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A Never Ending Conflict: Israelis and the Palestinians

Lily Marvin

COM 330

June 5, 2021
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Introduction

The Israeli Palestinian conflict has been around for centuries and is one of the biggest

ongoing conflicts in the world. One reason for the ongoing conflict is the issue of land as both

groups feel a connection to Israel. The city of Jerusalem is considered one of the holiest sites for

both religions and conflicts can often arise here as they both feel such a strong connection to the

city. There are often many different approaches that journalists and reporters have on reporting

on the conflict between the two groups. Some are in support of Israel while most of the time they

are not and support the Palestinians. The major question that this paper will address is how do

British and American sources differ in reporting on the most recent conflict between Israelis and

Palestinians?

Method

When selecting my news reports, I used Google to help me brainstorm news sources from

Britain and America. From there, I found three different news sources to use and went back to

Google to check that they were from Britain and America. I then went to each news site and

searched for articles on the Israeli Palestinian conflict. After I found sources from Britain, I

found American sources that were parallel to those in Britain or at least similar in the way the

conflict was reported on. The British sources I found were, The Metro, Daily Mirror and Daily

Mail. I then analyzed the sources further and found two articles from each source that matched

with my topic. Next, in order to find American sources, I went back to Google to find news

sources in the United States. The American sources that I found were The Washington Post, PBS

News and CNN. I chose these sources because I believed that there were two extreme sources,

The Washington Post and CNN and then PBS was more neutral out of the three.
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Findings

Coverage from Britain. The first news source is The Metro based in the U.K. In one article, it

immediately opens up with this line, “Israel has warned that it will not consider a ceasefire with

the Palestinians until there is ‘total, long-term quiet’, as it continued to bombard Gaza with air

strikes.” (Jones, 2021) This immediately shows that the article will primarily be in favor of the

Palestinians in Gaza who were wounded, killed, or were directly impacted by the Israeli rockets

into Gaza. The second article talks about how an Israeli airstrike destroyed a tower block

building in Gaza that had offices for journalists from the Associated Press and Al- Jazeera. Israel

launched the attack on that building because Netanyahu insisted that Hamas officials were also

being housed in that building.

The next news source that addressed the Israeli- Palestinian conflict was The Mirror. One

article was focused on Israel’s approach to fighting Hamas by stating a quote from Israeli Prime

Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, “this is just the beginning. We’ll hit them like they’ve never

dreamed possible.” (Coles, 2021) When Hamas attacks Israel, Israel will do whatever it takes to

defend themselves and that is what Netanyahu was saying. The next article is a little more

intense as it is mainly focused on the damage done to Gaza from the Israeli airstrikes. The article

starts off by mentioning the death toll in Gaza, “at least 35 people have been killed including 10

children in Gaza and three in Israel as hostilities in the Palestinian conflict erupted.” (Walker,

2021)

Both of the Daily Mail articles on the Israeli- Palestinian conflict seem to be in favor of

the Palestinians. One article straight up states, “Israel is facing a growing international crisis as

the conflict with Gaza continues and riots have flared up across the West Bank and also in Arab

communities within its borders.” (Tanno & Ibbetson, 2021) This straight up shows that despite
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Gaza firing rockets into Israel, the world is looking at Israel and is extremely critical of their

retaliation to Hamas. The article also mentions Netanyahu’s approach on the conflict, “there are

only two ways that you can deal with [Hamas]. You can either conquer them- and that’s always

an open possibility- or you can deter them.” (Tanno & Ibbetson, 2021) The second article has a

different approach to the first one as it covers a lot of material on the conflict and how the

rockets have killed people on both sides. However, something interesting to note is this quote by

Ibbetson (2021), “the war has also seen an unusual outbreak of violence in Israel, with groups of

Jewish and Palestinian citizens fighting in the streets and torching vehicles and buildings.”

Coverage from the United States. The two articles from The Washington Post were extremely

critical of Israel’s approach to fighting Hamas in Gaza. One article addressed the Iron Dome,

which intercepts missiles and rockets launched from Gaza as a way of keeping the conflict alive,

“this cycle of conflict suggests that the success of Iron Dome may have the perverse

consequence of helping to perpetuate the Gaza- Israel conflict.” (Levy, 2021) The article also

addresses how due to the Iron Dome, the casualties to Israelis have been lower than those in

Gaza. The next article is centered around the issue of land between the Israelis and Palestinians

and how the police presence has increased to prevent Palestinians from praying, “Israeli security

chiefs have increased police presence throughout Jerusalem and the West Bank.” (Rubin, 2021)

PBS News was the next source that had articles on the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. One

article had a more political approach than the other one as it mentioned Netanyahu’s response to

the attacks by Hamas. “Netanyahu vowed to press ahead with a fierce military offensive in the

