Immediately after the Hamas terrorist organization murdered 1,300+ Israeli civilians on October 7, the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association (AMEJA) issued “guidance to help newsrooms more accurately and critically cover issues related to Israel and Palestine.”
These guidelines included countless inaccuracies and parroted Hamas’ talking points. Rather than provide the “historical context and nuance” that it set out to do, this media resource guide vilified the Jewish state, excused the worst mass murder of Jews in a single day since the Holocaust, and legitimized a terrorist organization.
The bombing of the Al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital on October 17 by an errant Islamic Jihad rocket is emblematic of the dangers of utilizing Hamas talking points as legitimate sources. Their propaganda accusing Israel of deliberately targeting the hospital by air strike was quoted extensively and without verification by international media. These dangerous accusations have now introduced doubt in the minds of media consumers, and even some journalists, despite the overwhelming evidence that it was an Islamic Jihad rocket that misfired and struck the hospital courtyard.
Media watchdog HonestReporting issued a set of counter guidelines to explain why AMEJA’s recommendations should be disregarded and discredited:
1. AMEJA: Remember the broader context of Palestinian-Israeli relations and how they tie into the events you’re currently covering.
Response: This is a gross misrepresentation of facts that label Israel as an “occupier” that mistreats Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza and inside its borders. Israel is not an occupying power. Palestinians – or Israeli Arabs – who live within the internationally recognized borders of Israel are Israeli citizens. They are represented in Knesset, on the Supreme Court, and across industry sector leadership. They enjoy freedoms denied to their brethren living under the yolk of the PA and Hamas. Palestinians who live in the West Bank or Gaza are not Israeli citizens. They are subjects of their own corrupt governments.
Related Reading: ‘Apartheid’ Myth: The Improper Use of False and Misleading Claims Regarding Israel
2. AMEJA: Be aware, also, of the current context.
Response: No amount of context can explain or excuse a cross-border raid targeting women, children and the elderly. FULL STOP.
The 1,300 murdered in no way provoked the attack upon them.
Hamas and Hezbollah have indicated that they planned this attack in coordination with Iran.
AMEJA cites Israeli “raids” on West Bank cities and calls Israeli settlers “colonists” who attacked Palestinians. But in the months leading up to the October 7 massacre, more Israelis had been murdered in acts of Palestinian terrorism than at any point since 2008. 2022-23 was already gearing up to be the most deadly period for Israelis since then. It is this increase in terror that prompted Israel to mount counter-terror raids into Palestinian cities such as Jenin and Nablus to arrest wanted terrorists, particularly as the Palestinian Authority’s own security services have lost control of these areas.
Israel is not a colonial power, and Israeli citizens living in the West Bank do not constitute colonists.
Related reading: In-depth Look: Inside the West Bank & Israel’s ‘Settlements’
3. AMEJA: Avoid “both sides” framing. Recognize the power imbalance between Israel and the Palestinian people.
Response: Hamas, and other terrorist organizations in Gaza, are not governed by the same values or adherence to international law that Israel is. The Palestinians have military-grade weaponry from Iran, North Korea, and Russia that is employed indiscriminately against Israeli civilians. They use urban warfare and guerrilla tactics to fight at an advantage against Israel’s more modern military. Their “dumb” bombs are even more dangerous as they are fired without any sort of precision, at civilian population centers. A significant number of these bombs misfire or fall short within their own territory, killing innocent Palestinians as well.
The October 7 massacre demonstrated that Hamas is fully capable and well-armed enough to cause significant damage. They attacked soldiers with RPGs that made those soldiers abandon tanks, after which Hamas shot and kidnapped them.
4. AMEJA: Be precise in your reporting of casualties.
Response: AMEJA wants journalists to emphasize Palestinians’ deaths. But being precise in your reporting of casualties means detailing when civilians are killed vs. those who are members of terrorist organizations and/or engaged in terrorist activity at the moment of their death. In Israel’s case, the casualties are almost always civilians. In the Palestinians’, it is almost always terrorists or those engaged in violence.
