PECULIARITIES OF COVERAGE OF THE PALESTINIAN-ISRAELI CONFLICT IN THE WORLD MEDIA

Abstract

The article attempts to identify the peculiarities of the coverage of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the world media. The research was based on publications from the websites of three media outlets - «The Washington Post», «The Guardian» and «Al Jazeera». The author talks about the difficulties that journalists may face when covering armed conflicts. Firstly, it is the threats to the physical and mental health of the journalist. Secondly, it is the difficulty of abstracting from one's own preferences in the conflict. Thirdly, it is difficulty in determining the status of the parties to the conflict. The author notes that in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict there are difficulties in determining the status of Hamas, since not all countries in the world consider the group to be terrorists. The article examines the views on the conflict of two high-quality private newspapers - «The Washington Post» and «The Guardian». The intrigue of the position of quality publications is that they are located in the United States and Europe, i.e., they should hypothetically support Israel against the collective Arab world. In fact, both media outlets have maintained a high level of quality and have covered the conflict in a balanced manner. Moreover, the newspapers' coverage is somewhat critical of the Jewish state. While «The Washington Post's» criticism is more of a guess, the Guardian's journalists express it quite frankly and emotionally. When expressing its attitude, an American newspaper must take into account the views of the powerful Jewish diaspora in the United States. As for the Guardian, the newspaper criticizes Israel from the liberal anti-war position of the British and European elite. The state-owned Qatari television company Al Jazeera has long been criticized for its bias and rather open communication with individuals whose activities are considered terrorist by some parts of the world. The intrigue with the Qatari media's coverage of the conflict is whether they will at least try to pretend to be objective to a global audience. In practice, the Arab media's website is falling into outright anti-Israeli and anti-American propaganda. It uses a selection of «correct» sources of information, mockery and manipulation of facts. The author of the article assumes that media workers are well aware of their target audience, which is quite effectively influenced by such publications.