Palestine is now a fully fledged member of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), but when I, as a Palestinian, came to Britain in 1999 just before the turn of the century no one knew of Palestine. People gave me quizzical expressions when I said where I was from, some mistook me for saying “Pakistan” and others were either ignorant of it or cold towards the notion.

About eight years later, as I manned the stall for the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in Oxford, a gentle looking elderly man approached and asked where I was from. I replied saying ‘Palestine’ and he smiled back knowingly and asked if I had family around the world. The first thought that came to my head was that of an uncle who lives in Poland, and so I replied ‘Yeah, I have an uncle in Poland’

And at that moment it struck me. It was a bitter sweet feeling for the man was kind; he had sympathy and knew of the situation, but then again, when I said that I had a relative in Poland I realized that I sounded like a Diaspora Jew. The irony of it was bitter to the point of sadness, but I could not deny that many or at least some people in Britain were coming out of their ignorance or hostility towards our side of the story in this conflict. But why has such change occurred? I have wondered since that time, but it is only now that I have set off to find the reasons and if that case is even true.

I thought I had a rough idea of when the turning point for the shift of public opinion was, and at the time it was the 2008/2009 Operation Cast Lead on Gaza, but before I rushed into looking into it further, I decided that I wanted to look at the British news paper articles from the years 2000 and 2001 when the second Palestinian uprising or Intifada occurred. I half expected for there to be barely any articles at all, but to my surprise there was plenty to look at, 105 of which I read. Most went from being either negative bordering on the neutral and I even found a few letters, published by the Times, which gave voice to the Israeli Zionist arguments of Palestinians having no “genetic heritage” to the “disputed” land. These were the culprits, among others, that made people believe that this war was based on Biblical times, that it was a war between Jews and Muslims as opposed to Zionists and Palestinians. Yet, fairly marginalized newspapers like the Morning Star had the largest concentration of articles that were supportive of the Palestinians, and moreover, unlike other news papers, their articles were usually on the second page and not, for example, on the sixteenth.

But to merely look at newspaper articles is not enough, for the decline of print papers has accelerated especially since the expansion of the Internet. People do not usually read every article in a newspaper and at best may give headlines a quick scan before moving on to the next story. In a public survey carried out by the University of Glasgow Media Group and published in a book called “Bad News From Israel” it was found that in Britain, only 13% of their sample received their images of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict from newspapers in 2000 and that dropped to 9% in 2001. Conversely, 82% of their sample in 2000 received their images from Television news and that number rose up to 85% in 2001 [1]. It is obvious that in a first world country like Britain it is more convenient for anyone to simply watch the television instead of having to go through news paper articles, as it is less time consuming.

So now my point of focus shifted to television news, which the book Bad News From Israel documented very well in terms of showing how the British media was biased in their reporting, especially during the second Intifada in the year 2000. Of course whether that was intentional or not is another issue, but even respected broadcasters like the BBC were inaccurate and at best confused during that time. The following is a list of examples of BBC and ITV footage in the year 2000 in the beginnings of the second Intifada:

-During the footage of a public funeral of a dead Palestinian (location unspecified) ITV named the current unrest as a “religious war over Jerusalem” while not mentioning other important issues such as an unrecognized military occupation and illegal settlement expansion. (ITV early evening news, 2 October, 2000)

-The BBC once referred to the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank as Israel’s West Bank or Israel violence when the events took place in occupied East Jerusalem, when in fact under international law, Jerusalem does not belong to Israel. (BBC early evening news, 2 October, 2000).

-ITV described the popular uprising as a “revolt” when the Israelis surrounded Palestinian cities and towns with their tanks so that they may “choke the life” out of it. And also that it was a measure to “restore order”. The word “revolt” implies that the Palestinians and their territory belongs to Israel and that they are rising up to their masters, and to “restore order” implies that Israel has sovereignty over the occupied Palestinian territories (ITV late news, 9 October, 2000).

-ITV called the illegal settlements, now known to be a source of antagonism and to house armed Jewish extremists, as “small Jewish enclaves” and Palestinians to be “driven by their hatred” and their resistance as an “onslaught”. It did not mention that these settlements are also connected via “Israeli only” roads and are intentionally designed to be like fortresses with the protection of the Israeli army. (ITV main news, 4 October, 2000). [1]

So I had an idea of what was televised in Britain during the time, and it left me with no surprise that back then I would get excited when Palestine was mentioned in the English language.

