New York Times Jerusalem Bureau Chief Ethan Bronner said at a lecture in the International Lounge last Tuesday that a greater level of discourse in Israel in comparison with the Palestinian territories affects the media coverage of both societies' roles in the Mideast conflict. The event was sponsored by the Schusterman Institute for Israel Studies and the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism. Bronner has covered the Middle East since the 1980s for Reuters, the Boston Globe and as the deputy foreign editor for The Times.

Bronner said that media coverage is chiefly affected by the fact that Israel has "a very, very open, robust debate going on all the time." Within the Palestinian territories, "there isn't that same robust debate; there is very little investigative journalism, . and there are no columnists complaining about the situation the way there are in Israel," Bronner said. "Don't complain about us not writing positive things about Israel; complain about our not writing enough negative things about their enemies."

While Hamas officials have not restricted his reporting as the Israeli government had warned him they would, Bronner told the audience of over 100 that Hamas officials offered less substantive information and studies and more opinions than facts.

Bronner described how The New York Times has had to reconcile the opposing perspectives in its coverage of every aspect of the Mideast conflict.

"In a world that tends to be black and white, I traffic in gray," he said.

Bronner pointed to particular reporting challenges during the conflict in Gaza between Hamas and Israel from December 2008 to mid-January 2009, particularly in the context of a controversial report accusing both sides of war crimes. That report's lead author, Justice Richard Goldstone, visited Brandeis with former Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Dore Gold last fall. Gold stated that Israel invaded Gaza in self-defense to end rocket attacks from Gaza on towns in southern Israel.

Bronner called the Israeli military's initial policy of blocking foreign reporters from Gaza an "immoral and stupid thing to do."

Once allowed to enter Gaza, he said he gained the impression that Israel had had a mistaken assumption that once it instructed residents to leave their houses, only Palestinian fighters would remain. He stated that it turned out that many Gazans did not want to leave and did not expect the Israelis to be very violent, since many had lived with Israelis or worked in Israel, a miscalculation he suggested led to destruction of property and inadvertent injuries and deaths among civilians.

Countering Goldstone's claims, Bronner said the Israeli blockade of Gaza and Israeli military action "are separate policies, but the fact is they feed into the same sentiment that Israel is trying to destroy civilian life in Gaza, which I think is a very harsh assessment."

Bronner said that in a Gaza neighborhood called Atatra, he questioned statements by the Israeli military that it only destroyed houses it knew contained explosives after an arms expert with him found none. He said military members gave explanations including that they suspected the houses had explosives, which is why they did not want to take any chances and moved residents out and destroyed the houses. Bronner said he attempted a "melding of the two sides that allowed me to build some kind of narrative but a tentative one."

Powerful stories from the region encourage media interest, he said.

"You have [the Jewish people] . nearly decimated by the worst genocide in human history; they emerge from the ashes of it and going back to this land that they say they're from. . They go and build this incredibly successful society in a very short time. That's what we call a good story," he stated. "Then in the process of building their very successful society, it gets a little harsh," he went on to say. "And there's an occupation, . and the people who all those years were seen as victims are now victimizing others. That's what we call a good story."

During a question-and-answer session following the talk, Dexter Van Zile, from the pro-Israel group Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, asked about media coverage of hatred toward Jews on state-run Palestinian television. "I say it could use more coverage than it gets [but] one of the problems with stories that never change, it's hard to write them again," Bronner said.

Debby Frisch '10 asked how Bronner felt he could cover the Middle East objectively with his son having joined the Israeli military. "I'm not very emotionally involved in this conflict. . I feel that people who are natural advocates shouldn't go into doing what I do," he said. His son's independent choice, he added, "doesn't affect my sense of what I do." In a Feb. 6 column by Clark Hoyt in The New York Times, Hoyt advocates Bronner's removal from reporting on the conflict, while New York Times executive editor Bill Keller is quoted as saying that Bronner's son's decision should not affect his father's position at the newspaper.

In an interview with the Justice after the event, Bronner spoke about the challenges of covering unchanging aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "I am looking down the road and seeing stagnation, and I'm kind of wondering about that. . I'm worried that the world attention will be too focused on other things, . but there's so much historic interest in it, I think I'll be fine for a year or two."

Judy Wolf, a resident of the Waltham area, called the event "one of the best discussions I've heard about Israel and its neighbors in a very, very long time."

"It was a very interesting and rewarding experience to be able to see the face behind the reporter," Adam Ross '10 said.