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Media and Peace in the Middle East
Palgrave Studies in Compromise after Conflict

Series editor:
Professor John D. Brewer
Institute for the Study of Conflict, Queen’s University Belfast, UK

Series advisory board:

John Braithwaite, Australian National University, Hastings Donnan, Queen’s
University Belfast, UK, Brandon Hamber, University of Ulster, UK, Ian McAlister,
Australian National University, William Mishler, University of Arizona, USA,
Barbara Misztal, University of Leicester, UK, Orla Muldoon, University of
Limerick, Ireland, Clifford Shearing, University of Cape Town, South Africa.

Titles include:
John D. Brewer, David Mitchell, Gerard Leavey
EX-COMBATANTS, RELIGION AND PEACE IN NORTHERN IRELAND
The Role of Religion in Transitional Justice
Denis Dragovic
RELIGION AND POST-CONFLICT STATEBUILDING
Roman Catholic and Sunni Islamic Perspectives
Sandra Milena Rios Oyola
RELIGION, SOCIAL MEMORY AND CONFLICT
The Massacre of Bojayá in Colombia

Palgrave Studies in Compromise after Conflict

Series Standing Order ISBN 978–1–137–29935–2 Hardback
(outside North America only)
You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order.
Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with
your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above.
Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire RG21 6XS, England.
Media and Peace in the
Middle East
The Role of Journalism in Israel–Palestine

Giuliana Tiripelli
MEDIA AND PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST: THE ROLE OF JOURNALISM IN ISRAEL–PALESTINE
© Giuliana Tiripelli 2016.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2016 978-1-137-50400-5
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication
may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be
reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission. In accordance
with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under
the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright
Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.
Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
First published 2016 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of Nature America, Inc.,
One New York Plaza, Suite 4500 New York, NY 10004–1562.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.

ISBN: 978-1-349-70005-9
E-PDF ISBN: 978–1–137–50401–2
DOI: 10.1057/9781137504012
Distribution in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world is by Palgrave
Macmillan®, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England,
company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Tiripelli, Giuliana, author.
Title: Media and peace in the Middle East : the role of journalism in
Israel-Palestine / Giuliana Tiripelli, University of Glasgow.
Description: New York : Palgrave Macmillan, [2016] | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015039324
Subjects: LCSH: Arab-Israeli conflict – Mass media and the conflict. | Arab-Israeli
conflict – Press coverage. | Arab-Israeli conflict – Public opinion. | Mass media
and war. | Mass media and peace.
Classification: LCC DS119.76 .T57 2016 | DDC 956.9405/4—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015039324
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
Contents

Series Editor’s Preface vii

Acknowledgements xi

Introduction 1
Peace journalism 5
About this book 12
Structure of the book 14

1 Media and Change 19

Introduction 19
The links between journalism and change 20
Shaping change through journalism 36
Conclusions 40

2 Peace after the Intifada 42

Introduction 42
Towards the 1993 Peace Accord 43
Peace during Oslo 51
Peace after the second Intifada 59
Conclusions 62

3 Grassroots Visions of Peace 64

Introduction 64
Before Oslo 65
Remembering the Declaration of Principle 69
Grassroots peace from Oslo to current times 71
Grassroots peace vis-à-vis conservative forces 74
Transformative dialogue and experience 81
Conclusions 85

4 The Media Seen from Below 87

Introduction 87
Foreign peace promoters and the media 87
Israeli and Palestinian peace promoters and the media 93
A new role for the media? 100
Conclusions 104
vi Contents

5 Journalists Covering Palestine: Old and New Perspectives 106

Introduction 106
Remembering peace: the journalists and the peace process 107
Journalists’ perspectives on the conflict 113
Journalists’ evaluations of journalism 120
Conclusions 126

6 Journalists and Their Profession 128

Introduction 128
Professional journalism and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict 128
Constraints on transformative journalism 133
The potential role of journalism in changing the conflict 141
Conclusions 147

Conclusions: A Strategy for Peace Journalism 150

Peace promoters 152
Content 156
Audiences 157
Journalists 159
Final reflections 164

Notes 165

References 177

Index 189
Series Editor’s Preface

‘Compromise’ is a much used but little understood term. There is a sense

in which it describes a set of feelings (the so-called spirit of compromise)
that involve reciprocity, representing the agreement to make mutual
concessions towards each other from now on; that no matter what we
did to each other in the past, we will act towards each other in the future
differently, as set out in the agreement between us. The compromise
settlement can be a spit and a handshake, much beloved in folklore, or
a legally binding statute with hundreds of clauses.
As such, it is clear that compromise enters into conflict transforma-
tion at two distinct phases. The first is during the conflict resolution
process itself, where compromise represents a willingness among parties
to negotiate a peace agreement that represents a second-best preference
in which they give up their first preference (victory) in order to cut a
deal. A great deal of literature has been produced in Peace Studies and
International Relations on the dynamics of the negotiation process and
the institutional and governance structures necessary to consolidate the
agreement afterwards. Just as important, however, is compromise in the
second phase, when compromise is part of post-conflict reconstruction
and reconciliation, in which protagonists come to learn to live together,
despite their former enmity and in face of the atrocities perpetrated
during the conflict itself.
In the first phase, compromise describes reciprocal agreements
between parties to the negotiations in order to make political concessions
sufficient to end violence; in the second phase, compromise involves
victims and perpetrators developing ways of living together in which
inter-personal concessions are made as part of a shared social life. The
first is about compromises between political groups and the state in the
process of state-building (or re-building) after the political upheavals of
communal conflict; the second is about compromises between individ-
uals and communities in the process of social healing after the cultural
trauma provoked by the conflict. Reconciliation in the second phase is
as protracted and difficult as in the first, and usually takes longer.
This book series primarily concerns itself with the second process, the
often messy and difficult job of reconciliation, restoration and repair in
social and cultural relations following communal conflict. Communal

vii
viii Series Editor’s Preface

conflicts and civil wars tend to suffer from the narcissism of minor differ-
ences, to borrow Freud’s phrase, leaving little to be split halfway and
little to compromise on, and thus are usually especially bitter. The series
therefore addresses itself to the meaning, manufacture and management
of compromise in one of its most difficult settings. The books are cross-
national and cross-disciplinary, with attention paid to inter-personal
reconciliation at the level of everyday life, as well as culturally between
social groups, and the many sorts of institutional, inter-personal, psycho-
logical, sociological, anthropological and cultural factors that assist and
inhibit societal healing in the array of post-conflict societies, histori-
cally and in the present. The series focuses on what compromise means
when people have to come to terms with past enmity, memories of the
conflict itself and relate to former protagonists in ways that consolidate
the wider political agreement.
This sort of focus has special resonance and significance, for peace
agreements are usually very fragile. Societies emerging out of conflict
are subject to: ongoing violence from spoiler groups who are reluctant
to give up on first preferences; constant threats from the outbreak of
renewed violence; institutional instability; weakened economies; and a
wealth of problems around transitional justice, memory, truth recovery
and victimhood, amongst others. Not surprisingly therefore, reconcili-
ation and healing in social and cultural relations is difficult to achieve,
not least because inter-personal compromise between erstwhile enemies
is difficult.
Lay discourse picks up on the ambivalent nature of compromise after
conflict. It is talked about as common sense in one of two ways in
which compromise is either a virtue or a vice, taking its place among
the angels or in Hades. One form of lay discourse likens concessions
with former protagonists to the idea of a restoration of broken relation-
ships and societal and cultural reconciliation, in which there is a sense
of becoming (or returning) to wholeness and completeness. The other
form of lay discourse invokes ideas of appeasement, of being compro-
mised by the concessions, which constitute a form of surrender and
reproduce (or disguise) continued brokenness and division. People feel
they continue to be beaten by the sticks which the concessions have
allowed others to keep; with restoration, however, weapons are turned
truly into ploughshares. Lay discourse suggests, therefore, that there
are issues that the Palgrave Studies in Compromise after Conflict series
must begin to problematise, so that the process of societal healing is
better understood and can be assisted and facilitated by public policy
and intervention.
 Series Editor’s Preface ix

