Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-dvmhs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-25T06:02:09.888Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Manufacturing ‘Quiet Arabs’ in Israel: Ethnicity, Media Frames and Soft Power

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 December 2012

Amal Jamal
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article has three aims. First, it aims to explain how media framing forms a central soft power tool utilized by states for the political control of social groups antagonistic to the states' dominant ideology. For that purpose it addresses Israeli state efforts to penetrate the native Arab community that remained within its borders after the 1948 war, seeking to create submissive ‘quiet Arab’ citizens. Second, it examines the role of Jewish-Arab (Mizrahi) professional opinion-makers in creating and maintaining this framing. Third, it demonstrates that efforts made by states to influence ‘captive audiences’ by media outlets in the global age can be successful only if they meet the needs of the target community.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 48 , Issue 2 , April 2013 , pp. 245 - 264
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Amal Jamal is Head of the Executive Political Communication Graduate Program and faculty member of the Political Science Department at Tel Aviv University. Contact email: ajamal@post.tau.ac.il.

References

Abraham, D. (2012) ‘The Knesset Discusses if a New Arab Channel Will be Established’, Walla News, http://b.walla.co.il/?w=/3050/2542036.Google Scholar
Agassi, E. (1964), letter from the director of al-Yom, Eliahu Agassi, to the Pedagogical Secretariat of the Hebrew University, 5 October, Israeli State Archives, file of the adviser on Arab affairs, 3551/10.Google Scholar
al-Anba'a (1974), letter from Shlomo Hanan to Shmuel Toledano, Israeli State Archives, file of the adviser on Arab affairs, GL17085/1.Google Scholar
Ayalon, A. (2004), Reading Palestine: Printing and Literacy, 1900–1948 (Austin: University of Texas Press).Google Scholar
Bar-Haim, S. (1968), letter of ‘declaration of intent’ written by Shmuel Bar-Haim for the publication of an Arabic newspaper for the Arab public in Israel, 18 September, Israeli State Archives, file of the adviser on Arab affairs, G5498/12.Google Scholar
Bar-Moshe, Y. (1969), letter sent from Yitzchak Bar-Moshe, editor of al-Anba'a, to members of the editorial board, documenting his meeting with Anwar Nusseibeh, minister in the Jordanian government, 19 May 1969, Israeli State Archives, file of the adviser on Arab affairs, GI17033/6.Google Scholar
Bishara, A. (2003), The Arabs in Israel: A View from Within (in Arabic) (Ramallah: Muwatin).Google Scholar
Black, I.Morris, B. (1991), Israel's Secret Wars: A History of Israel's Intelligence Services (New York: Grove Weidenfeld).Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P.Accardo, A. (1999), The Weight of the World: Social Suffering in Contemporary Society (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press).Google Scholar
Chong, D.Druckman, J.N. (2007), ‘A Theory of Framing and Opinion Formation in Competitive Elite Environment’, Journal of Communication, 57: 99–118.Google Scholar
Cohen, H. (2010), Good Arabs: The Israeli Security Agencies and the Israeli Arabs, 1948–1967 (Berkeley: University of California Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Committee of Directors of Information (1967), summary of meetings of the Committee of Directors of Information, 7 and 17 July, Israeli State Archives, file of the adviser on Arab affairs, 17018/17.Google Scholar
Darwish, S. (2008), author's telephone interview with Samir Darwish, writer of ‘The Mouths of People’ column, 21 September 2008.Google Scholar
Eliyahu, Y. (1964), letter from Yosef Eliyahu to Haim Fletcher of the Association of Building Workers of the Histadrut, 27 December, Israeli State Archives, file of the adviser on Arab affairs, 3551/10.Google Scholar
Entman, R.M. (1989), Democracy without Citizens: Media and the Decay of American Politics (New York: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Entman, R.M. (1993), ‘Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm’, Journal of Communication, 43(4): 51–58.Google Scholar
Gamson, W., Croteau, D., Hoynes, W.Sasson, T. (1992), ‘Media Images and the Social Construction of Reality’, Annual Review of Sociology, 18: 373–393.Google Scholar
Hirsch, D. (2008), ‘Interpreters of Occident to the Awakening Orient: The Jewish Public Health Nurse in Mandate Palestine’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 50(1): 227–255.Google Scholar
Hizma (1973), response letter from Hizma to Shmuel Toledano, 15 July, Israeli State Archives, file of the adviser on Arab affairs, 17084/11.Google Scholar
Hotchkiss, N. (2010), ‘Globalizing Security? Media Framing of National Security in France and the United States from the Cold War through 11 September’, International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 51(5): 366–386.Google Scholar
Jamal, A. (2005), Media Politics and Democracy in Palestine (Eastbourne: Sussex Academic Press).Google Scholar
Jamal, A. (2006), ‘Arab Leadership in Israel: Ascendance and Fragmentation’, Journal of Palestine Studies, 35(2): 1–17.Google Scholar
Jamal, A. (2009), Arab Public Sphere in Israel: Media Space and Cultural Resistance (Bloomington: Indiana University Press).Google Scholar
Jiryis, S. (1981), ‘Domination by the Law’, Journal of Palestine Studies, 11(1): 67–92.Google Scholar
Jubran, S. (2009), author's personal interview with the late Salem Jubran, editor of al-Ittihad from 1987 to 1992, Nazareth, 10 March.Google Scholar
