Opinion: Media Distortion Of Gaza Conflict

The only democracy in the Middle East is only fighting terrorists? The German media often paints a far too simple, one-sided picture of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, says Loay Mudhoon.



"Hamas officials in their sights," "War against radical Palestinians," "Hate for Hamas," "Israel's war on Hamas." These and similar headlines are how most of the media in Germany have described the latest military confrontation in the Middle East. But that point of view is problematic - for many reasons.



For one thing, it suggests a balance that doesn't really exist, namely: two warring parties are shooting rockets at each other, and the fact that, in the process, innocent civilians are dying on both sides is regrettable, but unfortunately unavoidable. On top of that, the Israeli army's invasion of the Gaza Strip means the conflict has now escalated to a new level.



Mainly Palestinian civilians suffering



The fact that the defenceless civilian population of Gaza is suffering the most in the relentless violence is generally acknowledged. However, this makes no difference to the unrealistic practice of equating the two warring parties.



To avoid any misunderstanding at this point, it should be clearly emphasized that this is not a question of cynically totting up casualty numbers. Every casualty is one too many! And violence should always be rejected as a means of dealing with conflict. But this equation of the two sides leads many Arabs and Muslims to feel that the life of a Palestinian is somehow worth less to the Western media.



Hamas is not al-Qaeda



Secondly, much of the European media describes Hamas exclusively as a "terrorist organization," whose only aim is to indiscriminately kill as many innocent Israeli civilians as possible and propagate a "culture of death." This becomes even more problematic when the Islamist organization, which is only active in the Palestinian Territories, is compared to globally-active terrorists such as those of al-Qaeda.



Of course, Hamas is an ideological branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. But it is also a product of the failure of the peace process and Israel's continuing illegal occupation, under which the Palestinian population has, over decades, become increasingly radicalized. And as well as its armed wing, Hamas also has a more pragmatic political wing, which constitutes the majority of Palestinian parliamentary representatives and has been attempting to negotiate.



More importantly: Israel has negotiated indirectly with Hamas many times in the past, and in doing so achieved sustainable results.



The true heart of the conflict



Thirdly, the German media's perspective on this new spiral of violence is also problematic because its fixation on Hamas as an "irrational and aggressive terrorist organization" reduces the Palestinians' fight for national self-determination to a fight between Israel and terrorists.



This perspective loses sight of the political heart of the Middle East conflict: the Palestinians' fight for a state of their own, with the result that the chance of a two-state solution - still the solution preferred by the international community - recedes still further into the distance.