| US ELECTIONS TRIGGER ISRAEL FOCUS THIS WEEK: Read our commentary on references to Israel in coverage of the US presidential elections. ALSO: See how the use of photos created sympathy with the Palestinian side in coverage of fighting between Israel and Gaza.
• Coverage of the results of the US elections saw mentions of Israel in all the daily broadsheets and tabloids. As news outlets speculated on how president-elect Barack Obama will deal with a wide range of foreign policy issues, it was clear that journalists viewed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as of crucial importance. • In its round-up of issues facing Obama, the Daily Mirror said that Israel ‘is itching to carry out a military strike on nuclear bases' in Iran and breached journalistic standards by asserting, ‘the plight of the Palestinians is the root cause of many conflicts across the world' as though this were an established fact rather than a highly controversial opinion. • Daily Express chief political commentator Patrick O'Flynn said the next president must ‘force Israel into making compromises without making an enemy of America's powerful Jewish lobby,' while Max Hastings of the Daily Mail doubted he would push Israel into, ‘taking the essential steps towards a workable solution… ' ‘Thus,' he lamented, ‘the world's hopes are likely to be disappointed.' • Robert Fisk of The Independent was heavily critical of Israel in a piece he contributed to the two-page spread, ‘Can Obama heal the divisions created by eight years of Bush?' He criticised the president-elect's victory speech, saying, ‘The Wall was mentioned – but it turned out Obama was talking about the Berlin Wall, not the fence, which dare not speak its name.' • Fisk further censured Obama for blaming Hizbollah for the 2006 conflict with Israel and supporting sanctions on Iran. Finally, he implied that, ‘at the mere hint of a little balance and fairmindedness in the Arab-Israeli conflict' unspecified persons might revive rumours ‘ that Obama is a Muslim…that he might not be quite as pro-Israeli as he claimed to the AIPAC guys and girls.' In addition, a photo of an Israeli border policeman poised to shoot was embedded in the article. • There were numerous mentions in The Guardian, including Thursday's leading article, ‘Welcome back' in which ‘the ever-more intractable problems of Israel-Palestine' were placed alongside Iraq and Afghanistan as major issues facing the next president of the United States.
• On Tuesday, Israeli troops clashed with militants in Gaza in an attempt to destroy a tunnel which the Israeli army claimed was integral to a Hamas plot to kidnap soldiers. • The Daily Telegraph, The Times, Financial Times and The Evening Standard all reported the story, but only the Telegraph cited Israel's claim that the tunnel was linked directly to a kidnap plot. • On Thursday, following a flurry of Palestinian-fired rockets into Israel The Times devoted a full page to developments and their implications for the truce between Israel and Hamas. The Times was the only outlet that linked the story to kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit, ‘who is still being held at a secret location in Gaza by Hamas'. • The Guardian ran a much shorter article, simply outlining the facts of the incident. Like The Times, it included statements from the Israeli military and the following Hamas quote : ‘The Israelis began this tension and they must pay an expensive price…[they] cannot leave us drowning in blood while they sleep soundly in their beds.' • On the BBC News website, ‘Israel seeks Gaza truce extension' featured a large photo of visibly distressed Palestinian relatives of one of the Hamas gunmen killed by Israel. Much further down the piece, a photo of a rocket fired into Israel appeared - the only visual representation of the impact of hostilities on Israel across the print media. The Times article featured a large photo of a Palestinian child playing ‘amid rubble after the Israeli ‘pinpoint' raid', while The Guardian included a photo of a child crying at the funeral of one of Hamas gunmen killed in the raid.
• On Tuesday, The Guardian carried two pieces in which highly controversial statements were made about Israel and the Holocaust. ‘Islamofascist slanders', by Anne Karpf, argued that Israeli prime ministers have used the Holocaust as an ‘ideological tool', and that ‘the Jewish genocide is used…shamelessly in legitimisation of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians.' • ‘The legacy of Kristallnacht' by Paul Oestreicher, featured in the G2 section, argued that one of the worst consequences of Nazi anti-Semitism was that ‘many of the survivors who fled to Palestine did so at the expense of the local people' and that ‘[to] create another victim people is to sow the seeds of another holocaust.' The next day, two letters criticising the articles, were published in response.
Israel on the silver screen To coincide with the British release of ‘Waltz with Bashir', the Israeli animated film about the 1982 war between Israel and Lebanon, Gali Gold, artistic director of the forthcoming UK Jewish film festival, presents an account in The Observer of how Israel has portrayed itself in film. Israel's new prophet? Donald Macintyre of The Independent conducted a lengthy interview with former Speaker of the Knesset, Avraham Burg, about his controversial new book about the role of the Holocaust in contemporary Israel.
|
Posts
