Dr. Rania Fawzi 
Specialist in Israeli affairs and media discourse analysis

After Israel has spent millions of dollars during the last decade to improve its image in the Middle East, killing the journalist Shireen Abu-Aqla re-brought to the minds the occupation's massacres against foreigner journalists and its excessive use of force against the Palestinians. Thus, the question after the confession of a senior official in the Israeli army that there could be a possibility that Abu-Aqleh (Al-Jazeera's channel journalist) was killed by mistake, so will this confession of murdering her improve the image of Israel in the Middle East and overshadow this premeditated assassination crime?

Subsequent Israeli governments have used the same policy of pretending that Israel is a democratic country while its media is governed by military censorship under the guise of protecting national security. In a related context, the same subsequent policies are used by Israel in treating journalists and unarmed civilians to distort the truth via media.

In order to refute the occupation's narration, we analyzed the Israeli media extrapolation for murdering Shireen Abu-Aqla and her funeral, and found that the occupation media-with its different ideologies including those belong to Center party– avoided blaming the security agencies, and deliberately present the conflicting narratives, and official data from security agencies about murdering Shireen.

On the second day of the assassination of Abu-Aqla, the headlines of the biggest Hebrew newspapers and their contents showed that they are far from distorting the truth and are just revealing the messages of the security agencies. They also added that Israel violates the right of the reader to know about what is happening with neutrality and objectivity to maintain the image of Israel and its army. The assassination of Abu-Aqla, on the other hand, exposed the shame of the Israeli media, which deliberately revealed the reasons for concealing the premeditated murder crime. 

In light of refuting the occupation's confession of the mistake in murdering Shireen, we stopped on what was published in Israeli media, after assassinating her: she supported the Palestinian cause as well as the Palestinian resistance, and she distorted Israel's image, even in front of Israeli public opinion. Israeli media reports analyzed the media coverage of Shireen Abu-Aqla for the attack on Dizengoff Street in Tel Aviv-Yafo, which took place in the past few months, as she Shireen described the one who carried out the operation as a preparator and the “attack” as an operation, so the occupation considered these phrases to be completely false and didn't serve Israel.

The occupation authorities considered that Abu Aqleh's reports and the policy of Al-Jazeera channel call for support for Palestinian nationalism and the struggle against the Israeli occupation. It also seemed that there was monitoring of Abu Aqleh’s reports, which played an important role in the events of Al-Masjid Al-Aqsa. In the midst of the events of Al-Masjid Al-Aqsa in the past months before the assassination of Abu Aqleh, PM Naftali Bennett explicitly declared that the government of Qatar lies as it breathes, and it is an active fighter against the regional and international levels against the Abraham Accords. In a related context, Israeli analysts consider that cooperation with Qatar for any purpose is also an unacceptable act by the Israeli government. This is how the Israeli analyses that came before Shireen's assassination and afterwards prove that the assassination deliberately alerted Al Jazeera and intimidated its reporters and other Palestinian and foreign correspondents for not covering the full facts.

It did not stop with the Zionist media's support for the occupation’s narratives. Rather, Shireen’s killing and funeral revealed the false mental image that Israel is trying to deliver through social networks and its civilian and military spokesmen, as the narratives of its officials conflicted and the fact that they deliberately blamed the Palestinians and attached Shireen’s assassination to the resistance, especially since Israel always likes to show its image in the scene of victory, while the way the Palestinian holders of Shireen's coffin is considered as victory for them. 

Hence, we conclude that the erroneous recognition of the occupation’s responsibility for the killing of Abu Aqleh is nothing but an attempt to beautify the image of Israel (the pillar of its national security), which was damaged after the condemnation scene in front of international public opinion, and in the midst of the problematic Israeli desperate attempts, whether at the official level or even in the media, to cover up Israel’s intentional assassination of Abu Aqleh. We concluded that, internally, the Israeli government managed to evade responsibility for the assassination, so that the scene of the premeditated murder and the history of Abu Aqleh in confronting the occupation and exposing his crimes, remains the witness to the crime of deliberate assassination, not wrongful killing, according to the allegations of the occupation army.

 

Margins:

-  מות העיתונאית בג'נין: שירין אבו־עאקלה גייסה את המיקרופון למאבק בישראל
https://www.makorrishon.co.il/news/486921
מאת  אסף גבור 13/05/2022

2- קטאר תומכת בטרור. שיתוף הפעולה הישראלי עמה הוא מביש
https://www.haaretz.co.il/opinions/.premium-1.10790150
10  יגאל  כרמון במאי 2022    

3- אבו מאזן: ישראל אחראית למותה של שירין אבו עאקלה; בירושלים טוענים: הפלסטינים מסרבים לחקירה משותפת
https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/hkk8uau8q 11/05/2022

4- Unravelling the Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh 
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2022/05/14/unravelling-the-killing-of-shireen-abu-akleh/  May 14, 2022

5- תדמיתה של מדינת ישראל וההסברה הישראלית בעולם - תרגיל בכתיבה אקדמית
https://www.grade.co.il/ עידכון 2022 /5 /28

בנט: "התדמית של ישראל היא נדבך בביטחון הלאומי"6-
 https://www.srugim.co.il 28.12.21

7- הלקחים מפרשת מותה של העיתונאית הקטארית-אמריקאית, שירין אבו-עאקלה
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpFq0KfMCgc May 13, 2022

8- מות העיתונאית בג'נין: שירין אבו־עאקלה גייסה את המיקרופון למאבק בישראל
https://www.makorrishon.co.il/news/486921 מאת  אסף גבור (13/05/2022)

9-  הארון והעיוורון
 14.05.2022   https://www.the7eye.org.il/455234

10-  שערי העיתונים     https://www.the7eye.org.il/455036 12.5.2022