Review: More Bad News from Israel

Greg Philo and Mike Berry expand on their work in Bad News from Israel in a follow-up book, and uncover the ideological biases at work in coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict. By Ronan MacDubhghaill.

Following on from the successes of the widely acclaimed “Bad News From Israel”, “More Bad News From Israel” sheds light on an important topic which is so easily misunderstood. In so doing, the authors expand on the work carried out in the first edition to include a detailed analysis of the coverage of the Israeli attacks on the Gaza strip in December 2008 and January 2009, as well as on the Gaza flotilla in 2010. An in-depth thematic analysis of the coverage of the conflict is carried out, with the intention of uncovering the underlying ideological biases at work regarding how the conflict is reported in the West. Not only does this include a scrupulously detailed account of the coverage itself in the form of a discourse analysis, but the new book also presents new and original quantitative and qualitative research. The quantitative component of this research includes questionnaires used in the UK, US and Germany, which are informed by and interpreted with reference to a highly instructive set of qualitative research. Vitally, this qualitative component involves interaction between veteran journalists and members of the public in the setting of focus groups, which lends real illustrative texture to the study, bringing sharply into focus the discrepancies through which the dynamics of the conflict are misunderstood.

The study itself begins with a genealogical account of the “Histories of the Conflict”. The authors take the back seat, allowing the reader to observe the emergence and evolution of the conflict from its origins in the twentieth century colonial adventure of Zionism (and its even earlier nineteenth century roots), to the present day and the ‘war on terror’. This historical component of the study allows the reader to grasp the contours of the circumstances surrounding the conflict, which are so often ignored. Most importantly, the authors keep critical distance, presenting historical accounts from both sides, thus managing to maintain impartiality.

Their account leads from the self-consciously colonial Zionist adventure, to the 1917 Balfour declaration where the British Colonial government signaled their support for the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. In so doing, they showed little concern for the preexisting population, whom they viewed as “a few hundred thousand Negros” and who were of “no significance”. This support from Western countries was reconfirmed following the 1948 declaration of independence, and as the authors evenhandedly demonstrate, has been instrumental since. From the US continuously blocking UN security council resolutions against Israel and aiding Israel in contravening others, to the incorporation of the Israel-Palestine conflict into the “war on terror”, this stance has allowed the state of Israel to repeatedly break international laws governing the conduct of war, not to mention even the most basic standards of respect for human rights and dignity (a point driven home by reference to international and Israeli human rights groups). It is indeed disquieting to know that this support is often based upon the clout of small but powerful pro-Israel lobby groups in countries such as the US and the UK.

In the content studies, the authors demonstrate succinctly the effect of this biased stance upon how the news is reported and understood in the West. The first problem identified is that of the lack of context given. Through their thorough analysis of news reports, from 2000 up to the attacks on the Gaza flotilla in 2010, this problem is consistently identified. Frequently, the conflict is presented as a “cycle of violence”, without any apparent beginning, nor any end in sight. This is of course false. The beginning can clearly be identified with the emergence of the Israeli State and the occupation of Palestine, but as the authors show, this is rarely pointed out. Moreover, it is rarely even said that Israel is an occupying force over a civilian population, and as such, many members of the audience, as questioned in the qualitative component of this study, were oblivious to this fact. As demonstrated by the authors, the effect of this lack of context is twofold: on one hand it skews the perception of the conflict, framing it as something that it is not (a cycle of violence ongoing from some ancient and obscure quarrel), but also making it less accessible and understandable to members of the public. In the qualitative focus-group studies, many audience members reported that this lack of background information in reports “turned them off” watching anything about the conflict, thus increasing its obscurity. Crucially, the authors identify that the perception amongst the majority of participants in this study was that Israel was generally on the defensive in this conflict, “reacting” to Palestinian aggression in this “cycle of violence”.

This brings us to the next problem as demonstrated in the book. When reporting the conflict, there exists an irrefutable bias in how the story of the conflict is told. As pointed out, since the conflict has been incorporated within the “war on terror”, the Palestinians have consistently been portrayed as “Islamist terrorists”, engaging in “mass murder”. This perspective immediately renders their cause illegitimate, and obscures the fact that they are fighting what is seen by many as a legitimate war of resistance - national liberation against foreign occupation. Moreover, despite the fact that in any engagement, Israel inflicts many times more casualties (military and civilian) than the Palestinians, the emphasis is overwhelmingly on reporting Israeli casualties. Again, the qualitative component of this study demonstrates how this bias is reflected in the understandings of audience members. Not only are most unaware of the multiple UN resolutions against Israel for their occupation of Palestine, but the way in which the conflict is reported frames the Palestinians as illegal, illegitimate aggressors, and supports the Israeli line that they are merely protecting their population, and the integrity of their borders from an apparently foreign aggression. From an emphasis on Hezbollah rockets from Lebanon, to the portrayal of the settlers who control more than a third of the water and arable land in the Gaza strip as vulnerable and isolated, this is consistently the case.

Overall then, this book provides an excellent and thorough analysis not only of the contemporary media coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict, but also the contextual information so often missing from this coverage and indeed posits credible explanations for these discrepancies - the strength of pro-Israel lobbies in the US and the UK, for example. Though they stop short of pointing it out, their analysis shows that there exist structural biases which serve as a priori obstacles to the communication of the Palestinian perspective, for example: the question of international recognition and apparent legitimacy. It is telling that one advantage held by the Israelis from the very beginning was their ability to frame their cause in the context of an assertion of their national identity, something which has been consistently denied to Palestinians. The ability to assert their claim to nationhood (a quintessentially European idea), backed up by the ‘historic’ right to the lands of the bible, granted Israel a capacity to present itself as an ancient country which had existed for thousands of years in the same territory, simply under intermittent foreign occupation. Whilst nobody would deny the existence of historic Israel, nor the legacy of the Jewish people, to read the history of Palestine in such black and white terms is to do violence to the rights others who have inhabited this land. This, perhaps, is one thing the authors might have placed a greater emphasis upon.

That notwithstanding this is an excellent book. Accessible, readable and scrupulously evenhanded, it is an invaluable resource, not only for students of politics and communications studies, but for anyone interested in the history and current affairs of the region. The raw data alone which it provides makes this book a worthwhile publication - but it is much more than simply data. “More Bad News From Israel” is an extremely useful tool for understanding how to interpret and navigate bias in how the news is presented. This is true not only from Israel and the occupied territories of Palestine, but also for identifying the dynamics of power relations in communication generally.

More Bad News From Israel by Greg Philo and Mike Berry, ISBN: 9780745329789, 486pp, Release Date: 08 Apr 2011

Originally published on New Left Project (newleftproject.org)

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