In TV newsrooms across the world yesterday producers were hurriedly ascribing 'slugs' (short working titles given to news stories for ease of reference) to the story that captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit had been exchanged for 477 Palestinian prisoners.
ISRAEL. PALESTINE. HAMAS. PRISONER EXCHANGE. Any of these key words might have been chosen in bulletin running orders as the story's title. But my money's on SHALIT coming up most often.
Of course it makes sense in straitened nomenclature to use the most recognisable word associated with a story - in this case the name of the one Israeli captive - rather than, say, the region or one of the 1,027 Palestinian prisoners eventually to be released by Israel. But this choice of one word represents the different ways in which the same events are reported by different news channels and, by extension, different people.
Were I only to watch CNN, I might be forgiven for feeling estranged from the Palestinian perspective. Almost all the news packages on the channel seemed to come from Israel or west Jerusalem, creating a visual understanding of Israel's plight as it welcomed home the 25-year-old soldier who they felt could have been any Israeli's son.
Reporter Frederik Pleitgen did his piece to camera near the Shalit's home in Mitzpe Hila and interviewed only Israelis. Matthew Chance in Gaza and Kevin Flower in Jerusalem allowed just one Palestinian voice in each of their reports. Chance's was a militant while Flower's was revealingly denied an aston. Hardly the spread of voices required to form an educated judgment. The most interesting CNN coverage was on Becky Anderson's Connect The World the night before the exchange, when she interviewed an Israeli student and a Palestinian peace activist via video link in the studio. Hearing two young people from either side discussing the deal, even in superficial terms, felt more immediate than the voices of any amount of American reporters in Israel.
Al Jazeera English is normally accused of going the other way, and it is true that there was certainly no shortage of Palestinian voices on the channel. A spokesperson from the Gaza Prisoner's Association waxed lyrical in one of Nicole Johnston's packages about the homecoming of Palestinian "heroes". She also interviewed Ahmed Sedat of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Abu Ibrahim from the Popular Resistance Committee and heard from a masked member of Hamas. Alongside these voices were those of Gaza residents and the family of one freed prisoner from the West Bank who were relocating to be with him in "exile" in Gaza. Al Jazeera's use of the word "exile" to describe the Israeli condition of release of 40 of yesterday's prisoners is as loaded as CNN's use of the word "terrorist" to describe some of the Palestinian prisoners.
However, if discrete reports failed to give a plurality of voices, Al Jazeera's overall coverage is avoiding the narrowness of CNN's by coming from so many different areas of the region. Omar al Saleh was in Doha as the first prisoners arrived there, Cal Perry was in Jerusalem as Galid Shalit arrived home, Nicole Johnston was in Gaza, and Charles Stratford was near Ramallah as those Palestinian prisoners allowed home arrived. Moreover, Al Jazeera seems to be the only channel not treating this story as finished already. The coverage continues on TV and online as the ripples from this historical negotiation continue to be felt throughout the region.
The BBC, bound by its Trust to be impartial in its reporting, took a completely different - and rather esoteric - angle. It focussed more on Shalit's Nile TV interview with Egyptian reporter Shahira Amin than on the consequences for Israel, Hamas and Palestine of the prisoner exchange. This might be explained by its conspicuous absence of reporters in the region. As with much of the Arab Spring, the BBC has had to struggle with one or two reporters covering an area that has seen more than its fair share of breaking news. Jeremy Bowen's package relied on footage he could voice over and one piece to camera, while Rupert Wingfield-Hayes managed to be in central Israel. But there was an absence of colour to BBC reporting, that could only be achieved by having reporters throughout the region.
So how can one channel fully and accurately report an event like that of yesterday? In the case of Israel - Palestine (and now Hamas), it probably can't. The Israel - Palestine conflict is so imbued with emotion that it is almost impossible to find anyone to comment on it impartially.
And even if one can, how can a three minute TV news package fill its audience in on 63 years of historical context?
I don't know yet what the BBC or CNN slugs were, but in case you were wondering, the Al Jazeera one was PRISONER SWAP DEAL.
