which individuals are to blame rather than as a result of systemic issues within society itself. This type of framing deflects attention away from governments and elites and helps maintain the status quo. In times of war and conflict framing takes on special and profound significance. Stereotyped frames of the ‘other’ are resurrected to reinforce ties amongst the ‘in-group’ and further distance the ‘out-group’. Once established, media frames become firmly entrenched: “It is extremely difficult to change existing media frames, especially about conflict. These frames take on almost mythical quality, and after a while none of the parties raise many questions about them. Antagonists who attempt to swim against this interpretive tide usually drown” (Wolfsfeld in Cohen and Wolfsfeld 1993, p. xvii). It is for this reason that frames are particularly useful in the portrayal of conflicts.

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5.3   Media and Framing the ‘Other’ Framing the ‘other’ as everything that ‘we’ are not serves to determine who is in the ‘in-group’ and who is in the ‘out-group’; the media play a central role in determining this both at a societal level and a national level. Being perceived as part of the ‘in-group’ is central to both individual identity and national identity; and when the nation is perceived to be at risk— whether the threat is real, fabricated or perceived—the people’s sense of national identity is manipulated and kicked into gear. “WE are good, and THEY are evil. That useful principle trumps virtually any argument” (Chomsky 2001/2002/2011, p. 152). No parallels can be drawn between ‘our’ behaviour and ‘theirs’, and in part this is why certain terms such as terrorism are only ever unidirectional. Although our Western imperialist governments are not, and never have been, motivated by humanitarian ideals, they have managed (with the help of the media) to sell the myth of western benevolence as fact. The media routinely suppress incriminating information about our government’s actions, including assassinations, bribes, supplying arms during conflicts and funding the overthrowing of foreign governments. Anything that speaks to the contrary or that might “erode the ‘benign humanitarian’ self-image of the West [is] routinely side-lined or buried by the corporate media” (Media Lens 2016). As a result, the existing state of affairs remains unchallenged. A fundamental part of othering is the representation and construction of the ‘other’ as inferior, barbaric and backwards.3 Much has been written about this subject in all fields relating to colonial studies, because othering was such a fundamental part of the colonial process: “Imperialism old and new has always been accompanied by a racialized ideology, demonizing and dehumanizing the invaded peoples and colonized victims” (Abdo 2014, p. 50). Today, we see it at play whenever a government is keen to go to war and needs to get the people on board.4 After all, as Herman argues, “It is the function of defence intellectuals and other experts, and the mainstream media, to normalize the unthinkable for the general public” (In Edwards and Cromwell 2006, p. 76). The ‘other’ and the associated culture is manipulated in such a way as to either create or reinforce stereotypes. Othering and demonisation go hand in hand, and by demonising the ‘other’ and categorising him as sub-human, inferior and sometimes even insane, our actions towards them can be justified. Milgram explains how

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the “Systematic devaluation of the victim provides a measure of psychological justification for brutal treatment of the victim and has been the constant accompaniment of massacres, pogroms, and wars” (1974/2009, p. 11). In order to dominate the ‘other’ and in order to justify their subjugation, the ‘other’ must be denigrated and dehumanised. After all, “eliminating “savages” is less of a moral problem than eliminating human beings” (In Alexander 2010/2011, p. 23). It is to a government’s advantage to always have an enemy to hand because it “helps generate fear, and legitimacy can be crafted through this emotion” (Normand 2016, pp.  60–61). When citizens are in a state of fear, they turn to their governments for ‘protection’, and domestic issues go on the backburner. The media play a crucial role in “the promotion of fear in the West’s pursuit of geopolitical control and world resources” (Cromwell 2012, p. 87). Having demonised the ‘other’, the ‘other’ has now been equated fully with evil; and negotiating with evil is improbable, if not “impossible” (Orwell 1949/1989, p. 36). Although the hypocrisy of these machinations does not go unnoticed, it has nevertheless been advantageous for the West, managing to maintain the high moral ground despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary: “we have a double standard for the judgement of violence within and without the national-racial group, in which we place a supreme value on peace within the society that has already incorporated us, and a supreme value on violence where we seek to control those outside the corporation” (Zinn 1970/1990, p. 247). The lives of ‘others’ are of little consequence and these ‘unpeople’, to borrow Orwell’s term, “are deemed worthless, expendable in the pursuit of power and commercial gain” (Curtis 2004, p. 2). Kapoor explains that such reasoning “assumes unquestionably and takes for granted that some bodies are worth defending and others less so” (2018, p. 49). For those who are considered to be worthy or “recognised as a fully human subject, violence in defence is always permissible and justifiable” but when the same violence is enacted by the ‘other’, it is seen as “an expression of barbarism and irrationality” (ibid.). The media play a significant role in delimiting what is acceptable and what is not, in the creation of social norms, and in deflecting criticism away from ‘our’ actions and focusing criticism on the actions of the ‘other’.

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5.3.1  The Palestinian ‘Other’ Nowhere is othering more prevalent today than in the context of the ‘conflict’, where both the Israeli media and international media have worked together to ‘other’ and demonise the Palestinians. “Few places, if any, have been the subject of so many biased, inaccurate, or incomplete presentations in publications and the media” (Ra’ad 2010, p.  2). From the beginning, for Zionist aspirations to gain ground, the Palestinians had to be denigrated and dehumanised in order to relegate them as ‘other’. “The immigrant-settler nation-state of Israel is a blatantly racist state, regarding its indigenous people…as less than human, as disposable, expendable and ‘transferable’” (Masalha 2012, p. 15). Once this was achieved, dispossessing and ethnically cleansing them would be easier and would be unimpeded by an international community already racked with guilt for their complicity in the genocide of the Jews. In the case of the ‘conflict’, two forces have been at play. On the one hand, Zionism has been elevated to an exalted status, while on the other, the Palestinians (and indirectly Arabs and Muslims) have been relegated to a secondary, primitive, less human role: What easier way is there to deny the rights or achievements of the native inhabitants of a land one wants to possess than to assume that one is superior, is “civilized,” while they are unworthy “savages”‚ and to cite one’s own god in support of their dispossession? (Ra’ad 2010, p. 31)

In other words, “the Israeli soul versus the Palestinian body” (Peterson 2015, p. 184). Peterson explains that “If depth of feeling and spiritual loss can be found in descriptions of only one group within the conflict, then the clear implication is that that group possesses the more developed culture, and are the more entitled people. If Palestinians are seen only as living ephemerally with concerns based only in the present, the depth of their culture, their historical experience, and their political claim within the context of conflict is lost” (ibid., pp. 184–185). This demonisation is accompanied by cultural appropriation. As Ra’ad explains, since “the East Mediterranean region was the “cradle of civilization,” dismissive or demonizing attitudes toward its people are accompanied by a desire to appropriate without acknowledgement the formative cultural accomplishments that originated in the region” (2010, p. 22).

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Before 9/11, the Palestinians were still largely considered by other nations to be a resistance movement, fighting for their rights as exemplified by the international support and sympathy for the Palestinians in their struggle against the Israelis during and after the first Intifada. However, after 9/11, the Israelis borrowed the rhetoric of the War on Terror— which had rebranded terrorism as exclusively ‘Arab’ or ‘Muslim’—to frame Palestinian resistance as terrorism. It became commonplace and acceptable to demonise Arabs and Muslims, wherever they were found: “politicians and the media have not just promoted Islamophobia—they’ve turned the dial up to eleven” (Kumar 2012, p.  41). Islam became the West’s main enemy and was framed as the antithesis of the West and Judaeo-Christian values. It was not sufficient, however, only to demonise and denigrate the Arabs and Muslims; the simultaneous elevation of the West and its allies was necessary. The worldwide demonisation of Islam and Muslims that took place after 9/11 had a significant impact on how Palestinians were viewed and presented in public discourse, since wherever possible Palestinians were depicted as “the quintessential Muslims” (Massad 2015, p. 325). It was not simply because most Palestinians are Muslim that the Palestinian struggle was framed in this way, it was purposefully exploited by Zionists: Ariel Sharon turned Israel into America’s ally in the ‘war on terror’, immediately realigning Yassir Arafat as the Palestinian version of bin Laden and the Palestinian suicide bombers as blood brothers of the nineteen Arabs— none of them Palestinian—who hijacked the four American airliners. (Fisk 2006, p. 603)

It wasn’t simply by association that Israel did this; Israel “immediately attempted to co-opt the legal framework arising from the U.S. war against Al Qaeda to justify Israel’s own use of military force against Palestinians. It tried to frame Palestinian attacks as tantamount to an armed attack within the purview of UNSC Resolutions 1368 and 1373 and as triggering its right to use force in self-defense” (Erakat 2019, p. 189). Nor was this Israel’s first attempt to appeal to the UN Security Council to “justify its use of force against Palestinians” (ibid.). By framing the ‘conflict’ as Israel’s own ‘War on Terror’, Israel shifted the narrative from that of occupier and occupied to one of terrorism and counterterrorism. Abdo details how after 9/11 “it became almost a crime to try and defend the resistance against occupation, colonialism and

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imperialism” (2014, p. 71). In this way, Israel was given a free hand in its dealings with the Palestinians. Chomsky explains that “In the first few days after the 9-11 attack, Israeli tanks entered Palestinian cities (Jenin, Ramallah, Jericho for the first time), several dozen Palestinians were killed, and Israel’s grip on the population tightened, exactly as would be expected” (2001/2002/2011, p.  51). This was not short-lived but became routine, as Neve Gordon observes: “from 2001 to 2007, Israelis killed more Palestinians per year than it had during the first 20 years of occupation. Additionally, since the onset of the second Intifada in October 2000, Israelis have slaughtered twice as many Palestinians as they did in the previous 34 years” (In Lean 2012/2017, p. 145). Consequently, the Palestinian plight remains obscured and Israel can claim to be fighting ‘terrorism’ to justify its use of violence against the civilian population. 5.3.2  Justifying Israeli Violence When Israeli violence towards Palestinians is not being obscured by nominalisation or by the passive (as discussed in Chap. 3), it is justified instead. This is done either by framing the Israeli violence as pure retaliation for a ‘prior’ Palestinian offence or crime, or as security concerns or ‘self-­ defence’: “Terrorism is invariably on the Palestinian, defence on the Israeli, side of the moral ledger” (Said 2000). In the context of Palestine and Israel, however, terrorism has become “a catch-all term for resistance” (Cronin 2017, p. 137). When dealing with Palestinian violence, the narrative landscape changes completely: Palestinian suffering is minimised, the Palestinian cause is obfuscated and Palestinian actions are decontextualised. Thus, while Palestinian motivations are often concealed—an easy enough task when reporting strips away all the context and history of the ‘conflict’—Israeli motivations are explained in order to allow the reader to contextualise Israeli actions as we will see from the articles analysed. In reporting, Israel’s mass arrests, house raids, house demolitions and its wounding and killing of Palestinians is justified by claiming that the victims were associated with Hamas in some way. Hamas was elected in 2006 in Palestine, following the first free election to take place in the Arab world. It was: “carefully monitored and validated. The election did have a serious flaw however: the wrong party won. The United States and Israel reacted at once by imposing harsh sanctions, while Europe, to its shame, trailed behind” (Chomsky 1989/2015, p. xii). As an Islamic group, the

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democratically elected Hamas was quickly labelled a ‘fundamentalist’ group and its members, ‘terrorists’, and Israel launched extensive campaigns to bring down the National Unity Government between Fatah and Hamas. The Palestinians had ‘failed’ in the democratic process and would no longer have the freedom to choose their own party; instead, Hamas supporters were imprisoned. “With America’s connivance, cooperation between Israel and PA forces loyal to Fatah was stepped up. Some 1,500 people suspected of being involved with or supportive of Hamas were rounded up in the West Bank between mid-June and October 2007” (Cronin 2017, p.  147). By framing Hamas as a ‘terrorist’ organisation, Israel was no longer under an obligation to deal with the elected government in besieged Gaza, and it could continue to claim that they had ‘no partner to peace’ on the Palestinian side. The media have played a crucial role in the demonisation of Hamas, through both what it has reported and what it has omitted. The media constantly intone that Hamas is dedicated to the destruction of Israel. In reality, Hamas leaders have repeatedly made it clear that Hamas would accept a two-state settlement in accord with the international consensus that has been blocked by the United States and Israel for forty years. (Chomsky in Chomsky and Pappe 2015, p. 159)

Israel’s depiction of Hamas as a terrorist organisation ignores the fact that armed resistance is permitted under international law and neglects the truth that “the first deadly Hamas bombing of the second intifada did not occur until five months into Israel’s relentless bloodletting” (Finkelstein 2018, p. 8). Framing things in this way “conceals how Israel initiates the vast majority of violent exchanges with Palestinians” and has allowed for the narrative to be reversed (Shupak 2018, p. 103). In the articles, Hamas was frequently referred to as a terrorist organisation. In an article about the kidnapping of the Israeli teenage settlers, we read that “The West and Israel consider Hamas a terror group because of its deadly attacks targeting civilians” (DM). We see this again in an article about OCL: “Israel considers Hamas, which is sworn to its destruction, to be a terrorist group” (DM). Here, it is stated as fact that Hamas is sworn to Israel’s destruction. Israel has managed to depict Hamas as a justifiable target by explicitly linking Hamas (and Palestinian resistance) with Islamic terrorism in the

