Peace, Propaganda, and the Promised Land

Reviewed by Erin Wiegand
06.21.05

The most successful propaganda is the kind that disguises its true nature and passes itself off as mere factual information. Infiltrating and eventually becoming the mainstream media, such propaganda blurs the lines between news, advertising, and public relations strategy. This, according to the documentary Peace, Propaganda, and the Promised Land, is what we’re up against when it comes to piecing together an accurate picture of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Filmmakers Bathsheba Ratzkoff (of the Media Education Foundation) and Sut Jhally (Director of No Logo and Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear, and the Selling of American Empire) examine the ways in which the US media is influenced by Israeli political interests.

Israel’s war has two fronts: one in the occupied territories, and one within the US media. Without this second front, which ensures an ongoing popular support for Israel, the first would be difficult to pull off—the US, after all, provides the means by which Israel is able to accomplish an occupation at all. Since 1949, the US has given $100 billion in aid to Israel, enabling it to build the fourth most powerful military in the world.

While much of the background given will seem simplistic for those familiar with the basic history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the real substance of Peace isn’t its presentation of historical information, but rather its explication of the way the conflict is discussed in the American media. Through news clips and interviews with a wide array of journalists, professors, and activists, we get a detailed picture of the multilayered propaganda that passes for objective news.

When it comes to framing, absence is as crucial as presence. In the case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the context invariably missing from the news is that the occupation—that is, Israel as an occupying force in Palestine—even exists. We very, very rarely see the suffering of Palestinians: Palestinians shot down by Israeli soldiers, homes bulldozed to make way for Israeli settlements. We never see the everyday experiences of Palestinians passing through checkpoints or subjected to curfews. As a result, the events in Palestine and Israel (and elsewhere in the Middle East) become incomprehensible. Complex resistance movements are reduced to “clashes” between stone-throwing Palestinian youth and Israeli soldiers; any sort of Palestinian “aggression” or act of violence is irrational “terrorism.”

It’s this removal of all-important context that allows Israeli strikes against Palestinians to be interpreted as self-defense: A simple, excellent observation made in Peace is that, according to most media reports, Palestinians attack; Israelis retaliate. To further solidify this idea, the media makes clear emotional links between US and Israeli citizens—particularly since the terrorist attacks of 9/11. It’s no wonder that so many Americans easily accept the notion that suicide bombers are full of hatred and a religious fervor that promises them heavenly rewards for their martyrdom.

The American press also obscures the fact that Israeli settlements are a strategy: an attempt to control resources and important locations to eventually annex the land as part of Israel. The film offers a revealing look at the position of the settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, pointing out how their placement ensures Israeli control of resources (especially water resources) and military advantages (hills and high points). Furthermore, Israeli PR efforts have been successful in convincing several networks to employ the word “neighborhood” instead of “settlement.” The destruction of Palestinian homes is presented as a simple enforcement of law: the homes destroyed, the media dutifully reports, were constructed without the proper permits. What is never shown, of course, is the virtual impossibility of Palestinians ever obtaining such permits.

The film also points out that when the US government is criticized, it isn’t for any of its destructive policies but for its failure to “be involved” or for “not playing an active role.” Of course, these criticisms obscure the fact that the US is, inexorably, “involved” in the conflict. Between 1973 and 2001, the US used its veto power in the UN Security Council to derail 33 resolutions designed to slow or halt Israeli settlements and aggression; US politicians frequently state their unequivocal support for Israel and champion its “right to protect itself”; and then, of course, there’s the $6 billion in aid that the US gives to Israel every year, about $3.5 billion of which goes to fund the Israeli military.

Peace presents a few of the institutional filters that “real events” pass through before reaching the public: the economic interests of the owners of US media firms and political elites; actual Israeli PR campaigns, which utilize many prominent American PR firms, Israeli consulates, and lobbying groups; and “watchdog groups” that monitor journalists and editors for “objectivity.” Such groups often organize boycotts of newspapers they feel aren’t objective (read: pro-Israel), or demand that particular reporters be fired.

Unfortunately, a section that should be the focal point of the documentary—exploring how news events are shaped by outside influences—remains far too short, and its analysis is scant. “Economic interest” is a pretty vague explanation for media bias, and proves very little about how and why individual journalists choose the language they use. After all, the bias that creeps into reporters’ speech and dispatches isn’t directly traceable to corporate interests; reporters are often unaware that such interests hold any sway over the final product aired or printed, and certainly over their own writing. A crucial omission from the film is any mention of the current structure of US journalism, which places little value on understanding the language and culture of any non-European region of the world, has a great deal to do with the way in which reporters tell and (unwittingly) spin their stories.

Ratzkoff and Jhally argue that the international press remains largely free of the PR influence exerted over the US media, especially when it comes to reports on Israeli settlements and occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Even suicide bombers, they claim, are presented in a context of occupation and military offensive, humanizing individual suicide bombers and their families.

Unfortunately, the film relies a bit too heavily on dispatches from the BBC to prove the point; reports from the press in other countries, or even from other British news sources, aren’t represented here. The omission isn’t necessarily indicative of a false argument, but it certainly makes it an unconvincing one. The one exception comes from Seth Ackerman (of Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting), who points out that even the Israeli dailies like Ha’aretz contain more criticism of Israel than do American newspapers.

As a final blow, the filmmakers point out Israel’s incredible success in marginalizing the Israeli peace movement, both in Israel and in the US. Officers who refuse to serve in the Occupied Territories, Jews and Arabs working together to dismantle Israeli settlements, Jews helping to construct new Palestinian homes, and Jewish organizations (both in Israel and in the US) fighting for the creation of a Palestinian state are all effectively erased from the public discourse on the conflict. By obscuring dissident Jewish voices—like those of the filmmakers—Israeli PR succeeds in labeling all anti-Israeli talk as anti-Semitic.

As powerful as its arguments are, the film would have benefited from more solid statistics and facts to back up some of its blanket statements. A pretty remarkable statistic claiming only that 4% of news reports even mention the occupation is sourced only by a 2001 FAIR report—and the context is never given. Does that 4% refer to all news reports in 2001? All network television reports? A daily average? A random sample?

Still, Peace, Propaganda, and the Promised Land offers a great starting point for thinking about media misrepresentation of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, and useful analysis of how language is used to manipulate public opinion—without the public ever being aware of it.