Peri, Yoram.
Israel Studies, Volume 12, Number 1, Spring 2007, pp. 79-102 (Article)
Relations between the media and military affairs, or the media and the
security field, have been dramatically altered since 1973 and even more so
since the early 1990s. Media outlets have transformed from subservient
and deferential into a confrontational model, and the military ceased to be
a “sacred cow”. If, in the past, the media were only as a tool of the state,
they have seemingly also been regarded as reflecting society and individu-
als. However, a deconstruction of media and news media texts reveals deep
structures that have not changed. As in the past, so in contemporary time,
the media continue to be a major agent in the development of the Israeli
military ethos. They play a significant role in the construction of the image
of the enemy (be it the Arabs, the Palestinians, or Gentiles at large). They
nourish the positive image of the Jewish hero and of war ethos. They trans-
fix macht (power) values and contribute to the construction of the gender
structure of Israeli society. Eventually they nourish the aspired model of
a warring society. Therefore, as research of civil military relations in Israel
historically focused on the modes by which the media assisted the survival
of a besieged society under conditions of prolonged war, while keeping its
democratic spirit, this chapter will demonstrate how the media restrained
the development of civilian ethos and impeded the development of a
post-war society in spite of the accelerating decolonization process.
79
80 • isr ael studies, volume 12, number 1
The summer of 2000 heralded a dramatic change in Israeli society. The col-
lapse of the Camp David summit, followed by the outbreak of the second
Intifada, marked the end of a decade which had seen the rising expectation
that a hundred years of Israeli-Palestinian conflict might come to an end.
Israeli society had regarded the peace process, or the Oslo process, as the
82 • isr ael studies, volume 12, number 1
apparatus in the face of a military struggle, which was set forth in existential
terms ones of life and death. The ethno-national view again rose to the fore,
in a post-territorial version (a version which elevates ethnic cohesion above
control over territories) and the warring society concept was adopted.
Nations at war tend to look askance at dissent. Quite a few peacetime
liberties, including ones which are constitutionally enshrined, are no longer
taken for granted and are offered little protection by the courts. War, after
all, requires warriors to display perseverance and discipline, not to ques-
tion their superiors. This view—expressed by Supreme Court Justice Oliver
Wendell Holmes in the case of Schenck v. United States (1919)—resurfaced
as the War on Terror was gathering momentum, even before and certainly
after American’s invasion of Iraq.16 Indeed, freedom of expression, freedom
of the press, and the public’s right to know have always been the first victims
when a democracy engages in war—all the more so in a war that is not
waged thousands of miles away across the ocean, but very close to home,
in the cafes and shopping centers of the capital.
It is hardly surprising, therefore, that when confronted with a choice
between security needs and freedom of expression, a high percentage of
Israelis always preferred the former.17 In 1995, 41% of the Israelis agreed
with the general statement: “The slightest threat to the security of the state
is enough to justify serious restriction of democracy.”18 In another survey,
a representative sample of Israeli society was asked whether freedom of
expression in the media contributes to or endangers national security; 38.8%
thought it contributed to security, while 61.2% thought the opposite. It
is “security considerations” that account for the high rate of respondents
(46.4%) who thought that freedom of expression in Israel was excessive,
while only 7.1% thought there was too little of it. (A narrow plurality, 46.5%,
thought the amount of freedom was sufficient.)19
There is little wonder that this pattern was repeated in 2001, within
months of the outbreak of the new intifada, with 74% of the public favoring
greater self-restraint on the part of journalists at a time of national crisis
and greater consideration for the perceived national interest. A mere 23%
supported the notion that journalists should base their reporting on profes-
sional considerations. Approximately two-thirds of the public felt that the
media should accept restraints and defer any criticism of the government;