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West and with the West’s public enemy number one, Iran: “Israeli officials believe Hamas’s Iranian missiles may soon be able to strike at Dimona” (DM). In a Guardian article about OCL, we learn that “Israel portrayed Hamas as part of an axis of Islamist fundamentalist evil with Iran and Hezbollah”. The same article goes on to explain that the Israeli government’s “national information directorate sought to focus foreign media attention on the 8,500 rockets fired from Gaza into Israel over the past eight years and the 20 civilians they have killed, rather than the punishing blockade of Gaza and the 1,700 Palestinians killed in Israeli military attacks since Jewish settlers were pulled out of Gaza three years ago”. In another article, we are explicitly told that Israel wanted “to ensure that its war was seen not in terms of occupation but of the west’s struggle against terror and confrontation with Iran” (G). In other words, by linking Hamas with terrorism, Israel obscures the military occupation, whitewashes its crimes and gets away with murdering innocent Palestinians. The mere mention of Hamas acts like a trigger word that sets in motion a chain of associated ideas, all of which combine to form an image of blood-letting terrorists. This, in turn, justifies any and all of Israel’s actions: “Today warplanes struck a house next to the Hamas prime minister’s home and flattened a building at a university linked to the militants” (DM) and “The IDF killed 15 Hamas fighters some of the most intense close-­ quarter fighting of the conflict so far” (DT). We see a similar depiction in the following example: “With Hamas using increasingly sophisticated rockets to hit cities deeper inside Israel, F16 aircraft fired two missiles into the house of Nizar Rayyan, a fierce militant who had advocated renewing suicide bombings inside the Jewish state” (T). The mere equation of targeted, high-tech Israeli bombing with low-tech Palestinian rockets ‘helps’ the reader believe that the Palestinian rockets are a greater threat than they really are while downplaying the destruction inflicted by Israel and its weapons. The collective punishment and mass arrests of 400 Palestinians is justified by claiming that they were: “mainly Hamas members” (G), “most of them Hamas activists” (DM) and “the majority of them Hamas members” (DT). Even being a “suspected” Hamas member is considered legitimate grounds for arresting and killing civilians: “A senior Israeli intelligence officer today said that anyone linked to Hamas was potentially a target for arrest” (DM). Similarly, we read that “The hunt for the three missing youths has seen several hundred Palestinians rounded up in a massive operation—often without charge or connection to the kidnapping—and

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five Palestinians, including a number of minors, killed” (G). Two points are worth repeating: the first, that political affiliation with Hamas is deemed justification enough for killing Palestinians; the second, that these are unsubstantiated claims, not facts, and, as we have seen, Israel is not above making false accusations. This type of reporting, as Shupak argues, suggests that “Hamas has no right to engage in a war with Israel, even when Israel initiated it” (2018, pp. 103–104). In an article about Abu Thurayeh, we are told that “Israeli military sources accused the Islamist movement Hamas, which controls Gaza, of paying youths to confront the army at the border”. Significantly, this statement comes straight after the killing of Palestinians has been mentioned which links the killing of protesters with Hamas. This, in turn, shifts responsibility from the Israelis onto Hamas and the Palestinians themselves. In other words, Hamas paid them to protest, it’s Hamas’ fault they were killed. Another way Israel justifies its violence towards the Palestinians in Gaza is by claiming that the target was a place where Hamas stores its weapons or that Hamas shot at them and so they retaliated: “Israel’s military says the home of Hamas leaders are being used to store missiles and other weapons, making them a legitimate target” (DM). These details serve to explain away the killing of Rayan, his four wives and ten children: “Israeli defence officials confirmed a one-ton bomb was used to attack Rayan’s home, and that weapons stored inside set off secondary explosions” (DM). By claiming that Rayan’s home was used to store weapons, the ‘secondary explosion’ is explained and the targeting of his family home is justified. The Times follows suit by allowing Israel to justify its killing of Palestinian civilians by claiming that “Most of those killed were security men—including Gaza’s police chief—but an unknown number of civilians were also among the dead”. If the number of civilians killed is unknown, one wonders how it is known that ‘most’ were security men. Another significant point is that ‘killed’ is used with ‘security men’ because their killing is deemed justified, but the gentler, more euphemistic ‘among the dead’ is used for the civilians, in order to reduce Israeli culpability. We see the same justifications in The Independent: “In Beit Hanoun, in the northern Gaza Strip, two sisters were killed in a [sic] air raid as they were taking out the trash near their home, medical workers said. The area has been a launching ground for cross-border rocket attacks”. This final addition serves to justify the killing of the two sisters. The journalistic voice is conspicuously absent in reporting the killing of the two sisters

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(‘medical workers said’) but we see it when we are told that the area was ‘a launching ground’ for rockets. There is no prevarication (‘according to Israel’ or ‘Israel claimed’) with this statement which makes the Israeli claims appear more credible. In an interesting example from The Daily Telegraph, we read about the number of Palestinians killed (without mention of the Israeli agent) and immediately afterwards we are told that Hamas had sent rockets into Israel which links the two actions in the reader’s mind: “With Palestinian medics saying the death toll had risen to more than 780, two Hamas rockets hit the Israeli town of Ashkelon”. When the killing of Palestinians by Israelis is accompanied by mention of rockets or Hamas, the desired effect is to justify Israeli violence. Another way Israeli violence is justified is by claiming that it is in response to a prior Palestinian offence or crime. In The Independent, the journalist states that “Mr Regev5 said were it not for the abductions, troops would not carry out operations such as the entry to Ramallah”. This is a pretext, as this is the first abduction of Israeli civilians in recent memory, yet history has shown that Israel has carried out such ‘operations’ too often to count. We learn that homes and workplaces in Gaza were “shattered by a fourth straight night of Israeli air force bombardment after militants fired rockets into Israeli territory” (DM). The word ‘after’ frames the airstrikes as retaliatory and therefore justified, but no proof is given. We read that “Protests have erupted throughout the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and occupied Gaza, since Donald Trump’s decision earlier this month to officially recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital” (I). This is immediately followed by “The response by Israel has left five people dead and hundreds injured and led to mass arrests of Palestinians the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said”. The killing of five Palestinians and the injuring of hundreds of Palestinians is referred to as a ‘response’. Nowhere was this type of reporting more prevalent than in the reporting of OCL, where the aerial bombing of Gaza, home to 1.5 million Palestinians, was justified in the pursuit of Hamas. Hamas was held responsible for Israel’s bombing of Gaza because Israel claimed, and the media parroted, that Hamas had broken the truce and sent rockets into Israel: “We are baffled, too, by why Hamas guerillas have provoked such an attack on their own people by firing mortars into southern Israel” (DM). Immediately, Hamas is blamed for both firing rockets and Israel’s ‘response’ to them. This portrayal is further facilitated by the general

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omission that Israel broke the ceasefire (“Israeli leaders said it launched the campaign in response to almost daily rocket and mortar fire by the Palestinians after the Hamas group ended a six-month ceasefire a week ago” (DM)) even though in the timeline at the end of the very same article, we read that in November 2008, “Israel breaks ceasefire by sending troops into Gaza” (DM). By successfully framing its violence as a ‘response’ to Palestinian violence, Israel has managed to persist in its killing of Palestinians without repercussions or public censure. In one Guardian article, we are told that both sides claim that the other side broke the truce without stating that it was Israel that broke the ceasefire. On the one hand, Israel claims OCL was retaliation for Hamas rockets which breached the ceasefire and, on the other, we read that “Operation Cast Lead appears to have been carefully prepared over a long period” and that “Israeli media reports, by usually well-informed correspondents and analysts, alluded yesterday to six months of intelligence-gathering to pinpoint Hamas targets including bases, weapon silos, training camps and the homes of senior officials” (G). Interestingly, the reporting of contradictory information does not seem to call into question the veracity of what is being reported. Israel used white phosphorous on the Palestinians of Gaza even though its use against civilians is banned under international law. How, you might wonder, did Israel rationalise its use of white phosphorous? Israel claims that “a failure of the targeting system may have been responsible for civilian deaths” (G). In another article, we are told that white phosphorous is “not illegal, but their use has been heavily criticized for causing terrible burns” (DT). The reader is only told half-truths and the journalists skirt around the issue of illegality: when used as a smokescreen white phosphorous is not illegal but if used on a civilian population, it is illegal under international law. In a similar way, by the addition of a caveat that serves to demonise the Palestinians, Israel’s actions are whitewashed. We see this clearly in the following example: “No live fire was aimed at Abu Thurayeh” but that “a few live rounds fired under supervision were aimed “towards main instigators”” (DM). This victim-blaming seeks to justify Israel’s actions and make the reader think that Abu Thurayeh must have been one of these instigators. This is helped by the addition of: “Abu Thurayeh, 29, was a regular at such demonstrations” (DM). Similar justifications can be seen in The Independent: “Israel’s military said a Palestinian was shot dead when he threw a grenade at forces

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carrying out an arrest raid after the discovery of the bodies of the Israeli teenagers”. The linking of the killing of this Palestinian with the discovery of the bodies serves to link the two events so as to justify the killing of the Palestinian, who, it is implied, brought about his own death by throwing a grenade at ‘forces’. In an article about the kidnapping of the Israeli teenager settlers, we learn that a twenty-year-old Palestinian was killed in an Israeli “raid” and that “The Israeli army said he had been among a group of Palestinians throwing stones at its soldiers” (I). The addition of the detail “throwing stones at its soldiers” serves as justification for the killing of the Palestinian youth, Samada. In other words, he deserved to be shot. We see the same justifications again: “Mr Samada, 20, was shot by Israeli troops who had gone to arrest five Hamas members early on Monday. The Israeli army said he had been among a group of Palestinians throwing stones at its soldiers” (DT). The use of ‘Mr’ here with Samada’s name gives the impression that he is older than his mere twenty years. In one article, we are told that “one Palestinian man was killed and another wounded by Israeli gunfire after they approached the border with Israel” (G). The addition of the excuse ‘after they approached the border with Israel’ serves as justification for the killing and wounding of two Palestinians. Since when has approaching a border been a crime punishable by death6? In an article about the Dawabsheh arson, we read that “Palestinians have carried out shootings and stabbings in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in recent months. Douma is a few miles east of Shilo settlement where an Israeli man, Malachi Rosenfeld, was shot dead in June” (T). This serves to both justify the arson and shift the blame back onto the Palestinians who ‘started it first’. We are told that since October 2015 “at least 295 Palestinians or Arab Israelis, 50 Israelis, two Americans, two Jordanians, an Eritrean, a Sudanese and a Briton have been killed, according to AFP” (G). Listing all the deaths in this way doesn’t allow the true disparity in deaths on each side to be shown: at least 295 Palestinians—50 Israelis. Having established the death toll, the article goes on to give voice to Israeli justifications: “most of the Palestinians killed were carrying out knife, gun or car-ramming attacks. Others were shot dead in protests and clashes, while some were killed in Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip”. The journalist presents the Israeli claim as fact rather than as the aggressor’s version of events. Furthermore, we are expected to believe that every Palestinian killed by the Israelis was trying to carry out some violent action towards Israel— highly unlikely but would most likely go unchallenged by the reader. The

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article fails to give the Palestinians the same opportunity to explain away the fifty Israeli deaths. The same statistics appeared in The Daily Telegraph, but unlike The Guardian, there was no attempt to excuse away the high Palestinian death toll. Palestinians are generally portrayed as angry and unjustified in their anger which further facilitates the justification of Israeli violence: “Mr Abu Thurayeh had never even left Gaza. But he was angry—about Jerusalem, about his legs, about Israel—and he wheeled himself out among the demonstrators” (DT). Describing Abu Thurayeh as ‘angry’ is a form of victim-­ blaming and it serves to demonise him, to justify Israeli violence towards him and to diminish Israeli culpability. There is no attempt to explain why Abu Thurayeh was angry which is enabled largely by the omission of the military occupation and the blockade. Similarly, we read “For all the natural grief over the death, family members and mourners voiced an equally powerful emotion—anger, aimed at the Israeli authorities for failing to arrest the culprits” (DT). The juxtaposition of ‘natural grief’ with ‘anger’ makes it seem that such ‘anger’ is unnatural. Israeli mourning and grief are contrasted with Palestinian rage and anger; Israelis mourn, Palestinians get angry or as Peterson describes above, “the Israeli soul versus Palestinian body”. Palestinian protests are referred to as ‘riots’: “In the West Bank, the Israeli military said about 2,500 Palestinians took part in riots against soldiers and border police officers” (DM) and “In the West Bank, the Israeli military said about 2,500 Palestinians took part in riots against soldiers and border police officers” (G). It seems that the term ‘riots’ is an Israeli hand-me-down: “Maj-Gen Zamir stated that the commanding officers took proactive positions during the entire riot. He also noted that troops showed restraint in the use of force” (I). By describing the protests as ‘riots’, they can be portrayed as a threat and Israel can claim that its use of excessive force is both justified and necessary. Israel’s ‘self-defence’ myth, however, is misleading and ignores “the ways in which the entire Zionist project…has involved violently subjugating the Palestinians” (Shupak 2018, p. 125). Another way in which Israel’s actions are downplayed is by suggesting that two actions that are directly linked are independent of each other. This is achieved either through the sentence structure or using ‘while’ and ‘as’: “a 19-year-old Palestinian…was shot in the chest and killed as Israeli soldiers stormed the Jalazoun refugee camp” (DM) and “Another 29 Palestinians were killed today as Israel continued its offensive through the

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Gaza Strip” (DM). By using conjunctions in this way, the events appear not to be linked but rather happening simultaneously or in close succession, purely by happenstance. In reality, however, the two events are interdependent and directly linked. In presenting information in this way, Israel is removed as the agent of the violence or crime, accountability is removed, and the reader is left to unscramble what really happened. This should be contrasted with the example below where largely unrelated events are linked to Israel’s benefit in order to justify the killing of Palestinians: “Israel’s military said a Palestinian was shot dead when he threw a grenade at forces carrying out an arrest raid after the discovery of the bodies of the Israeli teenagers” (I). In many of the articles, when Israelis kill Palestinians, they are only referred to as ‘people’ or the ‘death toll’, whereas when Palestinians kill Israelis, they are typically identified as Israelis. Similarly, approximate numbers are given for Palestinian deaths but precise ones for Israelis. This is relevant because it highlights how even the most basic details are omitted in order to reduce Israel’s accountability. “As Israel steps up its bombing campaign in Gaza, commentators have been examining the motivations and implications of its decision to launch the airstrikes in which more than 300 people have been killed in the space of a few days” (G). The use of ‘people’ in this way leaves the reader unsure that all these people who have been killed are in fact Palestinian. Compare this with the following example from The Guardian: “On Friday, militants in Gaza killed two Palestinian schoolgirls when a rocket aimed at Israeli targets misfired”. Here, the schoolgirls are referred to as Palestinian because Hamas killed them (unintentionally) which contrasts to how Palestinians are usually described when it is the Israelis doing the killing. In the following article, the contrast in the portrayal of deaths on each side is particularly obvious: “Israel’s defence Minister, Ehud Barak, warned yesterday that his country was engaged in “a war to the bitter end” with Hamas as a third day of fierce bombing brought the estimated Gaza death toll to 320” (I). In the same article we read that “As Israel launched a further 20 air attacks and declared Israeli communities to the border area a “closed military zone” for the first time, Gaza militants continued to fire more than 70 rockets and mortars at southern Israel. One killed an Israeli in Ashdod—18 miles away from Gaza—for the first time. Another Israeli was killed in the border kibbutz of Nahal Oz. After the earlier death of an Israeli Arab construction worker in a rocket attack in Ashkelon, the total of Israeli deaths since the Israeli bombardment began on Saturday is now

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four”. The killing of Palestinians is mentioned in passing (‘Gaza death toll to 320’), only approximate numbers are given, there is no mention of Palestinians only ‘Gaza death toll’ and the verb ‘kill’ (‘were killed’) is not used. We are, however, told the precise number of Israelis killed (‘two Israelis’), how they were killed (‘retaliatory rocket barrages’), how many have been killed in total (‘four’) and where they were killed ‘Ashdod’, ‘Nahal Oz’ and ‘Ashkelon’. This was not unique to The Independent but was evinced in other newspapers. Typically, Israeli violence is explained away and justified by framing it as a ‘response’ to Palestinian violence, by linking Israeli air strikes to Hamas, by claiming it was a legitimate target or by obscuring and omitting necessary details. Justifying Israeli violence goes hand in hand with the demonisation and othering of the Palestinians; they are two sides of the same coin.