Peace journalism has a significant contribution to make to the

healing process. Peace journalism can be understood as journalism
which creates opportunities for society to reflect upon and value both
non-violent responses to conflict and a better, non-violent future. The
problem is that it is often unpopular amongst journalists. It is thought
of as more relevant to war zones, where it might encourage media to
help search for, and assist in promoting, peace. It seems less appropriate
to post-conflict societies where the problem is dealing with the legacy
of conflict. Journalists can also see it as an infringement of strongly
held principles of media freedom and autonomy, resulting in the idea
of peace journalism being responded to emotionally rather than calmly.
This emotional reaction resonates with the largely masculine culture of
‘conflict journalism’. One well-known journalist in Northern Ireland,
for example, described peace journalism as ‘leftie, tree hugging shite’.
Conflict makes local news international, and some great figures in
journalism first began building their reputation by reporting from war
zones. The violence honed their journalistic skills. Some became almost
like war correspondents, thriving on the smell of cordite, whilst others
sharpened their investigative powers, sniffing out secret meetings and
back-channel discussions, eager to disclose who was supposed to be
talking to whom and, supposedly, about what. The clandestine nature of
it all merely added to their prowess – and the danger to their reputation.
Peace processes, in contrast, are so much more boring. Journalists can
thus find it difficult to make the transition to the changed circumstances
of peace building. Accordingly, some journalists remain in conflict
mode, always looking backward and prioritising evidence of continued
violence and threat, leading to the neglect of news items that point to
change and which reflect people’s aspirations for a better future.
The idea of peace journalism thus gets to the core of how journalists
see their role. Are they neutral observers almost floating above society,
looking down as the ‘fourth estate’ distant and aloof, truthfully ‘telling
it like it is’? Or are they part of the very society they report upon, at the
same time shaped by it and helping to construct it? And if the latter,
do they have some responsibility to help people in societies emerging
out of conflict to make the necessary adjustments by which society can
learn to live together in peace and tolerance? Two questions therefore
must be asked of journalists. How should they commit to this new form
called peace journalism? And how should they deal with the challenges
that still dog fragile and hesitant peace processes? But there is a deeper
question here that the public needs to ask itself: does society get the
journalism it deserves? In other words, do people in societies that are
x Series Editor’s Preface

emerging out of conflict have some role and responsibility to ensure

they get the kind of journalism that best suits their needs in building a
better future?
This relationship – between media and society in a context of post-
conflict recovery and reconstruction – needs further collaborative
exploration by journalists, academics, politicians and the public. This
volume in the series is thus very timely. The author uses a case study –
journalism in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict – to address very broad
issues about the nature of journalism in promoting non-violence and
peace. It challenges the idea that the media treats facts as sacred, that it
reports them unadulterated and that it is fact driven, for facts are socially
constructed; everywhere, in all countries and in all contexts, exigencies
like ‘taste and decency’ or news agendas or political biases mean some
facts are disclosed, some remain hidden. The author poses key questions
of journalists about the choices that need to be made between ‘good’
and ‘bad’ news, between the focus on past and future, between empha-
sising continuity or change after conflict, and between developing
a sense of crisis and hope. And she asks about the values that should
influence this choice and about the responsibilities journalists have to
help shape a better society when emerging out of conflict. This does not
mean ignoring crisis or bad news; it is about balancing them with hope,
peace and tolerance. It is about questioning the assumption in conflict
journalism that hope, forgiveness and reconciliation are uninteresting
and un-newsworthy. It is about using the power of the media to improve
lives rather than pander to base hatreds, stereotypes, myths and beliefs
because they sell newspapers, raise listening figures or represent the
natural constituency of some newspaper readers. These are key issues
raised by this book and, as Series Editor, I warmly welcome this new
addition to the Palgrave Studies in Compromise after Conflict Series.

John D. Brewer
Acknowledgements

This book is the conclusion of a search marked by encounters with many

people who contributed to its final shape in various ways. The research
presented here took its substantial form during my years at the Glasgow
University Media Group. The support I received from my friends and
colleagues there was invaluable. In particular, my gratitude goes to
Professor Greg Philo, who provided me with precious advice about
how to approach such delicate topic as the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
I am also grateful to him for his advice on how to access the journal-
ists covering it, and his teachings about measuring media power in a
comprehensive way and without losing my critical stance. My gratitude
also goes to members and friends at the School of Social and Political
Sciences at Glasgow, and the university at large. Within the School,
I particularly relied on the warm and patient assistance and advice
of Professors Bridget Fowler and John Eldridge. Dr Sarah Armstrong
supported me practically and continuously with her advice on ethical
matters and the direction of my research. Professor Andrew Hoskins,
also at the University of Glasgow, provided insightful comments to my
work, which have helped in enriching and fully developing the analysis
provided here.
Before Glasgow, I crossed paths with Professor Marta Petricioli of
the University of Florence, and Professor Michelgugliemo Torri of the
University of Turin, who gave me the opportunity to do research about
the Middle East and the Oslo peace process, providing the basis for the
historical knowledge presented in this book. Without that opportunity,
my research would never have developed into its current form. At the
same time, I would have not been able to turn this piece of research into
a book without the encouragement of Professor John Brewer of Queen’s
University Belfast, who saw in my research the potential for a contribu-
tion to peace journalism.
My gratitude also goes to all the journalists, peace promoters, experts
and officials, who shared with me their stories, knowledge and ideas
about peace. In particular, I would like to thank the journalists who
spared their valuable time to provide me with detailed insights into
their profession, and allowed me access to their visions of the world
they cover. Among them, I am particularly grateful to Seth Freedman,

xi
xii Acknowledgements

for accepting a sociologist at his heels while he did his job, and to Denis
Brunetti, for telling me stories that helped me bring to light the hidden
human side of journalism. My gratitude then goes to Professor Raouf
Halaby of Ouachita Baptist University for helping me compare media
representations with his rich personal insights into crucial moments of
history that he witnessed directly. When he passed me materials about
peace activities that he had participated in during the first Intifada, I
felt as if he was passing on his old hopes for change, for me to renew
them in another wave of the search for peace. This sense of duty gave
me a strong motivation for writing this book. I am also thankful for
the reports of peace promoters that Mike Daly, Program Coordinator of
Interfaith Peace-Builders, kindly retrieved, provided and discussed with
me. They constitute just a sample of the wide and effective, but hidden,
representations that exist, and could promote different understandings
and, perhaps, change.
The deepest roots of this study determined its focus on the thoughts
and hopes of individuals involved in this conflict, making of this work
an attempt to understand how irreconcilable visions come to meet. Its
roots lie in my involvement in dialogue activities between Israelis and
Palestinians in Florence in 1993, a few weeks before the signature of
the peace accord. We shared a unique personal experience, one which
remains unforgettable for those who were lucky enough to take part
in it. This book is a token of my gratitude to all the organisers of and
participants in that experience, and in this sense it concludes a long
journey of search.
In the final stages of this book, the Department of Sociological Studies
at the University of Sheffield provided a supportive environment in
which to complete the manuscript. I also received practical help from
Dr Jen Birks of the University of Nottingham, who kindly read some
of my drafts and pointed me to parallel research which could inform
my analysis of the media. The most precious help in writing the book
came from my friend and colleague Dr Lito Tsitsou of the University of
Glasgow, who carefully and flexibly revised my drafts throughout, stage
after stage, and gave me encouragement and strong support all through
the process.
Finally, I thank Dr Gianluca Fantoni, of Nottingham Trent University,
who supported me during this long journey in all ways possible in order
for this book to see the light of the day.
Introduction

In addressing the role of the media in Israeli–Palestinian relations, this

book aims to contribute to the study of conflict transformation through
journalism. It revolves around the idea of social change and the condi-
tions for achieving change both from within, and through the agency of
the profession. The book seeks to critically support a model of journalism
that is deeply rooted in the complexity of the struggle for representa-
tion of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and that can promote change.
Specifically, it explores research findings through the lens of peace
journalism, discussing the effective application of this model to the
Israeli–Palestinian conflict in two ways. First, it offers an in-depth and
original analysis of the situation in which this journalism will operate,
investigating in particular the interplay between professional practices,
the peculiarities of the news production processes and discourses on the
conflict. It then examines how these practices and peculiarities affect
ways of understanding and representing the conflict which can trigger
or facilitate social change. Second, this study is framed around the
theory and practices of peace journalism, highlighting areas in which
this model could invest. The originality of the analysis lies in the topics
chosen for investigation, as well as the approach used for this purpose.
Specifically, the book focuses on the practices and beliefs of grassroots
peace promoters and their narratives of change, contrasting these with
the practices and beliefs of journalists involved in the coverage of the
Israeli–Palestinian conflict. This comparison aims to highlight the
factors determining the distance between discourses about the conflict
created by the media and those of the actors who most prominently
work for conflict transformation in the field. By juxtaposing these two
groups, the book reveals how journalism, just like grassroots action, is
also profoundly tied to its own social and material context, while both

