The Taiwanese Media Coverage of the attack on Gaza Published by 28th December. 2012

During the attack on Gaza, there were at least 162 Palestinian deaths and over 1000 injuries in the period 14 to 21 November 2012;[i] while on the other hand, the Israelis suffered 6 deaths and 222 injuries[ii]. Judging by the media coverage in Taiwan over the past weeks, the conflict seemed to be an equal one. According to this coverage from the media of Taiwan, the two belligerents (Israel and Hamas) are made out to have the same military capacity, attempting to destroy one another. Further, Israel seems to have been the sole actor during the confrontation, and the indication is that the strong defensive ‘Iron Dome’ intercepted the ‘powerful’ rockets from Gaza; and that desperate Israeli citizens, accepting their fate, desperately ran to the shelters under frequent air raid siren. But this coverage misses the point. The reality is that Gaza has been under attack from indiscriminate Israeli air-strikes and the blockade since 2007, and this important background has escaped the Taiwanese media. 

As a matter of fact, the majority of people in Taiwan do not understand the complexity of the history of Palestine and the context behind the Israeli and Palestinian conflict. Most of the sources used by Taiwan’s media are gained from mainstream global news agencies. For example, the main channels that Taiwan’s media quotes from are: The Associated Press, Reuters, AFP and CNN. Therefore, Taiwanese audience and readers are often informed by these leading media who claim to know for a ‘fact’ that the Palestinians continue to carry out ‘terrorist acts’; this is accompanied by a discourse that they aim to destroy Israel. Meanwhile, the realities of the occupation in the West Bank, the expansion of Jewish settlements, the separation wall, and the closure of Gaza after 2007 are not highlighted and are not the focus of media analysis. 

The attack on Gaza in 2012 has further strengthened the assumption that Israel is reluctant to respond to the rockets fired from Gaza. The following section will be divided into two parts. The first one summarizes how the Taiwanese media generally covers this conflict, whereas the second part analyzes the Taiwanese media and discourse. 

The focus of Taiwan’s media coverage

Without doubt, there are still some reports and newspapers columns indicating the severe situation in Gaza; however, much of the media coverage is inclined to take the Israeli side, which could be summarized into three foci: 

1. The helpless Israeli citizens 

‘Liberty Time’, 21 November, one of the four major newspapers in Taiwan, described the situation in Gaza as, ‘a vicious circle of violence; the helpless Israelis are fleeing’. Written from the Israeli citizen’s point of view, it suggests that people in Israel do not understand what Hamas wants in this vicious circle and indicates that Jewish citizens of Israel support Israeli air-strikes on Hamas.[iii] 

2. Thanks to the protection of the ‘Iron Dome’, Israelis citizens can save their lives. 

Taiwan’s media also cited that the news from Israel say that Hamas’ rockets which were provided by Iran, were projected into Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on 16th November. This rocket attack on Tel Aviv is the first one since the Iraqi Scud strike in 1991,[iv] which implies that Hamas’ rockets are as powerful as Iraq’s missile. The Israeli casualties are far less than those of the Palestinians due to the protection of powerful defense anti-rockets system, the Iron Dome, a huge number of rockets from Gaza were intercepted and others fall on empty fields.[v] 

3. The great and effective capacity of Israel’s defense and the history of the war on terrorism 

When Israel mobilized the army reserves in preparation for a ground invasion, the media in Taiwan started to demonstrate the power of Israel’s military capacity and how successful the Israeli special force had been against ‘terrorism’.[vi] 

The above three main discourses reflect the background through which the media in Taiwan sees this conflict. Oddly, some authoritative media outlets have even described this conflict as the possible ‘eighth Israeli-Arab war’,[vii] which is a term rarely used in the Western media. 

The analysis of this discourse in the media of Taiwan 

It is easy to blame the Taiwanese media for taking sides in the attack on Gaza; however, the type of this discourse should be understood as a special status of Taiwan in International Relations. Before Palestine’s status was upgraded to a ‘non-member observer State’ in the United Nations, Taiwan was in a similar situation with Palestine. For Palestine and Taiwan, the main obstacle for being an official member of the United Nations is the power of veto in the Security Council. The United States has declared that its intent to veto against the Palestinian bid for statehood whilst the People’s Republic of China replaced the permanent seat of the Republic of China (Taiwan) in the security council and her member state in the United Nation in 1971 with the propaganda of ‘One China policy’ (Taiwan is part of China). [viii] As a result, Taiwan has become an international orphan over the last four decades.[ix] 

This myth just happens to suit the Israelis’ declaration: they are represented as a peaceful nation and the only democratic country in the Middle East. Due to the geopolitical significance of Taiwan in East Asia, government of Taiwan is keen on Western support, particularly the United States, which can be seen as an informal alliance with Taiwan. In this specific background, Taiwanese society, to a large extent, has been influenced by American values. Taiwanese media depends on Western media sources for international news; as a result of the coverage of the attack on Gaza in 2012 in Taiwan is just an inevitable product of this approach. 

The second part will present a personal observation of why the discourse has dominated the Taiwanese media for a long time. 

1. The Media’s structural problem 

Despite the fact that western media has taken sides in the attack on Gaza, there are still insightful Western journalists who provide a different dimension to this conflict. Unlike these distinguished journalists in the West, it can be said that Taiwan has no senior or qualified correspondent stationed in the Middle East to observe and analyze this complex context. Western media is the major source of knowledge in Taiwan as far as Israel-Palestine conflict is concerned.Taiwanese news editors summarise and translate news from these media sources from their offices. The coverage of the attack on Gaza is often de-contextualized against this background and therefore the confrontation between both sides is the only dimension of this coverage in which Israel is represented as the leading actor in the conflict whilst the casualties in Gaza are represented as secondary matter. As for other facts relating to the total closure of Gaza by Israel since 2007, and the reason for the assassination of Ahmed Jaabari, information is almost absent in the major media of Taiwan. 

2. The objective of the media? 

When the recent attack on Gaza broke out, the general public in Taiwan instinctively considered it an equal war between two sides in accordance with the past coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict. One of the renowned magazines in Taiwan, ‘Common Wealth Magazine’, published a report on 28 November entitled, ‘Israel: the kingdom of innovation forged in blood and fire’. This article praises Israel’s innovative technology and its fearlessness in surviving the hostile environment. As for the current situation in Gaza, only few paragraphs were produced, yet, neither the main issues of attack nor the purpose of the report were mentioned.

Paradoxically, when referring to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in the 1967 war as a context, the magazine uses the term, ‘expansion’ instead of ‘occupation’.[x] Israel is often considered as a model that Taiwan could emulate due to some similarities in their geopolitical context. Israel is surrounded by the ‘hostile’ Arab states and Taiwan is facing the economic, political, and military threat of the neighboring country. When the recent attack on Gaza broke out, the general public in Taiwan instinctively considered it an equal war between two sides in accordance with the past coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Naturally, out of sympathy, Israel is much highlighted in the media of Taiwan. The latent message in media reports represent Israeli policies as a model for Taiwan to follow. No ‘experts’ and ‘journalists’ in Taiwan are really concerned with the reality and the colonization of the occupied Palestinian territories. Had Taiwan’s media taken an alternative view and reported the way in which the Palestinians have been experiencing this oppression and colonization with steadfastness since more than six decades, would be a new inspiration for Taiwanese society, and beyond.