The journalist and former Israel correspondent for the Associated Press Matti Friedman notes that very often what passes for reporting about the Jewish state—even when factually accurate in the strict sense—has little to do with what is happening there, or the lives of Israelis and Palestinians. As a result, many Westerners have a deeply distorted “narrative” about the country, and its persistent conflict with its neighbors. Friedman attempts to explain why:
The powerful story being woven around Israel is a story about Jews. This is an ancient category of Western stories, typically moralistic in nature, in which Jews are used to illustrate the perceived ills of a given place and time. That doesn’t necessarily mean (to cite a tired debate) that “anti-Zionism” is or isn’t “anti-Semitism,” whatever those two terms are taken to mean. It doesn’t mean that the Israel story of the mainstream press is wrong in every way, or necessarily motivated by dark intentions. It just means that this story belongs to a narrative tradition with a long history, and tragic side effects, and shouldn’t automatically be taken at face value.
To remedy this problem, Friedman suggests consumers of news and opinion journalism should ask a few simple questions about any story they read on the subject, among them, “What are other countries up to?”
Israel is a country in the world, so discussions of Israel must compare it with other countries in similar situations and not to abstract ideals like “democracy,” or (as I sometimes see Jewish people doing) to “Judaism,” or to the social-action committee at their synagogue. If someone is claiming that casualties in an Israeli operation in Gaza are “high,” for example, as reporters frequently do, that needs to be compared with similar operations, like the Marines in Fallujah, or the British in Northern Ireland, or the French in Mali. If you’re critical of open-fire orders on the Gaza fence, you should know how that works on the India-Pakistan border, or the Turkey-Syria border, or on the perimeters of U.S. military bases in Afghanistan. Same goes for refugee absorption, press freedom, minority rights, or anything. Israel doesn’t always come out looking great. But you’ll find that most criticism of Israel doesn’t compare it with anything. That’s a sign the discussion isn’t about a real country.
When I was an AP reporter in Jerusalem between 2006 and 2011, the American news giant had more staff covering this story (involving about 14 million people, Israelis and Palestinians) than it had covering China or India, each with a population of over a billion. That focus, which was standard for the press from North America and Western Europe, is a good sign that the people telling Israel’s story are not attempting a rational analysis of the world but are engaged in something else. In my opinion, this “something else” is a symbolic story in which Jews are used, often subconsciously, to illustrate the problems that preoccupy the storytellers in their own societies.
Read more on Sapir: https://sapirjournal.org/social-justice/2021/04/eight-tips-for-reading-about-israel/