only one-third thought that they should continue to criticize the govern-
ment even in times of crisis.20
Two years later, and still at the height of the Intifada, 73% of the
respondents in a national sample replied that democracy could not exist
without free media. By the same token, however, approximately half of
84 • isr ael studies, volume 12, number 1
the respondents felt the Israeli media had too much freedom; 70% favored
the notion that the media should refrain from reporting “incidents” in the
Palestinian territories which might be detrimental to Israel’s reputation
overseas, suggesting that freedom of the press was secondary to a matter of
public relations.21
The media are the Israelis’ main agent of meaning with regard to the Arab
world. But what are their sources of information on this world and who
shapes their perception of issues that are so important to the existence of
the Israelis? For many years, the IDF was the chief source of information for
Israeli journalists. In the early decades of the State, the availability of infor-
mation on the Arab states was limited and slow, while the IDF provided
the Israeli press with files of information from the Arabic media, compiled
by its intelligence-gathering agency. Even after 1967 and the revolution in
86 • isr ael studies, volume 12, number 1
Pack Journalism
Journalists In Uniform
Like most other civilians, journalists, too, are subject to military reserve
call-up; quite a few end up serving in the military press office. In the past,
numbers used to be even higher. Serving as PR officers for the military is
bound to influence the journalists’ attitudes to security matters when they
take off their uniform and return to their work in their respective news
organizations. One manifestation of that was evident in 1991 in a televi-
sion debate about the role of the media during the first Gulf War, when
Ma’ariv editor Ido Dissenchik declared: “I am first of all an Israeli and an
IDF reserve officer, and only than a newspaper editor.”
In previous wars writers and intellectuals were also drafted by the
military press handlers. Their wartime experiences, in the Six Day War, for
instance, not only affected the way they covered the battles but also shaped
their political outlook on issues that emerged as a result of this war. Many
of them were carried away by the historic reunion with the beloved moth-
erland, swept up in the national pathos, and became ardent supporters of
political attitudes which would in time cause them embarrassment.26
88 • isr ael studies, volume 12, number 1
The IDF’s influence on the Israeli media stems from the fact that it serves
as the major training college for journalists. For many years, Army Radio,
Galei Zahal, was the biggest and most productive school of journalism in
Israel, followed closely by the IDF journal, Bamahane. Dozens of journal-
ists, editors, and anchors as well as producers, who reached the peak of the
Israeli media in all the news organizations, had done their military service
in IDF media organizations. After their mandatory service, many fulfilled
their reserve duty in the same units, keeping up their professional and social
contacts, and thus the old boys’ network continued to influence them over
the years. Added to this are the people who went through the socializa-
tion process in military media organizations and became key figures in the
worlds of culture and politics.27
Methods Of Influence
Concealment
I am afraid of peace. I think that from the point of view of the Jewish and
Israeli nation, peace in the next ten years would entail many hazards. I had
spoken about this even before I saw Jews entering the West Bank, but with
our demographic structure today half of the Israelis are ‘second class Israelis’
possessing a Levantine background. If we can travel to Beirut for a vacation,
it involves great danger. We need indeed to get there, but not to dictate peace
but to force a resolution . . . to break the enemy’s ability to defeat us.29
Ten years later, when peace talks began with Egypt, Defense Minister Ezer
Weizmann asked CGS Mota Gur to sketch a peace map for Israel. Gur
refused, although he was given an explicit order by the minister, replying:
“I will not draw such a map, and I recommend that you do not draw any
map of peace borders. We must not present a map pf peace borders to the
90 • isr ael studies, volume 12, number 1
American Secretary of State who asked for it, and we must not present it
at the Geneva Conference.” And what was the CGS’s explanation? There
is no need to present a peace map because we don’t need peace at all now.