1
2 Media and Peace in the Middle East

entail intense cognitive and emotive involvement and political perspec-

tive. In-depth explorations of these factors offer a map of the subtle
dynamics that can prevent the application of alternative models of jour-
nalism. At the same time, such mapping can highlight spaces where
alternative, change-oriented models can take root and flourish.
The temporal and historical frame for this analysis stretches from
the first Intifada in 1987 to 2015, with a special focus on the Oslo
peace process which began in 1993, in order to contextualise and
explain the origins of current ideas on peace held by peace promoters
and journalists, and the ways in which these perspectives have devel-
oped over time. If successful peace processes can only be explained
by demonstrating “the intersection between individual biographical
experience, history, social structural changes, and developments and
events in the political process” (Brewer 2003: ix), the same applies to
failed ones like the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians.
In particular, focusing on a period during which narratives of peace
apparently converged, this work explores how much of that discourse
was the manifestation of a convergence of aims between Israelis and
Palestinians and how much it was rather a response to new political
necessities and power relations which found a common path to diver-
gent ends in those negotiations. In this way, the analysis offers a clearer
view of the system of beliefs that inhibits change, and how alternative
narratives can be met and understood by those actors that should be
part of the transformation.
The role of the media in shaping the ways in which people think
has been widely researched. However, less has been said about how
these effects and the interactions between media and surrounding envi-
ronments shape change and opportunities for transformation in soci-
eties marked by conflicts. In other words, there is very little research
connecting trends in media coverage to findings on media effects,
which also fully locates those connections in their own historical
and social context specifically to discuss peace. Wolfsfeld’s work (e.g.
2004) is almost unique in its comprehensive discussion of the macro-
dynamics that inform media performance during attempts at conflict
transformation in light of the specificity of social and political contexts.
The reason for this research gap lies in the difficulty of approaching the
contextual specificity that audiences and media inhabit, which is where
additional important factors interfere in shaping beliefs. As Schudson
acknowledged, the media are only “the visible tip of the iceberg of
social influences on human behavior” (2011: 11). Studying the media
position within these influences entails approaching a complex set
 Introduction 3

of relations and dynamics that make it more difficult to capture and

distinguish their specific role. At the same time, acknowledging the
multiple environments from which media and their narratives emerge
and develop does not necessarily mean overlooking the power of the
media in affecting these contexts. On the contrary, this acknowledge-
ment may allow important empirical explanations of how media exert
similar effects on audiences in different situations, social groups, and
over time, providing further evidence for theoretical models of factors
and influences affecting media production. Approaching and explaining
the complete set of social influences that shape beliefs and behaviours in
relation to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in order to define the media
role in this conflict remains a rather difficult task. However, it is possible
to deal with “the iceberg” by drilling holes in it in order to examine
the different layers produced over time and their constituent elements.
In social sciences, this metaphor translates into a focus on hidden and
micro-level dynamics and narratives of specific groups within their own
political, historical and narrative context. Such an approach has recently
been used with excellent results by Bishara (2013), who in her ethnog-
raphy analyses the work of Palestinian journalists. In a similar way, the
present book looks at transformation from within and approaches the
discussion about change in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict through
the media, by looking at the contextual specificity and multiple envi-
ronments in which perspectives on peace take shape. This is done,
unavoidably, at the expense of a comprehensive evaluation of all the
social, political and media forces at play in shaping and constraining
narratives of peace in this conflict. In order to explain what the role of
the media has been, and what it could be, in the context of this conflict,
the book balances this micro-level focus with an analysis of the relation-
ship between media and change linked to the narratives of peace about
Palestine that have been developing at the political and social levels
since the 1990s.
Through this approach, the book aims to uncover the varied and
additional epistemological claims of journalism that operate in shaping
practitioners’ approaches to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. It responds
to the need for “careful, comparative ethnographic research”, which
“promises a deeper appreciation of how text, talk and visuals are profes-
sionally built into the various epistemological claims to ‘truth’ that
inform today’s news” (Cottle 2007: 11). In particular, this approach can
reveal the set of cognitive elements that prevents journalists’ engage-
ment with other, more progressive forms of coverage. It also reveals how
the classic articulations of objectivity, balance, truthfulness and accuracy
4 Media and Peace in the Middle East

that justify journalism are only one aspect of a much more complex set
of beliefs about the profession in this context – beliefs which tend to
shape the media effects in a specific direction.
As Shinar and Bratic acknowledged, the media are not actively involved
in peace-oriented communication (2010: 137). While their remark
concerned Israeli and Palestinian media, a similar comment can be made
about mainstream journalism more generally. The production of peace-
oriented material remains the task of NGOs, activists and alternative
media, rarely reaching a wide audience. At the same time, research has
shown that media play an important role in shaping beliefs about change
according to tendencies that are critically discussed in this book.
Thus, the raison d’être of this approach is to empower an alternative
journalism, one that chooses to rely on those epistemological claims that
can enhance its role in and contribution to conflict transformation. In
pursuing this aim, this approach also highlights potential bridges between
backstage (cognitive) experiences of journalists, and the claims and expe-
riences of peace promoters. As a consequence, it shows the narrow but
potential spaces in which alternative models of professional journalism
can invest. In these ways, the book responds to an invitation to:

contribute to the empowerment of those counter-hegemonic voices

seeking to contest the truth politics of news discourse, not least by
helping to first disrupt and then expand the ideological parameters
of ‘the obvious facts of the matter’. (Allan 2004: 97)

The material used for these purposes consists of interviews with a range
of Israeli, Palestinian and foreign journalists who have worked on the
topic of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in a variety of ways. The study
also includes interviews and material provided by active peace promoters
who have been involved in dialogue and nonviolent transformative
grassroots action at different stages between the first Intifada and 2015.
The material, which was collected over a period of seven years (2008–
2015), constitutes the professional development of an initially personal
involvement in this conflict. About two months before the signature
of the Oslo accord in 1993, which opened the peace process between
Israelis and Palestinians, I participated in a “peace camp” co-organised by
Italian institutions, Palestinian and Israeli organisations. This involved
three weeks of total immersion in activity and dialogue with Israeli and
Palestinian students in Italy. It was followed by a group visit to Palestine
in December of the same year, which provided the occasion to visit
 Introduction 5

Israeli and Palestinian friends after the beginning of the peace process,
an unexpected event for all of those involved in the camp during the
previous summer. Unlike most Western citizens who usually develop an
understanding of the vicissitudes of this area through mediated content,
I had the unique opportunity to form my initial understanding of the
conflict on the basis of this personal, practical experience, and through
dialogue with people living in Palestine. However, over the months
following this visit my direct involvement with the area started to wane,
and I had to progressively rely on the media to follow the involution of
the peace process.1 Only in 2008 did I have the opportunity to go back
to Palestine. On this occasion, the purpose of the visit was to conduct
interviews with journalists and activists as part of my research fieldwork.
This experience provided an opportunity to assess the impact of the
Oslo process and its failure on the ground, and to realise how much this
differed from the image projected by the media over time. It especially
showed how earlier beliefs about change had been transformed under
the weight of the political developments during the fifteen years since
the peace camp.
In writing this work, I faced the challenges of my status as peace
promoter and researcher, but I also became an ‘archaeologist’ trying to
capture the ‘reality’ of this period based on current reflections of my
participants. The period since Oslo has been marked by a number of
important, if regressive, events which inevitably influenced the ideas of
the informants of this research, but do not in any way undermine the
validity of their reports. These remain precious sources for this study, the
aim of which is to investigate the ways in which their perspectives on
peace have evolved over time, and unpack the factors which concurred
in this evolution.

