Shai Ben-Tekoa, a Jewish expert on Israeli-Palestinian conflict, said he feels the media's coverage of the issue has been slanted, when he addressed an ASU mass communication class on Thurs-day.
Ben-Tekoa worked on assignment for then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir in 1991.
He said the bias is one of several problems afflicting today's mass media. He added that another problem is a lack of cultural awareness by foreign correspondents of the countries on which they are reporting.
Ben-Tekoa spoke as a guest lecturer for Dennis Russell's "Media Issues in American Pop Culture" class, which scrutinizes the societal impact of the ideas disseminated by the mass media.
Ben-Tekoa said the media's recent portrayal of Israel has "switched" to the degree at which Israelis are seen as "bad guys" keeping Palestinians from having their own state.
"Today when you read about this bloodshed, which never stops, you are reading about the Israeli empire that is refusing to allow this little ancient people from having their state," said Ben-Tekoa, who lives in Israel.
He also said Israelis are dealing with "a false reality" created by the international media where they are portrayed as the aggressor in the conflict.
He said this is accomplished through the use of "a vocabulary of catch words and catch phrases ... loaded with political significance."
Ben-Tekoa called the series of suicide bombings since July 2000 "mass murders" that have been labled as "activities of activists" or "militants" by the media.
Ben-Tekoa also discussed what he described as the international media's "ignorance of other cultures," which keeps them from picking up on certain contextual clues.
"It behooves [reporters] to learn the language and the history and the culture of the area they are reporting on," Ben-Tekoa said.
"Without this knowledge, you cannot cover the truth," he added.
The discussion became heated when, during a question-and-answer session following the speech, one unidentified female student said she believed Ben-Tekoa's speech was "one-sided" and that he depicted Israel as "helpless" in the conflict.
She also said the nation has "slaughtered Palestinians" and accused it of "killing innocent women and children."
"You're making Israel sound like they're so helpless when they've got weapons of mass destruction and the Palestinians really have nothing except suicide bombers," she said.
Ben-Tekoa responded by saying Israel has neither slaughtered Palestinians nor used WMDs against them.
The argument escalated to the point where both Ben-Tekoa and the student were shouting at each other. The student appeared to be upset by Ben-Tekoa's comments and left the classroom.
Not all of the response to Ben-Tekoa's speech was negative. Journalism senior Christina Chomut said Ben-Tekoa's speech was informative, yet "somewhat biased, but rightfully so."
"He's an Israeli, so I think through his experiences and the things he's had to go through, this is what he feels he needs to let people know about," Chomut said.
Ben-Tekoa, whose commentary has appeared in The Wall Street Journal and the National Review, was on a speaking tour of the United States; he already has addressed groups in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York. He was in the Valley to speak at the Temple Chai synagogue in Phoenix.
Reach the reporter at benjamin.leatherman@asu.edu.
