No political conflict contains as many journalistic minefields as that between Israel and Palestine.

Even my opening sentence is contentious: some outlets refer to war between Israel and Hamas, others use terms such as genocide, which is hotly contested by defenders of Israel.

Overall the Nine newspapers, the ABC and SBS have done a reasonable job of covering a complex situation, although partisans on both sides are unhappy about some of their coverage. The Murdoch press, on the other hand, reads as if it is written in Jerusalem, and is striking for not giving space to any critics of Israel while accepting every claim of antisemitism as worthy of major news coverage.

A typical example of one-sidedness came from The Weekend Australian [paywalled] [October 18-19] which ran a front-page story on Jews who were moving to Israel to escape a sense of being persecuted in Australia – one émigré gave as his reason for leaving seeing signs proclaiming Free Palestine on university campuses. The story might have been more meaningful, had the reporters looked for Australian Palestinians and asked how they felt reading the constant attacks on them by sections of the media and politicians.

But even the best journalists can slip up: two examples from The Age........

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