Original article can be viewed at Six Secrets of Media Objectivity on HonestReporting.

Sitting from his office in Washington DC, Munayyer begins:

I’m a Palestinian who was born in the Israeli town of Lod, and thus I am an Israeli citizen. My wife is not; she is a Palestinian from Nablus in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. …

Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion International Airport is on the outskirts of Lod (Lydda in Arabic), but because my wife has a Palestinian ID, she cannot fly there; she is relegated to flying to Amman, Jordan. If we plan a trip together — an enjoyable task for most couples — we must prepare for a logistical nightmare that reminds us of our profound inequality before the law at every turn.

Even if we fly together to Amman, we are forced to take different bridges, two hours apart, and endure often humiliating waiting and questioning just to cross into Israel and the West Bank. The laws conspire to separate us.

If the point of Munayyer’s article is to promote a view where Israel’s Arab citizens are treated unequally, then he has failed. The very fact that he takes a different bridge shows that Israeli Jews and Arabs are treated equally. The border crossing for Israeli citizens is just that. It defines Munayyer as an Israeli without prejudice as to whether he is Arab or Jewish.

Related content: The Australian’s Apartheid Cloud

As for the fact that Munayyer’s wife is Palestinian and does not have the same rights as her husband to live with him in Israel: We’ve heard the same charge only a few weeks ago in The Australian, which attempted to portray Israel as an apartheid state based on its citizenship laws. At that time, HonestReporting pointed out that any Israeli Jewish citizen would have the same problems marrying a resident of the Palestinian territories as an Israeli Arab.

In a very selective reading of history, Munayyer paints Israel as responsible for the Palestinian refugee problem and subsequent alleged discrimination, including an attack on the rights of Jews to immigrate to Israel. More revealing than what he says is what Munayyer omits. For example:

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Original article can be viewed at Not All Op-Eds Are Equal in the New York Times on HonestReporting.

The caption on a photograph featuring passengers on a tram in Jerusalem observing a two-minute silence for Yom HaShoah, a day of remembrance for the 6 million Jews who died in the Holocaust, wrongly referred to the city as the Israeli capital. The Guardian style guide states: “Jerusalem is not the capital of Israel; Tel Aviv is” (Eyewitness, 20 April, page 24).

Further resources: The Status of Jerusalem

Irrespective of whether the international community recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, it is simply inaccurate to unilaterally confer capital city status on Tel Aviv. Believing The Guardian to be in clear breach of the UK Press Complaints Commission clause on accuracy, HonestReporting submitted an official complaint.

Ironically received on Jerusalem Day, this was the outrageous PCC ruling:

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Original article can be viewed at The British Empire Strikes Back: UK Body Rules Tel Aviv is Israel’s Capital on HonestReporting.

This year, as every year, the international media noted Nakba Day, the day when Palestinians mark the anniversary of the ‘catastrophe’ of Israel’s independence and the flight of 700,000 Arab refugees from the newborn state of Israel. Noticeable by its absence was any mention of the contemporaneous Jewish ‘nakba’, the flight of around 850,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries.

Isabel Kershner of The New York Times  is among the offenders. Leo Rennert wrote in American Thinker: “A fair reading of history demands that equal attention be paid to this Jewish “naqba.” But fairness is in short supply in The New York Times. There’s also no indication in Kershner’s piece about the different outcomes of these two “naqbas.”

Although the refugees were displaced in roughly similar numbers, the western press and media remain deaf, dumb and blind to the Jewish refugees. Do a search for “Palestinian refugees” on the influential BBC website and you get 1,197 results. Do a search for “Jewish refugees” and you get only 187 results.

Of these, the BBC contained only one story about Jews from Iraq and two references to Jewish refugees from Arab countries, neither of them emanating from BBC programs. With the exception of a 2011 radio program fronted by BBC2 controller Alan Yentob about Iraqi Jews, the only Jewish refugees discussed by the BBC website have been Holocaust survivors.

When the media does feature Sephardi or Mizrahi suffering in Arab lands, the implication is that Zionism caused their troubles. Before Israel, so the myth goes, ‘Jews and Arabs coexisted peacefully’ through the centuries.

According to David Harris of the American Jewish Committee, the western media are accomplices in a campaign to ‘deny or extinguish a Jewish presence deeper in the region’. A seasoned Middle Eastern affairs journalist had been surprised to discover that Harris’s wife had, as a Jew, been forcibly expelled from her native Libya. The journalist had no idea that Jews had ever lived in Libya nor that every trace of the millenarian Jewish presence had been obliterated almost overnight. So un-newsworthy was the story at the time, that The New York Times, Harris says, devoted exactly two tiny news briefs in 1967 to the end of the Libyan Jewish community.

