Soon after Hamas won the 2006 parliamentary elections, Israel imposed an increasingly harsh blockade on Gaza to put pressure on Hamas. The blockade imprisoned 1.8 million innocent Palestinians leading many of them to live below poverty levels due to limited food, medical supplies, and essential goods. The siege of the Gaza Strip made getting news coverage a near impossibility for foreign news media. In order to receive a press card to Gaza, journalists needed to undergo a security check and sign a censorship form agreeing to submit the articles they have written during their time in Gaza to the Israeli government. If reporters or journalist did not follow the rules of Israel or practice censorship, they were harassed, imprisoned, or threatened by the Israeli government. Many reporters kept what they seen to themselves until they were safely back in their countries where they wrote what they truly seen inside. Others just wrote what they believed was right while they were in Gaza jeopardizing their lives. The United States Media, however, was strictly on the Israeli side and would overlook or avoid certain topics about the Gaza blockade. Many times the American media manipulated or framed the story in a way to mislead readers from what the reality of the Gaza blockade was.
One of the highly censored news reports during the Gaza blockade was about Israel setting a calorie limit during the siege. In American news media, they would mention how Israel counted the amount of calories Palestinians needed to make sure they were not malnourished in a couple of sentences, and then would go on to talk about how Hamas is enforcing strict laws, such as prohibiting kissing in public, or improper behavior in streets. Additionally, the American ...
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...weight watchers and put Palestinians on a diet. In reality, though when you look at other foreign press they are using it to make nuclear weapons or bombs to kill innocent civilians. Who are the terrorists now?
With this great dichotomy between different news presses, how should we know that the American news is censored? We should look at why we think America would not want to show the truth. America like in many cases likes to make sure it weakens any forces they feel could be a threat to their country, and Hamas as a terrorist organization in their point of view is a big threat. The US media continues to reinforce a mindset in the American people that dehumanizes Palestinians unfortunately. The depiction of Hamas as merely a terrorist group yet failing to apply the same approach when it comes to describing the Israeli actions is typical for the Western media.
The fight between Israel and Palestine has been seen as an unfair battle, due to the high-tech supplies given to Israel by the US. Israel’s military is extremely strong and constantly growing, with people joining from all over the world, while Palestine’s main defense is a terrorist group called Hamas. Israel has been forced into building a wall surrounding the Gaza strip to stop these terror attacks from harming the citizens of Israel. Palestine believes that Israel’s fighting is too severe compared to Palestine’s attempts at attacking Israel. Gideon Levy wrote, “Once again, Israel’s violent responses, even if there is justification to them, exceed all proportion and cross every red line of humaneness, morality, international law, and wisdom (Document 5, Palestinian View)”. The Palestinians believe that the Israeli military is fighting too much and unfairly, and should not be allowed to take these measures against them.
America’s government is autonomous in that they are afforded the same liberties as the free media. If the media get their hands on a certain story, they can change or omit important details that affect the story. The media of our time can censor what
The Middle East has since time immemorial been on the global scope because of its explosive disposition. The Arab Israeli conflict has not been an exception as it has stood out to be one of the major endless conflicts not only in the region but also in the world. Its impact continues to be felt all over the world while a satisfying solution still remains intangible. A lot has also been said and written on the conflict, both factual and fallacious with some allegations being obviously evocative. All these allegations offer an array of disparate views on the conflict. This essay presents an overview of some of the major literature on the controversial conflict by offering precise and clear insights into the cause, nature, evolution and future of the Israel Arab conflict.
Since the founding of Israel, the U.S. government has undoubtedly pledged its allegiance to the nation and unfortunately this support for Israel has created American hostility towards Palestinians. Under any circumstances, we never see images showing the struggles of Palestinian as disenfranchised refugees living in occupied territory, instead images repeatedly depict all Palestinians as evil terrorists. In the film Death Before Dishonor (1987), Palestinians are shown as heartless humans when a terrorist is brutally murdering an Israeli family in cold blood. In another scene, shot from the marine's point of view, the terrorist is shown happily torturing an American marine with a power drill. Washington’s policy makers failed to support the millions of Palestinians who have been made refugees, and live lives of poverty and squalor
The media censorship appears in various forms and in almost all countries; few have legal systems that guarantee absolute freedom of the media.
