Summary: When President Donald Trump announced last week that the US was making a seismic policy shift in the Middle East, officially recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, the fallout was immediate. The bulk of the initial coverage focused on the potential for a violent reaction while barely focusing on the root causes of the anger. "What was focused on was this notion that this could be a bad idea because it was going to instigate all kinds of violence and potentially result in acts of violence against American interests in the region," explains Yousef Munayyer, executive director of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights. And it fits right into a neat little stereotype, widely held outside the region, that the people of the Middle East, Palestinians in particular, have violent tendencies that are just waiting for a news peg to come out. "We're used to the narrative of angry Arab," says Jewish-American Daniel Levy, president of the US Middle East Project. "We're not used to the narrative of the non-violent displays of push back." Relatively few Palestinian voices were granted a media platform to get at the context, the conditions of life under an Israeli occupation that has lasted half a century. "The coverage perpetuates all kinds of stereotypes in terms of how one sees the violence on one side - the Palestinian side ignoring the daily violence inherent in an occupation," says Levy. In a story that is so fiercely disputed, terminology matters. In the same way pictures, images, tend to drive news stories – words, and the way they are used, frame them. "The situation with covering daily oppression of Palestinians comes from the language that the media has constantly used. Jerusalem is not called an occupied city it's just called Jerusalem," points out Palestinian writer Mariam Barghouti. "Illegal, Jewish only settlements are, are called neighbourhoods. Palestinian protests and demonstrations are called riots. Attacking protesters is called dispersing crowds by, by Israel and the media has adopted this. And you see these subtleties become in the reports and the language being adopted as the norm. It's the same language that Israel uses and unfortunately, it has dominated the narrative," says Barghouti. Another factor that can shape news coverage is the choice of what voices the news media turn to – who they put on the air or quote in print. "US media and international media, in general, has constantly and incessantly taken international voices over that of Palestinians. It strips agency of Palestinians and it helps in the denial of the existence of Palestinians," says Barghouti. "This comes from not giving us a voice. It comes from stripping our fate and putting in the hands of analysts or experts that are internationals, that do not live here that do not experience the consequences of Israeli oppression." Contributors: Mariam Barghouti, writer Daniel Levy, president, US Middle East Project Jodi Rudoren, executive director, New York Times Global Yousef Munayyer, executive director, US Campaign for Palestinian Rights
