You were also a little taken aback by it at first. Reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict usually leads to a rapid flow of letters to the ombudsman, but after the massacre caused by Hamas and the subsequent Israeli violence in Gaza, it remained quiet. On Sunday a reader called for Carolien Roelants, on Monday morning at one minute before eleven another complained about the use of ‘militants’ where he considered ‘terrorists’ more appropriate. More about that issue, also discussed in the later post, more below.
First how NRC reported on the events that began. Last Saturday morning the news service was staffed by one editor, although more people were added quickly. That is a complicating factor in reporting NRC currently has no Middle East correspondent; Lucia Admiral will start next month and then settle in Jerusalem. Foreign editor Floris van Straaten flew to Amman on Saturday and traveled overland to Israel on Sunday.
Even as horrific images of the aftermath of the Hamas attack flooded social media that Saturday morning, it was difficult to get reliable information. Many images were too unpleasant to distribute, and their authenticity and origin were often impossible to determine. “We decided, in addition to the live blog for current developments, to focus mainly on explanation and background information in that phase,” says Foreign Affairs Chief Stéphane Alonso. Articles were published about the failure of Israeli security policy, the geopolitical consequences in the region, reactions in the Netherlands and the US. They landed with stories about Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and threatened Gazans and Israelis, all in the Monday newspaper. It leaned quite towards the analytical. According to Alonso, this was inevitable, in the absence of reliable information ‘on the ground’. On Monday afternoon, Van Straaten’s first report came online, as did a moving reconstruction of how Hamas fighters murdered 260 people at a dance festival in the Negev desert.
Dozens of productions followed during the week, such as a clear portrait of Hamas. Previous work also paid off. The article about the exhaustion of the inhabitants of Gaza, by Leonie van Nierop, which is gripping in its hopelessness, was an expanded version of a story that was written weeks ago. It had not been published before because of ‘timelessness’ (a term that is as bitter as it is true).
Four thousand kilometers northwest of the bloodshed, the conflict broke down into words: many of the comments that NRC last week revolved around words and sentences – and the moral charge given to those words. Small and quickly corrected errors were seen as evidence that the editors were leaning, fairly evenly, one side or the other.
Even outside the newspaper, the debate seemed to narrow to symbolic issues such as VVD party leader Yesilgöz saying he did not want to hear ‘yes, but’ (more than ‘but’ it seems to me ‘and’ the conjunction we are looking for these days ) or the periodic regurgitation of the provocation revenue model Johan Derksen (which was adequately handled in a one-paragraph TV review.)
What caused the most controversy, as I already mentioned, was the use and non-use of the words ‘terror’ and ‘terrorist’. NRC is, as was also explained in an article in the Wednesday newspaper, reluctant to use those words because it is “often used to place opponents outside the political order.” In the extended lemma about terrorism, the NRC Code states, among other things: “We prefer concrete, factual, descriptive terms in daily reporting, especially when little is known about the background or motives of an attack.” The Code also states that there is no reason to completely avoid ‘terror’ or ‘terrorist’. This doubleness was also visible in the newspaper’s choice of words in recent days. The foreign editors’ Monday articles contained factual descriptions, but ‘terror’ only appeared in quotations. The editorial of the same day stated no fewer than seven times.
Quite a few readers thought the newspaper was too cautious when it came to Hamas. They write that they find the use of ‘militants’ or ‘fighters’ an unacceptable euphemism for people who cause a massacre among civilians. As far as they are concerned, Hamas should always be referred to as ‘terrorist’. For others, Israel’s policy of closing off Gaza, restricting the supply of water and electricity and bombing civilians should consistently be referred to as (state) terrorism. Between those two fires, restraint is wise.
This was emphasized internally in a message to all editors with the recommendation to designate Hamas as “a fundamentalist Palestinian organization that has an administrative branch and commits terrorist acts” (something that can be assumed to be known for the time being) and to indicate that the organization has been considered terrorist by the EU for years. With all this caution, it seems to me that last weekend’s attacks on Israeli civilians can easily be called terror, as was also the case in the commentary.
And, given the violence that still lies ahead with an announced Israeli ground offensive in Gaza, it is good to maintain a certain degree of dismay.
Arjen Fortuin
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A version of this article also appeared in the October 14, 2023 newspaper.