5.4   The Use of Sources The use of sources, like framing and agenda setting, can influence the reporting of events and the way in which events are interpreted by the public. Sources can perpetuate bias and therefore their use—who is quoted and under what circumstances, which side they represent and how much space or time they are granted—or misuse, is a very important issue. The media, for example, often rely heavily on sources and information from within the government for their news stories. “Fresh news from around the world is expensive to gather and the state effectively subsidizes the media by providing cheap and readily available current affairs sources from terminals such as No.10 Downing Street, the Pentagon and State Department” (Edwards 1998/2012, pp.  68–69). In this way, governments can decide which stories are passed on to the media and which are held back. Similarly, governments can decide to whom these stories are passed on and, in general, “This flood of subsidised information does not flow to dissident media that resist the idea that society should be run in the interests of corporations and allied elites” (Edwards and Cromwell 2018, p. xvii). Governments can pre-package stories according to how they want them to be portrayed; the whole process is not much different from a cosmetic company’s PR press release, and if nothing else, can help to fill the pages on a slow day. This type of journalism, where journalists essentially report the stories as they have been given to them by government officials, is known as passive reporting.7 Reliance on the government for sources

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means that the media are open to manipulation, and leaves journalists and reporters unwilling to bite the hand that feeds them: “being dependent, every day of the year and for year after year, upon certain politicians for news, the newspaper reporters are obliged to work in harmony with their news sources” (Bernays 1928/2005, p. 120). As Halliday explains, journalists who represent the government line, in other words ‘good’ journalists, are rewarded and given preferential leads, whereas journalists who fail to do so, the ‘bad’ journalists, are punished by being deprived of sources, stories or tips. Thompson accurately points out that “journalists should keep a proper professional and social distance from people on whom they report. Trying to have it both ways—bosom pal one minute, seeker after the truth the next—is impossible and often leads to the kind of collusion and trading of stories and people which gives journalism a bad name” (2016, p. 311). Although it is expected of journalists to verify the information they receive from their sources, this is quite often not the case, and certainly the more powerful or the higher an official ranks, the more they are trusted and the less likely it is that the information they provide will be verified. In other words, the “more reputable the institution, the more reliable the source is deemed to be” (Dunsky 2008, p. 12). Of course, although journalists know that their sources are often motivated by self-interest, the media function as businesses, and as such, journalists and editors “have little option but to serve the needs of state and corporate power” (Edwards 1998/2012, p. 74). This is becoming increasingly the case as we see large companies buying up newspapers and other media corporations. In 2013, the Amazon owner Jeff Bezos8 bought The Washington Post at the same time that Amazon was in the process of creating a multimillion-dollar cloud for the CIA. This is a clear example of the blurred lines between media corporations, big business and governments. When journalists report in a way that is favourable to the elites, both sides benefit. The media seem to be asking probing questions but, in reality, however, “they rarely bring into question the fundamental structures of thought or power. Operating within a particular ideological system…mass media workers consciously or unconsciously produce integration propaganda that serves the overall interests of elites” (Karim 2003, p. 23). Thus, the media can be seen to be doing their job of interrogating the truth, holding those in power to account and serving the information

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needs of the general public, all without dipping their toes outside the accepted sphere of debate. The media help to direct and unify public opinion by “rendering a single view dominant or ‘natural’, presenting current policies as inevitable, and undermining the possibility of alternatives” (Curtis 2003, p.  383). When a single dominant view is presented across the left-right spectrum it gives the impression that the ‘facts’ are being presented to the public. The result is that “the bias looks like an informed consensus” (Edwards and Cromwell 2018, p. xvi). This, however, is a far cry from reality where “media corporations function like giant magnifying glasses that roam the world, highlighting facts that benefit corporate-friendly parties, leaders, allied states and voices” (ibid.). The degree of dissent or criticism is always maintained within what are considered to be acceptable boundaries. In other words, the Overton Window of permitted discourse is limited. 5.4.1  The Use of Sources in the Reporting of the ‘Conflict’ Sources are crucial to reporting and one would expect that sources were verified and that more than one source would be used when covering any given event. Bias is perpetuated through the choice of sources and spokespersons, and in the reporting of the ‘conflict’, priority was typically given to Israeli sources over either Palestinian ones or those from human rights organisations. Furthermore, the main source of information was usually the Israeli military or another Israeli organisation. There are two issues that arise from this: the first is that Palestinian sources or sources more neutral than the Israeli ones are rarely sought out; secondly, in many instances the Israeli army is quoted as a source in actions in which it is directly implicated. This immediately calls into question the impartiality of the sources and the accuracy of the information contained therein. There have been numerous instances (as we shall shortly see) where the mainstream media have deliberately repeated the ‘official’ narrative of the Israeli military, only for evidence to surface that completely contradicts it, at which point the military ‘re-writes’ the story. As Human Rights Watch senior military analyst asks, “How can anyone trust the Israeli military?” (Finkelstein 2010/2011, pp. 57–58). When Israel was accused of purposefully targeting civilians during OCL, the Israeli military was tasked with investigating its own crimes: “Last night an Israeli army spokesman said an initial internal investigation had found no evidence Israeli armed forces had done anything wrong

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during combat around the Samouni family homes in Zeitoun” (DT). Once again, Israel tried to justify its actions by claiming that its army had hit Hamas targets. In an article about another Israeli attack, we read that “The Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem yesterday reported testimony that a truck destroyed in an air attack on Monday, which the military said was carrying Grad missiles, was in fact carrying oxygen canisters. Eight people were killed in the bombing” (I). In the summer of 2018, the Israeli military killed two Palestinian boys who were sitting on a roof of a building in Gaza City. The Israeli military, however, claimed that the roof was empty when the missile was fired and released doctored video footage to back up its claim. Forensic Architecture, a London-based research group, “created a detailed visual timeline of the incident, which offers compelling evidence that a video report shared on Twitter by the Israel Defense Forces in the immediate aftermath of the attack distorted the sequence of strikes to give the false impression that the roof was unoccupied when the missile that killed the boys was fired” (Mackey 2018). This is only one of numerous instances in which the Israeli military has doctored or falsified footage to smear victims in order to ‘justify’ its crimes and its use of lethal force. In spite of this, Israeli officials were disproportionately quoted in the reporting of the five events and, as a result, the Israeli narrative dominated in both representation and language regardless of who was the oppressor. Typically, the actions of the Israeli army are denied or justified. An example of this can be seen in the deliberate killing of Palestinian paraplegic Abu Thurayeh who was shot by the Israeli military while protesting peacefully. At first, the Israeli army denied shooting him, then other excuses followed; nowhere was his killing referred to as murder or a terrorist attack. A few Palestinian officials are quoted and, in some cases, Palestinian eye-witness accounts are used. In the settler arson and killing of the Dawabsheh family, for example, Palestinian eye-witness accounts were quoted: “Witnesses claimed that a number of people were seen fleeing towards a nearby settlement” (G). Unlike the Israeli sources which are quoted directly, however, Palestinian sources tend to be paraphrased. Israeli sources were used more frequently than Palestinian sources. And, when Palestinian sources were used, in some instances they were quoted in a misleading way. In articles about the kidnapping of the three Israeli teenage settlers (prior to it being known that they were murdered), the articles consistently reported that Hamas had praised the kidnapping without taking responsibility, but the full Hamas quote (“We support

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every resistance attack against the Israeli occupation, which has to pay for its tyranny9”) was not given. This statement is rather different to the simple “Hamas praised the attack” (I) and “Hamas has praised the alleged abduction of the teenagers but has not claimed responsibility for it” (DM). By omitting the actual Hamas quote, Hamas’ praise of the kidnapping can be framed as cruel, spiteful and unwarranted, rather than as part of the ongoing Palestinian struggle against the military occupation. In one article, we read that “While neither claiming nor denying responsibility, Hamas has commented that abductions were a justified response to the plight of thousands of Palestinians—many of them children—held in Israel” (DM). There is no exploration, however, of what the plight of Palestinians is and there is no reference to the military occupation. Register also plays an important role in the use of and perceived validity of sources. As Israel has a state, they have all the trimmings of statehood which the Palestinians lack. Consequently, on the Israeli side, the sources used are often ‘official’ and therefore what they say is typically given more weight and is considered more important. One of the OCL articles in The Daily Telegraph was written by Ron Prosor, who was the Israeli ambassador to the UK at the time—the very existence of this article exemplifies the many advantages that Israel enjoys as a consequence of its statehood. The stateless Palestinians, however, have a discredited Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank, and Hamas, a democratically elected party that has been completely and utterly demonised, and labelled terrorists. The result is that Palestinian officials simply do not have the same influence, status or register that the Israeli side does. In a Daily Mail article about the Har Adar illegal settlement, we read that “Israel blames the violence on incitement by Palestinian religious and political leaders compounded on social media sites that glorify violence and encourage attacks”. This is followed by: “Palestinians say the attacks stem from anger and frustration at decades of Israeli rule in territories they claim for a state”. The Israeli viewpoint is presented first and only then is the Palestinian viewpoint heard. The Palestinians are not typically asked to comment on the events or what has happened; rather they are usually being asked to comment about what Israel has said and therefore they are being asked to explain their role in events that have already been framed in a way that is favourable towards Israel. In essence, the Palestinians are typically being asked to explain themselves or justify their actions. The truth is that only the Israeli side is given the chance to provide any narrative, or even commentary, for the events that take place.

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5.5   Observations The methods of media control discussed are just some of the ways that public thought is controlled and public opinion is influenced. The control of thought and public opinion, however, starts earlier; it starts from infancy, it starts in education, in culture, and in society. Framing permeates every aspect of knowledge and information, and it is so pervasive that it has influenced the very language and terminology we use. The British newspapers conceal the reality of the ‘conflict’ through the manipulation of language, through omissions and through the misrepresentation of events. It was found that to a large extent the reporting in the British newspapers favoured the Israeli perspective at the expense of the Palestinian one and a distinct bias was evinced. This was true, to varying degrees, of all newspapers. The astonishing lack of differences in reporting between the so-called liberal newspapers and the more right-leaning newspapers was a clear example of the institutional bias that suffuses the reporting of this ‘conflict’. In many ways, the bias in the reporting of The Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph and The Times was expected since these newspapers have a reputation for being more pro-Israeli. What was surprising, however, was the reporting of The Guardian and The Independent. These newspapers are typically considered to be fairer newspapers but it seems that while basking in the glory of their former liberal days, they have shifted their reporting towards the right. This has been done incrementally and, as a result, these newspapers have managed to keep their ‘liberal’ image and their ‘liberal’ readership. This was most noticeable in the reporting of the ‘conflict’ in The Guardian. The significant shift in The Guardian’s position can be seen by examining its reporting of OCL, which took place between December 2008 and January 2009, as compared with its reporting of the other four events, which took place between 2014 and 2017. Articles reporting on OCL mentioned the Nakba, the military occupation, the blockade and the ‘unequal military balance’. Palestinian resistance was contextualised within the wider context of the Israeli military occupation. We also saw the use of prevarication with Israeli sources, only one of two instances used in this way and, at times, Israeli objectives were questioned. The Guardian reporting of the other four, more recent, events, however, was drastically different. The Guardian (and The Daily Telegraph) made the fewest references to the military occupation, and prevarication

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was only ever used with Palestinian sources. In fact, many of The Guardian headlines used speech marks unconventionally to cast doubt on what was being said when the perpetrators were Israeli. It was clear from the differences in reporting between OCL and the other four events that there had been a shift towards the Israeli narrative in The Guardian’s reporting. In some instances, the reporting of the four events in The Times or The Daily Telegraph was more accurate and more contextualised than in The Guardian or The Independent, something that was truly shocking to note. Many articles within one newspaper were written by the same journalists which inevitably meant that fewer perspectives were presented. In some instances, one journalist wrote the majority of the articles about one event in one newspaper, which is significant because any journalistic bias would be consistently passed on to the reader. In The Independent, for example, one journalist wrote five out of the six articles about the kidnapping of the Israeli teenage settlers and the same journalist wrote all four Independent articles about the Dawabsheh arson killing. The same was true of other newspapers: in The Daily Telegraph, one journalist wrote three of the five articles about the Dawabsheh arson killing and four out of the six articles about the kidnapping of the Israeli teenage settlers (one of which was written with another journalist). Three of the four Times articles about the Dawabsheh arson killing were written by one journalist who also wrote two of the six Times articles on the kidnapping of the Israeli teenage settlers. At times, a single news agency was the same source for articles in different newspapers which also resulted in very similar articles across newspapers and a narrow viewpoint of the ‘conflict’ being presented to the reader. In one instance, it was found that a Daily Mail article and an Independent article contained passages which were identical.10 This is particularly remarkable, given that these two newspapers are viewed as having politically opposed viewpoints. The articles with the identical text related to the killing of three Israelis at the Har Adar illegal settlement by a Palestinian labourer, with the main difference being their headlines: “Palestinian gunman shoots three Israeli soldiers dead and injures a fourth in terror attack at Jewish settlement near Jerusalem (DM)” and “Israel shooting: Palestinians kill three at Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank (I)”. The Daily Mail article describes the attack as a “terror attack”, avoids mention of the West Bank and tells us that the illegal settlement is near Jerusalem without mentioning that both Jerusalem and the West Bank are occupied. The Independent headline, however, refers to the West Bank as