Peace journalism

The findings presented in this book can benefit those subjects that seek
to create opportunities through media for the transformation of Israeli–
Palestinian relations. This includes a wide range of actors: mainstream
and alternative journalists looking for opportunities of critical engage-
ment with their own work; activists, NGOs and peace promoters seeking
to improve their strategies for communication and incite change; active
groups within the Israeli and Palestinian communities that aim to
promote dialogue and new beliefs in the Other; and researchers investi-
gating media, peace building and social change. What these actors have
6 Media and Peace in the Middle East

in common is the fact that their work often relies on a critique of the
status quo, driven by normative aims. As Cottle argued, however,

normative critique has to be augmented, if it is to have any political

purchase at all, by studies and analysis of actual media performance
and their complex interactions and dynamics and how these often
impact processes of peace building, conflict resolution and reconcili-
ation. (2006: 103)

This makes peace journalism particularly suitable for this kind of anal-
ysis. Moving from a critique of the dominant dichotomist framing
and simplification in journalism, peace journalism advocates coverage
which reincorporates events and protagonists into the social structure
that shaped them, and that makes this work visible to audiences. This
new frame is crucial to any peaceful solution because, as suggested by
Seaga Shaw (2011: 101), it moves the responsibility for violence away
from perpetrators and the Other towards social factors, and within the
“interaction game” (Galtung and Vincent 1992: 126–127) that takes
place behind the scenes of the conflict coverage. Once widely shared
in society, such visions exert their normative potential. They prevent
forms of punishment that could endanger the harmonious coexistence
of peoples in the long term, and provide explanations on the basis of
which nonviolent opportunities for change can be built. In particular,
these alternative visions allow groups to look for solutions focused
on changing those aspects of social structures and cultures that main-
tain the conflict. It is in this light that it makes sense to say, as Seaga
Shaw argued, that all sides are responsible for the solution of a conflict
(2011: 100).
Shifting the focus from conflict to peace, peace journalism also fills
an important gap in media studies. The focus on what media do and the
structures constraining them risks leaving aside the progressive aspects
of social life that the media do not cover, but which still contribute to
shaping the structure and context in which the media operate. Aspects
of this kind are revealed all too rarely in research. The focus on media
as they are has also led to the direct or indirect reliance of researchers
on categories of analysis borrowed from the media sector.2 Despite their
value in highlighting incoherencies in the profession, these categories
have made new knowledge more “mediatic”, delaying the engagement
of research with alternative models of journalism which challenge
these categories. Peace journalism is an optimistic response to research
that has highlighted the power of the media in shaping how audiences
 Introduction 7

think and the structural constraints determining how journalists work.

In this sense, it is of central interest in a study about media and social
change.
Using the widely illustrated idea that the media affect the ways in
which people understand the world and themselves, peace journalism
maintains that they can do so in the opposite direction, by opening
alternative possibilities that challenge the status quo. According to this
model, media agents can disentangle themselves from established profes-
sional conventions, from the conventions embodied in the phenomena
they cover, and from the factors that influence their profession, and
plan intended effects through autonomously chosen messages.
This “media-centric” (Cottle 2006: 103) approach of the model is,
however, one of its main limitations, which the contextualised anal-
ysis provided in this book tries to repair. Indeed, despite being cultural
work, peace journalism remains technically ill equipped to offer an
understanding of the media processes and their effects as profoundly
cultural (Schudson 2011). Its promoters have also recognised that
“peaceful” media alone may not be able to bring about peace unless
other factors change in society (Galtung and Vincent 1992: 141). Lynch
et al., drawing on the definition of peace journalism as “a set of choices”
provided by Lynch and McGoldrick (2005a: 5), weakened further the
link between peace journalism and peace achievement (Lynch et al.
2011: 13). Indeed, it has not been proven that coverage that reveals
more of the “truth” (as peace journalists aim to do) brings about or
facilitates a peaceful solution. This is not only because, as Lynch put
it, coverage operating along peace journalism lines can only facilitate
peaceful solutions if society prefers the opportunities it brings about
to violence (Lynch 2008: 4; Lynch and Galtung 2010: 26, 51); but it
is also due to social factors and the complexity of the media machine
and its links with cultural and power dynamics and group interests in
society. Despite being acknowledged in the literature, these factors have
played, so far, little role in the empirical contribution and the prescrip-
tive model of peace journalism.
In highlighting the social factors and the complexity of the media
machine in context, this book aims to respond to some of these prob-
lems by also calling for a more “qualitative approach for investigating
peace journalism in media coverage of the Israeli–Palestinian and other
conflicts” (Ozohu-Suleiman 2014: 101). The book sets out to support
peace journalism becoming an effective part of the problem-solving
strand of peace studies in the context of this conflict, while at the same
time taking into account structures that tend to nourish such conflict.
8 Media and Peace in the Middle East

The balance between macro and micro levels of analysis presented in the
book aims at achieving these purposes.
The ethnographic focus on individual perspectives enables the
protagonists of change, i.e. peace promoters and journalists, to define
themselves. The metaphorical “drilling” thus reaches the actors in the
field, explaining ways in which the local is “the product of constant
social negotiation between localised and non-localised ideas, norms and
practices” (Mac Ginty and Richmond 2013: 776). Counter-balancing
the media-imposed narratives in this way, the book traces “the connec-
tions between journalists, their sources, the stories they cover and the
consequences of their reporting” (Lynch and McGoldrick 2005a: 5) in
an analysis that matches critique and problem-solving.
Despite its limitations, in other areas peace journalism has gener-
ally been successful in matching critique with practice and problem-
solving, stimulating civic engagement and a different, conflict-sensitive
coverage. These projects highlight aspects of the model that work and
can inform its application to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The work
of the Mindanao News and Information Cooperative Center (MNICC –
Mindanews.com; Lynch 2013) provides daily alternative information
about the Mindanao islands in the South Philippines, where violence
has been most intense, counter-balancing the mainstream media focus
on violence and showing other aspects of life there. The new founders of
the peace journalism movement, Jake Lynch and Annabel McGoldrick,
produced a video examining the situation in the Philippines, which
was later used as a news source for mainstream media.3 The Peace and
Conflict Journalism Network (PEJOCON) focuses on strengthening
collaborations among practitioners, filmmakers and teachers from Asia,
Australia, Africa and Europe promoting conflict-sensitive reporting. A
member-based network, it promotes training and support, as well as
critical development and implementation of classic journalistic ethical
frameworks. The Media Association for Peace (MAP) practices peace jour-
nalism in Lebanon, the Middle East and North Africa. It involves media
students, activists and practitioners in advocacy, training and partner-
ship building to support the application of peace journalism in the area.4
The project ‘Consolidating Peace Journalism in Uganda’ by the Uganda
Media Development Foundation started in 2009 and is still active in 2015.
The project addresses media-induced or -exacerbated conflict. It includes
regional training and engagement with radio stations and communities,
aiming to promote an inclusive approach to programming. Mentors
have helped radio stations review their programmes and measure their
application of peace journalism over time.5 This approach stimulated
 Introduction 9

the production of detailed and very practical analysis of achievements,

problems and potential strategies for radio stations (Uganda Media
Development Foundation 2011). The Peace Journalism Foundation East
Africa has been active across Uganda and Kenya since 2011 with media
and counter-terrorism projects, mentoring and reporting in different
languages, and engaging local audiences in social change.6 Together
with the Community Peace Journalism and Development Foundation,
they worked to prevent electoral violence in Kenya in 2013, engaging
electoral stakeholders and targeting the community with programmes
and events that appeared on national and local media (Lumbasi 2013;
Laker and Wanzala 2012).
Workshops enabling students to experiment with peace journalism
have been hosted in the Bronx, New York since 2012 by Bronxnet, a
not-for-profit organisation that has been managing TV channels for
the community since 1993.7 Residents have been involved in training
and production8 and have produced video material for Bronxnet
(Aisogun 2013; Knobbe 2013). In Mexico, the digital news medium
Correspondaldepaz (Avila-Zesatti 2013) has been looking at conflicts
around the world since 2009; it provides a platform for stories about
peace and solidarity initiatives arising in these contexts and aims to
empower them.9 There is a range of similar projects at local levels,10 and
a number of active centres specifically for the promotion of peace jour-
nalism. Transcend Media Service hosts resources about peace journalism,
and is “a service to other media and a medium in its own right”.11 It
is part of Transcend, the Peace Development Environment Network
founded in 1993 by Johan Galtung and Fumiko Nishimura, which has
members all over the world and promotes peace through action, educa-
tion, training, dissemination and research. The Centre for Peace and
Conflict Studies at the University of Sidney promotes peace journalism
through research and education. Its Director Jake Lynch, together with
Annabel McGoldrick, has trained practitioners and students, and held
workshops about peace journalism in various countries; their research
and production has contributed to the dissemination of the model
worldwide. The Center for Global Peace Journalism at Park University,
directed by Steven Youngblood, is a third major cluster in this network.
It promotes the model through training, publications and partnerships,
and is at the forefront of peace journalism promotion in different areas
of the world.12
While applications unfold in conflict areas, advances in peace jour-
nalism are particularly fruitful in terms of research and debate (Kempf
2008). Peace journalism is currently developing new approaches
10 Media and Peace in the Middle East

