When “Pro-Israel” Isn’t   

Pens and Swords: How the American Mainstream Media Report the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
by Marda Dunsky

Review by MARK LEVINE

When "Pro-Israel" Isn't

PENS AND SWORDS: HOW THE AMERICAN MAINSTREAM MEDIA REPORT THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT

by Marda Dunsky, Columbia University Press, 2008

Review by Mark LeVine

The Obama administration has made no bones about the fact that it wants to return to the kind of aggressive diplomacy to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that characterized the last years of the Clinton administration. Can Obama succeed where Clinton failed, especially when almost every mid-level and senior official in the new administration working on the peace process was part of the unsuccessful Clinton-era negotiations?

Sadly, none of Obama's statements during or after the campaign suggests he will pursue a truly progressive policy toward Israel/Palestine, since that would inevitably involve putting far more pressure on Israel than any administration has been willing or able to do since President Eisenhower intervened in the Suez Crisis more than fifty years ago.

But even if Obama wanted to change the principles behind U.S. policy toward the conflict, it would be almost impossible to do so. And it's not AIPAC and the organized Jewish community that would play the largest role in frustrating that attempt. Instead, according to a recent book by former Jerusalem Post reporter Marda Dunsky, it's the seemingly "liberal" mainstream media that has betrayed the public's trust by failing to provide fair and comprehensive reporting of key events and issues.

Dunsky's book, Pens and Swords: How the American Mainstream Media Report the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, reflects her extensive experience covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in both the United States and Israel. It is undoubtedly the most detailed and well-argued exploration yet written of how the mainstream corporate media has shaped U.S. foreign policy toward the conflict, and toward the Middle East more broadly. It should be required reading for all journalists and policy-makers who deal with the issue.

Dunsky begins with the provocative assertion that while journalists like to "see themselves as writing first drafts of history," they also have the power to shape the discourse that can influence, directly or indirectly, how those events continue to unfold. Dunsky explains that the magnitude of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict's importance for America is matched by the "remarkable information deficit" in the mainstream media about its history, present dynamics, and future trajectory.

Pens and Swords provides a comprehensive account of just how difficult it is to offer a "fair and balanced" narrative of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the United States-Israel relationship. There are three levels at which this failure is produced. First, there is the regular failure at the highest levels of the print and broadcast media to report accurately and evenhandedly on the conflict. Whether it's the New York Times discussing the Right of Return without mentioning the fact that Israel accepted this right when it was admitted to the United Nations, or 60 Minutes' Lesley Stahl reporting about the veracity of the "Arafat Papers" without bothering to challenge Israeli officials on their claims that Iran and Iraq were directing the Intifada or to provide an opposing Palestinian view, the highest levels of the mainstream American media participate in what Haaretz has dubbed a "unique word-laundering system" governing reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.* The grammar of this special language systematically obscures how much messier-and usually uglier-the reality on the ground is compared with the official portrayal of the Israeli government and the organized Jewish leadership.

So, for example, mainstream U.S. reporting on Israeli settlements rarely questions how, directly or indirectly, American aid has contributed to Israel's ability to absorb the cost of building, enlarging, and defending the settlements. More broadly, reporting rarely goes beyond "the parameters of the U.S. policy mirror" to discuss their status under international law. By refusing to accept the basic illegality of the settlement enterprise and instead discussing it as if the issue remains in dispute, the media make it almost impossible for Palestinian or critical Israeli voices to have the weight they warrant in the public sphere.

Similarly, by so often restricting themselves to the Israeli point of view when it comes to discussing violence, or speaking for rather than to or with Palestinians when it comes to telling their stories, mainstream media agencies in the United States make Israeli views seem far more acceptable and rational than those of Palestinians. In one representative example, Dunsky points out that media outlets such as CNN have become so unconsciously biased that they refer to settlements such as Gilo as "Jewish neighborhoods" of Jerusalem rather than as occupied territory.

The argument that the mainstream media narrative of the conflict is partial and biased toward the official Israeli position will not come as a surprise to most Tikkun readers, or critics of Israeli policy more broadly. What makes this book so important, however, are Dunsky's impeccable credentials within the system she's criticizing and the huge amount of detail she's amassed, which make this book the reference guide for anyone seeking to rebut the standard argument by "supporters" of Israel that the media is actually biased against it. Among the many useful incidents that Dunsky brings to light is a 2002 report on supposed anti-Israel bias commissioned by the Jewish Federation of Chicago, which reached the exact opposite conclusion. The federation would not release the report, and the researchers were forced to publish it in an academic journal that could not possibly achieve the same press recognition.

The second and third levels of Dunsky's analysis are related to the "Israel Lobby," the conglomeration of Jewish and conservative Christian organizations whose primary goal is to advocate on behalf of Israel, regardless of the moral or political merits of its policies. Here Dunsky demonstrates in great detail how the lobby succeeds in wearing down most reporters who try accurately and fairly to describe Israeli policies or the United States-Israel relationship.

On the one hand, the deep relationships between senior news editors and leaders of the community allow the latter unparalleled opportunities to voice complaints over alleged "anti-Israel" reporting. Since Jewish and Palestinian critics of Israeli policies have much less access, the view of senior editors becomes by default closer to that of the Israel Lobby, which makes it harder for reporters to publish or broadcast critical stories.

As important, however, are the grassroots letter-writing campaigns sponsored and coordinated by "pro-Israel" organizations, which put relentless pressure on editors and journalists who print or broadcast stories that are critical of Israel. According to Dunsky, even journalists such as Stahl or CNN's Christiane Amanpour, who have a record of being uncritical of Israel, are regularly attacked by groups such as CAMERA. This is very useful information, as it points to the importance of grassroots activities of groups such as the Network of Spiritual Progressives, Jewish Voices for Peace, and Tikkun, to counter what Dunsky shows to be the huge volume and viciousness of the hate mail that reporters and editors receive any time they run a story that is perceived to be critical of Israel. It also points to the importance of these groups meeting regularly with leading journalists who cover the region to help improve their understanding of how the mainstream media functions when it comes to Israel/Palestine, and how best to change the internal culture of fear and self-censorship that clearly pervades the corporate media establishment.

In a real sense, a counterculture needs to emerge from within the mainstream of the journalistic profession-a counterculture that can help journalists and editors who have experience on the ground to report the truth about the conflict. Helping foster such a culture is one of the greatest imperatives of the peace and justice community, one that will require close coordination among progressive media outlets such as Tikkun, Sojourners, and The Nation; activist organizations; and sympathetic members of the mainstream media.

For those who think that the mainstream media's failures are limited to Israel/Palestine, Dunsky demonstrates how reporting on Israel in the mainstream media resembles the one-sided coverage of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. We might wish to believe that the lack of accurate and thorough reporting on Israel doesn't have a larger impact on America's public or political discourse. But the reality is quite the opposite. The inability of the mainstream media to discuss Israel/Palestine or the United States-Israel relationship accurately and honestly is corruptive, creating a precedent that can be called into play by the American political elite whenever it has to manage a foreign or domestic crisis in which the truth, and reality, are so obviously against it.

In the end, in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the pen has become as important a weapon as the sword.

Mark LeVine is a professor of history at UC Irvine and author of Heavy Metal Islam: Rock, Resistance, and the Struggle for the Soul of Islam (Random House/Three Rivers Press, 2008). www.heavymetalislam.net.

* 60 Minutes recently went a long way toward redeeming itself when it ran a story narrated by Bob Simon on January 26, 2009, titled "Is Peace Out of Reach?" The piece went further than any other mainstream news story in showing the often brutal realities of Israel's settlement enterprise in the West Bank.