Blogpost(3)- In Class Exercise

Israel strikes Gaza after Palestinian militants unleash a barrage of rockets. (2019, May 4). Retrieved from https://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-israel-gaza-strip-20190504-story.html

We are analyzing the Los Angeles Times’ article Israel strikes Gaza after Palestinian militants unleash a barrage of rockets, written by NOGA TARNOPOLSKY, RUSHDI ABU ALOUF.

1. Bias through selection and omission: The article provides terms such as “occupation” only a few times and in a limited manner as the author himself does not recognize how Palestine has been occupied. The only form of establishing the term “occupation” in the article was through a quote given by a Hamas spokesman defending Palestinians in Gaza, as he states: ” (we)will continue to respond to the crimes of the occupation,” and will not allow Israel “to shed the blood of our people.”(TARNOPOLSKY &ABU ALOUF, 2019).
2. Bias through placement: The article strongly presents statistics and context of the Israel- Gaza strike by stating that “Palestinian militias launched more than 250 rockets into southern Israel” (TARNOPOLSKY &ABU ALOUF, 2019).and continues to shed information about the strikes in the next upcoming paragraphs. The authors do not wait until the middle of the article to reveal the extremities of the strike and the statistics of the Palestinian people to Israeli deaths. Additionally, they continue to appeal to the readers’s logos by stating more statistics throughout the article such as:”The Israeli army said its retaliatory airstrikes and tank fire struck more than 120 targets belonging to Hamas”(TARNOPOLSKY &ABU ALOUF, 2019).
3. Bias by word choice and tone: There is a clear bias against Palestinian Sicilians in the article as the authors seem to have a political stance with Israel. They utilize the method of guilt-tripping and psychologically manifesting the idea that Israelis are the ones who have been targeted and have not been violent instead of admitting that the strike from Gaza is a counter-strike. Additionally, when establishing the tone of the article, they depict Israels in fear, while Palestinians as violent they state”innocent civilians and their communities across Israel” (TARNOPOLSKY &ABU ALOUF, 2019).
4. Bias through use of names and titles: There is bias in the title as the authors say “Palestinian militants unleash a barrage of rockets” which reveal that that they were aggressive and combative instead of saying civilians. they revealed bias because they did not do the same when it came to Israel militants.
5. Bias through statistics and crowd counts: There is a bias of the way the authors have used the statistics by utilizing the words “more than” when reporting deaths instead of objectifying the statistics and utilizing exact numbers without added words after or before. For example: “Palestinian militias launched more than 250 rockets into southern Israel from Gaza on Saturday” (TARNOPOLSKY &ABU ALOUF, 2019). This reveals how there were “more than 250 rockets flown into Israel” indicating that the number is a lot. Additionally, when revealing the fear of Israelis during the weekend, they used how “2 million” were seeking shelter.
6. Bias by source control: There is a bias in source control as the authors only use quotes from Palestinian militants for added information that reveal violent language rather than civilians who have endured the pain of the strike. As the authors state:”In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Abdul Latif Qanou said the militant group “will continue to respond to the crimes of the occupation,” and will not allow Israel “to shed the blood of our people.” (TARNOPOLSKY &ABU ALOUF, 2019).Although this reveals nationalism and fights, it also may include strong violent language that could depict Palestinians in that light.
7. Batah’s Observations: US media tends to cover the perspective that reflects the US governments relationship with Israel, which underplayed the Palestinians civilians fears and death by not providing context, limiting sources, omitting information, and not offering proper accountability.
8. Moeller’s four habits: Binary framing- stereotypes the Palestinians as the ones that are “bad” and the Isarelis as the victims. The authors also utilized sensationalized language through the hearings and titles “unleashed.”

9. Bias through headlines:

There is a bias through headline because they tend to victimize Israel by adding violent verbs such as “Palestinians unleash.” The verb “unleash” projects an image of the Palestinians as some sort of violent monsters that are releasing rockets. They shy away from adding context of Gaza striking back as a form of defense, and place Israel in some sort of innocent light in the headline (even though they tend to explain further in detail of the violent war between them in the rest of article)