focusing on improving and diversifying the model, and expanding the

analysis. Some experts stress the need to give more space to subjective
elements both in the coverage and in the models of peace journalism.
McGoldrick sees the latter as a platform providing opportunities for
offering “empathic responses to conflicts” (2011: 139), as well as alterna-
tive information, in order to reshape meaning-making and instinctual
or emotional processes of individuals. Lynch (2011) investigates media
activism in relation to public-service broadcasting and highlights the
need to update peace journalism with a stronger focus on perspectives.
Advocates such as Nohrstedt and Ottosen (2011) suggest expanding
peace journalism upon stages which prepare or follow open or latent
conflicts, for example by considering how conflict risks are discussed in
escalation processes, in order to evaluate their true “peaceful” poten-
tial. These authors call for context-oriented analysis of propaganda
discourse during peacetime in order to show how this discourse hides
and reshapes elements that could escalate conflicts, such as synergies
and risks implied by the country’s defence policy and military alliances.
Similarly, Chow-White and McMahon (2011), who focus on reconcili-
ation processes, show that investigating substantially the negotiations
which unfold during conflict transformation can uncover new forms
of racism embodied in the “culture of negotiation”. Transformation
towards peace is prevented when representations of reconciliation
omit contextual elements and the voice of groups involved in these
processes, when residual stereotypes inform coverage of these groups,
and when asymmetrical power is obscured. Reframing the culture of
negotiation as an expression of the benevolence of powerful actors in
the process, these representations further weaken less powerful actors
who are involved in reconciliation, endangering its substantial success
(Chow-White and McMahon 2011). Mogekwu (2011) suggests applying
peace journalism to latent conflict through local media, which can
guarantee persistency and increase chances of successful transforma-
tion. Hawkins (2011) advises peace journalists to be careful in the selec-
tion of conflicts they decide to work on, and to consider the imbalance
in the quantity of coverage of certain conflicts and their peace proc-
esses, as well as that which is present in the quality of coverage. As
he rightly suggests, the extensive coverage of some conflicts (among
which the Israeli–Palestinian one) vis-à-vis the scarcity of coverage of
deadlier conflicts, still embodies the values of war journalism that peace
journalism condemns.
In seeking progressive change, peace journalism also inevitably calls
for innovative management of professional norms and values. This can
 Introduction 11

be seen in definitions of war journalism and its objectivity practices

(Lynch 2008: 62–64), or in the definition of peace journalism as “a set of
choices” provided by Lynch and McGoldrick (2005a: 5). Such definitions
do not imply a departure from the ideals of objectivity and accuracy,
but they recognise that there are different ways of representing conflicts
(Lynch and Galtung 2010: 52). However, Kempf was concerned that

to radically turn away from the demand for objectivity not only
endangers the acceptance of the peace journalism project in the jour-
nalist community, but it can also cause peace journalism to squander
the trust bonus that its recipients have granted it. (2007: 1)

This reflects the debate between “revolutionary” (e.g. Keeble 2010;

Mogekwu 2011) and reformist proposals (e.g. Kempf 2007), the former
highlighting the need for peace journalism to be at the service of justice
movements and communities, and the latter stressing the value of peace
journalism as a model for the profession.
The normative engagement advocated by peace journalism is often
misinterpreted as favouring political partisanship. For many journalists,
citizens are the only subjects that can make decisions about how society
should be, and about who has the power to decide for them (e.g. Loyn
2007). While this premise certainly lies at the heart of peace journalism
as well, it underestimates the social nature of journalism and the role
played by the media in shaping people’s thoughts about what can be
achieved, in particular about opportunities for solving social problems
in nonviolent ways. Failure to recognise this can strengthen a belief in
the existence of “non-political” representations – accounts which do
not interfere with citizens’ freedom of choice – and the parallel idea that
those which reveal their desired impact are “political”. This tendency
thus conflates “political” (e.g. those of a political party) and “norma-
tive” representations (e.g. those of peace journalism), in the category of
partisanship, merging those that promote specific interests with those
promoting values that guarantee social well-being. In both cases, what
is commonly rejected in journalism, and therefore what is more impor-
tant than peace promotion, is the very idea that journalism could inter-
fere with established conventions.13 However, as Kempf rightly stresses,
“the obligation to create these opportunities results directly from the
role assigned to journalism in democratic societies” (2007: 3). In addi-
tion, the literature has acknowledged that “elements of advocacy are
present in all works of journalism, whether intentional or not” (Fisher
2015:13). Journalism, then, has two choices: it can either restrict or
12 Media and Peace in the Middle East

widen opportunities for peace. Neither action exclusively uses informa-

tion about current developments, but they always require choices about
focus, framing, timing and language used, and both impact on the social
dynamics at stake.
Peace journalism offers a model to reflect on these issues, but it is not
yet fully appreciated by the profession. This difficulty derives from two
main reasons. On the one hand, peace journalism is rooted in critical
approaches and tackles aspects of media behaviour and effects widely
evidenced by research, but usually resisted by mainstream journalists.
On the other hand, its clear prescriptions contradict “the complications
of a messy, visceral world” (Loyn 2007) that journalists cover in their
news, and the processes, fatigue and personal effort that lie beneath this
coverage. It remains to root peace journalism in that “messy world” that
journalists live in, and where the model is supposed to exert its effects.

About this book

The projects discussed above demonstrate that peace journalism has

worked well in promoting change in defined social settings, where it
has been successfully used for transformative purposes against stereo-
types and established conventions. It has managed to prevent electoral
violence where there was potential for conflict, the political polarisa-
tion was latent, and the attention of the foreign public was directed
elsewhere. However, where peace journalism has been effective in a
more politically charged context, it has been met with some, although
minimal, criticism.14 In these contexts, peace journalism used existing
platforms and networks, and active agents who were part of the commu-
nity involved. Journalists at large, as well as their target audience, were
part of the community, while the presence of foreign journalists was
minimal. These projects relied particularly on local structures and
involved a variety of local agents in the production of information.
Local practitioners or students participated in training, produced infor-
mation, and informed the analysis of their work. These inward-looking
projects, speaking to and affecting internal audiences, demonstrate that
alternative narratives can be adopted without compromising profession-
alism, and that these narratives can affect the context. While the success
of these projects enhance prospects for the application of this model to
the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, its impact in this context remains largely
untested.
The analysis provided in this book explores specific aspects of this
conflict that can reduce the effectiveness of the model in providing
 Introduction 13

opportunities for nonviolent responses among the groups involved,

and that require specific strategies for its implementation. The book
also contributes to research and debate about new approaches in peace
journalism. Investigating how Israelis and Palestinians have negotiated
peace since 1993, it shows how political and diplomatic discourses and
media focus prevented transformation by omitting contextual elements
and alternative voices from the debate. In the long term, these discourses
strengthened existing attitudes within the two communities, instead of
changing them, while the developments of the peace process confirmed
stereotypical and simplified explanations of the Other’s willingness to
make peace, obscuring further the asymmetrical power between Israelis
and Palestinians. The reframing of Israeli and Palestinian actors and
their claims constrained the agency of the Palestinians and this in turn
also limited Israeli negotiators’ options in the longer term. This process
led to the failure of the Oslo experiment in 2000, when the conflict
solidified into forms that ruled out old options for peace. Using the
perspectives of journalists and peace promoters to consider the emotive
and subjective elements in peace processes, and how these create possi-
bilities for triggering different responses, the book shows how cognitive
elements related to peace promotion and journalism might strengthen
cultural and structural violence (Galtung 1996: 196–199). In particular,
the focus on peace promoters in this historical context offers impor-
tant insights into the role of peace journalism in engaging with peace
activism to develop and apply its model in Palestine. The views of
both journalists and peace promoters reveal not only the difficulties
of applying this model, but also the scope and conditions under which
practitioners could make the choices that peace journalism entails, and
which other models of media analysis have not recognised (Hackett
2006: 4). Practitioners’ original accounts of their work and how they
make sense of this conflict and its transformation throw more light
on the forms of interaction between media and politics. This range of
views can inform the “feedback loop” mechanisms that peace jour-
nalism scholars have defined (Lynch and McGoldrick 2005a: 216–219).
They also show where the most important obstacles for a redefinition
of the norms and values of the profession lie. The book therefore seeks
to fill what has been recently defined by Seaga Shaw as a gap in the
peace journalism debate, focusing as it does:

first, on the journalism-peace-human rights nexus and, second, on

[a] critical discussion of the failure of mainstream journalism to fore-
ground positive peace and positive rights issues. (2011: 98)
14 Media and Peace in the Middle East

The analysis thus offers a basis for making peace journalism more widely
appreciated within the sector. It could also, however, benefit alterna-
tive approaches to peace promotion and media at large. In this sense,
this book is also and especially a contribution to the new field of the
sociology of peace processes (Brewer 2013), as it develops a sociological
analysis of the media and its importance to a specific peace process.
This study distinguishes political and social processes, highlighting the
interaction between these and the biographical experiences of grassroots
individuals who could guarantee the fulfilment of positive change and
peace after the signature of the Oslo accord in 1993.