Kabha, M.Caspi, D. (2001), ‘From Sacred Jerusalem to the Spring, Themes in the Arab Press in Israel’ (in Hebrew), Panim, 16: 44–56.Google Scholar
Khalidi, R. (1997), Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness (New York: Columbia University Press).Google Scholar
Koren, A. (2008), ‘Good Intentions: Character Traits of the Office for Minority Affairs, 14 May 1948–1 July 1949’ (in Hebrew), Katedra, 127: 113–140.Google Scholar
Kretzmer, D. (1990), The Legal Status of the Arabs in Israel (Boulder, CO: Westview Press).Google Scholar
Lakoff, G. (2009), The Political Mind: A Cognitive Scientist's Guide to your Brain and its Politics (New York: Penguin).Google Scholar
Landau, J. (1993), The Arab Minority in Israel: Political Aspects, 1967–1991 (Oxford: Clarendon Press).Google Scholar
Larson, S.G. (2006), Media and Minorities: The Politics of Race in News and Entertainment (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield).Google Scholar
Layish, A. (1975), ‘Social and Political Changes in Arab Society in Israel’, in M. Curtis, J. Neyer and C. Waxman (ed.), The Palestinians: People, History and Politics (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books): 81–87.Google Scholar
Lukes, S. (1974), Power: A Radical View (London: Macmillan).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lustick, I. (1980), Arabs in the Jewish State: Israel's Control of a National Minority (Austin, University of Texas Press).Google Scholar
Meir-Glitzenstein, E. (2004), ‘Conflicting Commitments: The Mizrahi Leadership in Mapai in Israel's Early Years’, Israel, 5: 63–97.Google Scholar
Mill, J.S. (2003), On Liberty (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press).Google Scholar
Motzafi-Haller, P. (2002), ‘Mizrahi Intelectuals, 1946–1951: The Ethnic Identity and its Limits’, in H. Hever, Y. Shenhav and P. Motzafi-Haller (eds), Mizrahim in Israel: A Critical Observation into Israel's Ethnicity (Jerusalem: Van Leer Institute and Hakibutz Hamiuchad): 152–190.Google Scholar
Naor, M. (2005), Gentleman, the Press: Chapters in the History of the Written Communication in Israel (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Ministry of Defense).Google Scholar
Negbi, M. (2011), The Freedom of Press in Israel (in Hebrew) (Raanana: Open University).Google Scholar
Nye, J.S. (2004), The Power Game: A Washington Novel (New York: Public Affairs).Google Scholar
Price, M.E. (2002), Media and Sovereignty: The Global Information Revolution and its Challenges to State Power (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).Google Scholar
Prime Minister's Office (1962), summary of meeting about al-Yom at the Prime Minister's Office, 5 October, Israeli State Archives, file of the adviser on Arab affairs, 3551/5.Google Scholar
Reiter, Y. (1997), Islamic Institutions in Jerusalem: Palestinian Muslim Organization under Jordanian and Israeli Rule (The Hague: Kluwer Law International).Google Scholar
Sadi, A.H. (2003), ‘The Incorporation of the Palestinian Minority by the Israeli State, 1948–1970’, Social Text, 21(2): 75–94.Google Scholar
Sasson, N. (1964), letter from Nadiv Sasson, 5 November, Israeli State Archives, file of the adviser on Arab affairs, 3551/10.Google Scholar
Scheufele, D. (1999), ‘Framing as a Theory of Media Effects’, Journal of Communication, 49(1): 103–122.Google Scholar
Shenhav, Y. (2006), Arab Jews: A Postcolonial Reading of Nationalism, Religion, and Ethnicity (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press).Google Scholar
Shohat, E. (1988), ‘Sephardim in Israel: Zionism from the Standpoint of its Jewish Victims’, Social Text, 19/20: 1–35.Google Scholar
Shohat, E. (2001), Forbidden Reminiscences: Toward Multi-cultural Thought (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Kedem Stage for Literature).Google Scholar
Smooha, S. (1989), Arabs and Jews in Israel (Boulder, CO: Westview Press).Google Scholar
Spivak, G.C. (1999), A Critique of Colonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).Google Scholar
Swirski, S. (1989), Israel: The Oriental Majority (London: Zed Books).Google Scholar
Toledano, S. (1970), statement by Shmuel Toledano, the prime minister's adviser on Arab affairs, Israeli State Archives, file of the adviser on Arab affairs, 304/63.Google Scholar
Wurmser, M. (2005), ‘Post-Zionism and the Spheradi Question’, Middle East Quarterly, 12(2): 21–30.Google Scholar
al-Yom (1963), minutes of advisory committee of al-Yom, 1 April, Israeli State Archives, file of the adviser on Arab affairs, 3551/5.Google Scholar
al-Yom (1964a), minutes of editorial board meeting of al-Yom, 8 November, Israeli State Archives, file of the adviser on Arab affairs, 3551/6.Google Scholar
al-Yom (1964b), letter from al-Yom to Wissotzky, 20 October, Israeli State Archives, file of the adviser on Arab affairs, 3551/10.Google Scholar
al-Yom (1964c), letter from al-Yom to Mr Badman of Dubek, 10 October, Israeli State Archives, file of the adviser on Arab affairs, 3551/10.Google Scholar
al-Yom (1969), letter from Yitzhak Bar-Moshe to Shmuel Toledano, 26 November, Israeli State Archives, file of the adviser on Arab affairs, 17033/6.Google Scholar
al-Yom (1971), discussions of directors of al-Yom, 19 October, Israeli State Archives, file of the adviser on Arab affairs, 17084/13.Google Scholar
al-Yom (1972), discussions of directors of al-Yom, 23 March, Israeli State Archives, file of the adviser on Arab affairs, 17084/13.Google Scholar
Yu, W.Cohen, H. (2009), ‘Marketing Israel to the Arabs: The Rise and Fall of the al-Anba'a Newspaper’, Israel Affairs, 15(2): 190–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhayyek, E. (2008), author's personal interview with Edmond Zhayyek, director of the national Arabic radio station of Israel, Jerusalem, 23 December.Google Scholar