“The aim of the state of Israel, and of world Zionism, was and will be to
gather most of the Jewish nation in Israel. For this purpose we must go on
building an infrastructure of settlement, industry, government, and military
in all the areas that we consider vital for the fulfillment of Zionism. The
better we build this infrastructure, the more the final borders will be firmly
established and accepted by all the parties to the conflict, by agreement or
by force.”30
The CGS also had another argument against peace. In a discussion
with the Defense Minister on December 17, he said: “So long as the war and
the tension go on there is a social melting pot in Israel. The moment it stops
the melting pot will disappear. In my opinion the melting pot will come
to a premature end if there is peace now. We can build much more and
only later reach a final resolution concerning the borders and the relations
between us and the Arabs.”31 Gur’s attitude was known to the journalists
who were close to him, but it didn’t occur to them to share this knowledge
with their readers. Instead, they went on repeating the conception that
the IDF was not involved in politics, and also that it was the Arabs who
were not interested in reaching a settlement, so Israel had no partner for
negotiations.
A comparative analysis of the coverage of the first Intifada by Israeli
television and by international television networks illustrates the fact that
the Israeli TV avoided showing basic information on what was happening
in the territories. From time to time, material on IDF actions, the various
government authorities, or the settlers, was published in official reports
(e.g., the Karp report in the 1980s, the Sasson report at the beginning of
the present decade) or in books,32 but these were exceptional cases. Docu-
mentaries (such as one showing what happens at the checkpoints) do not
reach the national media channels but only niche channels (such as channel
8) or alternative outlets (e.g., cinematheques). And when they are aired on
the national media, as happened with Haim Yavin’s TV series on the set-
tlers (2005) the Israeli audience reacts with surprise and shock despite the
fact that anyone who seeks information can easily get it through alternative
channels.
Intractable Conflict and the Media • 91
Silencing
Word Laundering
demarcation lines between the political and military echelons are blurred,
with the civilian echelon going as far as involving itself in micro-manage-
ment of the military (as happened in the US) or the reverse, the military
gains strength at the expense of the political leadership (as happened in
Israel).35
Wars tend to challenge democratic liberties and make their defense
ever more difficult, but the blurring of boundaries that characterizes limited
conflict increases these difficulties yet more. Since it is a struggle against
clandestine terrorist organizations, intelligence plays a crucial part in the
war, and since the battle is waged to change the minds of the adversary’s
civil society, it is a war between narratives. For this reason the USA Senate
so willingly adopted the Patriot Act, which has curtailed some civil rights.
The same happened in other democracies, such as Britain and Australia,
USA allies in the invasion of Iraq.
Particularly detrimental to free speech and free press is IDF’s openly
proclaimed goal of remolding the state of mind of Palestinian civilian soci-
ety. An author of Israel’s new security doctrine, CGS Ya’alon, stated openly
that the IDF was waging a struggle to “embed in Palestinian conscious-
ness” the realization that the price of insurgency is so high that continued
violence is no longer worth pursuing. There are, however, two sides to this
coin. Reshaping an adversary’s consciousness requires “the media [not only]
to fire psychological bullets” at the enemy. It is as vital to influence the entire
“theater of conflict,” that is to say, to shape perceptions of civilian society
in Israel proper: to deepen its belief in its rightness and to secure domestic
accord. Discord and excessive disagreements in the home front are likely to
erode unity from within and send a signal of weakness to the enemy.36
In and of itself, utilization of mechanisms of representation, socializa-
tion, and propaganda, during wartime is hardly a ground-breaking notion.
New here, however, is the IDF’s quest for full partnership in the process
of shaping civilian consciousness, a role hitherto assigned to civilians. In
pursuit of its newly-claimed role in the battle for minds, the IDF has now
restructured its public relations work, expanded the Spokesperson’s Unit,
and redefined its tasks and mode of operation. For the first time ever, the
IDF was now placing considerations of publicity and image-making on a
par with other elements of operational planning. The supportive media
appeared unperturbed by the role they were assigned in reporting the
Intifada, and carried it out in the belief that displays of patriotism were
necessary.
