Media Reaction to Another Round of Peace Negotiations in Israel and Palestine

It could be easy to take a generalist approach when looking at the Israeli media. However, we can nonetheless advance some theories about the reaction of the media should Israel and the Palestinians begin another round of negotiations towards signing a peace agreement. Although a peace settlement of one form or another is arguably in everybody’s long term interests, the media is likely to exaggerate the content of peace talks in one form or another.

Context is everything. Media outlets, traditional and otherwise, are wrestling among each other for decreasing revenues. In such a climate, sensationalist pieces make better cover – and generate more revenues (or at least, that’s how much of the prevailing thinking goes). In peace negotiations, the process often moves at a snail’s pace. Another round of negotiations towards peace (“here we go again”) is likely to stimulate some nationalist comment in the newspapers and elsewhere.

The peace negotiations are sure to stir up the “rally around the flag” rhetoric that becomes commonplace in media outlets during wartime. It’s not difficult to envisage a situation whereby Israeli negotiators are seen to give some concessions to the Palestinian side. It’s unlikely the concessions would be too significant in their impact but the Israeli media response is likely to converge around how Israel is, “giving in to terrorists” or “bowing to international pressure.”

In fact, an international element (America, Europe, the G8, etc.) will likely play some role, active or passive, in future peace negotiations. This could create a voice within the Israeli media, which questions the need for any outside participation at all. As much as every country and economic bloc has its own issues to contend with, the media is likely to draw comparisons between the UK and Northern Ireland. So, for example, “Northern Ireland has more so-called peace walls now than it did before the Good Friday Agreement and the UK wants to lecture us on how to achieve peace?”

Narrative-building like this is common in media, not just in Israel. In times when there is less headline-creating news, features – and political features – become more common. Features are open to being driven by narratives rather than what is happening. So, whereas the news would report about representatives from both sides entering a room, a lot of back and forth, and little outcome to report, a feature might present a narrative about these negotiations being part of a bigger Middle Eastern plot to oust the Israeli government.

Furthermore, when conflicts are polarized, as is the case in Israel, there is a tendency for people to view politicians from the other side as not only representatives of the people but almost representations of their people. So, when Israeli media outlets, rightly or wrongly, portray leaders of Hamas as anti-Semitic fundamentalists, there is a natural tendency (not just in Israel) for people to view all supporters of Hamas in the same light. Polarized views become the norm, whereas in reality, populations are like everything else – there is a normal curve representing all views across the political spectrum.

Once peace negotiations have been concluded – with a resolution or without - how the media presents what occurred within the negotiations is likely to impact on future efforts for peace (be they negotiations, efforts on the ground, etc.). Although war makes better print coverage than peace; the examples of Lord Kitchener’s “Britain Needs You” poster from 1914, or its American equivalent featuring Uncle Sam from 1917 or even Russian wartime propaganda posters  («Не болтай!» meaning “Don’t talk!” being the most famous). Somewhat regrettably, it is difficult to recall any peacetime slogans, imagery or print from these countries.

However, one piece of research in particular, on the role of media in (relative) peacetime in Israel (Wolfsfeld and Alimi, 2008) makes an outstanding contribution to the existing literature. The authors note that that is an “inherent contradiction between news and peace,” but note that leaders on either side of a conflict have the ability to initiate stories that provide hope to their people. Likewise, some form of peace can create novel news structures about “the other side.” They comment, “even negative stories about diplomatic and economic relations between the countries remind people that something fundamentally has changed and that normalization is possible.”

Bibliography

Wolfsfeld, G.,  Alimi, E.Y., Wasfi, K. (2008). News Media and Peace Building in Asymmetrical Conflicts: The Flow of News between Jordan and Israel. Political Studies: 2008 Vol. 56, pp. 374–398

