I am preparing a study of the degree to which the news media complies with Palestinian or Israeli desires in reporting on events in the land from the Jordan river to the sea.
The first step is to establish the talking points, the descriptions of events, the positions each side want the media to report. What follows here are:
Hamas talking points during “Operation Protective Edge, 2014”
Sources:
Palestinian spokespeople’s claims to journalists during the conflict.
Captured document: Hamas Minister of the Interior’s Directions to Gazan “social media” activists.
- All Gazan casualties are civilians.
- All Gazan casualties were caused by Israel.
- This is a humanitarian crisis.
- Israel started the hostilities.
- Palestinian rocketing of Israel is an act of resistance to occupation and blockade.
- Palestinian rockets are harmless, don’t have explosives.
- Palestinians target military, not civilians.
- Occupation is the cause of all the hostilities.
- Gaza is an open-air prison.
- Israel targets civilians and children, massacres.
- Gaza is the world’s most densely populated area.
- Civilians are helpless, have nowhere to go.
- IDF shelling is indiscriminate.
- Schools are safe havens that Israel targets.
- Sites hit by IDF have no combatants, just civilians
- Israel rejects ceasefires
- Israel breaks ceasefires (Eid al Fitr, 28 July 2014)
- Palestinians have no hope, must resort to attacking Israel any way possible
- Israel commits war crimes, violates Geneva conventions
- Knock-on-roof measures are dangerous
Palestinian Media Protocols Compliance Index
So, for example, take the claim that “all casualties are civilians.” No journalist with any pretension to being taken seriously would assert such a claim, so complete compliance is out of the question. But the journalist can comply to a significant extent by:
- speaking of how “the vast majority of casualties are civilian”(when they’re not, even by Hamas statistics)
- show mostly shots of civilians injured, not jihadis
In such a case, a journalist would score high in compliance with Hamas media demands, intensified by the statistical evidence that the Hamas claim is not just exaggerated, but verifiably false.
I welcome additions, examples, suggestions.
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