Loading ...No Context: In a month of ‘New York Times’ coverage, Israeli military occupation goes nearly unmentioned
Today’s New York Times has a front-page article by Jodi Rudoren on recent Palestinian attacks on Israelis, titled “Leaderless Palestinian Youth, Inspired by Social Media, Drive Rise in Violence in Israel” that quotes three Israeli experts and ascribes the attacks to social media. The article refers to the “occupied West Bank” once in passing but has nothing to say about the long history of Palestinian resistance to occupation and colonization. That omission is a pattern in the New York Times coverage of the conflict. Patrick Connors prepared the following analysis of the previous 27 articles yesterday. –Ed.
In the last 27 articles by Jodi Rudoren, Isabel Kershner and Diaa Hadid dating back to September 10 (links to articles pasted below*) there is almost no mention of Israeli military occupation, or of expanding Israeli control and settlements throughout the West Bank and East Jerusalem, of Israel’s wall and checkpoints isolating East Jerusalem or of increasing poverty in East Jerusalem. These 27 articles include two on Gaza (that do mention poverty in Gaza) and two on Netanyahu and Abbas’ species at the UN. I did not include Jodi’s single article on the Golan Heights.
I bolded all mentions of occupation, occupied or occupying and pasted them below with the article links. There were 27 total mentions of occupied or occupation in the 27 articles, and fourteen of those 27 are simply the NYT stock phrase “occupied West Bank”, with no mention even of who is doing the occupying. The Times does not call East Jerusalem occupied and only once quotes anyone, Abbas, saying East Jerusalem, is occupied. The other twelve uses of occupied or occupation are from very brief quotes of Palestinians.
I also copied and pasted mentions of the causes of tension and violence. Many of the 27 articles have focused or touched on tensions in East Jerusalem, yet only one article provides even a minimal amount of context to Israel’s systematic takeover of East Jerusalem, a 9/10 article (number 27.) In the rest, the Times continually repeats stock phrases along lines that would imply that there is simply a religious conflict over control of the Haram Al Sharif, like this one: “The latest violence comes after weeks of escalating tensions and confrontations around the contested Old City compound that houses Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. Palestinian leaders, including Mr. Abbas, have accused Israel of plotting to divide the site, revered by Jews as the Temple Mount and by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.”
The larger context in which this falls – Israel’s expanding control over East Jerusalem as a whole, growing settlements, the almost total isolation of much of East Jerusalem from the West Bank by the wall and checkpoints, and growing Palestinian poverty in East Jerusalem – is almost never mentioned. Thus the articles are almost devoid of any context of what Palestinians are experiencing in East Jerusalem, and readers are likely left with the sense that there is simply a conflict over holy sites.
Source: mondoweiss.net