Structure of the book

This study asks how the media can promote the concept of peace as
progressive change. Galtung and Vincent described peace as “the oppor-
tunity for everyone to unfold themselves more than ever before, unham-
pered by massive destruction and the fear of it” (1992: 140). Galtung also
distinguished further between “negative peace” – which is the absence
of violence and war – and “positive peace”, which is the integration of
human society (Galtung 1964: 2; see also Galtung 1996: 31–33). The defi-
nition of peace that I use for this purpose15 is the outcome of a process of
change which uses tools able to debunk the material and ideal founda-
tions of oppression, including all its related identities, and which, as a
consequence, must also foresee and offer in the first instance new spaces
for expression for all the subjects involved, oppressed and oppressors alike.
This work thus focuses on discourse as a carrier of power structures, while
also giving to the concept of change a role that classic post-structuralist
work on discourse and power has not given, because it re-establishes the
possibility of making a difference.16 This process is based on nonviolence,
and in the book I use this term and the associated “nonviolent” without
hyphen, following a suggestion by one of my interviewees, Rabbi Lynn
Gottlieb. The hyphen places the emphasis on violence and its absence,
while the use of one word suggests a wider, proactive concept.
The term “mainstream” is used in the book to broadly define visions,
narratives, representations, perspectives and explanations which circu-
late more widely than alternative ones. Mainstream visions correspond
to the main explanations that focus on the conflict, mostly found in
stories framed according to newsworthiness values. The term “main-
stream” is not exclusively associated with “dominant” visions or expla-
nations, even if they may overlap. Dominant visions are those for
which the literature or the findings presented here highlight a structural
 Introduction 15

affirmation in the areas in which they operate, and which in this book
are seen as conservative elements in the discourse. Therefore, dominant
can be associated with both pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian perspectives,
when they present that affirmative and conservative quality in their own
specific contexts. Alternative visions correspond in this book to more
featured insights or more complete analyses that do not, or do not only
focus on newsworthiness, either conflict or peace-centred, which have
little opportunity for expression and which operate in contradistinc-
tion to those firmly established in the discourse. They may overlap with
“transformative visions”, when they also present the potential to be such.
Transformative visions are those which have the potential to change
beliefs towards transforming conflict into non-conflict, according to the
process of peace described above. These terms are associated with the
actors and interviewees of this study in slightly different ways. Contrary
to common usage, the book speaks of mainstream, or classic journalists
as opposed to alternative ones, to distinguish the different foci in the
work and approaches of these practitioners. As a consequence, the term
“classic” or “mainstream” may also include non-aligned journalists who
present alternative views, if they however mostly focus on conflict and
macro-level politics or narratives instead of peace and social aspects.
This distinction is therefore not an evaluation of the quality of analysis
that these practitioners provide, and it is not automatically related to
their contribution to transformation.
The term “peace promoters” defines a range of actors operating at
grassroots level, who approach peace as a process of change, as discussed
above. This term was chosen in place of “activists” in order to stress
their involvement with transformation and their direct experience of
nonviolent change based on justice, and to distinguish them from other
forms of engagement focused on established identities and the struggle
for representation in the debate. It includes individuals who work or
have worked to transform their own or others’ visions by enriching
these with articulated explanations. Inevitably, there is some overlap
between peace promoters and those forms of pure activism. The book
will explain that this is not only due to the natural fact that peace
promotion is deeply entangled with forms of pressure and nonviolent
confrontation. The development of specific peace narratives in Palestine
dangerously weakened grassroots peace promotion tools, leaving it with
its more confrontational aspects. Finally, terms like “West” or “Western”
are chosen to denote a socially constructed entity, including, in general,
North America and Western Europe. Israel, West Bank and Gaza (or Gaza
Strip) are obviously used often in the book as required; but the term
16 Media and Peace in the Middle East

“Palestine” is also present, over and above its political connotations,

when there is a need to refer to the geographical area including all of
these areas. Thus the term “foreign” describes subjects and institutions
located or originating outside this area.
The analysis is based on 41 semi-structured interviews with 18 journal-
ists, and 22 peace promoters, experts, and officials.17 Additional archival
and original material about activities and groups related to the promotion
of dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians in sample periods between
the end of the 1980s and 2015 has been used as supporting evidence. In
particular, I have included data pertaining to peace promoters, subjects,
and activities from Palestine and from the US and other places in order to
provide a sample of perspectives from areas where the peace process and
the media representation analysed in this work arose. Participant obser-
vation material comes from the period between February and April 2008,
when I visited various locations in Palestine with journalists and activ-
ists. There are of course limits to what qualitative analysis can achieve
even with relevant material. Each and every one of the interviewees has
stories which would need a whole book to fully explore and do them
justice. What is presented in this book does not pretend to highlight all
aspects of their experiences and thoughts, which are mostly explored in
light of the peace journalism project; the critical notes should therefore
be read with this aim in mind.
While interviews with peace promoters were easier to conduct thanks
to my earlier contacts in Palestine, access to journalists required a wider
approach. Interview access to elite subjects depends strictly on the
researcher’s disclosure of the aims and approach of their study (Phillips
1998: 9). This problem increases for widely debated, topical themes such
as the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and its transformation, two themes
about which journalists are usually very sensitive and which, in this book,
are presented together. When, at the beginning of my research during
my stay in Palestine, I attempted the first interviews, I immediately real-
ised that I needed to clarify and prove, who had “sent” me, and, in a few
cases, evoking the topic of peace in relation to the profession raised a few
eyebrows. Previous contacts were able to affirm to journalists that it was
safe to talk to me, an otherwise unknown researcher. At the same time,
during casual conversations I immediately realised that naming some of
my contacts, even when they belonged to the same “side”, often changed
the tone of the conversation to what I felt was a safer and more generic
one, especially when speaking with some of the local professionals,
or with subjects deeply involved in public disputes about the conflict.
Consequently, I had to adapt the way I used my network, for example
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
A businesslike atmosphere filtered through the quiet of the Smokies.
Though wolves and panthers had largely disappeared by 1910, fur
buyers and community traders enjoyed a brisk exchange in mink,
raccoon, fox, and ’possum hides. Oak bark and chestnut wood,
called “tanbark” and “acid wood” because they were sources of
valuable tannic acid, brought $7 per cord when shipped to Asheville
or Knoxville. As the sawmills flourished, makeshift box houses of
vertical poplar and chestnut planks gave way to more substantial
weatherboarded homes of horizontal lengths and tight-fitting frames.
Slick, fancy, buggy-riding “drummers” peddled high-button shoes and
off-color stories. The spacious Wonderland Park Hotel and the
Appalachian Club at Elkmont, and a hunting lodge on Jake’s Creek
graced the once forbidding mountainsides.
Undergirding this development was a growing cash base: peaches
and chestnuts, pork and venison, wax and lard—translated into
money—brought flour and sugar, yarn and needles, tools and
ammunition. Yet in the midst of this new-found activity, many clung to
their old habits. Children still found playtime fun by sliding down hills
of pine needles and “riding” poplar saplings from treetop to treetop.
Hard-shell Baptist preachers, such as the hunter and “wilderness
saddle-bagger” known as “Preacher John” Stinnett, still devoted long
spare hours, and sometimes workdays as well, to reading The Book:
“I just toted my Bible in a tow sack at the handle of my bull tongue
and I studied it at the turn of the furrow and considered it through the
rows.”
But whatever the immediate considerations of the hour happened to
be, logging was the order of the day. From the Big Pigeon River, all
the way to the Little Tennessee, the second generation of timber-
cutters had moved into the Smokies on a grand scale.
The companies, with their manpower, their strategically placed
sawmills, and their sophisticated equipment, produced board feet of
lumber by the millions. The rest of the country, with its increased
demands for paper and residential construction, absorbed these
millions and cried for more. By 1909, when production attained its
peak in the Smokies and throughout the Appalachians, logging
techniques had reached such an advanced state that even remote
stands of spruce and hemlock could be worked with relative ease.
Demand continued unabated and even received a slight boost when
World War I broke out in 1914.

