Foreign correspondents in Israel, and the Arab–Israeli conflict and peace process

Foreign correspondents play a key role in the construction of foreign images about Israel. The overwhelming quantity of reporting about Israel is carried out by a relatively small number of persons. Reflecting the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict and peace process, there has been a considerable growth in the number of foreign news organizations with representatives in Israel. Drawing on surveys of the foreign press corps by the author, the factors for the news interest are examined. Correspondents’ selfevaluations of their news interest found that War and Terrorism are overwhelmingly the major factors. Culturally proximate factors such as the Holyland, Israel-US ties and Israeli relations with Arab countries while existent have less significance than the military story. These were confirmed by separate questions measuring the frequency of contacts with news sources, where the Army Spokesman and the Foreign Ministry were found to be the major news sources. Structural factors such as military censorship; knowledge levels about Israel/Arab countries and Judaism/Islam; and advanced media technology were found to be lesser factors than the war and terrorism. This led to an overwhelming focus in foreign media coverage of Israel upon the conflict with little coverage of Israeli society itself.