 Prepared by:  Raghdah Al-Hamed

Background Informati on  Arab Israeli Conflict The Arab-Israeli conflict is one of the most prolonged and bloody conflicts in history. After years of wars between Arabs and Israel, the 'peace process' took place to find a just, fair and lasting peace solution to the conflict in the Middle East. Jordan was the second country to sign a treaty with Israel (sometimes referred to as Wadi Araba Treaty) signed in1994. Cultural Normalization with the Arab countries is one of the paramount points the Israeli party focuses on in their treaties with the Arabs. Their leaders realized the fact that real peace needs pulling out the roots of hatred in people minds and this is not applicable until books, media, and governmental curriculum change the traditional image of Israel as a brutal enemy.

. What Happened to Raed Zuaiter?. On 10th March 2014,,"Raed Zuaiter, a 38 year - old judge at the Amman Court of First Instance, was shot dead by Israeli soldiers on the King Hussein Bridge crossing linking Jordan and the West Bank. Dr. Zuaiter was returning home to Palestine that day when he was murdered by an Israeli soldier since the former refused to accept being shoved and pushed to the ground As a reaction of the crime, a volcano of anger was exploded. Jordan people, lawyers, and media all condemned the provoked murder of an innocent person in addition to violating Wadi Araba Treaty.  

Purpose of the Study The study aims at:  Analyzing the way Al-Ghad newspaper /March 12,2014 refers to “Israel” in the Front Page and Local News section after the murder of the Jordanian judge Raed Zuaiter by the Israeli army on the King Hussein Bridge crossing linking Jordan and the West Bank /March 10,2014.  Investigating the most frequent terms of reference to ‘Israel’ used by the journalists of Al-Ghad in the articles related to the accident.

 Exploring the degree to which Jordanians- presented by journalists in this case- are willing to cultural normalization with Israel which is reflected by the language they use in the journal.  Exploring media bias reflected in the presentation of Israel in Al-Ghad newspaper.

Sample of the Study The researcher is using two articles on News Front Page and twelve more on Local News. This yielded a sample of fourteen articles that discussed the topic of Zuaiter murder. These article are chosen as a representative sample from “Al-Ghad” newspaper to explore how “Israel” is referred to in the print press in light of the murder of judge Zuaiter on 9 th March 2014.

Question of the Study How does Al-Ghad Newspaper refer to “Israel” after the shot of Raed Zuaiter ?( Occupation, Zionists / Zionizm, Enemy/ Enemies, Israel, Entity, aggression, or other??) Are Jordanians-presented by journalists- willing to have relations with Israel or not (Cultural Normalization)? Are journalists of Al-Ghad newspaper biased?

Methedology  The purpose of this study was to determine how Al=Ghad newspaper referred to ‘Israel” in light of murder of Raed Zuaiter. For this reason, a quantitative content analysis was conducted. According to Neuendorf content analysis has been a fast-growing technique in the world of quantitative research (2002: p. 1).  Neuendorf stated that content analysis “may be briefly defined as the systematic, objective, quantitative analysis of message characteristics” (Neuendorf, 2002, p. 1). Content analysis is used in many fields as an effective instrument to achieve research goals. Content analysis has been used as a research tool for many studies on a variety of subjects and topics

Design and Coding For this research, the researcher used the data in Al-Ghad 12 th March 2014 issue. This date was chosen because Raed Zuaiter was shot by the Israeli soldier on 10 th March 2014; two days before the issue to be analyzed which means that the case is still hot and Jordan Street is still reacting towards what had happened. The researcher is using the smallest possible unit “Words” as the unit of analysis in order to explore how journalists in Al-Ghad newspaper state “Israel” in their articles. The unit of analysis for this study was each mention of “Zionists/Zionism” “Israel”, “Enemy/Enemies”, “Occupation”, “ Aggression” and “other”.

These search items were chosen after searching various terms; they yielded the most relevant results relating to the goal of this study. The researcher examined the articles on the Front Page and the Local News sections in Al-Ghad newspaper which deals specifically with Zuaiter murder. After searching the headline in these two sections, the researcher found a population of 14 articles talking about the murder. Next, the researcher started searching and highlighting the unit of analysis “words” that refer to “Israel” in each of the fourteen articles. The number of mentions that were analyzed in this study totaled 158 items.

After coding the units of analysis in a table of seven columns with the main categories of “Zionists/Zionism”, “Israel”, “Enemy/Enemies”, “Occupation”, “ Aggression” and “other”.Moreover, six rows of adjectives like“ Israeli”, “Zionist’ “Usurper” “ brute” and “ None” that might precede the term of reference. Use of adjectives here shows the degree of feeling towards it.