The net effect of this bias by omission is that the average viewer, listener or reader has no clue that Jews lived in the Middle East and North Africa well before the Arabs, let alone were brutally ejected. He or she could be forgiven for thinking that Israel was established to atone for European sins, at Arab expense. But 50 percent of the Jewish population of Israel are there not because of the Nazis but because of the Arabs.

A jaw-dropping BBC reply to a complaint I made about the lack of coverage of Jewish refugees is that they simply aren’t enough of a stumbling block to peace:

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Original article can be viewed at Ignoring the Jewish “Nakba” on HonestReporting.

The latest annual Country Ratings Poll of the BBC World Service makes for grim reading. ThatIsrael finds itself in such dubious company as Iran, Pakistan and North Korea in this global popularity survey is shocking but unsurprising based on the results of previous years.

That unfavorable opinions of Israel have worsened since the 2011 survey should, however, be a cause for concern. The past year has thankfully not witnessed any events of the magnitude of the Mavi Marmara or Operation Cast Lead where Israel was the recipient of a torrent of negative coverage.

Yet, the proportion with negative views of Israel amongst those surveyed by the BBC poll increased by three points to the damning figure of 50%.

Should we care? Absolutely.

Canada, under the premiership of Stephen Harper is considered to be Israel’s best friend in the world at this present time, even more so than the US. Yet 59% of Canadians surveyed in the BBC poll harbor negative opinions of Israel. So evidently, it’s not the Canadian government that is affecting the Canadian public’s perceptions towards Israel.

Likewise, countries such as the UK and Germany that, while sometimes critical of Israeli policies, are still considered to be broadly supportive, show negative polling of 68% and 69% respectively.

If it’s not governments that are influencing public opinion on Israel, then the most obvious probability is that of negative or biased coverage of Israel in the media.

Israel’s enemies, including even terrorist organizations, recognized long ago that the modern battlefield is not only dependent on guns, tanks or aircraft but also on cameras and the written word.

Twenty-seven per cent of those with negative views of Israel answered that “how Israel treats its own people” was the most important factor for them. Israel is certainly not a police state which terrorizes its citizens. So how could the reality of Israel as a democratic society become so distorted?

The drip feed of stories of conflict or on Israel’s numerous imperfections is impossible to ignore while an incident such as that of IDF Lt. Col. Eisner striking a pro-Palestinian activist with his M16 only serves to reinforce this narrow perception of Israel.

Of course, in any democracy, it is the duty of the elected government to represent the will of the people. What will happen, then, if public opinion on Israel continues to be out of kilter with the opinions and policies of the political echelon? It doesn’t bear thinking about. If governments were genuinely representative of their publics, then Israel would be in severe trouble.

At what point will Israel become a political hot potato that no politician would dare express support for at the risk of alienating the voters?

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Original article can be viewed at They Don’t Like Us – Should We Care? on HonestReporting.

Original article can be viewed at What can Israel do to improve it’s image abroad? on HonestReporting.

In her latest op-ed, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown:

• Accuses Israel of charging its critics with anti-Semitism to shut down legitimate criticism.
• Fails to acknowledge that hunger striking Palestinian prisoners may have been detained for legitimate reasons, including terrorism.
• Portrays the majority of Israel-supporting British Jews as being “instructed to hate” Palestinians and lacking in integrity.

Read on to find out how you can take action.

In her latest polemic, Alibhai-Brown addresses the issue of Palestinian hunger strikers and administrative detention. To be sure, the topic is not a comfortable one and a healthy debate, as also occurs within Israel itself, is perfectly legitimate. But to Alibhai-Brown, referring to “hardline Israelis”:

Their country is protected from censure partly because of fears that any criticism of its actions is potentially “anti-Semitic”. Some anti-Semites do use Israel as a cover, but then Israel uses that fact to tar and warn all legitimate criticism. Its governments do what they damn-well want and claim perpetual exceptionality. Their darkest deeds are thus left unscrutinised.

We challenge Alibhai-Brown to furnish us with the evidence that Israel’s supporters use an “anti-Semitism card” to shut down all legitimate criticism. This is patently untrue and Alibhai-Brown’s charge is more commonly employed as a means to delegitimize the rights of Israel’s supporters to advocate for or defend Israel from criticism. As for the claim that Israel is beyond scrutiny, the amount of stories published on the Palestinian hunger strikers alone, not to mention the constant focus of the media and world on this part of the world, make this claim laughable.

If Alibhai-Brown were interested in a proper and balanced debate on the issue, perhaps she would have cared to mention the fact that those hunger strikers in her op-ed are members of Islamic Jihad, a vicious terrorist organization dedicated to the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews. But no. To Alibhai-Brown:

The detained Palestinians are embarked on peaceful, Gandhian protest action.

Referring to Palestinian prisoners, Alibhai-Brown states:

 To be a Palestinian, to want equality, rights, freedom and land is not a crime. Except that for hardline Israelis, it is.