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occupied and makes no mention of a “terrorist attack”. While these differences are important, they are the biggest differences with the body of both articles showing greater similarities than the headlines. Although the articles on OCL were written by a greater number of journalists, many of the articles were written by a few journalists (although this was not the case for The Guardian and The Daily Mail). In The Independent, for example, ten out of sixty-two articles were written by one journalist; in The Daily Telegraph, sixty-seven articles were written by two journalists; and in The Times, four out of fourteen articles were written by one journalist. Although some of these articles were written with other journalists, the high number of articles written by individual journalists is noteworthy. Another point worth mentioning is that for the five events, most of the reporting was done out of occupied Jerusalem, in spite of the fact that none of the events took place in Jerusalem. Not all of the bylines added the location of reporting, but when they did over 50% of the articles about the four events and over 70% of the OCL articles reported from Jerusalem.11 During OCL, Israel imposed a media blackout and so no journalists were allowed into Gaza. Of all of the bylines with a location only 15% reported from Gaza or the Gaza border, and only one article reported from the occupied West Bank. While in this instance it is clear that the journalists could not report from Gaza, the fact that only one article was reported from the occupied West Bank (Ramallah specifically) is remarkable. The journalists reporting from Jerusalem are living amongst the Israelis and not the Palestinians and therefore they are reporting away from the realities of the Palestinian situation of military occupation and all that it entails in daily hardships. As will be explored in Chap. 6, journalists living among Israelis are more likely to have internalised the Israeli viewpoint, and this calls into question their impartiality.12 The various factors that can influence the way the ‘conflict’ is reported range from personal bias, pressure from editors, geographical location and distance from the events, various forms of censorship, the ease of accessing sources and the choice of sources, to name but a few. All of these factors affect how a reader reads an article. But regardless of the cause of the bias, the result is reporting that favours the Israeli narrative, promotes the Israeli viewpoint and precludes any criticism of Israel. The Palestinian viewpoint is largely unexplored whereas Israel and its viewpoint dominates both the headlines and the articles.

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The difference in how Israeli actions and deaths are portrayed versus how Palestinian actions and deaths are portrayed is not impartial, but rather echoes the Israeli narrative. The Palestinian agent of violence is typically identified and vilified while the Israeli agent of violence is obscured or concealed. Israeli deaths are mentioned or appear before Palestinian deaths in the articles even though the number of deaths is always many times greater on the Palestinian side. This skewed and imbalanced portrayal has played a large role in the way the ‘conflict’ is perceived: when Palestinians kill or ‘massacre’ Israelis, they are depicted as the epitome of evil, whereas when Israelis kill Palestinians (for the term ‘massacre’ is not used in the mainstream media for Israeli actions), the usual excuses and explanations are presented, rehearsed and repeated. A number of often subtle devices are employed in combination by the media to produce a biased narrative while attempting to conceal the bias: the use of language, the use of different terms for the same actions by different sides, and the omission of context and historical background. The biggest failing in the reporting, however, was that there was little mention of the illegal military occupation. When journalists report on the ‘conflict’ but fail to mention the military occupation, the media ignore the injustices Israel imposes on the Palestinians and dismiss the daily struggles and hardship that Palestinians have been facing for over fifty years now. To report this ‘conflict’ as though it is two equal sides squabbling over land is a blatant lie and a disgrace to reporting. Until Israel can be forced to end its military occupation of the Palestinian people and the colonisation of the Palestinian lands, the least journalists can do is to report accurately on the terrible daily reality of the Palestinians so that the world can know what they are forced to endure. One lie begets another, and so when no mention is made of the military occupation, the myth of equal martial might is born, birthed by the Israelis and suckled by the media. Such omissions and misrepresentations by the media are not without consequence—they have a destructive effect because the reader remains uninformed and oblivious to the basic facts and essential information needed to understand the ‘conflict’. Furthermore, “propagating the idea that Palestine-Israel ought to be viewed through the “both sides” frame, rather than as a story of Israel colonizing Palestinians inhibits popular willingness to take actions that can contribute to a just peace” (Shupak 2018, p. 48). Reporting in this way harms the resolution of the ‘conflict’ because it allows Israel to continue its military

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occupation unhindered and uncriticised as it hides behind a curtain of excuses. The coverage of the ‘conflict’, in which justifications are sought only for the Israeli side, has meant that, at every level, Palestinians are being depicted as the initiators of all violence. This picture, which starts in the mouths of Israeli spokespersons and ends up being recited by the Western media, has served Israel well, allowing it to instigate violence, maintain an illegal military occupation and an illegal blockade while asserting its so-­ called right to defend itself. This has meant that “the legitimacy of the colonizer’s violence is unquestioned whereas the violence of the colonized is presented as illegitimate” (Shupak 2018, p.  104). Israeli security is a myth used to justify Israeli violence and Israel remains unacknowledged as the aggressor in this ‘conflict’. Palestinians are depicted as evil incarnate and thus accountable for the smallest infraction, whereas Israel and specifically Israeli soldiers, whose intentions are always described in superlatives, are not held accountable for even the most heinous of crimes. The demonisation of the Palestinians is one of the biggest consequences of this reporting and has in turn resulted in the Palestinians being treated as unworthy victims whose lives are worth less than the lives of others. After all, we know that, as of 2011, the Israelis formalised the relative value when they equated one Israeli life (that of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit) with the lives of 1027 Palestinian prisoners. Israel’s complete immunity among governments abroad and in the media is a disaster for the Palestinians but also for itself. All the while it continues to oppress, occupy and ethnically cleanse the Palestinians, and all the while it is shielded from recognising itself as the colonial, apartheid state that it is, Israel loses its own soul, and erodes at the enormous tragedy that the Jews suffered in Europe, in which so many were killed. They cannot forever throw dust in the world’s eyes, and there will come a time when nobody will remember that they themselves were once victims of a cruel and sadistic oppressor. But for now, it enjoys the status of the ‘only democracy in the Middle East’, a reputable country that is ‘suffering’ terribly at the hands of the Palestinians. By reporting out of context and in a vacuum, however, the victims of the illegal occupation are blamed for resisting Israel’s brutal occupation: “An aggressor state cannot cite the resistance to its violence as a threat against which it must defend itself—otherwise all aggression would self-­ justify. That, however, is precisely the nature of the so-called ‘cycle of

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violence’ or ‘conflict’ in Israel-Palestine” (Suarez 2016, p.  11). Under international law, it is legal for Palestinians to use violence in their struggle against the Israeli military occupation but it is illegal for Israel to use violence in order to suppress the Palestinian struggle for self-determination. The problem here is that the very military occupation and Israeli violence that the Palestinians are resisting has been ‘erased’ from the reporting in order to promote a narrative in which Israel can claim to be terrorised by the Palestinians who, Israel is quick to remind us, are predominantly Muslim, much like the Muslim terrorists at work in the West. This sums up the use of violence in this ‘conflict’ and negates in law Israel’s attempts to equate resistance with terrorism. The Palestinians are damned if they do, and damned if they don’t. When the Palestinians or their supporters engage in armed resistance, they are labelled terrorists and when they engage in non-violent resistance, they are labelled anti-Semitic and their free speech is curtailed. A considerable amount of responsibility lies with the international community which has systematically and unerringly repeated the Israeli narrative while turning a blind eye to Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinians. The Palestinian narrative is conspicuously absent from the British newspapers as is the Palestinian perspective and experience. This must be so if the Israeli narrative is to be received as valid, for in the same way that two physical objects cannot occupy the same space, the two narratives cannot coexist. Without the Palestinian narrative, the Israeli narrative can remain dominant and unchallenged by the truth. However, it is no longer good enough for the media to claim that their reporting is harmless, for we have seen how completely it can shield the aggressor. The role of the media is neither harmless nor innocuous and as such, media accountability is a must.

Notes 1. See Chomsky 2001/2015, p. 163. 2. The habitual juxtaposition of a particular word with another word or words with a frequency greater than chance (OED). 3. Similarly, disease metaphors are commonly used to refer to an adversary or the ‘other’: “When the enemy is depicted as a disease or infection, then the war against it acquires the positive value of a remedy, and the army’s task is seemingly to provide a cure by purifying or sterilizing the infected area” (Gavriely-Nuri 2013, p. 18). For Fairclough, the “‘ideological significance of disease metaphors is that they tend to take dominant interests to be the

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interests of society as a whole, and construe expressions of non-dominant interests (strikes, demonstrations “riots”) as undermining (the health of) society per se’” (2001, p. 100 in Talbot et al. 2003, p. 18). 4. Ironically, of course, the best example of othering in the twentieth century is Hitler’s dehumanising depiction of the Jews as parasites, rats and lesser beings. 5. Former Israeli ambassador to the UK and former chief spokesman for the Israeli Prime Minister. 6. Sadly, in the Great Return March, we saw that even being within 350 metres of a border with Israel is met with a sniper bullet. 7. Active reporting is when journalists present two conflicting sides while trying to remain impartial allowing the audience to make their own mind up (Gans in Allan 2010/2012, p. 96). 8. Bezos is one of the richest people in the world. 9. Palestine Chronicle. 10. This brings to mind Schudson’s observation that “since the Associated Press gathered news for publication in a variety of papers with widely different political allegiances, it could only succeed by making its reporting “objective” enough to be acceptable to all of its members and clients” (In Maras 2013, p. 34). 11. In the reporting of the Har Adar illegal settlement only three articles gave the journalist’s location under the journalist’s name (the byline): one was Har Adar, another was Jerusalem and the third was dual reporting from Har Adar and Beit Surik (where the crime took place and where the perpetrator lived respectively). In the reporting of the kidnapping of the three Israeli teenagers, nineteen of the thirty-four articles gave the journalist’s location and twelve of those nineteen were reported from Jerusalem. Otherwise, two articles were reported from Hebron (occupied West Bank with a large illegal settlement presence), one from Dura (Palestinian town in occupied West Bank), one from Tel Aviv (in Israel), two from Modi’in (an illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank). In the reporting on the killing of Abu Thurayeh, there were nine articles, five of the locations were given: Geneva and Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Geneva, Jerusalem and Gaza City. Abu Thurayeh was killed in Gaza but only one of the articles reported from Gaza. In the coverage of the arson attack on the Dawabsheh family, of the twenty-nine articles, twenty-two cited the journalist’s location. The arson took place in Duma (in the occupied West Bank) and seven articles reported from Duma, eleven reported from Jerusalem, two from Tel Aviv, one from Washington and one from Qura (in the occupied West Bank). 12. It is also worth noting that even politicians tasked with mediating or ‘resolving’ the ‘conflict’ fly into Israel, stay in Israel and if they manage to make it to the Palestinian side it’s only the occupied West Bank and they

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rarely, if ever, make it to Gaza: “Mr Blair arrived at his office in Jerusalem yesterday in an attempt to broker a ceasefire that has left hundreds dead and much of Gaza devastated” (The Daily Mail). In the same article, we learn that “Mr Blair has never visited the Gaza Strip, despite the fact that more than a third of the 1.5 million Palestinian population live there in abject deprivation”. At the time, Mossad claimed and warned Blair that Hamas were allegedly planning to assassinate him; Hamas denied this outright. Nonetheless, this still does not excuse the fact that Blair has never visited the Gaza Strip, neither as British Prime Minister nor in his role as Middle East peace envoy.

References Abdo, N. (2014) Captive Revolution. Palestinian Women’s Anti-Colonial Struggle within the Israeli Prison System. London: Pluto Press. Alexander, M. (2010/2011) The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. The New Press. With a New Foreword by Cornel West. Allan, S. (Ed.) (2010/2012) The Routledge Companion to News and Journalism. Rev. ed.. London and New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. Bernays, E. (1928/2005) Propaganda. Brooklyn, New  York: IG Publishing. Introduction by Mark Crispin Miller. Bolman, L.  G., & Deal, T.  E. (2014) How Great Leaders Think: The Art of Reframing. California: Jossey-Bass. Chomsky, N. (1989) Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. Retrieved March 15, 1989, from https://chomsky.info/19890315/ Chomsky, N. (1989/2015) Culture of Terrorism. London: Pluto Press. Chomsky, N. (1991/1997/2002) Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda. An Open Media Press; Seven Stories Press. Chomsky, N. (2001/2002/2011) 9-11. Was There an Alternative? With a New Essay Written After the Assassination of Osama Bin Laden. Seven Stories Press. Chomsky, N. (2001/2015) Propaganda and the Public Mind. London: Pluto Press. Chomsky, N., & Pappe, I. (2015) On Palestine. Ed. Frank Barat. Haymarket Books. Cohen, A., & Wolfsfeld, G. (Eds.) (1993) Framing the Intifada: People and Media. Ablex Publishing Corporation. Cohen, S. (2001) States of Denial: Knowing about Atrocities and Suffering. Polity Press. Collins, J., & Glover, R. (Eds.) (2002) Collateral Language: A User’s Guide to American’s New War. New York; London: New York University. Cromwell, D. (2012) Why Are We the Good Guys? Reclaiming Your Mind from the Delusions of Propaganda. Zero Books. Cronin, D. (2017) Balfour’s Shadow: A Century of British Support for Zionism and Israel. London: Pluto Press.

