When is a home not a home? When it’s a structure.

While Palestinian reporting has long given up trying to present an unbiased view of events, the Israeli print media is usually held to higher (and yes, Western) levels of impartiality. That’s why examples of clearly biased writing on its pages are upsetting, but also revealing; compare this treatment of the same news event in the two main dailies–Ha’aretz and The Jerusalem Post:

The Post reports the army bulldozed “2 dozen structures” near the Palestinian town of Rafah, and repeats the use of the awkward word “structures” throughout the piece. Ha’aretz, on the other hand, reports the army destroyed “18 houses and 6 stores”, and shows a picture of a boy picking up toys from the rubble. Reporting of other facts–such as mention of Palestinian injuries–also receives unequal prominence.

What’s beyond doubt is the subtle power of the narrative to shape world views over time. The tragedy with the Palestinian question is that both the Israelis and the Palestinians are teaching in their schools versions of the region’s history that are incompatible and diverging. Palestinians labor under the illusion that the right of return is a literally achievable goal. Israelis often overlook that justification for a segregated Israeli state is based upon a highly tendentious reading of the Balfour Declaration.

Such divergent narratives deter being able to imagine, even for a moment, how the other side judges the fairness of a situation. And such a lack of empathy is a necessary (though not sufficient) precondition for open ethnic conflict, because it makes possible such practices as the targeting of civilians in terror campaigns, and retaliatory measures involving the collective punishment of innocent people. Neither practice justifies the other, yet both are invoked as impetuses for further cycles of violence.

It’s always been a prerequisite for war–dehumanize the enemy, it makes conflict more palatable.