Pages 100-101: Sawmills, such as this one at

Lawson’s Sugar Cove, were quickly set up in one
location and just as quickly moved to another as soon
as the plot was cleared.
National Park Service
High volume covered high costs. The Little River Lumber Company,
perhaps the most elaborate logging operation in the Smokies, cut a
total of two billion board feet. Cherry, the most valuable of the
woods, with its exquisite grain and rich color, was also the scarcest.
Yellow-poplar, that tall, straight tree with a buoyancy that allowed it to
float high, turned out to be the most profitable of all saw timber.
Coniferous forests, the thick, dark regions of pungent spruce and
hemlock, yielded a portion of the company’s output.
Extraction of such proportions was not easy. Timber cruisers combed
the forests, estimating board feet and ax-marking suitable trees.
Three-man saw teams followed the cruisers. One, the “chipper,”
calculated the fall of the tree and cut a “lead” in the appropriate side.
Two sawyers then took over, straining back and forth upon their
crosscut saw until gravity and the immense weight of the tree
finished their job for them. The work was hard and hazardous.
Sometimes, if the lead were not cut properly, the trunk would fall
toward the men; sudden death or permanent injury might result from
the kickback of a doomed tree’s final crash, or from a moment’s
carelessness.
To remove the felled timber, larger companies laid railroad tracks far
up the creeks from their mills. At the eastern edge of the Smokies,
for instance, one such terminus grew into the village of Crestmont,
which boasted a hotel, two movie theaters, and a well-stocked
commissary. Such accommodations seemed a distant cry indeed
from the upper branches of Big Creek, gathering its waters along the
slopes of Mt. Sterling, Mt. Cammerer, and Mt. Guyot. Workers from
improbable distances—even countries “across the waters,” such as
Italy—teamed with the mountain people to push a standard gauge
track alongside the boulder-strewn streams. Bolted onto oaken ties
that were spaced far enough apart to discourage foot travel, the
black rails drove ahead, switched back to higher ground, crossed Big
Creek a dozen times before they reached the flat way station of
Walnut Bottoms.
Dominated by powerful, blunt-bodied locomotives, the railroads gave
rise to stories that were a flavorful blend of pathos and danger.
“Daddy” Bryson and a fireman named Forrester were killed on a
sharp curve along Jake’s Creek of Little River. Although Forrester
jumped clear when the brakes failed to hold, he was buried under an
avalanche of deadly, cascading logs. There were moments of
comedy as well as tragedy. In the same river basin, Colonel
Townsend asked engineer Noah Bunyan Whitehead one day when
he was going to stop putting up all that black smoke from his train.
Bun
answered
: “When
they start
making
white
coal.”
Railroads
could
reach
only so
far,
however.
The most
complex
phase of
the
logging
process
was
“skidding,
” or
bringing
the felled
logs from
inaccessi
ble
distances
to the
waiting
cars. As
the first
step, men
armed
with cant Little River Lumber Company
hooks or
short,
harpoon- Massive steam-powered skidders pulled
like logs in off the hills to a central pile. Then the
peavies, loaders took over and put the logs on trains,
simply which carried them to the mills.
rolled the
logs
down the mountainsides. Such continuous “ball-hooting,” as it was
called, gouged paths which rain and snow etched deeper into scars
of heavy erosion. Sometimes oxen and mules pulled, or “snaked,”
the timber through rough terrain to its flatcar destination. Horses
soon replaced the slower animals and proved especially adept at
“jayhooking,” or dragging logs down steep slopes by means of J-
hooks and grabs. When the logs gained speed and threatened to
overtake them, the men and nimble-footed horses simply stepped
onto a spur trail; the open link slipped off at the J-hook and the logs
slid on down the slope under their own momentum.
Even more ingenious skidding methods were devised. Splash-dams
of vertical hemlock boards created reservoirs on otherwise shallow,
narrow streams. The released reservoir, when combined with heavy
rains, could carry a large amount of timber far downstream. In the
mill pond, loggers with hobnailed boots kept the logs moving and
uncorked occasional jams. Another method devised to move virgin
timber down steep slopes was the trestled flume. The large, wooden
graded flumes provided a rapid but expensive mode of delivery. One
carried spruce off Clingmans Dome.
There were, finally, the loader and skidders. The railroad-mounted
steam loader was nicknamed the “Sarah Parker” after “a lady who
must have been real strong.” The skidder’s revolving drum pulled in
logs by spectacular overhead cables. Loaded with massive timber
lengths, these cables spanned valleys and retrieved logs from the
very mountaintops.
National Park Service
George Washington Shults and some neighbors
snake out large trunks with the help of six oxen.
Sometimes the lumber companies would hire such
local people to handle a specific part of the operation.
Today we call the process subcontracting.
Little River Lumber Company
Of the many kinds of trees logged in the Great
Smokies, the largest and most profitable were the
yellow-poplars, more commonly known as tulip trees.
A man could feel pretty small standing next to one of
them.
Little River Lumber Company
The great scale of the logging machinery was like
nothing the Smokies had seen before. Long trains
carried loads of huge tree trunks to sawmills after the
flat cars were loaded by railroad-mounted cranes.
To coordinate all of these operations efficiently required skill and
judgment. The lumber companies devised numerous approaches to
the problem of maximum production at lowest cost. They contracted
with individuals; Andy Huff, for example, continued to run a mill at
the mouth of Roaring Fork and paid his men a full 75 cents for a 16-
hour day. The corporations sometimes worked together; in one
maneuver, Little River helped Champion flume its spruce pulpwood
to the Little River railroad for shipment to Champion’s paper mill at
Canton, North Carolina. Haste and carelessness could lead to
shocking waste. When one company moved its operations during
World War I, 1.5 million board feet of newly cut timber was left to rot
at the head of Big Creek.
The ravages of logging led to fires. Although fires were sometimes
set on purpose to kill snakes and insects and to burn underbrush,
abnormal conditions invited abnormal mishaps. Parched soil no
longer held in place by a web of living roots, dry tops of trees piled
where they had been flung after trimming the logs, and flaming
sparks of locomotives or skidders: any combination of these caused
more than 20 disastrous fires in the Smokies during the 1920s. A
two-month series of fires devastated parts of Clingmans Dome,
Siler’s Bald, and Mt. Guyot. One holocaust on Forney Creek, ignited
by an engine spark, raced through the tops of 24-meter (80-foot)
hemlocks and surged over 5 kilometers (3 miles) in four hours. A site
of most intense destruction was in the Sawtooth range of the
Charlie’s Bunion area.
Despite the ravages of fire, erosion, and the voracious ax and saw,
all was not lost. Some two-thirds of the Great Smoky Mountains was
heavily logged or burned, but pockets of virgin timber remained in a
shrinking number of isolated spots and patches at the head of
Cataloochee, the head of Greenbrier, and much of Cosby and Deep
Creek. And as the 1920s passed into another decade, the vision of
saving what was left of this virgin forest, saving the land—saving the
homeland—grew in the lonely but insistent conscience of a small
number of concerned and convincing citizens.
 Conducting a preliminary survey of the park’s
boundaries in 1931 are (from left) Superintendent J.
Ross Eakin, Arthur P. Miller, Charles E. Peterson, O. G.
Taylor, and John Needham.
George A. Grant
 Birth of a Park
Logging dominated the life of the Great Smoky Mountains during the
early decades of the 20th century. But there was another side to that
life. Apart from the sawmills and the railroads and the general stores,
which were bustling harbingers of new ways a-coming, the higher
forests, the foot trails, and the moonshine stills remained as tokens
of old ways a-lingering. One person in particular came to know and
speak for this more primitive world.
Horace Kephart was born in 1862 in East Salem, Pennsylvania. His
Swiss ancestors were pioneers of the Pennsylvania frontier. During
his childhood, Kephart’s family moved to the Iowa prairie, where his
mother gave him a copy of the novel Robinson Crusoe by Daniel
Defoe. In the absence of playmates on the vast Midwest grassland,
young Kephart dreamed and invented his own games, fashioned his
own play swords and pistols out of wood and even built a cave out of
prairie sod and filled it with “booty” collected off the surrounding
countryside.
Horace Kephart never forgot his frontier beginnings. He saved his
copy of Robinson Crusoe and added others: The Wild Foods of
Great Britain, The Secrets of Polar Travel, Theodore Roosevelt’s The
Winning of the West. Camping and outdoor cooking, ballistics and
photography captured his attention and careful study.
Kephart polished his education with periods of learning and library
work at Boston University, Cornell, and Yale. In 1887 he married a
girl from Ithaca, New York, and began to raise a family. By 1890, he
was librarian of the well-known St. Louis Mercantile Library. In his
late thirties, Kephart grew into a quiet, intense loner, a shy and
reticent man with dark, piercing eyes. He remained an explorer at
heart, a pioneer, an individual secretly nurturing the hope of further
adventures.
Opportunity arrived in a strange disguise. Horace Kephart’s largely
unfulfilled visions of escape were combined with increasingly
prolonged periods of drinking. Experience with a tornado in the
streets of St. Louis affected his nerves. As he later recalled:
“... then came catastrophe; my health broke down. In the summer of
1904, finding that I must abandon professional work and city life, I
came to western North Carolina, looking for a big primitive forest
where I could build up strength anew and indulge my lifelong
fondness for hunting, fishing and exploring new ground.”
He chose the Great Smokies almost by accident. Using maps and a
compass while he rested at his father’s home in Dayton, Ohio, he
located the nearest wilderness and then determined the most remote
corner of that wilderness. After his recuperation he traveled to
Asheville, North Carolina, where he took a railroad line that wound
through a honeycomb of hills to the small way station of Dillsboro.
And from there, at the age of 42, he struck out, with a gun and a
fishing rod and three days’ rations, for the virgin mountainside forest.
After camping for a time on Dick’s Creek, his eventual wild
destination turned out to be a deserted log cabin on the Little Fork of
the Sugar Fork of Hazel Creek.
His nearest neighbors lived 3 kilometers (2 miles) away, in the
equally isolated settlement of Medlin. Medlin consisted of a post
office, a corn mill, two stores, four dwellings, and a nearby
schoolhouse that doubled as a church. The 42 households that
officially collected their mail at the Medlin Post Office inhabited an
area of 42 square kilometers (16 square miles). It was, as Kephart
describes it:
“... the forest primeval, where roamed some sparse herds of cattle,
razorback hogs and the wild beasts. Speckled trout were in all the
streams. Bears sometimes raided the fields and wildcats were a
common nuisance. Our settlement was a mere slash in the vast
woodland that encompassed it.”
But it was also, for Horace Kephart, a new and invigorating home.
He loved it. He thrived in it. At first he concentrated his senses on
the natural beauty around him, on the purple rhododendron, the
 flame azalea, the
fringed orchis, the
crystal clear
streams. Yet as the
months passed, he
found that he could
not overlook the
people.
The mountain
people were as
solidly a part of the
Smokies as the
boulders
themselves. These
residents of branch
and cove, of Medlin
and Proctor and all
the other tiny
settlements tucked
high along the
slanting creekbeds
of the Great Smoky
Mountains, these
distinctive “back of
beyond” hillside
farmers and work-
worn wives and
wary moonshine
George Masa distillers lodged in
Kephart’s
Horace Kephart, librarian-turned- consciousness and
mountaineer, won the hearts of the imagination with
Smokies people with his quiet and rock-like strength
unassuming ways. He played a and endurance.
major role in the initial movement
for a national park. Initially silent and
suspicious of this
stranger in their midst, families gradually came to accept him. They
approved of his quietness and his even-handed ways, even
confiding in him with a simple eloquence. One foot-weary distiller,
after leading Kephart over kilometers of rugged terrain, concluded:
“Everywhere you go, it’s climb, scramble, clamber down, and climb
again. You cain’t go nowheres in this country without climbin’ both
ways.” The head of a large family embracing children who spilled
forth from every corner of the cabin confessed: “We’re so poor, if free
silver was shipped in by the carload we couldn’t pay the freight.”
Kephart came to respect and to wonder at these neighbors who
combined a lack of formal education with a fullness of informal
ability. Like him, many of their personal characters blended a
weakness for liquor with a strong sense of individual etiquette. He
heard, for example, the story of an overnight visitor who laid his
loaded gun under his pillow; when he awoke the next morning, the
pistol was where he had left it, but the cartridges stood in a row on a
nearby table.
He met one George Brooks of Medlin: farmer, teamster, storekeeper,
veterinarian, magistrate, dentist. While Brooks did own a set of
toothpullers and wielded them mercilessly, some individuals
practiced the painful art of tooth-jumping to achieve the same result.
Uncle Neddy Carter even tried to jump one of his own teeth; he cut
around the gum, wedged a nail in, and made ready to strike the nail
with a hammer, but he missed the nail and mashed his nose instead.
None of these fascinating tales escaped the attention of Horace
Kephart. As he regained his health, the sustained energy of his
probing mind also returned. Keeping a detailed journal of his
experiences, he drove himself as he had done in the past. He
developed almost an obsession to record all that he learned, to know
this place and people completely, to stop time for an interval and
capture this mountain way of life in his mind and memory. For three
years he lived by the side of Hazel Creek. Though he later moved
down to Bryson City during the winters, he spent most of his
summers 13 kilometers (8 miles) up Deep Creek at an old cabin that
marked the original Bryson Place.
Kephart distilled much of what he learned into a series of books. The
Book of Camping and Woodcraft appeared in 1906 as one of the first
detailed guidebooks to woodsmanship, first aid, and the art we now
call “backpacking,” all based on his personal experience and
knowledge. There is even a chapter on tanning pelts. But the most
authoritative book concerned the people themselves. Our Southern
Highlanders, published in 1913 and revised nine years later, faithfully
retraces Kephart’s life among the Appalachian mountain folk after he
“left the tame West and came into this wild East.” And paramount
among the wilds of the East was the alluring saga of the moonshiner.