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Curran, J. (Ed.) (2010/2016) Media and Society. 5th ed.. Bloomsbury Academic, Bloomsbury Publishing. Curtis, M. (2003) Web of Deceit: Britain’s Real Role in the World. London: Vintage Books. Curtis, M. (2004) UNPEOPLE: Britain’s Secret Human Rights Abuses. London: Vintage Books. Dunsky, M. (2008) Pens and Swords: How the American Mainstream Media Report the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. New York: Columbia University Press. Edwards, D. (1998/2012) The Compassionate Revolution: Radical Politics and Buddhism. Devon: Green Books. Edwards, D., & Cromwell, D. (2006) Guardians of Power. The Myth of the Liberal Media. London: Pluto Press. Edwards, D., & Cromwell, D. (2018) Propaganda Blitz. How the Corporate Media Distort Reality. London: Pluto Press. Entman, R.  M. (2004) Projects of Power: Framing News, Public Opinion, and U.S. Foreign Policy. University of Chicago Press. Erakat, N. (2019) Justice for Some. Law and the Question of Palestine. Stanford University Press. Finkelstein, N.  G. (2010/2011) This Time We Went Too Far: Truth and Consequences of the Gaza Invasion. New York: OR Books. Finkelstein, N.  G. (2018) Gaza: An Inquest Into Its Martyrdom. California: University of California Press. Fisk, R. (2006) The Great War For Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East. London: Harper Perennial. Foley, J. M. (2002) How to Read an Oral Poem. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Franklin, B., Hamer, M., Hanna, M., Kinsey, M., & Richardson, J. E. (2005) Key Concepts in Journalism Studies. London, New Delhi: Sage Publications. Gavriely-Nuri, D. (2013) The Normalization of War in Israeli Discourse, 1967–2008. Maryland/Plymouth: Lexington Books. Kapoor, N. (2018) Deport Deprive Extradite. 21st Century State Extremism. Verso Books. Karim, K.  H. (2003) Islamic Peril: Media and Global Violence. Canada: Black Rose Books. Kumar, D. (2012) Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire. Chicago: Haymarket Books. Lakoff, G. (2010) Why it Matters How We Frame the Environment. Environmental Communication, 4(1), 70–81. https://doi.org/10.1080/175240309035 29749 Lakoff, G., & Wehling, E. (2016) Your Brain’s Politics. How the Science of Mind Explains the Political Divide. Exeter: Imprint Archive.

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Lean, N. (2012/2017) The Islamophobia Industry. How the Right Manufactures Hatred of Muslims. London: Pluto Press. Lunt, P., & Livingstone, S. (2012) Media Regulation. Governance and the Interests of Citizens and Consumers. London: Sage Publications. Mackey, R. (2018) Israel Tampered With Video of Strike That Killed Two Palestinian Boys, Investigators Say. Retrieved December 19, 2018, from https://theintercept.com/2018/12/19/israel-­airstrike-­gaza-­two-­boys/ Makdisi, S. (2006) Politics, Language and the Palestinians. Retrieved February 3, 2006, from http://electronicintifada.net/content/politics-­language-­and-­ palestinians/5861 Maras, S. (2013) Objectivity in Journalism. Key Concepts in Journalism. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Masalha, N. (2012) The Palestine Nakba: Decolonising History, Narrating the Subaltern, Reclaiming Memory. London: Zed Books. Massad, J.  A. (2015) Islam in Liberalism. Chicago; London: The University of Chicago Press. McCombs, M. (2014) Setting the Agenda. Polity Press. Media Lens. (2016) Media Silence Over Deadly Sanctions: From Iraq to Syria. Retrieved October 10, 2016, from http://www.medialens.org/index/php/ alerts/alert-­a rchive/201...edia-­s ilence-­o ver-­d eadly-­s anctions-­f rom-­i raq-­ to-­syria.html Milgram, S. (1974/2009) Obedience to Authority. An Experimental View. Foreword by Philip Zimbardo. Pinter & Martin Ltd. Normand, L. (2016) Demonization in International Politics: A Barrier to Peace in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Palgrave Macmillan. O’Shaughnessy, N. J. (2004) Politics and Propaganda: Weapons of Mass Seduction. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Orwell, G. (1949/1989) Nineteen Eighty Four. Introduction by Ben Pimlott. London: Penguin Books. Peterson, L. (2015) Palestine-Israel in the Print News Media: Contending Discourses. London & New York: Routledge. Philo, G., & Berry, M. (2004) Bad News from Israel. London: Pluto Press. Ra’ad, B. L. (2010) Hidden Histories. Palestine and the Eastern Mediterranean. London; New York: Pluto Press. Robinson, P., Goddard, P., Parry, K., Murray, C., & Taylor, P. M. (2010/2016) Pockets of Resistance. British News Media, War and Theory in the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. Manchester University Press Said, E.  W. (2000) America’s Last Taboo. New Left Review 6, November– December. https://newleftreview.org/ll/6/edward-­said-­america-­s-­last-­taboo Shupak, G. (2018) The Wrong Story. Palestine, Israel, & the Media. Or Books. Storey, J. (1997/2018) Cultural Theory and Popular Culture. An Introduction. 8th ed.. London & New York: Routledge.

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Suarez, T. (2016) State of Terror: How terrorism created modern Israel. Skyscraper Publications Talbot, M., Atkinson, K., & Atkinson, D. (2003) Language and Power in the Modern World. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Thompson, M. (2016) Enough Said: What’s Gone Wrong With The Language of Politics? The Bodley Head, Vintage. Varoufakis, Y. (2016) And the Weak Suffer What They Must? Europe, Austerity and the Threat to Global Security. London: Vintage. Welch, D. (Ed.) (2014/2015) Propaganda, Power And Persuasion. From World War 1 to WikiLeaks. London, New York: IB Tauris. Zinn, H. (1970/1990) The Politics of History. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

CHAPTER 6

The Status Quo and a Look to the Future

These people long ago forgot how to distinguish between the mesmerizing power of language and the reality it purports to describe. —Ilan Pappe (See Pappe 2017, p. 129)

6.1   The Status Quo The Nakba destroyed Palestine, fragmenting its indigenous people and transforming them from a proud, resourceful and self-sufficient people, into internal and external refugees. The Palestinians had tilled the fields of Palestine, planted her olive groves, tended to her fruits and respected her diverse landscape for millennia. This was until the very same immigrants and refugees to whom the Palestinians had given refuge turned on them and, with the help of the treacherous British, systematically slaughtered, raped and dispossessed them. The Nakba completely fractured and destroyed Palestinian society and culture, shattering their world as they knew it. Three generations later, the dispossessed Palestinians are still living in what were initially intended to be temporary refugee camps— whether in their own land or in the neighbouring Arab countries—or are living in the open-air Israeli prison that is Gaza. Even the Palestinians in the diaspora, many of whom only know Palestine through the stories of their parents and grandparents, dream of returning to Palestine and seeing their homeland for themselves.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 N. R. Sirhan, Reporting Palestine-Israel in British Newspapers, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17072-1_6

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Over seventy years on and the Nakba is still taking place, for though its methods may have changed, the policies which drive it have not. Its effects on the Palestinians are unremitting and merciless: “Palestinians live the consequences of the past every day” (Bisharat 2007). The Palestinian Nakba continues to impact the lives of all Palestinians; the lives of the Palestinians under military occupation are subject to greater hardships than the lives of diaspora Palestinians, while those in besieged Gaza seem to suffer the brunt of it. And yet, the Palestinians remain steadfast— ṣa ̄midu ̄n—a uniquely Palestinian form of resistance that is characterised by its passivity, patience and rootedness. As the longest ongoing military occupation and the only settler colonial occupation of our time, the ‘conflict’ continues to polarise people across the world. People may be avowedly pro-Palestinian or pro-Israeli, it has been the subject of numerous books and articles; many scholars have devoted their lives to its study; and generation after generation of heads of states have attempted (whether genuinely or dissemblingly) its resolution. Yet the Palestinians and Israelis have never been further from peace. There seems to be no such thing as a neutral position, everyone has an opinion on the ‘conflict’, and with its particular and peculiar set of factors, it is nigh impossible to be non-partisan. Even words have taken sides, and the use of certain words can reveal a speaker’s affiliation: “the distortion of language has made a crucially important contribution to these outcomes, by “corrupting thought,” and thereby cloaking their real nature…language employed in the Middle East political context—terms like “terrorism” and “security” …—has often been distorted and then successfully employed to conceal what was actually happening” (Khalidi 2013, p. x). Much of what we know of foreign conflicts or wars is brought to us by the media. As we have explored, the media manage and manipulate information and narratives before they reach the public, and in this, the media coverage of the Palestinian-Israeli ‘conflict’ is no exception: “The truth itself about Palestine has been inverted for so long, and so successfully, by Israel’s friends in foreign governments and promoters in the media and elsewhere that any attempt to break Edward Said’s ‘last taboo’ is met with orchestrated smear and disinformation” (Pilger 2006, p. 187). In theory, journalists should provide the most partial view, an idea implied by their other name—‘reporters’, as though they merely relate the events. But we know that the Nakba, both past and present, is conspicuously absent from reporting. ‘Permission to narrate’, as coined by Edward Said, is the denial by international media of the Palestinians’ right to

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communicate their history in the face of a dominant Zionist narrative (Said 2000). “Over the years, support for Israel has almost become a requisite for respectability in journalism” (Findley 1985/1989/2003, p.  321). Representation of the Palestinians by the mainstream media is largely through Israeli eyes and only as part of the Israeli discourse which means that the Palestinians and their plight remains concealed or misrepresented in the media.

6.2   Why Is the ‘Conflict’ Reported on in This Way? One might ask, how it is that the ‘conflict’ is represented in this way when there is so much evidence to the contrary, and when information is so readily available? This philosophical problem is known as ‘Orwell’s Problem’. There are various factors that contribute to the portrayal of the ‘conflict’ in this unreliable way. Christison explains that since UN partition, “the press played a critical role in building a framework for thinking that would endure for decades” and that “Virtually all reporting was from the Jewish perspective”, something that has persisted to this day (In Weir 2014, p. 87). Each time the ‘conflict’ is reported without reference to the true historical context, it is effectively being misrepresented. Numerous factors influence if and how the ‘conflict’ is covered: factors such as personal bias, journalistic bias, censorship, and propaganda. Journalists, like everyone else, also have their experiences and pre-stored narratives which have a large influence on perception. Meanwhile, communication barriers also affect and, in some cases, decide whose side is related: for example, most Israelis (a large proportion of whom have immigrated from Europe and America) are able to speak English well, while the Palestinians, who have long suffered under curfews and curtailed educational opportunities are, for the most part, not nearly so proficient. Another difference which creates asymmetry is how accessible the relative narratives are and in this the Israeli side again has the advantage, with their vastly more sophisticated PR setup. In many cases, Israel is ready with its ‘version’ of the story well before journalists have had a chance to investigate. “Naturally, this state of affairs can tip the balance of story-­ telling in the favour of the Israeli perspective given that official Palestinian sources do not have the same level of organization or efficiency as officials on the other side of the conflict line” (Peterson 2015, p.  169). The

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Palestinians have no such PR machine and therefore: “if you’re lazy, you can get the Israeli position on a developing story delivered on a plate. You have to go and find the Palestinian one” (MacGregor-Wood in ibid.). Inevitably, this results in a one-sided representation and ceases to be a question of competing narratives. Bishara describes the lengths the Israelis go to in order to shape a narrative: from the use of political announcements “including names for operations and statements of what the IDF has done in a particular operation” to press releases which “include quotes from the military spokesperson, which facilitates a journalist’s job” (2013, p. 48). Correspondingly, the pro-Israeli audience “tends to be organized, well-funded, collective, and strategic in its responses” while the pro-Palestinian audience “tends to be less organized, individual, and random in its responses” (Dunsky 2008, p. 277). In spite of this, Seaman, Israeli government press office director, argues that the Palestinians are a ‘mobilized society’ who through their organisation have managed to promote their agenda. He argues that increased and repeated exposure to the “Palestinian story” has resulted in increased sympathy for the Palestinian narrative by journalists which in turn has made them “dependent on the Palestinian sources” (In Shleifer and Snapper 2015, p. 58). Similarly, Plosker and Frankl argue that it is in fact the Palestinians who are organised and respond quickly, whereas the Israelis tend to be slow to respond, typically saying “We’ll get back to you in twenty-four hours”. This, they argue, is because the Israelis are committed to getting the ‘facts’ to journalists whereas the Palestinians have no problem providing false information quickly (In ibid., p. 43). The record, however, speaks for itself. Israeli control of the narrative is also shown in its hampering of Palestinian journalists or other journalists who try to give a more accurate depiction of the ‘conflict’ by preventing them from obtaining Government Press Office cards.1 Palestinian journalists do not enjoy the same rights as other journalists and, even though targeting journalists is a war crime, Israel routinely targets Palestinian journalists in the occupied West Bank and besieged Gaza. During Operation Protective Edge in 2014, Israel killed approximately 15 journalists in besieged Gaza. More recently, during the Great Return March in Gaza, Israel killed two Palestinian journalists who were clearly wearing vests marked ‘Press’, and injured 115 others. Indeed, Gaza is one of the most dangerous places for journalists, second only to war-torn Syria.

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Israel also commonly uses media blackouts in order to prevent journalists from reporting on a particular event and in order to control the narrative. One would expect that any coverage of a ‘conflict’ with a government-imposed media blackout would suggest to readers a skewed narrative, but journalists rarely inform their readers of this. This is yet another way that the Palestinian version never goes to print. As we have explored, public relations and lobbying both play a large role in putting the ‘pressure’ on journalists to reproduce the Israeli narrative. In reporting the ‘conflict’, we often find that the media fall over themselves in the rush to counterbalance every Palestinian claim or narrative with an Israeli one. Ostensibly, of course, this is in the interests of ‘fairness’: “Narrative explanations rely on an “Israelis say…Palestinians say” balancing act, with more weight usually given to Israeli claims and little or no reference to international law and consensus” (Dunsky 2008, p. 147). In reality, however, the effect of this “balancing act” is to conceal Israeli crimes and the Israeli military occupation or to avoid being accused of bias or anti-Semitism. Indeed, in an interview with Shleifer and Snapper, Simon Plosker (managing editor at HonestReporting) and Yarden Frankl (former senior editor at HonestReporting) state that “there are many reasons why Israel is mainly portrayed at fault, and most have nothing to do with anti-Semitism” (Shleifer and Snapper 2015, p.  43). Nonetheless, they believe that the media systematically and wrongly portray Israel to be at fault. Even though both Palestinians and Israelis claim that the media are biased in favour of the other side, an “examination of four academic studies of media coverage of the conflict—particularly in the period from 2000 to 2002—reveals that when bias in coverage is detected, patterns of news reporting and presentation tend to favour Israel over the Palestinians” (Dunsky 2008, p. 263). By confining the discourse to both sides, to peace and to concessions, the real issues—military occupation, settler colonialism, human rights and international law violations—remain unaddressed. Moreover, this type of reporting is “de-mobilizing” because by depicting both sides as equal, the implication is that “Palestine-Israel can be solved by insisting that both parties need to make a comparable number of concessions” which is not only false and misleading but also hinders a just resolution to the ‘conflict’ (Shupak 2018, p. 48). Consequently, as Fisk explains, “we are reporting this terrible conflict as if we supported the South African whites against the blacks” (In Curtis 2003, p. 131).

