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Just Journalism Newsletter   12 October 2010

Media focus on deaths of Palestinian children Following the incident in Silwan on Friday in which two Palestinian youths were hit by the car of settler leader David Be'eri after they threw rocks at the vehicle, the media have picked up on the theme of Palestinian children being injured at the hands of Israel. Today, both The Guardian and The Independent reported allegations by various human rights organisations that Israel has shot 10-12 Palestinian youths near the Gaza border over the last three months. Accompanying The Guardian article was a timeline, titled, 'In the firing line' listing 'Children shot in "buffer zone" while collecting rubble'. Readers learn the victims' first name, age, nature of wound, alleged distance from the border and the date of the incident. The source for the information is Defence for Children International, the organisation responsible for documenting the cases. In the past ten years, The Guardian has never printed a timeline documenting the deaths of Israeli children at the hands of Palestinians. Donald Macintyre's 'Israeli soldiers 'shot at children collecting gravel by Gaza border'' was a markedly different report from Harriet Sherwood's 'Israeli troops accused of shooting children in Gaza'.  First, despite The Independent's headline (not penned by correspondent Macintyre) the journalist referred to the alleged victims as 'youngsters,' 'teenagers' and 'young men' throughout. Sherwood, on the other hand, referred to 'children'. Second, only Donald Macintyre provided clear context for Israel's general policies in the Gaza border area, giving concrete examples of violence carried out in the zone, including an instance of a militant disguising himself as a civilian to hide his intentions:  'The Israeli military said yesterday that "hostile terrorist activity" in "close proximity to the security fence surrounding the Gaza strip" had included since the beginning of the year 60 incidents of small arms fire, 34 of improvised explosive device (IED) plantings, and 15 incidents of anti-tank missile fire. To continue reading, click here. Guardian implies rejection of Jewish state Yesterday's Guardian editorial, 'Israel's loyalty oath: Discriminatory by design' strongly denounces Israel's passing of a law which will require all non Jewish candidates for Israeli citizenship to pledge allegiance to 'the state of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state'. It describes the new requirement as 'by definition, discriminatory' and claims that the law is 'specifically designed to exclude one fifth of its citizens who see themselves as Palestinian.' Moreover, the official view of the newspaper emits clear signs that it finds the idea of a state primarily for Jews unacceptable: 'Neither [Palestinian citizens of Israel nor their partners] could agree with Israel's characterisation of itself as a Jewish state. It could be a state of Jews and all its citizens, but never a Jewish state.' Twice, the article refers in a pejorative way to a 'state ideology' in Israel when dealing with the idea of Israel as a state for the Jews. On the situation for Palestinian citizens of Israel, the piece asserts: 'The Palestinian Israeli experience of inequality and discrimination only promotes the view that being a minority in a state with a Jewish majority is rapidly becoming untenable.'  To continue reading, click here. Guardian emphasises 'Israeli intolerance' The BBC News website and The Guardian have reported on the deportation from Israel of Nobel laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire on account of her participation in a recent attempt to break Israel's naval blockade on Gaza. The story follows a recent trend of portraying Israel and its supporters as intolerant of any criticism. 'Israel expels Nobel peace laureate over Gaza protest' by the Associated Press and published in Wednesday's Guardian, cites Maguire's objections to Israel's conduct, including that she 'called Israel an "apartheid" state, and, in comments to reporters, accused it of committing "ethnic cleansing"'. The article also claims that the incident with Maguire could do 'further damage to an image already tarnished by a perceived lack of tolerance of criticism'. The piece next draws attention to the banning last year of career-critic of Israel Noam Chomsky: 'Israel has banned other pro-Palestinian activists from entering the country, including, in May, the 81-year-old Jewish-American linguist Noam Chomsky'. A similar theme is also evident in Harriet Sherwood's article, published on 2 October, about British-Jewish actress Miriam Margoyles' visit to a West Bank refugee camp. In 'Jewish actor visits West Bank camp in quest for peace', both in the standfirst, and then later repeated within the article, Margoyles is quoted as saying: 'It's very hard to talk about Palestine to Jewish people - they see me as a betrayer.' On her support for a one-state solution, she reflects: "I can't see any other solution working. I realise that if it's one state, it can't be a Jewish state. When I say this to Jewish people, they go mental - but to me it's the obvious solution." To continue reading, click here. 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