Good journalists unmask the enemy to show the human being. They go abroad to gain knowledge of other cultures, and they are aware of their unique ability to build walls as well as to tear them down.

Israeli soldiers provided wounded Palestinians with medicine at a hospital in Tel Aviv. I was there with my mother, who was ill, and she got help. And I thought: Why are the Palestinian newspapers not reporting this story?”

The speaker is professor in communication Dr. Mohammed Dajani, Al-Quds University. It is a late afternoon in a conference room in Bonn, and he is a part of a discussion panel with the Crossing Borders participants Palestinian Serene Najdi, Israeli Sharon Ringel and Sheera Frenkel on the topic of how journalists can contribute to peace in Israel and Palestine.

“Then I phoned the press”, he continues: “But only one reporter showed up and made a brief report on the incident”.

The panel recognizes the one sided reporting by the Israeli and Palestine press, where each side tends to bring bad news to demonise the enemy and ignore the stories that go against the stereotypes.
 

The power of distance

But it is easier said than done, when you are in a conference room in Germany far away from the conflict in the Middle East, where journalist Sheera works for a newspaper in Jerusalem covering politics:

“When you are in the middle of things you kind of loose the main objectives”, she explains:

“Around a month ago Mahmoud Abbas and Ehud Olmert met for a peace talk”, Sheera says:

“BBC, CNN and Deutsche Welle were there in the front row to report the event as a top story. But the three major Israeli news papers first mentioned the peace talk on pages 4, 5 and 7.That was their priority of the story. But when the editors explained why the peace talk was not on the front page of Israeli papers, they had a good point: They simply knew the political environment at that time all too well to believe, that this was really a peace talk.”

So when the journalists in the conflict zone seems to neglect the positive story, it usually is out of a good will – simply to do their jobs being objective journalists selecting stories and reporting, what they honestly believe to be the truth. But the lack of reflection is underlying the problem.

“When I told this story the other day”, Sheera says: “I got the question: “Why didn’t you write that on the front page: Explaining the reasons for you not believing in the peace talk while the whole world watched it carefully. And that is a good question? I guess nobody thought of it”. And that is also, why Sheera believes that the international meeting between journalists to discuss these issues is the best way to create an awareness that makes it possible for her and others to ask different questions and see untold stories that would break the stereotype.
 

Unmasking the enemy

Going abroad to discuss the daily routines of the media, journalists work in, is one way to break out of the conflict-building stereotypes. Another is by showing the personal stories of the people from the other side of the wall.

And as a journalist in a conflict area this is very important, the panel states. 26 year old Israeli Sharon Ringel, studies history and tells the panel that the meeting in Germany is her first opportunity to meet a Palestinian and actually realise, that they can be her friends. And when you from the Israeli side you expect all Palestinians to be terrorists – the Palestinians only meet the Israelis when they are in uniform:

And from the other side of the fences and walls parting the Israelis and Palestinians Serene Nadji explains how her most memorable meeting with the Israelis where when soldiers once made her leave a bus and threatened to kill her:
 
“But I do not want to think of Israel as just these angry soldiers with guns. As a journalist I want to show their faces and all the other faces of both Israelis and Palestinians”, she says.


The power of choice

And Serene´s personal decision is very important to succeed in peace-making journalism, professor Mohammed Dajani goes on: “If you decide, that this is important – then it becomes important”. Because journalists have the power to decide from reality even though many don’t acknowledge it during everyday work:

“Media should focus more on the personal stories, and on the stories that break the conflict stereotype”, and that can only happen if the journalists decide to do so.

It is not about only writing the good stories. But it is basically about being a good journalist and “promote professionalism”, as professor Dajani puts it: “If the journalists are ignorant and unaware of their importance then the media can become a machine that can create a clash of civilizations.”