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In order to avoid questions of bias some journalists steer clear of the subject of Palestine and Israel all together. This in itself perpetuates bias because those who might, could or would portray the ‘conflict’ more fairly are not reporting on it, in a type of self-censorship, leaving it to those who have no issue with taking sides. Across the board, there is a huge asymmetry between the portrayal of the killing of Palestinians and the killing of Israelis, the latter being far more sympathetic and ‘tragic’. The worldwide condemnation of the Palestinian killing of Israelis is gravely uneven compared with the mild condemnation of similar Israeli killings of Palestinians. (Hroub 2006/2010, p. 54)

Israeli deaths are always portrayed as a greater tragedy than the deaths of Palestinians, in spite of the fact that there are invariably considerably more deaths on the Palestinian side. Perhaps, as Stalin observed, “one death is a tragedy, one million is a statistic”. Or perhaps this is a function of Israel’s shared cultural experience with the West: Israeli lives are far more similar to those of their Western counterparts than are Palestinian lives. Many Israelis originally hail from the West, and many who have been in the Holy Land for several generations maintain familial and even citizenship ties with Europe or the US. The killing of Palestinians by the Israelis, under the aegis of the War on Terror, is typically accompanied by the distribution of ‘negative’ personal information about the victim, no doubt to legitimise their killing. Such information is not ‘unearthed’ by the reporters—rather, it is received from Israeli sources. Astonishingly, the Israeli army is often used as a source when reporting on crimes or events in which it is itself involved. Ironically, the very thing omitted from the news coverage is the very thing that hinders journalists from getting access to the Palestinian perspective and thus being able to report it: the illegal military occupation. As Bishara highlights, “Foreign correspondents work through an infrastructure of people organized by professional arms, social relations, and the political and geographic barriers erected by Israeli occupation” (2013, p. 63). Similarly, physical boundaries mean that the Palestinian side is under-­ represented, given how difficult it is to access the West Bank and Gaza because of the illegal military occupation and because most foreign or visiting journalists (who fly into Tel Aviv, part of Israel) stay in Israel, or in the parts of West Bank that Israel has occupied and essentially annexed.

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Journalists seldom seek out the Palestinian narrative, either out of laziness or bias, or because of the sheer difficulty of journeying between Israel and occupied Palestine. “Still, Bowen admits hesitancy in traveling to cover stories from within the Palestinian territories, and particularly in Gaza, as a result of the logistical and structural difficulties that this coverage entails” (Peterson 2015, p. 172). The pursuit of the Palestinian narrative is in and of itself a “difficult, expensive” and hazardous endeavour with journalists being subject to “extensive intimidation” to such a degree that pragmatism wins out and it is simply easier for journalists to “accept the routine supply of information” (Philo and Berry 2004, p. 247). The military occupation and the resultant deplorable standards of living for the Palestinians of both occupied West Bank and besieged Gaza mean that many foreign journalists choose to stay in Western comfort on the Israeli side, and if they do venture into the occupied Palestinian territories, it is only briefly. According to Dr Joel Cohen, most international journalists have lived in Israel for an average of ten years.2 Living in Israeli society in this way and for so long means that the journalists start to share the views, opinions and concerns of their host society. British correspondents have “Israeli neighbours, not Palestinian ones; they drink and eat in Israeli, not Palestinian, bars and restaurants; they watch Israeli, not Palestinian, television; and they fear Palestinian suicide attacks, not Israeli army ‘incursions’” (Cook 2008, p.  219). Had these same journalists been living among the Palestinians, they would have experienced the unremitting violence and humiliation of the Israeli military occupation, after all, “Where and how one lives affects one’s view of the world” (Bishara 2013, p. 48). Moreover, journalists residing in Israel frequently use Israeli sources or even base their reporting on Israeli newspapers; but no equivalent Palestinian sources exist, a situation which cannot but lead to bias. In some instances, the journalists themselves are “veteran Israeli journalists who provide reports to the international media on a permanent basis” (Rashid 2003). In the Palestinian instance, by contrast, the journalists are geographically, physically and linguistically distant: “All the journalists relied on some kind of filter between themselves and the reality of the ‘conflict’ in addition to technology. Collaboration with fixers and translators from different places was a common aspect of their profession” (Tiripelli 2016, p. 139). Unlike their interaction with Israelis, when a journalist interacts with a Palestinian there is usually a language barrier and a translator is

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typically needed, since Palestinians are less likely to speak fluent English because of the restrictions resulting from the occupation. In contrast, many Israelis have come from the West and speak English proficiently, which means they can communicate more easily with the international journalists in Israel (approximately two-thirds of whom are from North America or Western Europe). Even in instances when Israelis do not speak English, it is more likely that the journalist speaks Hebrew than Arabic. In his study of foreign journalists in Israel, Dr Joel Cohen established that approximately 54% of journalists were completely fluent in Hebrew compared to 6% who were fluent in Arabic. Similarly, 91% of journalists considered themselves to have good knowledge of Israel, compared with only 41% who believed their knowledge of Arab countries to be good (interestingly, it was knowledge of Arab countries and not specifically Palestine.) Likewise, while 57% believed their knowledge of Judaism to be good, only 10% thought they had a good knowledge of Islam (In Rashid 2003). There is no doubt that the common culture shared by Israel and the West results in bias that not only influences the way the British media report the ‘conflict’, but also greatly affects how the audience interprets that information. The shared Western lifestyle of Israelis and Brits, for example, means that the British reader relates more readily and easily to Israelis: “To a westerner sitting at a screen in London a dead or suffering Arab in the rubble of a bazaar is more remote than a dead or suffering Israeli in a shopping mall with a Wal-Mart in-shot” (Llewellyn 2004). This bias, although experiential and accidental, nonetheless skews the narrative at the interpretative stage. Similarly, Judaeo-Christian values are promoted together and viewed both as similar to each other and as in opposition to Muslim values.3 Seaman, for example, argues that the Palestinians do not operate according to “professional standards” and that “the Arab world does not maintain journalistic standards according to western values” but rather the Muslims view the media as “a tool of war to be deployed” (In Shleifer and Snapper 2015, p. 58). The use of Islamophobic language serves to vilify the Palestinians and blur any distinction between Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims. This inevitably results in an affinity between the West and Israel which has made it easier for the West to accept the Israeli narrative and further isolates Muslim-majority Palestine. A common factor in the media coverage of the ‘conflict’ is the tendency to frame the ‘conflict’ not as one of “occupation and its consequences”

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but as one of terror and self-defence (Fields 2005). This further entrenches the Israeli narrative and “shifts responsibility for the conflict to an implacable and timeless set of hatreds” (ibid.). This repeated omission of what is essentially the crux of the current ‘conflict’ is a choice that is made by journalists each time they report which allows the aggressor to adopt the guise of victim, and forces the victim into the role of aggressor. What is arguably most striking about the media coverage of the ‘conflict’ is the lack of any reference to international law, even though reference to international law—the non-partisan rules and principles agreed upon by the international community—would add some much-needed neutrality to the reporting. Similarly, “neutral, expert sources are not called upon to assess the legitimacy of the parties’ competing claims” which further skews the reporting of the ‘conflict’ (Dunsky 2008, p. 15). Rather, as the Grade The News study shows “first-person accounts of Israeli deaths are contrasted with second-hand and approximate estimates of Palestinian fatalities” (ibid., p. 291). The lack of reference to international law further results in a false image of the ‘conflict’ and means that “the Israeli authorities’ version of events—not Palestinians, or even a United Nations agency—is cited” (White 2016). Friel and Falk argue that by overlooking the international law dimension, bias is reinforced, since it is Israel that is persistently and consistently in contravention of those selfsame laws.4 All of these factors inevitably influence a journalist’s reporting and the media’s representation of the ‘conflict’. The truth, then, lies outside the media narrative. The military occupation should be at the forefront of every article, or as Llewellyn states: “Occupation. Occupation. This should be a word never far from a reporter’s lips, stated firmly and repeatedly as the permanent backdrop to and living reason for every act of violence on either side” (2004). The representation of the violence as largely the purview of the Palestinians gives Israel “the pretence of a morally superior position in the conflict; it gives it a substantial political advantage in the United States which deflects attention from its illegal occupation of Palestinian territory; and it allows actual de facto annexations of Palestinian territory to seem almost reasonable” (Friel and Falk 2007, p. 57). The omission of the historical background is no accident, but the result of a carefully planned propaganda system: “It is significant that gaps in public understanding often reflect the propaganda generated by Israel and its many influential supporters in the West” (Cromwell 2012, p. 17). Interestingly, even when the occupation is mentioned “Some understood it to mean simply that people were on the

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land (as in a bathroom being “occupied”)” (Philo and Berry 2004, p. 118). All these factors and considerations conspire to conceal the motivations behind the Palestinians’ actions and to discourage a deeper understanding of the frustrations of three generations of Palestinians living under the Israeli military occupation from economic difficulties, roadblocks, checkpoints and house demolitions, to sparse access to water, lack of opportunities, heavy restrictions on movement, administrative detention and the violation of their human rights. Certainly, no deeper exploration of the Palestinians can be sought while they remain one-dimensional ‘terrorists’. A revealing example of context being omitted can be seen in the case of Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi. The teenager from the Palestinian village of Nabi Saleh found herself at the centre of an international media storm when she was arrested and held without trial for slapping an Israeli soldier. The media reaction focused on her daring action and on the question of whether the soldier had acted honourably or with cowardice by not retaliating (Ofir 2017). The real story, however, lies in what this narrative omits. Within this narrative frame, there is no mention of the fact that the Israeli forces had killed more than twenty members of her family, no allusion to the fact that they had shot her brother and arrested and tortured her father. Similarly, there is no mention of the fact that the Tamimi family and other members of the Nabi Saleh village have been holding weekly peaceful protests since 2009 when the Israeli army confiscated the village’s main spring for the exclusive use of the nearby illegal Israeli settlement.5 And, typically, there is absolutely no mention of the fact that the Israeli army routinely fires at the unarmed peaceful civilian protestors. The day of the slap, in fact just one hour earlier, an Israeli soldier had shot Ahed’s fifteen-year-old cousin, in the head, at close range, for throwing stones. The mainstream narrative also omits the fact that the Israeli soldier was trespassing within the confines of the Tamimi family home when he was slapped. The biggest and most critical omission, however, is that a few moments before Ahed slapped the soldier, he had in fact slapped her (Ofir 2017). The omission of the context in this instance is crucial: “Ahed was not just standing there when she was hit. She was attempting to get the soldiers to leave, she was being physical with them in putting her hands on them occasionally, pushing them lightly, slapping their arms—all that happens—but it doesn’t get very aggressive until when she

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is slapped at 0:59. It is then that Ahed first kicks the legs of the soldier and then slaps him” (Ofir 2017). Why, you might ask, why has there been so little mention of the initial slap by the Israeli soldier? By removing the context, the story can be framed so that the victim and aggressor can be reversed. If the focus of the story is only the slap that Ahed dealt the soldier, then it becomes a provocation rather than a retaliation. Ofir argues that there is a “grand societal pathology of denial” and in many ways this “denial” is necessary so that the Israelis can justify their actions towards the Palestinians (ibid.). If the soldier’s initial slap is removed from the narrative, then Ahed is the instigator, the “provocateur”. The way in which this story has been framed and reported is not unique; rather, it is symptomatic of the reporting of the ‘conflict’ in general. In the end, Ahed agreed to a plea bargain in which she received an eight-month sentence rather than the three years the military prosecutor was seeking, because of the high-profile nature of the case (Quran 2018). She wisely accepted the plea bargain because the Israeli military court system has a 99% conviction rate. It can clearly be demonstrated that the media’s representation of the Israeli perspective is both qualitatively and quantitatively superior to its representation of the Palestinian perspective. It has been shown that the British media consistently dedicate more time or space to the Israeli perspective, being represented three times more in the headlines, and Israeli spokespersons being given twice as much time on TV news.6 This demonstrates a clear bias and shows that the media do not consider both sides equal. As Fairclough explains, “Having equal status will presumably mean having equal discoursal and pragmatic rights and obligations” (1995/2010, p. 49). When Palestinian spokespersons are interviewed, they often seem rushed and agitated (probably because they have been given less time to speak) whereas the Israeli spokespersons usually speak calmly and collectedly. Moreover, there is a disparity in the types of people chosen to represent and speak for each side, with Israelis always being eloquent and well-versed, and Palestinians coming across as inarticulate and inexperienced, even though there is no shortage of articulate Palestinians who could be interviewed. Israel continues to subjugate Palestinians in an array of ways and, as such, Palestinians have come to live in a state of normalised violence where their very humanity has been denied, and with it, their legal right to resist their oppression. Israel has succeeded in delegitimising all forms of

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Palestinian resistance. When Palestinians take up arms against Israel’s brutal military occupation, as is their legal right, they are criticised and labelled as terrorists, and when they have sat at the negotiating tables, made numerous concessions, lost rights and more land, they have been labelled as rejectionists. Now, as they take up peaceful demonstration, as so many have patronisingly urged them to do in the past, they are being slaughtered as the world averts its gaze. Even peaceful, non-violent protests by the Palestinians are met with Israeli sniper bullets as the large number of Palestinian protestors shot during the Great Return March in Gaza has shown. The world has not only turned a blind eye, it has completely shut its eyes to Israel’s actions in the occupied territories, to its illegal military occupation, to its illegal blockade of Gaza and to its abuses of human rights. When it comes to Israel, the British media make a colossal effort to conceal negative coverage of Israel. There is no denying that the Israeli propaganda machine has been busy and hard at work. The shift in The Guardian’s position on the ‘conflict’ illustrates this perfectly. Historically, The Guardian has been regarded as pro-Palestinian, and because of this it has in the past been a constant target of pro-Israel groups and lobbies accusing it of being anti-Semitic on numerous occasions. Jones and Oborne found that only The Guardian tried to “report fairly from the Middle East and present the Palestinian point of view with equal force to the pro-Israeli government line” (Oborne and Jones 2009). Sadly, however—perhaps as a result of constant attacks and unremitting complaints—The Guardian has started to promote the Israeli narrative. According to the Israeli Embassy’s London press secretary, “London is a world centre of media and the embassy here works night and day to try to influence that media…We have newspapers that write consistently in a manner that supports and understands Israel’s situation and its challenges” (Philo and Berry 2004, p. 248). In fact, the difference in The Guardian reporting in 2008–2009 and 2014–2017 is further evidence of this. Indeed, the result has been a narrative that largely echoes the Israeli one and a media that are biased towards Israel. Right across the British media, the Israeli narrative is heard and the idea of Israel as a colonial oppressor is suppressed. As a main source of news for most people in the UK, the media are essentially misinforming the general public. The duplicitous approach of the British government filters down to the media. With their aligned interests, and in seeking to appease the government and its allies, the media follow the government line on Israel, omitting any information that could

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be deemed ‘unfavourable’ by Israel and its lobby. Although it is generally believed that the British press are objective in their reporting of the ‘conflict’, our analysis shows otherwise and reveals that British reporters, while purporting to be neutral, tend to represent the Israeli viewpoint and interpretation.

