War on Information: Palestinian and Israeli side of the story

It has been 12 days, 12 short days for the ones who could sleep, and 12 long days, for the ones who could not sleep because of the bombings of all day and nights and moaning of the families praying for their death bodies lying on the streets in Middle East. Unfortunately, world is in one more time so much in need of information about the war zone and that is why these 12 days were also hectic for the war journalist. Quite recently, when I was skimming some of the newspapers, I have realized that the war is not just in the shabby streets of Gaza, but also on the coverage of newspapers. The authorities and leaders in the region do not want any journalists, being present in the region and covering well balanced stories.


War of information is an old trick

It is obvious that the both sides of the conflict some how needs to convince the public about the legitimacy of their final actions in the region. It is certainly not a new trick to use the mass media for wining the war with the help of mass mediums. In WWII Hitler (with the help of Gobbles) and Mussolini were to be the best in that, and then in cold war times US took the leadership to convince many to believe in “American dream”, with the 1st Gulf War, for the first time live war on news channels. From our houses, we could watch the planes dropping bombs in Iraq over and over. 2nd Gulf War also started as a information war, on one hand US was making claims about the mass destruction weapons hidden in Iraq and Saddam’s hidden agendas in the region and on the other hand there was Iraqi Information Minister Muhammad Saeed al-Sahaf making “patriotic speeches” against US and the west. In the beginning, US was the first one to handle mass communication professionally, but after a while with the news and photos coming Abu Ghraib, US started to loose in the communication battle since these photos were telling more than the “claims of brining democracy” to the poor peoples of Iraq. Basically world reacted so much and some kind of awareness about war appeared and inside stories of the war started to be covered by world wide on TV channels and newspapers. There appeared a careful audience who do not approve any terrorist activity, and do not want to see war crimes taking place in other parts of the world with the help of internet, blog journalism, and even youtube. (The point where Hypodermic Needle and Magic Bullet Theories start shattering)

Control over the information

On 6th of Jan, on New York Times, Ethan Bronner (Israel Puts Media Clamp on Gaza) dealt with the information side of the war and how Israel State is trying to control journalist with the some reasons in order to keep the information in their hand and only release with their approval. Basically, Israel want “their stories to be covered about the region” in the world.

In his news, he states; “Three times in recent days, a small group of foreign correspondents was told to appear at the border crossing to Gaza. The reporters were to be permitted in to cover firsthand the Israeli war on Hamas in keeping with a Supreme Court ruling against the two-month-old Israeli ban on foreign journalists entering Gaza.” He adds; “Each time, they were turned back on security grounds, even as relief workers and other foreign citizens were permitted to cross the border. On Tuesday the reporters were told to not even bother going to the border.”

It is not surprising to see that Israel seems to be much more in control and ruling and regulating how the world will see the war, because “wining a war in the eye of people” sometimes even more matters than “wining a war in a battle”. In his interesting news Bronner also states; “Like all wars, this one is partly about public relations. But unlike any war in Israel’s history, in this one the government is seeking to entirely control the message and narrative for reasons both of politics and military strategy.”

But there is also no surprise that Hamas wants to control the information in the region and it is not easy for the foreign journalists to work freely there and as it is stated in the news “…unable to send foreign reporters into Gaza, the international news media have relied on Palestinian journalists based there for coverage.”
It is clear that Israel is much more organized to keep the message controlled, and they are working very carefully to create their “own right public message” Avic Shir-On, Deputy director general for the Foreign Ministry states “We are trying to coordinate everything that has to do with the image and content of what we are doing and to make sure that whoever goes on the air, whether a minister or professor or ex-ambassador, knows what he is saying,”


Al-Jazeera and CNN

CNN has been always one of the major sources of the world, together with BBC and there is no doubt that their peak times were 1st Gulf War, when the world was watching the war on TV and trying to understand the reasons of war. There is in recent years another challenge by the east the visual and online journalism by Al-Jazeera and it seems that as a news source it is gaining more and more popularity to give some other stories which are not covered in elsewhere.

But it is important to see that CNN journalists are not happy with the fact that Israel is not letting journalists to be in Gaza. Campbell Brown anchors CNN's "Campbell Brown: No Bias, No Bull", states “We have been trying to report as accurately as possible on the fighting in Gaza. But that is without question a challenge when we do not have reporters on the ground who can bring you first-hand information about what is taking place” and adds “the reason we have no reporters on the ground in Gaza is because Israel will not allow foreign journalists into Gaza” On Tuesday night's broadcast.

In the article, named “In USA, Gaza is a different war” by Habib Battah, there is an attempt to show how the conflict differently represented in the western news sources according to them. For example, Battah emphasizes the claim that the news are not balanced on Washington Post by stating that “when the front page photographs of the two women were published on December 30, over 350 Palestinians had reportedly been killed compared to just four Israelis. What if 350 Israelis had been killed and only four Palestinians - would the newspaper have run the stories side by side as if equal in news value?”

It is certainly a hard case to decide how much the coverage will take and considering the death and wounded people in one side and Israel’s standance in the other side. But it should definitely a journalistic responsibility to present both of the claims and how the people are feeling in the both sides of the history.

I do believe that there are not just Palestinians who are already fed up with living under the bombs with in poverty but also Israelis, desiring so much a peaceful life in the region. Civil people should be more in focus rather than the politicians to tell their own stories. Journalists should be really careful to not to be the voices of politicians whose voices are already heard quite loud and frequent, but being the “voice of quiet people”, “voice of unheard people”, from streets of Israel, and from the streets of Gaza and elsewhere in the world.

Gokhan KURTARAN