Coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict is, on the whole, better in the UK than the US. Yet, if Britons are as ignorant about the conflict as this study suggests, you know the level of ignorance among Americans is far worse. The relevance of this is of course obvious to those of us involved in the struggle for justice for Palestinians, here in the country that's Israel's paymaster.
-- Sunil
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Palestine issue confuses Britons BBC; June 21, 2004 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3827207.stm ______________________________________________
A new survey has shown that many people in Britain think the Palestinians are occupying Israeli territory and not the other way round.
Despite extensive media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, some Britons think Palestinians are refugees from Afghanistan. The findings come in a study by the Media Group at Glasgow University.
It concludes that television news audiences in Britain are confused about international issues.
And the study says this means it is impossible to have a sensible public debate in the UK about how such issues could be resolved.
Journalists 'nervous'
The bitter conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians receives hundreds of hours of coverage on British television news programmes.
But when the Glasgow media group asked a sample of 300 young people what they knew about it, the response was quite shocking.
Although many of those surveyed had a clear impression of the violence and tragedy involved, most had little understanding of the reasons for the conflict or its historic origins.
The author of the report, Greg Philo, believes there are two main reasons why viewers do not get the background explanation they need.
"First thing is that there is a focus on violence and eye-catching images. And the second thing is that it's all so controversial."
Mr Philo says there is tremendous argument as soon as one starts to raise these kinds of arguments.
"Journalists say to us that they are nervous of raising these kinds of arguments, because they get so much abuse," he says.
"They get hate mail, they get all kinds of people attacking them for being Nazis or anti-Semitic or whatever else."
Need for context
So are Britain's television new programmes letting down their audience by failing to put the daily images of Palestinian suicide bombings and Israeli air strikes in context?
John Simpson - the BBC's world affairs editor and one of Britain's best known television news journalists - says a balance needs to be struck between focusing on new developments and constantly reprising history.
"The fact is, if you're reporting on the news, you're reporting on what is new. And alas, there is nothing new in the basic situation between the Palestinians and the Israelis," Mr Simpson says.
But the veteran journalist acknowledges that maybe "we should be going back over the causes more, and we should be presenting things".
"I don't think that's in a daily news context - I think that's much more in a sort of background reporting, or background documentaries."
However, longer-format documentaries are on the decline in British television, partly because the audiences they get are so small.
Greg Philo says that 80% of the British population depend overwhelmingly on television news programmes for their understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
But until they are given more context, he believes, they will remain ignorant of the realities of the conflict.
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Editor: Sunil K. Sharma
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