Canada and the Middle East

In December 1985, the Canadian press reported the death by suicide of hundreds of field mice in the Middle East. In an apparently instinctive reaction to a problem of over-population, the mice willfully plunged to their doom off the cliffs of the Golan Heights. This bizarre story was the subject not only of straight news coverage in the Canadian press, but also of an editorial in the Globe and Mail on December 20. On November 1, 1985, the Globe and Mail also ran a photograph of a visiting Roman Catholic priest from Brazil, saying prayers on the banks of the Jordan River at the site where Christ is said to have been baptized. Standing alertly near the priest was an Israeli soldier with a rifle slung over his shoulder, his eyes carefully scanning Jordanian territory across the river.

For the analyst of the media and media image-making, these rather unusual press items raise an interesting question about news selection and presentation by the editorial departments of the daily press. Had the mice toppled off Mount Kilimanjaro would this essentially scientific story about animal behavior have found its way so prominently into the Canadian press? Had the priest been peacefully saying mass on the Mountain would this religious item have been deemed worthy of coverage? Or was it the newspapers' sense of the irony of these events, of their news value as symbols depicting the pervasive conflict and violence we have come to associate with the Middle East that led to their selection for publication from the reams of teletype endlessly flowing into the editorial departments of the Canadian press? It would seem that even when the subject matter is scientific or religious--about mice or monsignors--the press is inclined to remind its readers of the inherently violent nature of the Middle East, and a fundamentally negative image is developed or reinforced. It is, Canadians are told in effect, a region so bleak and hopeless that even its despairing mice are driven to take their lives.

The purpose of this study is to examine in an empirical fashion Canadian daily press coverage of the Middle East to establish, inter alias, what type of image of the region and of its principal actors (Israel, the Palestinians and the Arab states) is, in fact, resented to the Canadian reader and what impact, if any, the character of that coverage has had on the shaping of Canadian foreign policy.

A review of the existing, limited literature on Canadian media coverage of the Middle East together with the more extensive literature on the Canadian media and international affairs generally led us to advance five hypotheses to test in our study of press coverage of the Middle East:

(1) It was anticipated that treatment of the region would be relatively substantial, given the prominence of Middle East events in the context of East-West relations and issues of global peace and security, and that the predominant coverage would be of Israel, the Palestinians, Egypt and Lebanon because of their central role in Middle East conflict (Hackett, 1989; Keenleyside, Soderlund, & Burton, 1985; Kirton, Barei, & Smockum, 1985; Sinclair, 1983).

(2) It was expected that there would be relatively limited coverage of Canadian relations with the Middle East unless some specific development, most likely within Canada, prompted attention to the region (Cumming, 1981; Keenleyside, Soderlund, & Burton, 1985; Kirton, Barei, & Smockum, 1985; Schroeder, 1977).

(3) Conflict rather than cooperation, it was hypothesized, would be the dominant orientation of the press with articles focusing on political divisions, disasters, violence and war rather than on softer news related to such subjects as culture, education and development (Cuthbert, 1980; Dewitt & Kirton, 1989; Hackett,1989; Inyang, 1985; Onu, 1979; Schroeder, 1977; Sinclair, 1983).

(4) On the perennial subject of bias towards Israel or the Arab states and the Palestinians, it was expected that, while the press would be critical of the party deemed responsible for any specific violent acts, it was likely to show reasonable balance even at such times on the central issue of a resolution of the Palestinian question.

(5) Finally, many authors have noted the potential relevance of media coverage to the making of foreign policy, particularly in terms of setting the policy agenda and shaping public opinion which, in turn, establishes the broad parameters within which policy is made. We thus hypothesized that the nature of the Canadian press coverage of the Middle East would be found to have some policy relevance.

This study analyzes Canadian press coverage of the Middle East during two contrasting periods. The first is the last quarter of 1985, a time of hostage-takings, bombings and killings perpetrated largely by Palestinians and their supporters. The events of this period included the hijacking of the Italian cruise ship,