by Anonymous The death toll has risen to more than 5000 casualties following the October 7, 2023 Palestinian militant offensive on Israel and the subsequent Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip. Western news outlets have been reporting on these rising tensions, however, their content has received backlash on social media. They have been accused of pro-Israel bias, omitting the decades-long historical and political context that predates the October 7 violence. The most prominent example of such bias is the above-attached article of The Guardian, titled ‘Gaza Strip protesters received bullet wounds to ankles.’ Now, logic dictates bullet wounds are not something you receive. Gifts are something you receive. Bullet wounds are caused by being shot at and commonly something from which you die. This reporting goes against The Guardian’s own journalistic writing guide, which states active verbs are much more effective in headlines, such as ‘Israeli army shot at Gaza Strip and wounded protestors’ ankles.’ The resurfacing of older articles and publication of new ones have highlighted two broader writing patterns of distorting the conflict towards the Israeli perspective. Ths is done by divorcing the violence Palestinian people have been subjected to from its perpetrator: the settler-colonial policies of the Israeli establishment, allowing the audience to conceptualize the Israeli administration as the faultless victim. “Killed” vs. “dead.” The British Broadcasting Company (BBC) and CTV Montreal presented Palestinian victims as “dead,” whereas Israeli victims were “killed.” Initially, these might not seem as two entirely different things. At the end of the day, both Palestinian and Israeli people are not alive anymore. However, according to the Oxford Dictionary, to die implies to stop living, whereas to kill means to make someone or something die. The BBC post summarized the situation with: “more than 500 people have died in Gaza […] more than 700 people have been killed in Israel.” Using the Oxford Dictionary, the sentence would have read: ‘more than 500 people have stopped living in Gaza… more than 700 people in Israel have had their lives taken away [i.e., someone intentionally made Israeli people die].“ The dichotomy delivers a striking message to the audience about the nature of these deaths. Israeli citizens were killed. Gaza citizens are simply dead from an unspecified cause. This paints the picture that while Israelis were killed, the death of Palestinian people is without fault and dismisses the accountability of the perpetrators. Deliberately removing the perpetrator Western media has been methodically removing the perpetrator from abhorrent acts of violence Palestinians have been subjected to. In 2018, Associated Press reported that four Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire due to violence in the West Bank, as shown above. The English language has two grammatical voices: active and passive. In active voice, the sentence puts emphasis on the subject that performs the main action. For example, “John broke the vase.” In passive voice, the focus is on the person that experiences the action, rather than the person that performs it. For example, “the vase was broken.” In the first sentence, the reader understands John is at fault for breaking the vase and he would be held accountable. However, in the second sentence, the perpetrator is unclear and blame is not assigned. The focus of the sentence is the fact that the vase is now broken. The AP article portrayed four Palestinians as being killed by Israeli fire, but it failed to accurately depict the situation. Guns are not sentient beings capable of firing bullets by itself; a human being needs to discharge the gun aimed at a target. Four Palestinians were killed because someone made a conscious decision to fire a bullet in their direction. Therefore, using the words ‘Israeli fire’ as if it is a sentient being with a mind of its own, capable of killing people, deliberately omits the identity of the perpetrators behind the murder. The deliberate usage of passive voice is part of a longer, systemic issue that’s been discussed by at least two prominent studies. MIT and Canadian researchers have examined 50 years worth of coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with up to 100 000 headlines. They found that US mainstream media coverage has consistently used passive voice to refer to violent actions against Palestinians, amplifying Israeli voices disproportionately more often than Palestinian. These patterns have allowed Israel to be shielded from taking responsibility and obscuring the reason for Palestinian resistance towards the state of Israel. Haaretz reported that one Palestinian was killed after settlers entered West Bank Town. The headline does not clearly link the killing Palestinians to settlers’ entry into the West Bank, posing more questions than answering them. Was the Palestinian killed by settlers, was he trampled to death or was he killed for a cause unrelated to the settlers’ entrance? The ambiguity leaves room for baseless assumptions and misconceptions. The BBC reported on the murder of children fleeing northern Gaza in an evacuation route due to a missile strike that hit a convoy of Palestinian citizens. Similar to guns and bullets, missiles are not sentient and do not have a mind of their own. Someone had to have aimed and fired that missile and, as a consequence, 70 Palestinians in that escaping convoy were killed. The deliberate stylistic choice of the BBC news outlet to omit the perpetrator of the missile strike speaks volumes on how (ir)relevant their identities are.
Lastly, a Reuters journalist was killed in the ongoing conflict between Lebanon and Israel. Reuters reported on their death in the following manner: “Reuters journalist killed in Lebanon in missile fire from direction of Israel.” This ignores and overlooks the human factor behind this conflict. Deliberate attempts to remove the perpetrators are so deeply embedded that Reuters will not allow its own staff member the dignity they deserve to report on their death accurately. The second pattern, of deliberate removal of the perpetrators, essentially dehumanizes violence and divorces it from all human agents, as if it happens by itself. As research indicates most readers don’t read past the headlines, the passive voice and the dichotomy between “killed” vs. “dead” deflects accountability of the perpetrators, portraying Palestinian death as faultless in the eyes of the readers. While several humanitarian organizations, such as Amnesty International, have identified Israeli policies towards occupied Palestine and its people as apartheid, crimes against humanity and war crimes, this media framing portrays the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as one-sided. Deliberate attempts to remove the human agency should be considered as journalistic malpractice and news outlets should be held accountable. Sources: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/04/gaza-strip-protesters-received-bullet-wounds-to-ankles-medics-report https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-guide-p https://apnews.com/article/israel-west-bank-palestinians-violence-71514433e43fb4bb5d6c258c72c5590d https://web.mit.edu/hjackson/www/The_NYT_Distorts_the_Palestinian_Struggle.pdf https://theintercept.com/2019/01/12/israel-palestine-conflict-news-headlines/ https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-10-06/ty-article/.premium/one-palestinian-killed-after-settlers-enter-west-bank-town-of-hawara-to-set-up-sukkah/0000018b-0200-df89-a7bb-9e691b0f0000 https://x.com/BBCBreaking/status/1713150741198602446?s=20 https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/reuters-videographer-killed-southern-lebanon-2023-10-13/ http://americanpressinstitute.org/publications/reports/survey-research/how-americans-get-news/ a
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The Taida Student Journal has been active since 1995 with an ever-changing roster of student journalists at NTU. Click the above link to read about the authors Archives
May 2024
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