After the Six Day War Israel security forces were attempting to cultivate and expand islamism. In between the years 1967 and 1987 the number of mosques in Gaza went from 200 to 600. While islamism was expanding at this time so were the other smaller nationalist terrorist groups, such as the PLO, were also expanding in the streets, and in schools. Hamas was founded in 1978, during the expansion of islamism and terrorist nationalist groups, by Ahmed Yassin as a Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. The real terrorist acts from this group started happening around the 1990’s ...
As the United States continues to dominate almost every aspect of the world, including culture, many different nations scurry to keep up with them, sometimes adopting an identity which is in great contrast to their own, and in many cases, shadow their own identity as a whole. With the ever-advancing technology, the spreading of U.S. culture seems to be easier, and this has many countries worried. Hence, a reason - or need - to censor what enters the country via print, airwaves or Internet.
...o show these journalists as a state enemy in people mind.Thus, Recep Tayyip Erdogan the Prime Minister of Turkey see these journalist as an enemy against him,actually he tried to show they as terrorists.Having said that, in 2010, journalists established ''Journalist's Freedom Platform'' and arranged a press release in order to say that there is a problem in terms of freedom of speech and press.On the top of that, also government made a opression on media bosses.As an important example for this, during the Gezi occupy which is a huge demonstrations that created significant inflation against government, most media company did not mention about these issues, especially, at the begining of the demonstrations, people could not see these demonstrations on TV.What I want to say that, as it can clearly seen that the government supressed the media very highly like in fascism.
Continetti’s article was published in September of 2014. His article discusses Hamas’s control over their media coverage.
... I believe that Israel must abide by international law, and should be stopped when these laws are violated. I believe that the Palestinians must be given their rights. I fully understand that Israel is extremely concerned about it’s safety as it is mostly surround by enemy’s however I do not believe that the oppression and ultimate control of the Palestinians will bring this safety they long for, but do the very opposite instead.
One of the biggest reasons for the military to censor news stories is to keep the information contained away from enemy spies or terrorists. Information spreads quickly these days with the internet and all the other new technology. Spies or terrorists inside the country have access to most news channels and can see what’s going on, and everyone in the world with an internet connection can see what is put online from here. Who knows, “the enemy mi...
The graphic novel Palestine written by Joe Sacco is a trustworthy description of different stories in the heart of the century-long conflict between Arabs and Israeli. Sacco produced the graphic novel after spending two months with the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories in late 1991 and early 1992. Things certainly have changed since thenThe story is all about what happened in that part of the Middle East at the beginning of the 1990s. In this respect, a critical viewpoint should be applied in order to discuss the main topics in detail. Thus, Palestine is actually a guide for a Westerner willing to know what occurs in the Middle East each time the conflict between Israeli and Palestinians takes place.Excellent contemporary graphic novel. The characters convincingly portrayed. Sacco has a journalist eye and a storyteller’s heart.
Since Israel became a state in 1948, protecting it has been a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy. As with any political issue, the media plays a key role in shaping public opinion, which in turn can affect how policymakers make decisions. With this in mind, it is important to understand how these issues are covered and what effect decisions of the media have on public opinion.
In extreme situations, journalists choose the angle they can find, tick the boxes to the news worthiness, but never having a stand. According to Kempf, journalists fulfill certain criteria of newsworthiness and fake empirical evidence, which implements propaganda and in the journalists’ defense “that it did not matter the pictures were faked since they only showed what people already ‘knew’ and since they served the goal of opening the eyes of the public” (Kempf 2002, p. 60). Various examples from the War on Terror, where journalists and reporters would fake evidence just to gain more audiences but examples like this could elevate the issues, and it is as if this responsibility of Journalism of Attachment only adds fuel to the fire and this is done in the name of peace (Kempf 2002).
"Journalism Ethics Online Journalism Ethics Gatekeeping." Journalism Ethics for the Global Citizen. Web. 05 Dec. 2010. .