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Israeli blood more media worthy than Palestinian blood?

  2. phillyharper
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The conflict between Palestine and Israel is thought by some to be the most polarised debate in modern history but how much of that anger and steadfast opinion, if any at all, is down to media manipulation? The news that a suicide bomber had breached security checks and attacked an Israeli town made headline news the world over yesterday. The coverage sparked frustrations from Arab media watch agencies that it was receiving disproportional coverage. To claim that this was not newsworthy seems ludicrous - after all three people had been killed in a sovereign state by an external force; by definition it is newsworthy. But is there a balance to be made on proportional coverage?

Is it fair for some bloggers and reporters to say that news of casualties on the other side of the conflict, namely Palestinians, very rarely make headlines? Are there casualties in Palestine? How are we to know? Before the bomb happened The Times published a disgruntled letter from an Arab media watch organisation that claimed 373 Palestinians were killed in 2007, 290 of which were in Gaza. According to the letter, Palestinian militant groups killed a comparatively small number - 13 Israeli's. Are the figures accurate? The BBC reported that in 2006, 660 Palestinians were killed compared to 23 Israelis, a strong source if ever there was one. Just today, six Palestinians are reported to have been killed in an Israeli air strike in Gaza, but has this become such a common occurrence that it is no longer headline news?

Is it fair to boil down the conflict to a simple game of numbers? Is it an unfortunate side effect that the tactic of a suicide bombing commands more media attention than the on-going tactics of ground incursions used by the Israeli army or something more institutional?

Sources:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/articl...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6309029.st...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6215769.st...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7228566.st...

Your thoughts are not only welcome, but required, so please add your comments to the thread.
phillyharper

3 responses // Israeli blood more media worthy than Palestinian blood?

  • I think that part of the reason that the suicide attacks made headline news was because they were the first in over a year in Israel. This in no way suggests that they should be thought of as more serious. I don't think it should be boiled down to numbers at all. But how do you represent an ongoing conflict in such a way as to maintain your audience's attention? Do people suffer from headline fatigue? I would argue that yes, they do. So how do you continue to keep awareness high? I think more intelligent, in depth reporting about the issues is one way. Numbers are easy to skim over and forget. Facts, information and investigative reporting isn't.
    abbym0308
  • in the west, the Palestinians have to be demonized. otherwise, we wouldn't be able to rationalize the unconditional support we give Israel. you'll never see the headline "Israel ethnically cleansing Palestinians" in the western mainstream media. what if the Palestinians were doing to the Israelis what is being done to them? what would we call it? don't call it a conflict, call it a war. mainstream news is all about semantics. in the USA it seems that all one has to do is change the name of something and somehow that changes the reality. when bombing a sovereign nation use terms like shock and awe, not death and destruction, or killing and carnage. save those words for what the other guy is doing to you. the numbers show that Israel isn't a victim, but a bully.
    JasonMorgan
  • It is such a common occurance, I have been told this by my Israeli friends who were in the Israeli army not by choice of course in Israel all men have to be in the army , and also by playing the numbers game it just goes to show how many victims there really are , and if you are to say that Israel is a bully then the US must be as well , and Israeli blood I don't think should be more media worthy but in Israel it's more of a shock to hear the number of deaths considering the size of their army and how strong of a force they are together
    Earth_Peace_Love

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