Nicholas Dulerain

ENGW1111-35

Professor Richard

Media Bias Essay

The highly polarizing Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been raging since the establishment

of the State of Israel in 1948, and is perhaps a continuation of the conflict between the Yishuv

and Arab populations in British-ruled Palestine. While the conflict has taken many forms, it is

mostly categorized by violent clashes between respective armies, established terrorist cells, and

individuals, establishing two dominant narratives and solutions for the conflict. For the past 10

years, much of the violence has been attributed to Israels clashes with the military arm of the

democratically elected government of the Gaza strip, otherwise known as Hamas, a designated

terrorist organization. The most recent, and probably most controversial, conflict occurred during

the summer of 2014, wherein Israel launched Operation Protective Edge, utilizing airstrikes and

ultimately a ground offensive against Gaza to neutralize military targets and destroy tunnels dug

by Hamas to fire rockets into Israel. The coverage of the aftermath of the bloody conflict has

become highly partisan, with both sides of the political spectrum and their respective media

outlets accusing the other of leaving out crucial information and even lying about the causes and

nature of the conflict. Right-wing political factions and media organizations such as Fox News

are generally pro-Israel (sometimes even unjustly so) and often portray its military actions as

strictly retaliatory, often using softer language to downplay the impact that its airstrikes have on

civilians to better fit a one-state narrative. Left-wing media outlets such as the Independent often

utilize shock-value in their headlines to capture the extent to which Israels airstrikes and ground

offensives have impacted the innocent civilians living in Gaza to help make the case for a
sovereign Palestinian state. However, these media outlets have also downplayed the significance

of Israeli warnings and calls for peace and have portrayed IDF actions as vengeful rather than

retaliatory.

Surprisingly, one of the most neutral articles covering the 2014 conflict comes from the

BBC, in an article published after a ceasefire was declared in August titled Gaza-Israel conflict:

Is the fighting over?. The article is almost completely neutral due to its apparent lack of loaded

language and almost exclusively fact-based reporting, successfully covering both sides of the

conflict, including opposing goals, casualties, ceasefires, and roots of the conflict without much

evidence of implicit bias. Overall the article is solid in its reporting and will serve as a good

reference point when discussing articles covering the same issue from historically partisan

outlets.

Fox News often caters to a more conservative base in the United States, more specifically

the average viewer is aged 65, white and is typically Christian a stark contrast to the people

who constitute the support base of the Democrat party who are typically younger and more

religiously diverse. As a result, conservatives and Republicans typically wholeheartedly support

Israel due to its largely Judeo-Christian roots. Obviously this would mean that Fox News has a

pro-Israel slant when reporting on Middle Eastern events. One particularly blatant example of

this slant can be found in an article published in July 2014, shortly after the conflict began, titled

Israeli Amb to Hemmer: 'We Already Accepted a Cease-Fire Proposal'. Immediately the article

sets up Israel to be a non-aggressor who strives solely for peace between itself and its neighbors.

The article further goes on to say that Dermer noted that instead of accepting the cease-fire

terms, Hamas has continued to fire "about 100 rockets every single day,". The phrasing of this

sentence portrays Hamas as wholly unwilling to settle for peace, which is clearly untrue, as seen
at the very end of the article, where it admits that Hamas rejected the initial Egyptian cease-fire

proposal on the grounds that it had not been consulted by Cairo. Clearly, Hamas had not even

been consulted when Israel accepted the ceasefire plan proposed by the Egyptians, which was

completely unfair to them, since as the BBC article shows, none of their demands including the

lifting of an Israeli blockade (which would allow for easier influx of humanitarian aid and

building supplies into Gaza) and the release of Palestinian prisoners were met. This serves as a

classic example of a dog whistle, in which the article says that Hamas is unwilling to settle for

peace, but really implies that theyre monsters. Lastly, it is important to note the language that

this article leaves out, as that can also be construed as implicit bias, especially when there are

other articles that do include that language. For example, this article makes no mention of the

actual impact that Gazan rockets had on the Israeli population, which was a trifle compared to

the destruction caused by Israeli mortar and artillery barrages, mention of which is also missing

from the article.