Four Roles of Media during War

1. Information

The first role of the media in wartime is as a timely source of relevant information. Despite the shifting mediums that the media takes, this remains its primary function during a war. This naturally leaves large room for various interpretations and raises the question, how much information should the media be sharing about the war? At what stage does information become counter-productive in itself? One paper (Kalb and Saivetz, 2007) note that during the war between Israel and Lebanon in 2006, “journalists…broadcast their reports from hotel roofs and hilltops, as they covered the movement of troops and the rocketing of villages – often (unintentionally, one assumes) revealing sensitive information to the enemy.” Therefore the informative element of the media can have a strategic as well as a purely information-for-information’s sake element. To date, the information-for-information’s sake seems to be the largest area occupied by social media channels such as Twitter. As a paper by Sarah Joseph (Joseph, 2010) notes: “anyone in the vicinity with audacity and a (still or video) camera… can document brutality and spread it on the net, sometimes instantaneously with those same mobile phones.”  This role of the media, being new, is still being defined and may evolve into something else as once outsider technologies becomes more mainstream.

2. Shaping Public Opinion

One of the historical roles of media is to shape public perception and opinion, and even, to “mobilize” support for the conflict among one side or another. Cetus paribus, domestic news media will generally reflect official views on the war at the initial stages. Thereafter Bennett, Livingston and Laurence refer to “reality management,” and how, during Israel’s conflict with Lebanon, Hezbollah in particular was able to exploit the media for its own purposes. Traditionally, this might have been referred to as propaganda but as media has become democratic and less influenced by government and censorship (at least, that is how it seems), the element of propaganda – if it still exists - is increasingly difficult to separate from the opinion and editorial pieces.

Journalists: selling stuff.

3. Providing Legitimacy/Notoriety to a Cause or Movement

As the paper, Social Movements, Protest and Mainstream Media (McCurdy, 2012) notes, “social movements and mainstream media have a contentious and longstanding history.” It appears that a major difference between a movement which remains on the fringes and one which joins the mainstream, is access to the media. This was particularly evident in the conflict in Northern Ireland, where Sinn Féin, the political arm of the IRA, were not allowed any access to the media in the 1980s. Because of the concerted media campaign against them (or maybe in spite of it), the organization adapts some of its modus operandi and/or central message. It is not always the intention of media to provide legitimacy to a cause or movement. Sometimes, in reporting on the movement, the media provides notoriety, itself a kind of legitimacy. The case of Al Quaeda and Osama Bin Laden are a case in point. Kalb and Savietz (2007) report one Middle Eastern analyst, who provides them with the soundbite, “If bin Laden didn’t have access to global media, satellite communications and the Internet, he’d just be a cranky guy in a cave.” Likewise, movements on Twitter are given some legitimacy by reports in more mainstream media: this in turn provides legitimacy and/or notoriety to the new cause or movement in a war or conflict setting.

4. To sell things

This is perhaps slightly off-topic from the readings and materials, but relevant nonetheless. During peacetime or conflict, we must not forget that one of the primary purposes of the media is to sell products and services. With people paying less for media subscriptions (particularly so in print media) all the time and media outlets themselves increasingly depending on advertising revenues, it follow that one of the primary purposes of the media is to sell us things. In an article entitled Small Change: Why the Revolution will not be tweeted, (Gladwell, October, 2010) the  author discusses how, despite claims to the contrary, Twitter hadn’t changed anything in Iran up until the time the article was written. What is clear, however, when one looks at Twitter’s revenue in the same period (which was growing in double figures) is that one thing did change: Twitter was selling more. Several things stop during wartime; media advertisements do not.

Bibliography

Bennett, L., Livingston, R., Laurence, S., (2007). When the Press fails: Political Power and the News Media from Iraq to Katrina. Chapter 5: Managing the News. The University of Chicago Press. ISBN: 9780226042848

Gladwell, M., October 4, 2010. Why the Revolution will not be televised. The New Yorker.

Joseph, S., (2014). Social Media, Human Rights and Political Change. Working Paper.

Kalb, M., Saivetz, C., (2007). The Israeli-Hezbollah War of 2006: The Media as a Weapon in Asymmetrical Conflict. Presented at the U.S.-Islamic World Forum in Doha, Qatar, February 18, 2007.

McCurdy, P., (2012). Social Movements, Protest and Mainstream Media. Sociology Compass 6/3 (2012): 244–255 

India, Gandhi and Historical Narratives

“Narrative is linear but action has breadth and depth as well as height and is solid.”                                                                                                                                  Thomas Carlyle.

