Why can't the US media get it right on Gaza?

A view of the damaged Al Azhar University in Gaza city on Saturday. Most US reporting struggles to maintain a 'balance' by allowing official Israeli sources to dissemble or obfuscate. AFP

After more than two years of Israel’s assault on Gaza, one might think that there would be appreciable improvement in the way the Palestinian-Israeli issue is understood and presented. But US press treatment of last week’s meeting between President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made it clear we still have a long way to go.

To be sure, in recent months we’ve seen increased coverage of the suffering of Palestinians, focusing on individual stories of the trauma Israel has inflicted on hundreds of thousands who’ve lost family members, homes and so much more.

In fact, in the past week, there have been a number of such accounts including long-form pieces on: malnutrition in Gaza; tens of thousands of homeless Palestinians enduring cold winter rains; Jewish settler raids on West Bank villages; and even a pictorial on the enduring hope to return expressed by Palestinian refugees living in several Arab countries.

Israeli ban on international aid groups 'a disaster for Gaza’s children'

Read More

This sensitivity to Palestinian humanity is new and important. Even during much of the two-year long Israeli assault, Palestinians received short shrift. While tens of thousands of Palestinians were being slaughtered, most US reporting struggled to maintain a “balance” by allowing official Israeli sources to dissemble or obfuscate. For example, after bombing a hospital or an apartment building killing scores of Palestinian civilians, the Israelis would suggest that those killed were actually Hamas operatives, or were innocents being used as shields by Hamas, or that the body counts were inflated, or that reports were premature and should await the results of an Israeli investigation (which, invariably, would never be forthcoming).

Gazans fear 'living hell' as Israel plans to ban 37 aid groups

01:43

Operating out of this same playbook day after day, the Israelis created sufficient distraction to carry them through to the next outrage. Their arguments that “we wouldn’t do anything like that” or “our enemies lie and are trying to harm us,” or “Hamas started this war and are responsible for everything that has happened since October 7,” worked well enough to hold their supporters in check and shield them from official condemnation or sanctions. Pro-Israel advocates in the US Congress and media analysts latched onto these arguments not only to defend Israel from charges of war crimes, but also to accuse the countries, groups or individuals making the charges of engaging in anti-Semitism.

After many months, this only began to change well into the war’s second year. Stories began to appear in which Palestinians were treated as victims. Importantly, many of these pieces focused on individuals or families, allowing Palestinians to be seen in their full humanity, and not simply as a number or part of an anonymous mass. This is where we are today.

After a century of being reduced to a problem to be solved or an obstacle to Israel’s security, individual Palestinian stories are now being told and the Palestinian side of the equation is being humanised. Nevertheless, significant problems remain in how the media covers Palestinian-Israeli issues. For example, too often stories about tragedies inflicted on innocent Palestinians are written in the passive voice, with Palestinian children dying from hypothermia, hunger or lack of medical treatment, as if these were natural occurrences. In this construction, no one is deemed responsible for creating Palestinian homelessness, the lack of food, the destruction of hospitals or refusal to allow the entry of adequate medical supplies.

A second problem in US media coverage of Palestine-Israel is the disconnect between what we know Israel is doing to Palestinians and what is being done to address it. This was in evidence in the treatment given to the Netanyahu-Trump meeting in Mar-a-Lago, much of which was, at best, delusional.

Too often stories about tragedies inflicted on innocent Palestinians are written in the passive voice, with Palestinian children dying from hypothermia, hunger or lack of medical treatment, as if these were natural occurrences

The pre-summit coverage in the Washington Post and The New York Times was clear about what Israel is doing, with recent articles on: Israel’s continuing attacks on Palestinians in Gaza (over 400 killed since the “ceasefire”); refusal to accelerate food, shelter and medical supplies into the area; plans by Trump officials to begin “reconstruction” in the Gaza area under Israel’s control; and Israel’s rejection of any role for the Palestinian Authority in Gaza.

The logical conclusions from these Israeli actions are that there’s no real ceasefire and that continued haggling about the “plan’s” still-undefined terms are merely a distraction. Meanwhile Israel creates “established facts” in the half of Gaza they control, while making life impossible for Palestinians in the remaining half.

But The New York Times and Washington Post did not cover the Trump-Netanyahu summit this way. Instead, both outlets presented the meeting as an opportunity for the two leaders to project unity and “express their deep appreciation” for each other. The papers noted rumours of rifts between the men and concern that division would stall or setback implementation of the “fragile” (their word) Gaza ceasefire and peace plan.

Given the articles both papers have recently run detailing what Palestinians are enduring and Israelis’ clearly declared intentions in Gaza and the West Bank, the Post and Times must know that their coverage and analysis of the Mar-a-Lago summit did not reflect reality. It also provides both leaders the opportunity to stall, allowing them to pursue their own agendas in Gaza, while ignoring the continued unbearable suffering being imposed on innocent Palestinians.