Palestinian prisoners are not detained for seeking peace. Israel is not a sinister police state that arrests Palestinians for expressing legitimate aspirations. Israel takes appropriate action against those who carry out, advocate or incite terrorism or violence. Islamic Jihad is not an organization with legitimate political aspirations – its sole raison d’etre is to carry out acts of terror.

Alibhai-Brown is fond of noting that she has many Jewish friends, although these friends are invariably critical of Israel. Indeed, Alibhai-Brown likes to differentiate between “good Jews” and “bad Jews”:

The moralistic Chief Rabbi will not be on “Thought for the Day” expressing sorrow for the treatment of these prisoners. Ardent British Zionists will not be pressed to condemn those responsible for the state barbarism.

Who exactly are these “ardent British Zionists”?

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Original article can be viewed at Ardent Zionists v Enlightened Jews: An Assault on British Jewry on HonestReporting.

Original article can be viewed at The new national unity government – an act of statesmanship or cynical political ploy? on HonestReporting.

Over the years, HonestReporting has analyzed and critiqued hundreds of articles, editorials and opinion pieces. But what goes through the minds of the journalists and writers that influence them to treat Israel in a certain way?

Here we present our Media Psychology 101 series – taking an academic examination into the minds of the media and how news consumers are influenced by the media’s reporting.

This is the second part of a guest post by Cherryl Smith, PhD, a Professor of English in Rhetoric and Composition at California State University, Sacramento.  She is currently writing a book on media framing of Israel.

Recently, the media used their usual terms, “cycle of violence” and “tit for tat” to tell us about events in Israel and Gaza.  As always, these terms obscured more than they illuminated. For while they may seem to be descriptions, “cycle of violence” and “tit for tat” are only metaphors.

The more frequently a particular metaphor is used, the less metaphoric it will seem. It can begin to appear that media are actually reporting on a “cycle of violence” rather than just interpreting events this way.  Unfortunately, once a metaphor takes hold in the press, it is unlikely to be questioned.

This one is well established, so much so that “cycle of violence” is a dominant news frame through which media routinely view conflict involving Israel.  Even without including the words, “cycle” or “tit for tat,” stories are framed around this perspective.

Read the first part of Media Psychology 101 – Framing Israel: Is Fair Coverage Possible?

Nevertheless, it is useful to point out the limits and distortions of this frame.  While some editors and writers may prefer the cycle of violence frame precisely because it distorts reality, some readers may find themselves reflecting critically on mainstream reporting once they see biases exposed.

There are many problems with the cycle of violence frame, not the least of which is that it does not actually describe the situation. Scholars who carefully tracked violence during the Second Intifada, for example, “found little evidence to suggest there is a cycle of violence.” David A. Jaeger and M. Daniele Paserman concluded that “Israel responds predictably and systematically to Palestinian violence” but that “Palestinian violence is not predictable by past Israeli violence.” Their research identifies an imbalanced pattern:  not a cycle so much as a series of attacks on civilians and defensive Israeli responses to such attacks.

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Original article can be viewed at Media Psychology 101 – What’s Wrong With This Metaphor? Israel and the Cycle of Violence on HonestReporting.

Referring to hunger striking Palestinian prisoners as the “newest heroes of the Palestinian cause”, recently-arrived Israel correspondent for the New York Times, Jodi Rudoren makes an unpleasant story even worse in the eyes of the reader.

The job of a journalist is to ask questions. Rudoren, however, does not even bother to ask why these “heroes” might be under lock and key.

Instead, in an era where the language of human rights seemingly trumps all other considerations, Rudoren plays to the Palestinian narrative of Israel as a serial abuser of human rights.

Israel is sometimes forced by the abnormal threats it faces, to take measures that clash with the country’s liberal ethos. The use of administrative detention, whereby Palestinians deemed an immediate security threat can be imprisoned without charge, has been acknowledged by Israeli officials as virtually impossible to present in positive terms, particularly to a Western audience that values, like Israelis, the rule of law and the right to a fair trial.

Here’s how Jody Rudoren and the New York Times starved their readers of any balance in the story of the Palestinian hunger strikers  by omitting any Israeli explanation for the use of administrative detention or the potential backgrounds of those detainees.

VIDEO: Click here to see HonestReporting’s Yarden Frankl commenting on this story.

Focusing on two prisoners in administrative detention currently on hunger strike, she refers to them as “members of Islamic Jihad, a radical and militant Palestinian faction.”

As far as Rudoren is concerned, membership of Islamic Jihad might as well be criminal in the same way as membership of a scout club or a political party. Islamic Jihad, however, does not support charitable causes or compete for the votes of the Palestinian people. Its entire raison d’etre is to carry out terrorism against Israelis with the backing of its Iranian funders.

Read on for more on how you can take action.

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Original article can be viewed at Starved of the Truth: New York Times Fails its Readers on HonestReporting.