6.3   A Look to the Future The Palestinian situation speaks of all that is wrong in the government of our world and it is our collective responsibility to put an end not only to the oppression, colonisation and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians but to speak out in the face of all oppression and to speak for all of those suffering terribly under oppression in its various forms: “we all have a role to play in ending the injustice that the Palestinians are facing. The injustice in Palestine has ramifications throughout the world” (Barat in Chomsky and Pappe 2015, pp. 6–7). The Palestinians are the testing ground for many of the vicious methods used to control and oppress civilian populations across the world. And yet, rather than be held to account or shunned, “Israel actually benefits from violating international law and receives “red carpet” treatment from the West” (ibid.). It is Israel that controls the borders, it is Israel that controls Palestinian air-space, Palestinian land, the Palestinian sea and Palestinian access to water; yet it is the Palestinians that are vilified. Indeed, how can anyone blame the Palestinians for seeking the rights that we all take for granted? Yet, all violence in the ‘conflict’ is blamed on the Palestinians, and whenever possible Israel jumps on the terrorism bandwagon, drawing false analogies between Palestinian resistance and terrorism elsewhere. It is this, and the perpetuation of this logical falsehood by the mainstream media, that allows Israel to continue, unimpeded, its reign of terror. Paradoxically, Israel brazenly blames the Palestinians for its own violence, either by framing it as retaliation or by blaming Palestinians for ‘forcing’ them—the Israelis—to resort to violence. One cannot help but be reminded of the ‘Why did you make me hit you?’ tropes that domestic violence abusers are known for. As Hanan Ashrawi argues, “we need to correct a version of history that has constantly suffered from exclusion and denial” (In Boyle 2011, p. 26). Until this is done, the Palestinian history will remain obscured by the Israeli rewriting of history. Israel can no longer be rewarded for its interminable breaches of international law, and it should not be allowed to wipe the slate clean with

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every new theft of Palestinian land in order to redraw the borders—borders it refuses to define. Instead of imposing sanctions on Israel for using weapons indiscriminately and illegally on an occupied civilian population, the UK and the rest of the West buy Israeli weapons, whose selling point is that they are ‘field tested’ on Palestinians. Israel faces absolutely no consequences for its crimes against the Palestinians; at most, its image suffers a little in the short term. What incentive, therefore, does Israel have to end the illegal military occupation? As Shehadeh asserts, “nations will not adhere to international law unless they are forced to” (2019). Without addressing the injustices of the past, and without ending the injustices of the present, there is and can be no way to move forward. Insisting on describing what happened to the Palestinians in 1948 and ever since as a crime and not just a tragedy or even a catastrophe is essential if past evils are to be rectified. The ethnic cleansing paradigm points clearly to a victim and offender and more importantly to a mechanism of reconciliation. (Pappe in Chomsky and Pappe 2015, pp. 26–27)

The importance of using the correct terminology and describing the ‘conflict’ appropriately should not be underestimated. We have explored the many reasons for this in our analysis, but the question remains, how to address the very real pro-Israeli bias and the myth-making function of the international press? One possibility put forward by Llewellyn is his suggestion that in order for reporters to understand the Palestinian perspective they need to live amongst the Palestinians and experience the hardships and cruelty of the occupation. To do this, he argues news agencies need to move “more people out of West Jerusalem. It should base a news team in the West Bank—not just some luckless stringer but a senior, known correspondent who can force his or her way onto the main bulletins” (2004). It is likely that on seeing the Palestinian situation first hand, any pro-Israeli bias will diminish which would make journalists reluctant to blindly reproduce the Israeli narrative. Journalists who cover the ‘conflict’ should also educate themselves better about the Nakba (past and present) and the Naksa of 1967. Similarly, hiring Palestinian journalists on the ground could result in more balanced reporting and could create a safer environment for Palestinian journalists to work in. Another way to counter the pro-Israeli bias would be to seek out Palestinian sources and more neutral sources rather than relying on Israeli

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sources or Israeli government handouts. Furthermore, Palestinian sources should be sought to portray their side during the information gathering process rather than only to respond to Israeli claims. The Palestinians need to improve their own PR setup, and they should be ready to present reporters with information as promptly as the Israelis do. Similarly, Palestinians and their supporters need to be more engaged and more vigilant so that they can identify and complain about their misrepresentation by the media. Perhaps, it is time the Palestinians created their own lobbies and pressure groups to rival Israeli ones. The perpetuation of the so-called both sides needs to be addressed. If the media insist on giving ‘both sides’, then they should make sure that the Palestinian side is nonetheless represented. In fact, in order to redress the imbalance, Palestinians should be given more opportunity to tell their narrative. The ‘conflict’ should not be portrayed as one of two equal sides with equal claims but rather the reporting should represent the reality of the ‘conflict’ as one of apartheid and colonisation. A truthful representation of the ‘conflict’ would “allow readers to know that it is Israel who is the violator of the terms of the country’s own precious “borders”. Proper reportage would give stark and unassailable lie to the notion that in order to protect these borders, it must shoot and kill innocent men and boys, or women and girls” (Silver 2013). Reporting the ‘conflict’ within the context of Israel’s illegal military occupation and the Palestinian national struggle against it would help achieve this. For the media to continue to report as though what they report has no real bearing on events and no consequences in the real world is an irresponsible deception. History has, or should have, taught us that the media’s role in times of conflict is key. It is imperative that the international media try, at the very least, to live up to their stated aim of impartiality and neutrality, after all, journalists “shape the discourse that can directly or indirectly influence how those events will continue to unfold” (Dunsky 2008, p.  4). More than that, the silenced and voiceless Palestinian side should be given priority over the over-represented narrative of the Israeli occupier. Lobbies should not be allowed to use their influence to pressure journalists or what they say; they should not be allowed to spread lies and disinformation in order to discredit journalists or influence their reporting. On a governmental and legislative level, lobbies should be carefully regulated and their influence limited. Similarly, the misrepresentation of criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism and the weaponisation of anti-Semitism

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should be identified as such. Criticism of Israel should be distinguished from anti-Semitism as this is unjust to both the Palestinians and victims of real anti-Semitism. Similarly, the very conditions that foster a hostile environment towards journalists who want to report the ‘conflict’ fairly or accurately need to change so that they are free to report the truth without fear or loss of work or livelihood, physical attacks, threats, ad hominem attacks or other hate campaigns—all forms of censorship. Most British newspapers tend to take “a pro-Israel line” because those that do not “can open themselves up to coordinated campaigns and denunciation” (Oborne and Jones 2009). Our analysis shows that the British press consistently report the ‘conflict’ with a strong pro-Israeli bias. This pattern of reporting (across five British newspapers) suggests that it is unlikely to be a coincidence; more likely they are the result of systematic pressure, complaints and editing ‘guidelines’ that have resulted in a largely uniform style. After all, we know from leaked memos that the media have been given directives to use certain words and phrases and avoid others. As we have seen, the misuse of language plays a large role in the representation and reporting of this ‘conflict’. A new lexicon is needed, one that subverts the pervasive propaganda and blatant bias in order to reflect the real circumstances of the ‘conflict’. The media need to be forthright, call a spade a spade, and start using language that informs rather than conceals. Through the use of euphemisms and by stretching words to the limits of their semantic capabilities, politicians, lobbyists and journalists have immunised Israel from criticism. It is time we spoke of dispossession rather than displacement; occupied territories rather than disputed territories; apartheid and colonisation rather than democracy; ethnic cleansing rather than ‘making the desert bloom’; and most of all, it is time we speak of the indigenous Palestinian people rather than Balfour’s ‘non-Jewish communities’. By liberating language from the theatre of obfuscation, obscurantism and denial, we will move a step closer towards the liberation of the Palestinian people, and the resolution of the ‘conflict’. Dehumanisation of Palestinians, as part of the greater dehumanisation of Arabs and Muslims, has facilitated the portrayal of the ‘conflict’ as an alternate reality in which Israelis are victims and Palestinians are aggressors. But the Palestinians have a right to oppose and resist the brutal Israeli apartheid, a right accorded them under international law.7 Accordingly, the ‘conflict’ should be represented in its true context and within the

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parameters of international law: “International law is there in order to protect the vulnerable and helpless. And the Palestinians have always been vulnerable and exposed and helpless” (Boyle 2011, p. 30). If the reporting of the ‘conflict’ were to address the illegal military occupation and the illegal blockade, if it were to expose Israel’s human rights violations, then the international community would be forced to do something about these breaches. Organised mass protests and civil disobedience are needed to let governments know that the voices of its citizens demand to be heard and heeded. As Falk has argued “Justice will be eventually achieved, but only through the agency of struggle waged by, with, and on behalf of the Palestinian people” (2017, p. 76). By calling on our governments to stop shielding Israel from criticism and by urging our governments to push for Israel to be prosecuted for its crimes against the Palestinians, by calling on our governments to stop arming Israel and to stop buying Israeli arms, by pushing for full support of a global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions of Israel (or a similar anti-apartheid movement), Israel will be forced to adhere to international law, to implement the unfulfilled UN resolutions (notably 181 and 194), to end the illegal military occupation, to end the illegal blockade and to dismantle the illegal settlements. Perhaps then the Palestinians can return to their homes, and the Nakba can finally come to an end. Only then will the Palestinians be able to enjoy basic human rights. “Israel’s birth was in sin” and it continues to live in sin (Reinhart 2002/2005, p. 52). Israel has rendered the two-state solution dead, and although many people have long championed it, as far back as 1949, The New York Times’ Anne O’Hare McCormick presciently declared “the two-state solution dead due to Israeli aggression” (Suarez 2016, p. 14). The so-called facts on the ground (in other words, the continued Israeli thefts of Palestinian land) have made the Palestinian landscape non-contiguous and reduced the occupied West Bank and besieged Gaza to cantons. For peace to be achieved, Israel must withdraw to the pre-1967 borders and it must dismantle the illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. It is worth asking, as Shehadeh does, if “France could move one million French citizens out of Algeria why can’t Israel move 450,000 (many of whom have second homes in the settlements)?” (2012/2013, p. 177). Israel must unconditionally end the illegal blockade on Gaza and implement the Palestinian Right of Return or compensate those who do not wish to return. Only then can there be any form of restitution: “Closure must be achieved so as

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to heal festering wounds, as South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission so vividly demonstrated” (Varoufakis 2016, p. 9). The injustices that the Israelis have forced upon the Palestinians from as far back as 1948 need to be acknowledged and addressed. Israel will not end its apartheid colonial regime if there is no pressure to do so from the international community, namely the US and the UK. The only realistic resolution to the ‘conflict’, therefore, needs to be one based on international pressure and sanctions, and, as the South African example highlights, one that is centred on international law: “A peace process that is not based on international law is no peace process and no instrument of peace” (Boyle 2011, p. 30). The Israelis cannot demand of the Palestinians to give up resistance before peace can be negotiated, all the while they continue their illegal military occupation. Nor can peace be contingent on the Palestinians giving up more land as in the ““land for peace” formula” which demands that Palestinians must give up “their rights to their historic homeland in exchange for an end to Israeli oppression of—and colonial violence against—their people” (Massad 2010). Any solution to the ‘conflict’ has to adequately address the injustices suffered by the Palestinians. Over forty-five years ago, Bertrand Russell asked: How much longer is the world willing to endure this spectacle of wanton cruelty? It is abundantly clear that the refugees have every right to return to the homeland from which they were driven, and the denial of this right is at the heart of the continuing conflict. No people anywhere in the world would accept being expelled en masse from their country; how can anyone require the people of Palestine to accept a punishment which nobody else would tolerate? (Russell Tribunal on Palestine 2012)

The British government has a greater responsibility than other countries to help end the military occupation and the illegal blockade, and to bring about a just peace that respects the rights of the Palestinians. For after all, the “foundations of Israel were laid in London” (Cronin 2017, p. 4). In trying to redress the wrongs done to one people, the British dispossessed another, and the Palestinians remain dispossessed to this day. Britain, we now know, played a greater and more hands-on, active role in facilitating the Jewish takeover of Palestinian land than previously believed, and from the time of the British Mandate to the present day, the British government has maintained its pro-Israeli stance.

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Journalists ‘bearing witness’ have a moral responsibility to report accurately and truthfully, especially in situations where doing so is the difference between helping to perpetuate the oppression, immiseration and subjugation of a people, or helping to inform the world about the plight of an oppressed and dispossessed people in the hope that they can be empowered to fight for their freedom and independence. In actuality the purpose of bearing witness is to challenge bias, not to perpetuate it, but in our Orwellian media world, it is bias that is too often presented as balanced and truth witnessing that is either ignored or derided. (Falk 2014, p. 131)

The representation of the ‘conflict’ by the media is critical and without “a more impartial presentation of the facts” from the UK news media, a just solution to the ‘conflict’ is improbable, if not impossible (Friel and Falk 2007, p. 19). There is a reason that our political language is riddled with euphemisms and circumlocutions, and the reason is to keep us in the dark; what we are told we are told in tongues and the rest is largely omitted. As individuals, we too have a role in this struggle against the doublespeak that has taken hold of our political language and that has concealed the many crimes of our governments. We have a responsibility to question what we are told. When we accept information passively without checking or questioning it, we too play our part in the perpetuation of falsehoods; we unwittingly allow this duplicitous language to bloom. It is not ‘just the way the world is’ and it is not the way the world has to be. It is time to hold those in power accountable for their actions.

