CNN Can’t Be Bothered To Find Some Palestinians

The horrific attack which left five Israelis dead in Jerusalem yesterday was the top international news item in the United States and in many places around the globe. On CNN, it was covered in just about every program they had on during the day. As is generally the case when Israelis are victims of Palestinian violence, Western media zooms in. That can not be said for the other way around which is far more prevalent given the ongoing Israeli military occupation of Palestine.

On the occasions when Western media does cover Israeli violence against Palestinians, Israeli guests, often officials, are always brought on to provide their perspectives, narratives and analyses. In yesterday’s lead story, it was Israelis who were the victims of Palestinian violence. The bloody attack, while certainly an event that merits coverage on its own, was part of a series of events in recent weeks which have not been covered with the same focus. And it was clear that the hosts and producers at CNN understood this since the notion of “rising tensions” and a “cycle of violence” was noted in many of the interviews with guests on CNN’s air yesterday.

Violence against Israelis is not the only thing happening in and around Jerusalem of course. A Palestinian was stabbed multiple times by settlers in Kufr Aqab yesterday and a boy was shot in Beitin village. Just days ago an 11 and 10 year old were shot in the face in separate instances. Raids into people’s homes and wide scale arrests take places on a near daily basis. Homes of Palestinians in Jerusalem are being subjected to the vile spewing of an odor laced spray. Threats by Israeli officials ofcontinued illegal settlement expansion are unabated. Oh, and this is just stuff that happened in the last few days.

Given that this event, which had brought so much focus to the “rising tensions”, was part of a broader context that involved Israelis and Palestinians alike you’d think balanced coverage would invite analysis from different perspectives. You’d think the questions that are commonly asked like “Where do we go from here?”, “What does this event mean?”, “Is this the beginning of a new intifada?”, “How can tensions be cooled?”, “Who/what is responsible for escalating tensions?” would be answered from both Israeli and Palestinian analytical perspectives. But was that the case?

Below are images of all the guests CNN had on for information and analysis around yesterday’s coverage. Scroll down to see how many Israelis, both officials and non-officials, Jewish Americans and Palestinians were guests on CNN yesterday. Note that not all images below are from yesterday’s programming as not all video is available yet but full transcripts of all CNN shows yesterday where these guests did appear are here.

Israelis

Yuval Steinitz, Israeli Intelligence Minister

Micky Rosenfeld, Foreign Press Spokesman for the Israeli Police

Mark Regev, Chief Spokesman of the Israeli Prime Minister

Barak Ravid, Diplomatic Correspondent for the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz

Ron Prosor, Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations

Dore Gold, President of the Israeli think tank, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs 
and former advisor to Prime Minister Netanyahu

Ron Dermer, Israeli Ambassador to the United States

Nir Barkat, Mayor of Jerusalem

Jewish Americans

Aaron David Miller, Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center and former 
Senior Advisor on Arab–Israeli negotiations to Secretary of State Colin Powell

Peter Beinart, Political Commentator and author of The Crisis of Zionism

Alan Dershowitz, Professor at Harvard University and author of The Case for Israel