94 • isr ael studies, volume 12, number 1
In the first decade of the 21st century the media stood firmly by the govern-
ment. With the aim of broadening the national consensus, the media set off
to propagate the Israeli national narrative and minimize the effect of that
of the Palestinians. Other meaning-making systems rallied to help the IDF
win the battle for people’s minds. Just as the Hebrew University cancelled
courses on Palestinian society when the second Intifada broke out, “because
the time is not appropriate,” newspaper editors refrained from carrying
Hebrew translations of articles by Palestinian writers.37
Media outlets, however, did not stop airing opinions critical of the IDF.
Once the level of terrorist attacks declined in the course of the Intifada’s
third year, there was a marked increase in the number of articles questioning
the military’s mode of operation, its conduct in the Palestinian territories,
its decision-making, and the actions of individual army units. In the latter
category, media reports alleged the abuse of corpses by soldiers and the
excessive use of lethal force against Palestinian children.
The apparent contradiction between rallying around the flag on the
one hand, and criticizing the military to the extent of damaging to the flag
on the other, may in fact not be a contradiction at all. By way of solving the
quandary we need to distinguish instrumental control from fundamental
control. Under the former, the media play the role of loyal insiders whose
criticism is intended to reinforce the prevailing order, not to challenge
it. Under the latter, the media position themselves as outsiders willing to
question not mere failed practices but the very policy assumptions which
made those failures possible in the first place. It is the difference between
a facilitator of the national security doctrine and a detractor. The former
uses considerations of effectiveness while the latter examines the basic
assumptions of the security doctrine, such as self-reliance, self-defense, and
perception of the just war.
Media scholars, such as Daniel Hallin and Lance W. Bennett, who
addressed the media’s criticism during wartime, conceived of the indexing
model. They argued that when media systems assume a critical attitude, the
degree of freedom that they allow themselves reflects the range of opinions
existing among decision-makers, and in all events they will not deviate from
the range of dominant ideologies.38
This explanation lowers the evaluation of the media’s autonomy in
polyarchic regimes. A comparison of journalists with intellectuals as agents
of meaning may be helpful. Both take part in the struggle to determine
Intractable Conflict and the Media • 95
agreement will leave in its possession the greatest portion of territory west
of the River Jordan.
The Palestinian struggle against Israel’s existence has little interna-
tional legitimacy; which is why the Palestinians make an enormous effort to
describe their struggle as a war solely intended to extricate themselves from
the yoke of Israeli occupation. Equally, there is no international legitimacy
for Israel’s war of territorial expansion, which is why Israel chooses to portray
the war as self-defense against a terrorist onslaught bent on destroying it.
Since the outbreak of the Intifada, the Israeli media have joined in the
effort to describe the war as having only one face, a struggle for national
survival, “the battle for our home.” For this reason, footage showing the
colonial aspect of Israel’s presence in the territories rarely hits the television
screen. TV reporters do not show the behavior of the settlers, the actions of
the army, or the suffering of the Palestinians. That is why techniques of con-
cealment, silencing, distortion, and word laundering are being used. Anyone
defying the restrictions and attempting to shed light on the real situation in
the territories is seen as damaging the national narrative and undermining
national resolve and strength. They are regarded as unpatriotic.
One example of this is Israel’s self-perception as a hapless victim at the
receiving end of the conflict, while the Palestinians are the instigators and
the aggressors, the incorrigible enemies of an otherwise perfectly acceptable
status quo. To the extent that Israel engages in violent activity it is but a
response to unprovoked Palestinian violence. The Palestinians, on the other
hand, view the status quo as an unacceptable perpetuation of aggression
which Israel originally unleashed. They merely respond to Israel’s unlawful
seizure of and continued presence on their land. We are not concerned here
with historical verdicts on right and wrong, but rather in how the media
construct the narrative. I would argue that the Israeli media present the
Israeli side almost exclusively, while ignoring, concealing, silencing, and
denying the other narrative.