Limitations of the Study The content analysis of this study is limited to the News Front Page and Local News section of 12 th March 2014 release of Al-Ghad newspaper. It is just limited to the articles which deal with the Zuaiter murder.

Findings  This section presents the findings of the analysis in accordance with its question which asks about how” Israel” was stated in Al-Ghad newpaper after 2 days of the murder of Zuaiter on 10 March  The upper table shows that the frequencies ranged between 1 and 67 with percentages ranging between 0.6% and 41%. The “occupation” term has the highest frequency of 67 and percentage of 41%. It occurs either preceded by an adjective like: Israeli, Zionist, brute or alone –preceded by nothing-which is the most frequent reference to Israel. On the other hand, the term “aggression” has the lowest frequency and percentage amongst all as it appears as (the Zionist Aggression).  The journalists’ choice to use the word” Israel” -which is considered neutral in comparison to the other terms – has got a frequency 40 times out of 168 / about 25%. Thus, the proper name “Israel” is the second item in terms of times of occurrence in the articles

“ Enemy/Enemies” got a percentage of 16.8%. 8.1% of this usage comes in accordance with the adjective (Zionist), 7.5% preceded by nothing and 1.25% proceeded by (Israeli). The “Other” named category contains three items ( gangs,Zionist Gangs, Zionist metamorphosis ) each of them occurred once in the text preceded by “Zionist” which makes a percentage of 1.8% Journalists use “Zionist” as an adjective more frequently than they use “Zionists/Zionism” as a noun. The former occurs 28 times in the sample followed by any of the above references to “Israel”, while the latter occurs only 9 times. The most frequent way that “Israel” or any of the other references to it comes in the sample is to be preceded by “None” which means no adjective is used to describe this category. Immediately after “None” comes the use of “Zionist” and “Israeli” respectively.

Discussion 1. It was very interesting to see how much the item of “Occupation” is massively present in the language of journalism. Jordanians still have the belief that “Israel” is the entity which occupied many parts of the Arab World and still occupying Palestine. It needs no discussion that when Arabs in general and Jordanians in specific refer to “Israel” as “Occupation”, it is a refusal to admit the latter’s existence as a legal entity in Palestine. Even in other types of media, many writers, columnists, interviewers, and reporters call Palestine “Occupied Palestine” or sometimes “Occupied Territories”. The item of “Occupation” as it implies a very intensive meaning of negative feeling towards Israel. For this reason, 25% of its occurrences were without being preceded by an adjective. Some journalists refer to it as “Israeli occupation”.

2. The second highest ratio was the use of the item of “Israel” the proper name. For many political parties, referring to Israel as “Israel” is a kind of recognition of the state and its existence; their point is referring to Israel with its proper name is the first step to stop the resistance since there is no resistance without refusal. To me, the journalists do not go that far when they refer to Israel as “Israel”, they simply choose the simplest and shortest way between two lines which are call things with their names 3. Basically, the item ‘ Israel” might be considered “ neutral” at the linguistic level, but apart from it, references to Israel such as “Occupation”, “Zionists/Zionism”, “Enemy”, Entity”, “Aggression” and “Other” which include ( Zionist metamorphosis, Zionist gangs,and Gangs) expressed clearly the extent of rage and anger towards Israel especially the case is still hot. No peace treaties prevented the journalists in Al-Ghad from referring to Israel negatively. Israel is and will always be considered an enemy to the Arabs..

What is Zionism? It is liberation movement of Jewish people. For some ideologists when you refer to Jews as “Zionists, Zionism” you are talking Anti-Semitism. This is just a pro-Israeli opinion to show the world that Arabs are the terrorists and they are the anti-peace side not the Israelis. Murder of Zuaiter reveals despite the Cultural normalization that Israelis looking forward to build relations with the people in surrounding countries; it cannot be attained as long as there is a military occupation in any part of the Arab world. Peace treaties may remove the negative portrayal of Israel as an enemy in the books, school curriculum but cannot stop free journalism from saying where we stand, how we feel and who they are.

Looking at the frequencies and negative references to Israel used by press show the reader how biased the journalists and article writers are. Although bias in journalism is lacking a neutral viewpoint which is unprofessional, but journalists choose to be biased since their attitude towards Israel is a matter of belief, and ideology. So, as the press in the west especially in the States sees that it is not violating the Journalism rules in the obvious bias when discussing the Arab –Israeli Conflict, Arab press is not blamed as well. At least, we still have countries or parts of countries under the Israeli occupation. THANK YOU