The New Gaza In the International Media

Gaza has been the icon of struggle since ages, yet today has dramatically grown to be on the focus of the world’s attention more closely after the Great Return March set off six months ago.

In this regard, the IUG Faculty of Arts, Journalism Department, teamed up with the Foreign Media Unit at Al-Thorraya institution, having MR. Alastair Thompson via Skype to talk deliberately about the NEW GAZA, as he called it. In the meeting entitled, “A Blueprint for Reporting A New Gaza”, Mr. Thompson talked about the changes occurred, precisely due to the Great Return march, at the international Media level toward Gaza.

Explaining the title of the meeting, Mr. Thompson, the co-founder of Scoop, reflects on two important things: Understanding Gaza through Context and the role of Media in understanding Gaza locally and internationally.

There is a great shift more than ever before in reporting Gaza and covering the Palestinian issue at the international media level. Many International reports like the CNN mentioned that the events of the Great Return March have become the context that the world could understand Gaza through. Since the GRM began, the position of Gaza has changed and the stories of killing documented by videos, pictures, and Palestinian Health Ministry reports have led to a clear shift and higher progress in understanding the nature of Israeli- Palestinian struggle around the globe. If there was an Israeli-biased international media last wars, it’s no longer been there after having a 24-hours Palestinian coverage on what’s really going on every Friday on the borders. This in– the- moment coverage vividly got Gaza topped headlines and many humanitarian stories could be reached to more people, so the world started looking by a neutral eye and the Israeli narration hit a lower point.

On the other scale, Mr. Thompson put the international media on focus and stood on the tactics journalists used in reporting Palestine “in the age of stupid”, as he called it. More illustration, there’s been a cancerous plight in the media practices in the USA and Europe since Trump jumped into power; a bad propaganda and fake narratives always support the Israeli side. Despite we live in the age of stupid, the real image of the struggle between Israelis and Palestinians is convincing and the GRM effects are wide spreading even in the USA. Due to this, many officials in the USA have advocated the Palestinian issue, Germy Carbon is one of them, and he has been accused of anti-Semitism, as a result.

At the closing moments of the meeting, MR. Thompson recommended the Palestinian media activists to:

1-      Keep telling their stories effectively.

2-       Increase the joint media work.

3-      Separate the governmental media work from the public media work.

4-      Change the traditional narration of Gaza.

5-      Add the humanitarian nature on the stories rather than the military ones.