Geopolitics is complicated but humanity is very simple. This is about the only generality that applies across the board in political impasses, conflicts and transitions in the 21^st century. Unfortunately, in an age where we think of ourselves as being civilized, we are still dogged by conflicts and political instability all over the world. And the popular narrative is that we’ve never had it so good.

People love narratives in their history. It helps us make sense of what happened when we can put a beginning, middle and end to a series of events. Most wars are explained away by economic factors creating some form of unrest at a political or social level and a subsequent legislation, leader, or movement coming to the fore. Before you know it, the country found itself in a war, which looking back on it now, was all so predictable.

“On Gandhi: Don’t ever forget, that we were not lead by a saint with his head in clouds, but by a master tactician with his feet on the ground.”                                                                                                                                          Shashi Tharoor

Few periods of history escape this narrative-building. Mahatma Gandhi’s rise to prominence is a good example. The oft-cited peaceful model of Gandhi is given the credit for bringing independence to India in 1947.  The truth is that Mahatma Gandhi was an extremely intelligent man and could see the writing on the wall for Britain in India. His peaceful protests set a fine example but Indian independence was on its way, regardless of his actions.

Unfortunately, his peaceful model would achieve little if anything at all in most modern conflicts. In the West Bank, to take one example, human rights violations occur on a daily basis. Does anybody believe that Israel will desist in settling disputed territories if Palestinians walk the 150km or so to the River Jordan to protest, in the same way that Gandhi and his followers did for British salt tax when walking to the Indian Ocean[i]? It’s unlikely at best.

Our fetish for leaders and narratives leads us to conclusions which are lazy and inaccurate. Countries involved in conflicts and impasses are defined as good and bad. This is easier to digest than the truth, which is that some things happen and it’s very difficult to explain why. Is the Israel Palestine situation about security, religion or territory? Or is it now purely based on bitterness? Is the Russian-Ukrainian conflict about economics, identity or energy?

In each of the modern conflicts listed above, only three reasons were cited. There could possibly be tens of reasons in each case: lobbying, corporate interests, demographics or faulty political systems could just as easily be cited. The point is that to look at geopolitical impasses as simplistic as being one-fit-all models will not solve them. We need to be more creative in our problem-solving than that.

“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”                                                                                                                  Martin Luther King

Even when special leaders like Mahatma Gandhi are involved, it doesn’t always happen.  Martin Luther King – a disciple of Gandhi’s methods – was a truly exceptional leader. In fact, it’s hard to think of a better one in modern times. But most Americans would accept that there’s still a long way to go in prejudice that exists in people’s minds and elsewhere in the United States, even if huge strides have been made.

Another problem with looking at an issue in terms of outstanding leaders arriving on the scene is that people don’t strive for meaningful change when there aren’t any. Tunisia has just elected the country’s main secular party in its second free democratic election since ousting the autocrat Zein-al-Abidine in 2011[ii].  Where would Tunisians be now if they had waited for the arrival of a charismatic leader like Gandhi or King? Or thought that a peaceful protest on its own would solve their ills?

Conclusions

Complexity doesn’t make a situation unsolvable. Quite the opposite; seeing all the sides in their complexity gives us a more refined understanding ; we then gain an appreciation of the complexities involved in finding a solution. Creativity begins to emerge to solve something that before seemed unsolvable. Obstacles become challenges and black-and-white attitudes begin begin to meet in the middle ground.

Mahatma Gandhi’s peaceful resistance might have elements which can be used elsewhere, but it’s certainly not an all-or-nothing scenario. Perhaps his biggest contribution was bringing intelligence to the situation. We lack that in too many political contexts in the 21^st century. By turning everything into an easy-to-digest narrative, we are moving further away from intelligence to something which resembles a tabloid view of the world.

“If our brains were simple enough for us to understand them, we’d be so simple that we couldn’t.”

                                                                                                                                    Ian Stewart

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[i] http://people.hofstra.edu/alan_j_singer/CoursePacks/TheSaltMarchandtheIndianStruggleforIndependence.pdf

[ii] http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2014/10/28/will-tunisias-polls-free-the-mediterranean-tiger/