HOW ISRAEL CAN FIGHT MEDIA-BASED DELEGITIMIZATION

Manfred Gerstenfeld

This article on how Israel can fight media-based delegitimization was first published by the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research a few days ago.

Media play a major role in the delegitimization and demonization of Israel. Their share in this process cannot be assessed scientifically. Yet over 40% of citizens of the European Union — aged 16 years or older – believe that Israel is a Nazi state, or alternatively, think that Israel is conducting a war of extermination against the Palestinians. There is no doubt that this demonic image of Israel has been partly caused by many media.

Several studies show these statistics. The largest study on this subject was conducted and published in 2011 by the University of Bielefeld, Germany. It covered seven EU countries in which more than half of the European population lives: the Netherlands, Italy, Hungary, UK, Germany, Portugal, and Poland.[1] Studies in Switzerland [2] and in Norway [3] gave similar results.

Evidently, there are many other factors besides the media which have led to these abysmal beliefs. Politicians, trade unions, NGOs, various — mostly liberal — church leaders, academics, the Palestinian lobby, as well as others, play a major role in the demonization process. Contributors include the United Nations, and some of its associated bodies, such as the United Nations Human Rights Commission.

Media and Media Watchers

Over the past decades, anti-Israeli media have made the most of a unique situation. The freedom of the press includes the freedom to cheat, lie, incite, often to extremes, and the liberty to ignore essential facts at will. Media have the power to criticize others, relentlessly and sometimes brutally, and yet there are few ways to take them to task. There are hardly any checks and balances. The work of their staff is only subject to that particular media’s rules of self-regulation. Except in extreme cases, journalists are not accountable to anyone outside their profession.

Reporters are free to choose which facts they will mention and which they will omit, even if such tactics lead to major distortions of their readers’ perceptions. Their means of slanting information, if they wish to do so, are almost unlimited. In addition, media rarely criticize each other, even though it would create much greater accountability among journalists.

The battle against big media’s delegitimization of Israel is being fought by a few media watch organizations. Media watching can be defined as critically examining one or more media on a regular or recurrent basis. It usually results from a conviction that certain media are biased against a cause that the monitoring body or individual supports. Media-watching activities include collecting, analyzing, and publishing data.[4]

Media watchers are fulfilling an important role in exposing the bias of anti-Israeli media. Yet even the best known among them, such as CAMERA [5] and HonestReporting [6], only reach a limited number of addressees if one compares it to the audience of the media themselves.

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