Vocabulary and images used by the Spanish media regarding Israel

Spain, Israel and the Jews: An analysis of the vocabulary and the images used by the Spanish media regarding Israel

On Tuesday, March 22, 2011, an article by Ana Carbajosa was published by Spanish daily El País. Ana Carbajosa is El País' correspondent in Jerusalem, which is Israel's capital, though the newspaper she works for still denies this fact by intentionally indicating that Israel's capital city is Tel Aviv.

But now it's time to focus on the vocabulary and the images used by the Spanish anti-Israeli media, and the aforementioned article will be used here as a good example of media bias against the Jewish State.

Firstly, the article is titled as follows: El ejército israelí mata a ocho palestinos, dos de ellos menores, en Gaza, i.e., Israeli army kills eight Palestinians, two of them being minors, in Gaza. And secondly, it's subtitled as follows: "Más de una veintena de palestinos, varios de ellos jóvenes, han resultado heridos durante el ataque a consecuencia de una serie de ataques perpetrados por el ejército", i.e., "More than twenty Palestinians, several of them being youths, have been injured during the attack as a consequence of a series of attacks perpetrated by the army".

Both the title and the subtitle deliberately omit Israel's main reason to attack: Palestinian attacks intentionally directed against Israeli civilians by launching rockets from the Gaza Strip. It's also deliberately omitted that among those killed there were three Palestinian terrorists who were firing from densely populated areas, a fact which could confirm Israel's claim of being attacked by them and the use of local non-combatants as human shields and civilian infrastructures as bases for their operations.

The Palestinian attacks against Israel, the dead terrorists and their tactics are mentioned within the main body of the article, but taking into account that the title is written in bold and in bigger letters and the subtitle is just under it, as well as they're the first part to be read, they claim the attention of the reader firstly and thus condition his or her perception of what has happened: a supposed Israeli attack against Palestinian civilians or at least without consideration for them.

Furthermore, the terms "terrorist", "terrorists" or "terrorism" are not used regarding the members of Palestinian terrorist groups or the groups themselves. The two Palestinian terrorist groups mentioned in this case are Islamic Jihad and Hamas, which are referred to by their names or as "Palestinian armed groups" or simply "armed groups". Hamas is also referred to as an "Islamist movement".

The terrorists are referred to as "militiamen"

In order to avoid doubts about Israel's veiledly alleged vileness among the readers and to erase those facts which could be used to defend Israel's claims from their minds, it's told precisely in the last paragraph that Israel's invasion of the Gaza Strip, early in 2009, left 1,400 Palestinians dead.

Facts which could be used to defend Israel's claims regarding what really happened during the 2008-2009 Gaza War, such as the use of human shields by Hamas and statements by a spokesperson of this terrorist organization confirming Israel's death toll of Palestinian terrorists killed (about 700, an estimation initially denied by Hamas), as well as the increasing of Palestinian rocket and mortar attacks against Israel in spite of the 2005 Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, are not mentioned.

Finally, the picture shown next to the article shows a dead Palestinian child's body, which is claimed to have been "murdered" by an Israeli tank. Please notice that the verb "murder" is used referring to an intentional, premeditated and illegal killing, and in this case there is no evidence enough supporting such a claim; it seems to have happened rather the opposite, i.e., an unintentional, unpremeditated killing, whose legal consequences should affect the terrorists who fired from a densely populated area.

Meanwhile, not a single picture showing the intentionally sought adverse effects of the Palestinian rocket attacks against Israeli civilians is shown to El País' readers.