Follow Belle Lupton on Twitter: www.twitter.com/bellelupton
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Jabril Ismail - a Hamas terrorist operative, assembled a bomb and hid it in a radio. He placed the device at the entrance to an apartment building in Modi'in. A landlord was badly wounded in his hand and face in the attack. Ismail also plotted a suicide bombing at a gas station in the central Israeli town of Neveh Yamin in 2001. Two teenagers were murdered and four were wounded in the attack. Ismail, sentenced to six life sentences, will be deported to either Gaza or abroad;
Ismail Musa Bahit, of Gaza - a member of the Popular Resistance Committee, he received 12 life sentences for murdering six Palestinians he suspected of cooperating with Israel and one Jewish vegetable seller in a terror attack
Hisham Ibrahim Hijaz, a Hamas member from Ramallah arrested in 2003, was sentenced to 10 life sentences for setting up a terrorist cell and using it to carry out a shooting attack near the West
Bank settlement of Shilo. One Israeli was killed and two were wounded in the attack;
Amir Jabar Sharif Sawalma, of Nablus, arrested in 2003, was sentenced to six life sentences for an array of lethal terrorist acts. Sawalma carried out a shooting attack at an IDF checkpoint at Mount Gerizim in the West Bank, killing two IDF soldiers and injuring three. He also dispatched two suicide bombers and prepared their explosives belts at IDF positions, killing an additional two soldiers and injuring eight. Sawalma also sent a third suicide bomber to a civilian target. The bomber was stopped by a security guard, who was killed in the attack;
If you don't care to support human rights, that is your affair. Just don't try to pretend your position is different from the fascists.
Mohammed Shratkha - serving three life sentences, was the leader of a terrorist cell that captured and murdered Ilan Sa'adon and Avi Sasportas.
Walid Anajas - sentenced to 36 life sentences, was involved in the Cafe Moment bombing in Jerusalem in 2002 and in another terror attack in Rishon Lezion;
Nasser Taima - sentenced to 29 life sentences for the 2002 bombing of a Netanya hotel on Passover which killed 30 people and injured 140;
Yussuf Dhib Hamed Abu Aadi - convicted of stabbing IDF soldier Nir Kahana at the Qalandiya checkpoint in 2005 and sentenced to life in prison;
Nahid Abd al-Rauf al-Fakhuri - recruited suicide bombers in Hebron and was sentenced to 22 years in jail;
Ayad Musa Salem Abayat - convicted of being part of a group that killed IDF soldiers Lt. David-Hen Cohen and Sgt. Shlomo Adshina, and assisting the group that murdered Dvora Friedman in March 2003. He was sentenced to three life sentences;
Tamimi Ahlam - convicted of aiding and abetting the suicide bomber who murdered 15 civilians and wounded 140 in the 2001 Sbarro pizzeria;
We've been through this.
Avi Sasportas was a soldier
Ilan Sa'adon was a soldier
Nir Kahana was a soldier
Why is every armed soldier killed in israels occupation of Palestine a "victim of terrorism"? Why do they all have names? What are the names of the 400 children killed by israel during Cast Lead?
Why can't you address the facts? Too inconvenient for you?
LOL
Kamal Abd al-Rahrnan Arif Awd - convicted of placing a bomb in Netanya in 2001, which was discovered before it exploded was sentenced to 19 years.
Amjad Ahmad Muhammad Abu Arqub - recruited the man who carried out the attack in Carmei Tzur in 2002, in which two civilians and a female soldier was killed, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison;
Kabel Sami Mustafa Sha'abl - aided a suicide bombing at the entrance to the West Bank city of Ariel in October 2002, which resulted in the death of 3 people, sentenced to 25 years;
Massab Hashlemon - sentenced to 17 life sentences for dispatching two suicide bombers to Beersheba;
Chris al-Bandak - convicted of several shooting attacks which claimed the lives of two Israelis and seriously wounded a third in 2002;
Ibrahim Jundiya - sentenced to 12 life sentences for dispatching a suicide bomber to a Jerusalem bus in 2002 which killed eleven bus passengers;
Fadi Muhammad al-Jabaa - sentenced to 18 life sentences for plotting the suicide bombing of a Haifa bus in 2003, in which 17 passengers were murdered;
Maedh Abu Sharakh - convicted of plotting the Haifa bus bombing;
Mazen Muhammad Faqha - who plotted the 2002 suicide bus bombing near Safed, in which nine passengers were murdered and 40 wounded;
I assume then that Gilad Shalit was merely in Palestine handing out flowers?
Maybe you're annoyed it doesn't have a Western spin placed on news originating in the Middle East. Personally find it refreshing and liberating.
As part of the deal mediated by Egypt, Israel is to release another 550 prisoners in two months.
But already, Hamas and Israeli officials disagree over how the prisoners would be selected, suggesting the second phase of the swap could face trouble.
Erm....is it *really* "loaded" to use the term "terrorist" to refer to someone who admittedly targeted and killed civilians, as many of the released prisoners had? I'd thought there was a fair bit of consensus around that usage by now.
Also, it seems passing strange that no mention was made of the fact that the Egyptian interview was conducted in contravention of the fourth Geneva Convention's prohibition on the public exhibition of POWs and the use of such prisoners for propaganda purposes.
Perhaps, in light of that, one be excused for feeling estranged for the humanitarian law point of view after reading Ms. Lupton's article, whatever the slug may have been.
Cheers
Many of the prisoners have operated against armed israeli soldiers at checkpoints and other places. Attacking soldiers who are occupying your land or driving around with guns and tanks like they own the place isn't terrorism.
Why do you appear unable to acknowledge that?