Notes 1. See Bishara 2013, p. 75. 2. See Rashid 2003. 3. This is especially true post 9/11, even though, in many respects, Christianity and Islam agree namely in their belief in and reverence of Jesus Christ, whom Judaism denies. 4. See Friel and Falk 2007, p. 19. 5. See Paq and Motola 2016. 6. See Curtis 2003, p. 131.

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7. Although the “history of international law’s development makes that law primarily a tool for powerful states” it is nonetheless the best tool available. Erakat explains that “International law as it exists today began in Europe among the states that were colonial powers. Positioned as universal in appeal and application, international law is the codification of exclusively European traditions” (Erakat 2019, p. 6).

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Index1

A Al-Quds, 52n20, 83, 145 See also Jerusalem America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), 151 Amnesty International, 8 Anti-Semitism, 19–23, 43, 44, 46, 47, 50n1, 153–156, 205, 215, 216 Apartheid, 40, 41, 133, 149, 156, 194, 215, 216, 218 Arabs, 20–22, 24, 28–30, 32, 33, 35, 37, 39, 42, 48, 50n6, 51n9, 52n23, 52n26, 53n29, 64, 87, 88, 90n10, 144, 147, 150, 174–176, 182, 184, 201, 208, 216 Arafat, Yasser, 26, 36, 125, 175 Arms, 8, 30, 36, 45, 62, 128, 155, 172, 206, 210, 212, 217 Arrests, 6, 68, 70, 78, 124, 125, 176, 178, 180, 182–184 Assassinations, 172

B Baghdad, 20, 128 Balfour, Arthur, 22, 23, 28, 29, 147 Balfour Declaration, 21, 22, 28–29, 147 Begin, Menachem, 25, 51n7 Ben-Gurion, David, 23, 51n9, 63 Blair, Tony, 127, 149, 197n12 Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), 152, 155–157, 217 Britain, 22, 28–29, 32, 127, 149, 167, 168, 218 See also United Kingdom (UK) British mandate, 28, 32, 218 B’Tselem, 188 Bush, George W., 128, 137 C Carter, Jimmy, 41 Censorship and media, 124 self-censorship, 127–129, 153, 155

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 N. R. Sirhan, Reporting Palestine-Israel in British Newspapers, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17072-1

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INDEX

Chomsky, Noam, 20, 35, 37, 41, 43, 47, 65, 129, 148, 154, 155, 158n3, 158n10, 167, 168, 172, 176, 177, 213, 214 Citizenship, 1, 39, 43, 206 Colonisation, 15, 17, 19, 24–26, 30, 41, 47, 193, 213, 215, 216 Communication, 16, 42, 62, 123, 203 Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI), 148, 149 Context, 10, 16, 68, 75, 82, 84, 85, 129–132, 138, 140, 166, 170, 174, 176, 190, 193, 194, 202, 203, 210, 211, 215, 216 Cook, Jonathan, 26, 35, 40, 63, 146, 151, 207 Corbyn, Jeremy, 46, 47, 153 Cronin, David, 7, 22, 28, 30–33, 36, 43, 127, 156, 176, 177, 218 Curtis, Mark, 29, 32, 167, 168, 173, 187, 205 D Daily Mail, The, 9, 65, 67, 69, 70, 77, 81, 88, 90n10, 127, 134, 140, 142, 144–146, 150, 189–192, 197n12 Daily Telegraph, The, 9, 65, 67–69, 71, 73, 75, 77, 78, 81, 82, 84–88, 133–135, 137, 141, 143, 145, 147, 178, 180–183, 189–192 Dayan, Moshe, 64, 90n2 Dehumanisation, 216 Deir Yassin, 27, 51n7, 51n8 Demonisation, 174, 175, 194 Diaspora, 201, 202 Discourse, 49, 61, 126, 171, 175, 187, 203, 205, 215

E Education, 6, 41, 49, 53n28, 157, 169, 190 Ethnic cleansing 1948, 33, 49, 127, 131, 138, 214 (see also Nakbah) 1967, 138 (see also Naksah) F Falk, Richard, 35, 37, 41, 43–45, 209, 217, 219 Finkelstein, Norman G., 7, 8, 28, 36, 37, 43–45, 48, 82, 84, 148, 153, 154, 158n10, 177, 187 Fisk, Robert, 87, 175, 205 G Gaza, 7, 37, 69, 128, 177, 201 Great Return March, 128, 196n6, 204, 212 Gilbert, Mads, 86 Government, 2, 3, 6, 12n1, 29, 32, 39, 41, 43, 44, 49, 52n17, 65, 83, 88, 89, 123–128, 130, 141, 143, 146, 155, 156, 165–168, 171–173, 177, 178, 185, 186, 194, 202, 212, 213, 215, 217–219 Great Britain and Palestinians, 32, 218 and Zionists, 28, 31 See also United Kingdom (UK) Green line, 147 Guardian, The, 9, 65, 67, 68, 70, 71, 74, 79, 81, 84, 89, 127, 131, 134, 135, 137, 140–142, 145, 178, 181, 183, 184, 190–192, 212

 INDEX 

H Haganah, 31, 51n7 Halhul, 30, 31 Hamas, 7–9, 45, 70–75, 78, 80, 81, 131–135, 137, 138, 140–142, 149, 176–182, 184, 185, 188, 189, 197n12 Hass, Amira, 26, 138 Headlines, 11, 66–72, 138, 150, 191, 192, 211 Hebron, 30, 74, 135, 136, 196n11 Herman, Edward S., 35, 158n3, 167, 172 Herzl, Theodore, 19, 22 Hitler, Adolf, 23, 47, 156, 165, 167, 196n4 Holocaust, 18–19, 21, 23, 26, 45, 49, 53n29, 154, 158n10 Human Rights Watch, 187 I Independent, The, 9, 65, 67–69, 71, 78, 81, 82, 134–137, 141, 142, 180, 190–192 International Criminal Court (ICC), 146 International law, 37–39, 44, 46, 48, 53n28, 84, 132, 139, 144–147, 156, 157, 177, 181, 195, 205, 209, 213, 214, 216–218, 220n7 Intifada, 6, 134, 175–177 Iraq, 2, 20, 129 Irgun, 51n7 Islam, 153, 175, 208, 219n3 Israeli-Palestinian conflict, 2, 6, 9, 11, 12, 15–50, 63, 90n10, 123–157, 202

253

See also Palestine, Palestinian-Israeli conflict Israel, state of, 6, 11, 15, 17–34, 38, 41, 42, 48, 50, 51n7, 52n17, 62, 133, 138, 146, 158n11 creation of, 11, 15, 18, 20, 21, 24, 27, 38, 48, 50, 51n7, 138 J Jerusalem, 21, 28, 51n6, 52n20, 67, 69, 74, 79, 83, 134, 136, 140, 143–145, 147, 156, 180, 183, 191, 192, 196n11, 197n12 East Jerusalem, 36, 49, 139, 144, 145, 180, 182 See also Al-Quds Jewish national home (JNH), 16, 29 Jews, 19–26, 29, 30, 35, 39, 40, 43–45, 49, 51n7, 53n29, 87, 90n10, 136, 150, 153–155, 165, 174, 194, 196n4 Jordan, 29, 51n6, 52n22, 62, 86, 144 Journalists, 2–6, 12, 42, 46, 49, 70, 72, 77, 80, 81, 85, 86, 89, 123, 124, 126–128, 131, 133, 135, 142, 143, 148, 149, 153–155, 170, 180–182, 185, 186, 191–193, 196n7, 196n11, 202–209, 214–216, 219 See also Media K Karmi, Ghada, 25, 30, 64, 127 Khalidi, Rashid, 18, 33, 61, 89, 202 Khalidi, Walid, 8, 28

254 

INDEX

L Labour Friends of Israel (LFI), 46, 148, 149 Language and conflict, 61–90 and identity, 63 and manipulation, 36, 52n20, 61, 165, 190 and media, 62, 165, 190 and power, 62, 165 Levy, Gideon, 35, 39, 41, 42, 132, 156 Lexicon, 11, 12, 61, 62, 66, 83–89, 216 Lilienthal, Alfred, 40 Linguistic devices, 62 Lobbies and pressure groups, 147, 215 Israel lobby, 8, 20, 41, 46, 85, 148, 149, 151–155 See also America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) M Mandela, Nelson, 41 Masalha, Nur, 22, 24, 26, 34, 41, 63, 64, 174 Massad, Joseph A., 24, 37, 40, 49, 64, 90n2, 175, 218 Media and agenda setting, 11, 168–171 and bias, 6, 193, 208, 211 and framing, 11, 165–195 and language, 41, 62, 126, 149, 216 Meir, Golda, 25 Mizrahi Jews, 42 Myths, 9, 11, 15–50, 62, 64, 83, 136, 158n8, 158n10, 172, 183, 193, 194, 214

N Nakba, 6, 15, 34, 49, 50, 51n7, 90n10, 132, 138, 145, 190, 201, 202, 214, 217 Naksa, 214 See also War of 1967 Names significance of, 63 Naming, 63–64, 84 Narratives, 2, 4, 5, 12, 12n1, 16–18, 47, 49, 62, 66, 81–83, 89, 124, 130–132, 137, 139, 141, 155, 166, 169, 170, 175–177, 187–189, 191–193, 195, 202–205, 207–212, 214, 215 Nationality, 39, 73, 157 Nazis, 22, 23, 34, 44 Netanyahu, Benjamin, 19, 73, 86, 134, 153, 154, 156 Newsinger, John, 22, 23, 31, 32, 147 9/11 attacks, 25, 175, 219n3 1948 Nakba, 6, 15, 49, 131, 145 1967 Naksa, 214 See also Six-Day War Nominalisation, 11, 66, 68, 75–76, 176 O Occupation (military) and settlements, 132 under international law, 37, 39 Occupied Territories, 35, 37, 41, 132, 134, 146, 151, 212, 216 Operation Cast Lead (OCL), 7, 9, 10, 45, 65, 70, 71, 74, 76–78, 80, 81, 131, 133, 136, 139, 142–143, 177, 178, 180, 181, 187, 189–192 Oslo, 36 Othering, 11, 172, 174, 185, 196n4

 INDEX 

P Palestine British Mandate, 32 and occupation, 47, 132, 134, 138, 193, 195 Palestinian-Israeli conflict, 2, 6, 9 (see also Israeli-Palestinian conflict) and the UN, 38 Palestinian Authority (PA), 177, 189 Palestinians and detention, 48, 135 and freedom of movement, 6 and imprisonment, 6 and resistance, 21, 30, 87, 139, 140, 175, 177, 190, 212, 213 and right of return, 38, 217 Pappé, Ilan, 10, 17, 19–21, 25, 26, 35, 37, 41, 47, 51n6, 84, 133, 148, 177, 213, 214 Pilger, John, 128, 202 Pinter, Harold, 50 Propaganda, 7, 8, 11, 17, 28, 39, 43, 46–48, 139, 150, 151, 165–168, 186, 203, 209, 212, 216 See also Media Punishment, 31, 32, 141, 218 collective punishment, 32, 48, 132, 141, 178 R Refugee camps, 75, 77, 183 Refugees, 15, 23, 28, 38, 76, 158n8, 201, 218 Religion, 20, 40, 83 Resistance, 7, 40, 47, 88, 131, 139, 156, 175–177, 189, 194, 195, 202, 218 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 34 Russell, Bertrand, 36, 218

255

S Said, Edward, 18, 20, 25, 26, 28, 49, 90n2, 153, 176, 202, 203 Settlements (illegal), 64, 67, 85, 86, 132, 134, 135, 146, 147, 189, 191, 196n11, 217 Settlers, 10, 11, 17, 20, 30, 34, 36, 41, 48, 67, 68, 74, 76–80, 82, 84–88, 125, 132, 133, 136, 137, 146, 147, 156, 177, 178, 182, 188, 191, 205 Shehadeh, Raja, 48, 52–53n27, 84, 146, 214, 217 Shlaim, Avi, 7, 17, 18, 28 Six-Day War, 83, 136 See also 1967 Naksah South Africa, 40, 41, 218 Stereotypes, 2, 167, 172 Suarez, Thomas, 18, 20, 22, 26, 27, 30, 32, 34, 37, 42, 51n9, 64, 83, 138, 195, 217 T Terminology, 9, 47, 64, 83–90, 90n10, 137, 156, 190, 214 Terrorism counterterrorism, 175 See also 9/11 attacks Times, The (T), 9, 65, 67, 69, 72, 73, 75, 76, 78, 80, 81, 85, 86, 88, 126, 134, 136, 140, 143, 145–147, 178, 179, 182, 190–192 U United Kingdom (UK), 1, 2, 6, 22, 46, 47, 126, 148, 150, 151, 154, 155, 189, 196n5, 212, 214, 218, 219

256 

INDEX

United Nations (UN) and Gaza, 71 and human rights, 35 and peace process, 135 United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), 76 United States of America (USA), 6, 26, 43, 125, 148, 149, 151, 153, 206 UN Resolution 181, 217 V Vietnam, 128 Violence, 8, 9, 11, 37, 38, 50, 73, 74, 76, 86, 88, 124, 125, 127, 131, 135, 137–140, 153, 157n2, 173, 176–185, 189, 193–195, 207, 209, 211, 213, 218 Voice active, 66–69, 72–74 passive, 67–69, 73, 74

W War on Terror, 128, 139, 175, 206 Weapons, 18, 31, 128, 140, 153, 156, 178, 179, 181, 214 See also Arms Weir, Alison, 23, 27, 203 Weizmann, Chaim, 22, 24, 30 West Bank, 36, 37, 39, 40, 43, 49, 52n27, 53n28, 67–70, 73, 75–78, 80, 82, 84–86, 88, 89, 131–139, 144–147, 155–157, 177, 180, 182, 183, 189, 191, 192, 196n11, 196n12, 204, 206, 207, 214, 217 World Zionist Organisation (WZO), 19, 22, 50n1 Z Zionism, 15, 18–20, 22–23, 32, 33, 38, 40, 43, 44, 49, 83, 174