In late July, Ziad al-Bandak, an adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas made an official visit to the Auschwitz Holocaust memorial to pay respect to the million-and-a-half victims of the camp, most of whom were Jewish.
However, a majority of media outlets in Israel and elsewhere around the world only reported on the event a few days after it had occurred, following condemnation of Bandak’s visit by the Hamas movement and the Union of Palestinian Communities and Associations in Europe. Many Palestinians viewed the visit as an ill-timed event, in light of the stagnation in the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.
Thus, unfortunately, what was deemed newsworthy was not that a senior Palestinian official had chosen to pay his respects to Jewish victims of the Holocaust, but rather the extreme criticism directed against the event by two particular groups, and the fact that Hamas called the Holocaust a “big lie” in response to the Bandak visit.
The question is why was the visit itself not regarded as newsworthy by most media outlets, while the sensationalist and negative angle provided by Hamas’ condemnation of the Palestinian initiative was?
Only Israel’s Haaretz newspaper and daily Forward ran stories on the visit itself. The Haaretz coverage included a segment of a speech given by the Palestinian Ambassador to Poland Salah Abdel-Shafi in July 2012, in which he stated that “the Holocaust is the greatest crime in history.” It also described of a 2007 visit to Auschwitz by another Abbas representative, Khaled Naef Ghazal Soufan, along with Israel’s Ambassador to Poland David Peleg. During that visit, the diplomats spent three hours at the memorial in a “joint act of reflection on the Holocaust.”
Had other media outlets focused on the visit itself in their initial stories, readers would have been surprised to hear that Bandak accepted an invitation to visit Auschwitz from a private Polish foundation that promotes tolerance. They would also have understood that his visit was not the first time that a Palestinian government official visited the site and, more importantly, that there are those in the Arab world, such as Bandak, who view the Holocaust as one of the most potent examples of human tragedy.
If more media outlets had covered the story in that manner it could have impacted readers’ perceptions in a positive way – in the same way, in fact, that negative stories reinforce negative opinions. Imagine if more individuals had read a positive report about the visit initially, and then heard the condemnation a few days later by certain Palestinian groups. They might have concluded that while there are those in Palestinian society who may refuse, for political reasons, to honor the memory of those who died during the Holocaust, there are also others who recognize it for the tragedy that it was.
This is a striking example of how the perception of a given event is ultimately shaped by media coverage. In other words, depending on how the media outlet “sells” the story, its coverage of an event can and does reinforce positive as well as negative opinions about the “other.”
By focusing on those who denounced Bandak’s visit to Auschwitz – which is the ultimate symbol of Jewish victimhood – the message to the reader was a simple one: This is yet another example of anti-Israel sentiment. This message, in turn, reinforces the fear prevalent amongst many Jews in general, and Israelis in particular, that the security and survival of the state and its citizens are in constant peril.
By emphasizing the negative comments made by the two groups, and by virtually ignoring the positive symbolic gesture made by the officials of the Palestinian Authority, media outlets did a disservice to both the situation and to their readers. The coverage of anti-Israel sentiment often does nothing to build common ground between the two sides.
Given the nature of the conflict and the ongoing occupation of Palestinian lands by Israel, it is perhaps understandable why many Palestinians might view this official visit as offensive or ill-timed. However, to have that as the main focus of coverage of the Auschwitz visit only misses the symbolic significance of the visit.
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