Gaza Strip.” (Akram & Krauss, 2021). The article continued to talk about how Israel wouldn’t

stop until they reach their goal or both groups decide to reach a ceasefire. The next article had a

political approach by mentioning how different leaders around the world were responding to the
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conflict and wanting the groups to agree on a ceasefire. “A diplomatic official said that the

United Nations, Egypt and Qatar, which frequently mediate between Israel and Hamas, were all

trying to halt the fighting.” (Zion & Krauss, 2021)

The two articles I found on CNN are centered around how many deaths were caused by

Israeli airstrikes in Gaza. They also both mentioned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

and how he doesn’t plan to stop the rocket attacks anytime soon, “vowed to continue to strike at

the targets of terrorism” (Hadas, Abeer, Ibrahim, Celine, Mohammed et. al, 2021) Another

similarity between the sources is that they both address the number of casualties among the

Palestinians from the Israeli airstrikes.

Discussion

In this paper, 12 articles were used in total, three different news sources with two articles

from each. There were also some references to class readings. After reading all the articles there

were some overlaps between how the conflict was being discussed and Israel’s approach to

fighting Hamas. After reading all of the articles, my findings were exactly what I expected them

to be. Many of the articles were critical of Israel’s response to Hamas and were focused on the

casualties to the Palestinians more so than to the Israelis. Another thing that I expected to find

and did was Netanyahu’s approach to the conflict and how he will do whatever it takes to defend

the land of Israel. One theory that I took from our reading was in writing about political violence,

“political violence is invariably employed by a person or group with a political goal opposing a

government or political rival. Political violence also carries a message, which is why media

coverage is important for those behind it, both as an end in itself and as a means to other ends.”

(Nossek, 2004) This is completely true in this conflict as Hamas and Israel are rivals and they

both have different political views and goals.

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Conclusions

There are many different approaches that news sources can take when it comes to

reporting on a conflict as complex as the Israeli- Palestian one. This paper shows that even

though news sources are different from country to country the news stories they report on are

often the same. This reminded me of the framing aspect that was addressed in the Dimitrova and

Stromback reading (2005), “framing is influenced by the national context in which journalists

operate.” After reading all of the articles and the readings assigned in class, I am now able to

understand how framing works and why different news sources take on different approaches to

stories. T
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References

Akram, F., & Krauss, J. (2021, May 19). Israel's Netanyahu 'determined' to continue

Gaza operation. PBS.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/israels-netanyahu-determined-to-continue-gaza-operation.

Coles, J. (2021, May 12). Israel says violence is 'just beginning' as death toll hits 53 in

Hamas conflict. mirror.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/israel-warns-this-just-beginning-24094178.

Dimitrova, D. V., & Stromback, J. (2005). Mission Accomplished? Framing of the Iraq

War in the Elite Newspapers in Sweden and the United States.

https://moodle.elon.edu/pluginfile.php/2135231/mod_resource/content/0/Dimitrova-Mission%20

Accomplishe.pdf.

Gold, H., Salman, A., Dahman, I., Alkhaldi, C., & Tawfeeq, M. (2021, May 18).

Netanyahu vows to continue strikes on Gaza as Israel pounds Hamas targets. CNN.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/17/middleeast/israel-palestinian-conflict-monday-intl/index.html.

Levy, Y. (2021, May 17). Analysis | Israel's Iron Dome defense system protects Israeli

lives. It also perpetuates the Israel-Gaza conflict. The Washington Post.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/05/14/israels-iron-dome-defense-system-protects

-israeli-lives-it-also-perpetuates-israel-gaza-conflict/.

Mailonline, R. I. F. (2021, May 18). Israel-Gaza conflict: Riots at Jerusalem's holy sites

as troops fire tear gas at Palestinians. Daily Mail Online.

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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9592101/Riots-break-Jerusalems-holy-sites-Israeli-troo

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Nossek, H. (2004). Our News and Their News: The Role of National Identity in the

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https://moodle.elon.edu/pluginfile.php/2139502/mod_resource/content/0/Our%20News%20and

%20Their%20News%20--%20Nossek.pdf.

Tanno, S. (2021, May 19). Israeli bombs 'kill disabled man and his pregnant wife', Gaza's

health ministry says. Daily Mail Online.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9597495/Israeli-bombs-kill-disabled-man-pregnant-wif

e-Gazas-health-ministry-says.html.

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marks its deadliest day as scenes of horror unfold in Gaza. CNN.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/16/middleeast/israel-palestinian-conflict-intl/index.html.

Walker, W. (2021, May 12). Israel air strike fells Gaza tower block with 38 dead as

'full-scale war' feared. mirror.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/israel-air-strike-destroys-gaza-24089478.

Zion, I. B., & Krauss, J. (2021, May 10). Hamas rocket attack is the latest in series of

growing clashes in Israel. PBS.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/hamas-targets-jerusalem-after-clashes-at-revered-mosque.