My next step was to talk to a friend and colleague of mine, Harry Fear, who has campaigned alongside me and who has produced various documentaries. Being someone who followed the news and the media I was inclined to ask him his opinion. As we sat in the cafe and I asked him his opinion on the matter, he came up with a slightly different theory as to why British public opinion may have changed. It was that the change was not sudden but transitory and that it started with the 2006 skirmish between Hezbullah in Lebanon and Israel. The obvious targeting of Lebanese civilian infrastructure (such as water treatment centres and airports) by Israel was a cause for concern, that’s not to say that Hezbullah were an exception since they targeted civilian cities with their Katyusha rockets. The second phase was Operation Cast lead on Gaza of December 2008 and January 2009 in which over 1300 Palestinians were killed. One iconic image was that of white phosphorous bombs exploding over the Gaza skyline; an obvious abuse of human rights that was clear to all the media. The final step or, as my friend called it, ‘the cherry on top’ was the raid on the freedom flotilla Mavi Marmara which aimed to break the naval siege of Gaza and bring humanitarian aid to it. The reason that it was so decisive in changing public opinion was because nine non-Palestinian activists were killed in the raid carried out by the Israeli navy.

This implies that non-Palestinians are worth more than Palestinians when it comes to casualties and “collateral damage”. I thought that this made sense and asked the editors of independent news website Medialens [2], David Cromwell and David Edwards, who agreed. They said
‘A major factor affecting public opinion was surely the appalling destruction wreaked by Israel on Gaza in Operation Cast Lead, during the winter of 2009-2010, followed by the BBC’s almost unprecedented decision not to broadcast a charities appeal for Gaza.’

and then

‘Certainly the murderous attack on the Mavi Marmara was yet another key factor in bringing to the public’s attention the unacceptable and brutal force used by Israel to maintain its powerful position, funded and supported, of course, by the United States.’

They said that the Palestinians, among others, are “unpeople” of the “third-world” which is why much less attention is paid to their suffering by the mainstream media which in turn informs, or if you like, misinforms, the public. They do not claim that the mainstream media has a specific and isolated agenda against Palestine, but that it fits into a bigger picture of corporate media and its inability to report honestly on significant issues.

I came to look at how the attack on the flotilla Mavi Marmara was received by the British media and there were some very interesting details. For example, the BBC HARDtalk show actually interviewed activist Kenneth O’Keefe [3] who was on the ship, for half an hour, and even though the interviewer contested him thoroughly they gave someone “on the other side” of the conflict a proper chance to speak and explain. One shocking moment was when the journalist asked him if ‘it was worth it’, and with emphasis said ‘nine men [that of the activists] lost their lives’, what if we had given the Palestinian lives in Operation Cast lead the same value and took each one as painfully as the journalist had, then what would happen? One thousand three hundred men, women and children.

Another case was an interview between Channel 4’s Jon Snow and the Israeli diplomat Mark Regev [4] about what occurred in the flotilla raid. Instead of accepting what Regev had to say, Jon Snow contested his claims that the activists aboard the flotilla were violent and had different intentions, he even called him off after a while to show frustration and anger at the politician, an amazing feat considering that Israel seized all the video evidence of what occurred and controlled its release meaning it had the upper hand.

Now that I was familiar with this theory, I carried out a small test run by asking several people that numbered to twenty seven. Out of those, ten were unaware of the Israeli Palestinian conflict, some did notice it in the news now and then with one saying that “it is always going on” while others did not know of Palestine. This is pretty typical of any conflict that does not involve Britain itself as the media and other journalists continually describe such wars as “complex” and “hard to understand”, an example being Ross Kemp in his documentary on Gaza [5]. This is not to say that they are being untruthful, for the conflict in this case is indeed complex, it is just the fact that people are drawn away from it as they see that only the politicians best understand that situation.

Only one person out of the 27 expressed support for Israel and even then he showed some sympathy for the Palestinians, yet he was quite adamant in his views. Sixteen were supportive of Palestine in the situation; viewing them as the victims and the oppressed. Ten of these people said that they noticed the conflict more in the media during 2009 and 2010 (the years which Operation Cast lead and the navy raid on the Mavi Marmara took place). One person who had worked for the Independent news paper was always aware of it even during the years of the second Intifada (2000-2003) and you could say that they had an advantage when it comes to awareness of such issues. Activists showed a similar view with one in particular who remembers the start of the construction of the “seperation barrier” by Israel around the West Bank (2004).

Yet we do have a long way to go. The fact that I know of the prisoner swap between Israeli solider Gilad Shalit and a few hundred Palestinians shows this, since I do not remember the name of a single Palestinian, even when some are children instead of being members of an occupying army. It is a morbid thought, but what if I went to the West Bank now, burnt my British passport and then got shot dead at a checkpoint with my Palestinian I.D. on my person? Does the possession of a certain document make the difference between a small and vague news flash and a detailed front page story? Yes, yes it does. And like the editors of Media Lens have suggested, this is not an isolated issue, I still wait for when all the unpeople who are classified as collateral damage around the world will start to have names; or at least faces.

[1] Greg Philo and Mike Berry, “Bad News from Israel”, Pluto Press, 2004
[2]  http://www.medialens.org/
[3]  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt168Ugfjg8 – Kenneth O’Keefe interview on BBC HARDtalk show (accessed 23/11/2011)
[4]  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUzrAIZgmlQ - Channel 4 interview with Mark Regev (accessed 23/11/2011)
[5]  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR7xqsd4Ulo – Ross Kemp in Gaza (accessed 23/11/2011)