Laura Thornborough
Wiley Oakley, his wife, and children gather on the
porch of their Scratch Britches home at Cherokee
Orchard with “Minnehaha.” Oakley always said, “I
have two women: one I talk to and one who talks to
me.”
National Park Service
Oakley was a park guide before there was a park. And
in that role he nearly always wore a red plaid shirt. He
developed friendships with Henry Ford and John D.
Rockefeller and became known as the “Will Rogers of
the Smokies.”
In Horace Kephart’s own eyes, his greatest education came from the
spirited breed of mountain man known as “blockade runners” or
simply “blockaders.” These descendants of hard-drinking Scotsmen
and Irishmen had always liked to “still” a little corn whisky to drink
and, on occasion, to sell. But as the 1920s opened into the era of
Prohibition, the mountain distiller of a now contraband product
reached his heyday. He found and began to supply an expanding,
and increasingly thirsty market.
Stealth became the keynote in this flourishing industry. Mountaineers
searched out laurel-strangled hollows and streams that seemed
remote even to their keen eyes. There they assembled the copper
stills into which they poured a fermented concoction of cornmeal,
rye, and yeast known as “sour mash” or “beer.” By twice heating the
beer and condensing its vapors through a water-cooled “worm” or
spiral tube, they could approximate the uncolored liquor enjoyed at
the finest New York parties. And by defending themselves with
shotguns rather than with words, they could continue their
approximations.
In this uniquely romantic business, colorful characters abounded on
both sides of the law. Horace Kephart wrote about a particular pair of
men who represented the two legal extremes: the famous
moonshiner Aquilla Rose, and the equally resilient revenuer from the
Internal Revenue Service, W. W. Thomason.
Aquilla, or “Quill,” Rose lived for 25 years at the head of sparsely
populated Eagle Creek. After killing a man in self-defense and hiding
out in Texas awhile, Rose returned to the Smokies with his wife and
settled so far up Eagle Creek that he crowded the Tennessee-North
Carolina state line. Quill made whisky by the barrel and seemed to
drink it the same way, although he was occasionally seen playing his
fiddle or sitting on the porch with his long beard flowing and his
Winchester resting across his lap. His eleventh Commandment, to
“never get ketched,” was faithfully observed, and Quill Rose
remained one of the few mountain blockaders to successfully
combine a peaceable existence at home with a dangerous livelihood
up the creek.
W.W. Thomason visited Horace Kephart at Bryson City in 1919.
Kephart accepted this “sturdy, dark-eyed stranger” as simply a tourist
interested in the moonshining art. While Thomason professed
innocence, his real purpose in the Smokies was to destroy stills
which settlers were operating on Cherokee lands to evade the local
law. He prepared for the job by taking three days to carve and paint
a lifelike rattlesnake onto a thick sourwood club. During the following
weeks, he would startle many a moonshiner by thrusting the stick
close and twisting it closer.
When Kephart led the “Snake-Stick Man” into whiskyed coves in the
Sugarlands or above the Cherokee reservation, he found himself
deputized and a participant in the ensuing encounters. More often
than not, shots rang out above the secluded thickets. In one of these
shootouts, Thomason’s hatband, solidly woven out of hundreds of
strands of horsehair, saved this fearless revenuer’s life.