“From Gaza to Tel Aviv: What Journalism in a Society at War?” focused on how journalism can fulfill its mission in the midst of a protracted conflict. Today, reporters face daunting challenges: restricted access to the field, political pressures, threats to their safety and that of their sources, and the constant struggle to verify facts with rigor. In Israel and Palestine, these pressures translate into deep polarisation, recurring violence, and competing claims of legitimacy.
Marie-Laure Salles, Director of the Geneva Graduate Institute, introduced the event by underlining the importance of “understanding how conflicts shape information and media landscapes in different geographical contexts”. Drawing on Marc Bloch’s analysis of false news during wartime, she emphasized that the spread of fake news stems less from factual inaccuracies than from the strength of collective emotions. Technology plays a double role in that context – it can increase and facilitate access to information but it also tends to reinforce the polarization of collective emotions and representations. Marie-Laure Salles dedicated the evening to the 220 journalists who have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023.
Jacques de Haller, Head of Public Affairs & Romandie at the New Israel Fund Suisse, made opening remarks thanking the participants and insisting that “reflection on the future of the Middle East region must continue” even as “sad, melancholic relief, reigns [thanks to the] fragile ceasefire” in Gaza.
Meron Rapoport, co-founder of A Land for All and contributing writer of the independent media outlet +972 Magazine, gave the keynote address and shared insights from his experience reporting across divides. He opened his talk with a profound series of questions that established the challenges he faces:
“How does one do journalism when words lose their meaning? When you feel you have no one to talk to? And nothing to talk about? How does one do journalism in Israeli society, paralysed by fear, insecurity, anger, and a desire for revenge after the massacre of October 7th — a society unwilling to hear about the other side, not ready to acknowledge its humanity and regard those who acknowledge it as traitors — a society that supports the complete destruction of the cities of Gaza, residential buildings, schools, university roads, infrastructure — a society where the vast majority according to all polls believe that there are no innocent people in Gaza, not even children, and wants Gaza to be clean of Palestinians.”
+972 Magazine is an independent, online, magazine run by Palestinian and Israeli journalists dedicated to providing in-depth reporting, analysis, and opinions from the ground in Israel-Palestine that frequently provides coverage on settlements and human rights abuses against Palestinians.
In his talk, Meron Rapoport discussed the complexities of journalism in Israel in the aftermath of 7 October, 2023, from general pressure from the Israeli army towards Israeli media to be more “aggressive” and to simply not cover the happenings in Gaza, to criticism he’s faced for contextualising the attacks and consistently fighting the dehumanisation of Palestinians in his coverage with +972 Magazine.
Meron Rapoport’s keynote address was followed by a panel discussion with Yves Daccord, President and Co-Founder of Principles for Peace, Board Member of the Fondation du Domaine de Villette, and former Director-General of the International Committee of the Red Cross, and Aline Jaccottet, Head of the International Section at Le Temps.
Together, they addressed the challenges of writing about Gaza since 2023. Aline Jaccottet provided valuable insight into her many years as a correspondent in Israel and Palestine in the past, and her coverage on Gaza at the Swiss newspaper, Le Temps, since 2023. She alluded to the challenge that not only Swiss but all European media faces, which is the lack of knowledge on the situation in Palestine and the responsibility to provide fair coverage.
Meron Rapoport discussed the responsibility of journalists to report the truth, even when governments are slow to accept terms such as “genocide”, and spoke about +972 Magazine’s revelation of that Microsoft's Azure cloud platform was being used by Unit 8200, Israel's elite spy agency, to collect elaborate surveillance data on the populations of Gaza and the West Bank, notably to prepare for airstrikes.
“From Gaza to Tel Aviv: What Journalism in a Society at War?” was an important look at the responsibilities of journalists in the context of the deep polarisation around Israel and Palestine, to provide not only the truth but to guarantee the humanisation of Palestinians.
