John Pilger on Israel and the Media

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John Pilger on Israel and the Media
Sunday, July 07 2002 @ 08:36 AM GMT

By John Pilger

If you got your news only from the television, you would have no idea
of the roots of the Middle East conflict, or that the Palestinians are
victims of an illegal military occupation.

In May, the Glasgow University Media Group, distinguished for its
pioneering media analysis, published a study of the reporting of the
Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

It ought to be required reading in newsrooms and media schools. The
research showed that the public's lack of understanding of the
conflict and its origins was compounded by news reporting, especially
on television.

Viewers, says the study, are rarely told that the Palestinians are
victims of an illegal military occupation. The term "occupied
territories" is almost never explained. Indeed, only 9 per cent of
young people interviewed knew that the Israelis were the occupiers and
the "settlers" were Israeli.

The selective use of language is important. The study found that words
such as "murder", "atrocity", "lynching" and "savage, cold-blooded
killing" were used only to describe Israeli deaths. "The extent to
which some journalism assumes the Israeli perspective," wrote
Professor Greg Philo, "can be seen if the statements are 'reversed'
and presented as Palestinian actions. [We] did not find any [news]
reports stating that 'The Palestinian attacks were in retaliation for
the murder of those resisting the illegal Israeli occupation'."

Given that the central truth of the conflict is routinely obscured,
none of this is surprising.

News and current affairs programmes seldom, if ever, remind viewers
that Israel was established largely by force on 78 per cent of
historic Palestine and, since 1967, has illegally occupied and imposed
various forms of military rule on the remaining 22 per cent.

The media "coverage" has long reversed the roles of oppressor and
victim. Israelis are never called terrorists.

Correspondents who break this taboo are often intimidated with slurs
of anti-Semitism - a bleak irony, as Palestinians are Semites, too.

Having long ago recognized Israel's "right" to more than two-thirds of
their country, the Palestinian leadership has contorted itself in

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CONTYNUATION:

By John Pilger

If you got your news only from the television, you would have no idea
of the roots of the Middle East conflict, or that the Palestinians are
victims of an illegal military occupation.

In May, the Glasgow University Media Group, distinguished for its
pioneering media analysis, published a study of the reporting of the
Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

It ought to be required reading in newsrooms and media schools. The
research showed that the public's lack of understanding of the
conflict and its origins was compounded by news reporting, especially
on television.

Viewers, says the study, are rarely told that the Palestinians are
victims of an illegal military occupation. The term "occupied
territories" is almost never explained. Indeed, only 9 per cent of
young people interviewed knew that the Israelis were the occupiers and
the "settlers" were Israeli.

The selective use of language is important. The study found that words
such as "murder", "atrocity", "lynching" and "savage, cold-blooded
killing" were used only to describe Israeli deaths. "The extent to
which some journalism assumes the Israeli perspective," wrote
Professor Greg Philo, "can be seen if the statements are 'reversed'
and presented as Palestinian actions. [We] did not find any [news]
reports stating that 'The Palestinian attacks were in retaliation for
the murder of those resisting the illegal Israeli occupation'."

Given that the central truth of the conflict is routinely obscured,
none of this is surprising.

News and current affairs programmes seldom, if ever, remind viewers
that Israel was established largely by force on 78 per cent of
historic Palestine and, since 1967, has illegally occupied and imposed
various forms of military rule on the remaining 22 per cent.

The media "coverage" has long reversed the roles of oppressor and
victim. Israelis are never called terrorists.

Correspondents who break this taboo are often intimidated with slurs
of anti-Semitism - a bleak irony, as Palestinians are Semites, too.

Having long ago recognized Israel's "right" to more than two-thirds of
their country, the Palestinian leadership has contorted itself in
order to accommodate a maze of mostly American plans designed to deny
true independence and ensure Israel's enduring power and control.

Until recently, this was reported uncritically as "the peace process".
When ordinary Palestinians cried "enough!" and rose up in the second
intifada, armed mostly with slingshots, they were put down by snipers
with high-velocity weapons and with tanks and Apache gunships,
supplied by the United States.

And now, in their despair, as some are turning to suicide attacks, the
Palestinians appear on the news only as bombers and rioters, which, as
the Glasgow study points out, "is, of course, the view of the Israeli
government". The latest euphemism, "incursion", is from the vocabulary
of lies coined in Vietnam. It means assaulting human beings with tanks
and planes. "Cycle of violence" is similar. It suggests, at best, two
equal sides, never that the Palestinians are resisting violent
oppression with violence.

A Channel 4 Dispatches recently "balanced" the Israeli assault on the
Jenin refugee camp with a Palestinian attack on a "settlement". There
was no explanation that these are not settlements at all, but armed,
illegal fortresses that are central to a policy of imposing strategic
and military control.

On 9 June, the Correspondent series on BBC Television broadcast a
report about the recent siege of the Church of the Nativity in
Bethlehem. This was an exemplar of the problems identified in the
Glasgow research. It was, in effect, an Israeli occupation propaganda
film put out by the BBC. It was made as a co-production with an
American channel, and the credits listed the producer as Israel
Goldvicht, who runs an Israeli production company.

That would have been fine had the film-makers made any attempt to
challenge the Israeli military with whom they had ingratiated
themselves. "The Israelis were determined not to damage the
buildings," began the narrator. "The international press were cleared
from Manger Square, but we were allowed to stay and observe the
Israeli operation . . ." With this "unique access" unexplained to the
viewers, the film presented one Colonel Lior as the star good guy,
guaranteeing "medical treatment to anyone wounded", saying a cheery
hello on a mobile phone to a friend in Oxford Street and, like any
colonial officer, speaking about and on behalf of the Palestinians.

"Killers" were described by the colonel without challenge by the
BBC/Israel Goldvicht team. They were "terrorists" and "gunmen", not
those resisting the invasion of their homeland.

Israel's right to "arrest" foreign peace protesters drew no query from
the BBC. Not a single Palestinian was interviewed. As the sun set on
his fine profile, the last word went to the good colonel. The issues
between the Israelis and Palestinians, he said, "were personal points
of view".

Well, no. The brutal subjugation of the Palestinians is, under any
interpretation of the law, an epic injustice, a crime in which the
colonel plays a leading part. The BBC has always provided the best,
most sophisticated propaganda service in the world, because matters of
justice and injustice, right and wrong are simply usurped either by
"balance" or by liberal sophistry; one is either "pro- Israeli" or
"pro-Palestinian".

Fiona Murch, the executive producer of Correspondent, told me that
Israel Goldvicht Productions would not have won the "trust