A study of the very term occupation could help us navigate through
the intricacies of the struggle over the narrative. Noteworthy is the absence
of the term “occupation” from the political vocabulary. Not until the late
1990s had the term been invoked by mainstream media outlets and even
then it was used only by some representatives of the Israeli left. The hege-
monic concept was dominant in major media outlets—three television
channels, two radio stations, and two mass circulation tabloid newspapers.
Few reporters or commentators dared employ the term “occupation.” The
other approach found an outlet mainly in alternative channels, local papers,
certain small political journals, and Internet sites.
Intractable Conflict and the Media • 99
Notes
17. Asher Arian, Security Threatened: Surveying Israeli Opinion on Peace and War
(Tel-Aviv, 1999) 228–229 [Hebrew].
18. Yochanan Peres and Ephraim Yaar-Yuchtman, Between Consent and Dissent:
Democracy and Peace in the Israeli Mind ( Jerusalem, 1998) 238 [Hebrew].
19. See Ephraim Ya’ar, “Who is afraid of a free press?” Israeli Democracy, Winter
(1990) 19. In another study that was conducted in the same year, the public was
also asked a specific question concerning the publication of articles or photographs
showing IDF soldiers abusing Palestinians in the territories. The respondents were
asked: “Do you think that publication of such things should be forbidden because
they damage Israel’s image, or that they should be published because that is how
to fight against this phenomenon?” Here, too, there was a similar distribution of
answers: one-third of those queried (34%) thought the articles and photographs
should be published, while two-thirds (63%) opposed publication of them. Figures
are from a survey by the Dahaf Institute, which examines attitudes on issues that
may involve conflicts of interest between security needs and democratic values;
February 1990, unpublished.
20. Martin Sherman and Shabtai Shavit, “Media and national security: the role
of the Israeli press in the eyes of the public,” in Udi Lebel, Security and Communi-
cation: The Dynamics of the Interrelationship (Beer-Sheva, 2005) [Hebrew].
21. “Measure of public trust in the media,” Report 1, Herzog Institute, May
2004.
22. Zeev Schiff, “Information in the grip of security,” in Benjamin Neuberger
and Elan Ben-Ami (eds), Democracy and National Security in Israel (Tel-Aviv, 1996)
484–490 (Hebrew).
23. Moshe Tamir, War without a Sign (Tel-Aviv, 2005) [Hebrew].
24. For the interview with Danny Rubinstein, see http://www.keshev.org.il
January 2006.
25. Gaye Tuchman, “Making news by doing work: Routinizing the unexpected,”
American Journal of Sociology, 79 (1973) 110–131.
26. Michael Keren, The Pen and the Sword (Tel-Aviv, 1991) [Hebrew].
27. A partial list of these journalists includes Erez Tal, Avri Gilad, Allon ben
David, Geulah Even, Yaron Dekel, Tal Berman, Yaakov Eilon, Yonit Levy, Udi
Segal, Elana Dayan, Gil Tamari, Alon Shalev, Rafi Man, Chilik Sarid, Arieh Golan,
and Davi Gilboa. Some examples of the second group are Nahman Shay, Ron Ben
Yishai, Yitzhak Livni, former minister Yosef Paritsky, Knesset Member Inbal Gavri-
eli, and Shinui party head, Ron Levental. On the Security network see Oren Barak
& Gabriel Sheffer, “Israel’s ‘Security Network’ and its impact: An explanation of a
new approach,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, 38 (2006) 235–261.
28. Moshe Negbi, Paper Tiger (Tel-Aviv, 1985) [Hebrew].
29. Amir Oren, “Halutz’s second blow,” Ha’aretz, March 17, 2006.
30. Mordechai Gur, Chief of Staff (Tel-Aviv, 1998) 349 [Hebrew].
31. Ibid., 352.
32. Idith Zertal and Akiva Eldar, Lords of the Land (Tel-Aviv, 2005) [Hebrew].
102 • isr ael studies, volume 12, number 1