Left-wing media is usually more sympathetic to the Palestinian side of the aisle, with

some outlets such as the state [Qatar]-funded Al Jazeera being openly anti-Zionist. Israel is often

portrayed as brutish and invasive with regards to settlements and overly aggressive in its war

with Hamas. The Independent recently published an article titled Israel kills pregnant mother

and her baby in retaliatory attacks. The title immediately pushes the extremely grotesque and

horrific image into the readers mind, conditioning him to view Israel as a bloodthirsty aggressor.

Only later in the article does it explain the airstrike, The Israeli Defense Force said it carried out

airstrikes in Gaza targeting Hamas weapons manufacturing facilities in response to renewed

rocket fire toward Israel.. Instead of leading off with this important information first, the

Independent strove for an emotion-targeting shock-value based title, which serves as a kind of
click-bait for its audience, playing on their pre-conceived notions of Israels involvement in the

first place. The article goes on to mention further acts of terror by Palestinians and Palestinian

casualties as a result of IDF activity. The end of the article describes a knife-wielding Palestinian

who murders two Israeli men and wounds a mother and her toddler before being shot dead. The

placement of these events in the article is crucial of course, as the death of the pregnant

Palestinian and her child constitutes only a minor portion of the article, yet is used as the basis

for its title.

Interestingly enough, the bias demonstrated within the articles were somewhat mirror

images of one another, yet also highly similar. The Fox News article put more emphasis on the

much broader subject of the Egyptian cease-fire agreement, portraying Israel as the only

supporter for peace while also trivializing the absence of Hamas from the negotiating table, thus

inadvertently supporting the single-state narrative wherein the only viable solution for peace is

the dissolution of the possibility of a Palestinian state. The Independent article blew the death of

the pregnant Palestinian woman out of proportion while trivializing the cause of the Israeli

airstrikes, which was to destroy the Hamas weapons manufacturing facility (the destruction of

which no doubt saved more lives than it cost) which indirectly contributes to the two-state

narrative, as the language suggests that the atrocities that the Palestinians have overcome have

earned them a state of their own and a chance to govern themselves. Complete objectivity in this

instance cannot possibly exist, as it involves too many human lives. The omission of information

by the articles also helps to build their respective narratives, as what is often observed is what

one omits the other emphasizes. The use of images is also highly important in constructing a

narrative; Fox News and other right wing outlets have a tendency not to broadcast images of the

extent of the destruction caused by the IDF while left wing outlets generally tended to focus
more on the damage to buildings and death tolls as opposed to the completion of IDF objectives.

There are always three sides to any story, and it is important to be able to tell the difference

between the three, so as not to be trapped within the echo chamber of a single viewpoint. Rather

we should be wary of language and imagery associated with articles and the narratives that they

tend to support and to approach them with a healthy amount of skepticism.

Works Cited
 Akram, Steven Erlanger and Fares. "Israel Warns Gaza Targets by Phone and

Leaflet." The New York Times. The New York Times, 08 July 2014. Web. 01 Mar. 2017.
"Gaza-Israel conflict: Is the fighting over?" BBC News. BBC, 26 Aug. 2014. Web. 01

Mar. 2017.
"Israeli Amb to Hemmer: 'We Already Accepted a Cease-Fire Proposal'" Fox News. FOX

News Network, n.d. Web. 01 Mar. 2017.

Mortimer, Caroline. "Israel kills pregnant mother and her baby in retaliatory attacks." The

Independent. Independent Digital News and Media, 11 Oct. 2015. Web. 01 Mar. 2017.
"The Price of Hamas' Underground Terror Network |." Israel Defense Forces. N.p., 18

Sept. 2014. Web. 01 Mar. 2017.