Related reading: The Missing Terrorists: Media Vague & Uninformative in Reporting on Palestinian Deaths
5. AMEJA: Be mindful of Israel’s continued blockade of Gaza.
Response: Israel fully disengaged from Gaza in 2005, removing every single Israeli civilian and soldier. Hamas took over in 2007 and started raining rockets into Israel, which led to the joint Israeli-Egyptian blockade. Everything – except for dual-use materials – is allowed into Gaza. If Hamas didn’t misappropriate those materials for rockets, there would be no blockade. Nevertheless, at the point this war broke out, at least 15,000 Gazans had work permits to enter Israel daily for work. They brought back much-needed cash to the Strip. Thanks to Hamas, they can no longer do this.
Related Reading: The Gaza Blockade: An Explainer
6. AMEJA: Replace “eviction” and “real-estate dispute” with “expulsion.”
Response: While this guideline refers to Jerusalem, it echoes the media’s tendency to refer to Palestinian displacement woes also in Gaza and the West Bank. Conflict should not be framed in terms of Israel being a colonialist state. Jews have lived in Israel for 3,000 years, and those in exile returned to their homeland to establish an internationally recognized state. Suggesting Israel is driving out the land’s “natives” is a false charge which also stands in stark contrast to data pointing at Arab population growth. In Gaza, Israel’s recent call to residents to evacuate south was aimed at avoiding civilian casualties. Israel issued the same such calls to its own civilians living along the Gaza periphery and in northern communities near Lebanon.
Related reading: Beyond Biased Headlines: Disproving the Israel ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ Charge
7. AMEJA: Avoid the word “clashes” in favor of a more precise description.
Response: A more precise description would include violent Palestinian rioters hurling Molotov cocktails and attempting to murder Israeli troops, who are then forced to respond. The Israeli security forces are often depicted as the aggressors while they are actually those trying to maintain order and security. This was apparent, for example, in the coverage of recent al-Aqsa riots. Similarly, media rarely report on Israeli victims but instead start their stories at the point of Israeli response thereby employing the false “cycle of violence” description or describing events as “tit-for-tat.” This creates the impression of moral equivalency between Palestinian terror and Israeli response.
Related reading: Did Israeli Police “Storm Al-Aqsa Mosque”?
8. AMEJA: Double-check “official” sources, whether from governments or the military. If no evidence is provided for a claim, tell that to your readers, high up in your story. Also, be careful in how attributions of statements or claims are made.
Response: Be sure to include that the Gaza health ministry is Hamas, and the Gaza electric company is Hamas, etc. There is no equivalence between the statements of a terrorist organization and those of an Israeli official. Note that the media frequently take Hamas (“Gaza Health Ministry”) statistics at face value while requiring extensive, independently verified proof for Israeli statistics. The October 17 bombing of Al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital is a perfect example of the media rushing to publish Hamas’ account of an Israeli airstrike against a hospital without waiting to verify details. The media were quick to condemn Israel, despite evidence emerging that it was a misfired Islamic Jihad rocket that actually hit the hospital, killing hundreds of civilians.
9. AMEJA: Interview Palestinians. Your story is always incomplete without them.
Response: Apparently AMEJA does not think it’s necessary to include Israeli talking heads in coverage of the conflict. The hidden message of this malicious guideline is to ignore the Israeli point of view. It suggests that Israeli voices need “balancing” because they misrepresent the facts that only Palestinian voices can accurately convey. This is how media outlets, in the name of fairness and balance, give a platform to voices trying to sanitize the October 7 atrocities perpetrated by Hamas.
10. AMEJA: Be cognizant of how you’re identifying Palestinians. Ask the people you’re interviewing how they want to be described.
Response: Terrorists? Members of Hamas’ armed wing? Or maybe freedom fighters? There should be no whitewashing of the identity of those who are members of a proscribed terror group, nor those who represent it in Gaza’s various government ministries. To take it further, Gazans should be identified as people who won’t say anything publicly against Hamas, whose brutal reign has made life miserable for millions of Palestinians. As for Arab citizens of Israel — using the term “Palestinians” is politically loaded and historically false. Media outlets should reflect a person’s factual position, not their identity politics.
11. AMEJA: Check in on your staffers of Arab and Middle Eastern descent, especially those who may be personally impacted by the situation.
Response: This is the naked truth. AMEJA doesn’t care about the well-being of Israeli and/or Jewish staffers, who may have been severely affected by recent events. It is implied that AMEJA would have preferred media to run news operations without the nuisance of having to deal with them – they skew the facts, and their compatriots’ voices should be silenced (see article 9). This line of thinking borders on racial selectivity in the workplace.
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