News Frames of Israeli Settlement in the American Newspapers' Websites

تهدف هذه الدراسة إلى تحديد أهم الأطر الإخبارية لقضية الاستيطان الإسرائيلي في مواقع الصحف الأمريكية ، ومعرفة موضوعات الاستيطان الإسرائيلي، التي ركزت عليها هذه المواقع، وأبرز آليات وأدوات التأطير المستخدمة، والكشف عن سمات واتجاهات الأطر الخبرية واتجاهاتها، وأهم الشخصيات الرئيسية، وأطر الأسباب والنتائج. 
تنتمي هذه الدراسة إلى الأبحاث الوصفية التي تستخدم تحليل محتوى الأخبار المتعلقة بالاستيطان الإسرائيلي في موقعي نيويورك تايمز وواشنطن بوست من 1 يناير 2015 ، وحتى 31 ديسمبر 2017 ، حيث تم تحليل 365 خبرا عن في الموقعين، 175 في نيويورك تايمز و 190 في واشنطن بوست. 
ومن نتائج الدراسة أن أطر النتائج المتوقعة حصلت على المرتبة الأولى من الأطر الإخبارية لقضية الاستيطان الإسرائيلي، تلاها أطر المسؤولية، وأخيرا أطر الحلول المقترحة، وتبين أن الشخصيات الإسرائيلية الرئيسية فاقت عدد الشخصيات الدولية والفلسطينية في المواقع الإلكترونية للدراسة، وهذا يدل على ضعف الوجود الفلسطيني في هذه القضية الحيوية.


INTRODUCTION
The settlement issue is one of the most important tools which Israel implemented the policy of displacement that expelled the Palestinians from their lands since 1948. Israel built the "kibbutzim" that was deported to the final status negotiations, along with Jerusalem, refugees, water and borders according to the 1993 Oslo Declaration of Principles. After Oslo, the Israeli government confiscated 36,000 dunams in and around Jerusalem. The 1998 Wye River Agreement stated that no action would be taken to change West Bank and Gaza Strip status, but in 1999, more than 27 outposts were established.
Israeli settlement has become a media material circulated in the American media, and the world witnessed in the late last century a major revolution in communications led to a major shift in the role of the media, and the extent of the world's reliance on it to pass its political, economic and social programs, and therefore "media and diplomacy has became Two sides of the same coin: foreign policy and the image of the state in the international and regional communities ( 1 ) " The Western media views the Palestinian issue as a conflict between two parties, and its media materials are completely devoid of the historical context of the Palestinian cause. It even deals with the coverage of Israeli aggressions in its wars on an equal footing, and intentionally recounts the details of the Israeli deaths, while our martyrs are figures in their media without any details ( 2 ) .
On the other hand, the influence of the media in American foreign policy comes from the strength of the Israelis lobby and its control over the American media, so that the media often represents the will of that lobby.
Israeli settlement issue is one of the most fundamental issues related to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that is dealt with in the American media, these mass media through dealing with such issues are biased by looking at them from the perspective of American interest, they adopt a kind of selectivity through automatic sorting of news and events, so what is consistent with the general policy of the State becomes news, and became a fact, and what violates foreign policy orientations becomes evidence that the opponent is a threat to the supreme national interest, which requires confrontation ( 3 ) .

LITERATURE REVIEW
Number of studies have addressed this issue, including Al Zahar study (2018) ( 4 ) , which found the prevalence of the anti-settlement trend in American electronic newspaper articles, the study of Al-Ajla (2015) ( 5 ) confirmed the significant decrease in the presence of Arab actors in the speech of Palestinian newspapers, which indicates the weakness of the actual Arab role towards the issue of Israeli settlements, the study of Al-Ajla (2014) ( 6 ) referred that the conflict frames came first in the media frames of Settlements' topics, followed by the responsibility frames, then the moral frames.
Qutob study (2011) ( 7 ) proved that illegal settlements in the West Bank were established with a deliberate plan to create facts on the ground. It harms the "peace negotiations," Amer & Amer study (2011) ( 8 ) confirmed that American newspapers presented Israeli settlement activities in occupied Jerusalem and the West Bank as detrimental to the "peace negotiations", while Hughes study (2011) ( 9 ) found that the goal of building the separation barrier in the West Bank is not security; it seeks to annex settlements, and control land and natural resources.

STUDY PROBLEM
The problem of this study is to identify the news frames of the Israeli settlement issue in the websites of American newspapers, by identification of the topics of Israeli settlement, and the news frames of this issue, and the mechanisms& tools of framing used, and the most important key figures.

Study Objectives and Questions
This study aimed to find out how the websites of American newspapers frame the issue of Israeli settlement. A number of questions have been drawn to achieve this aim:  How interested are the websites of American newspapers on the issue of Israeli settlement? What are the topics of settlement?  What are the sources on which the websites of American newspapers relied on the Issue of the Israeli settlement? What are the news forms of this issue?  What are the news frames of the issue of Israeli settlement in the websites of American newspapers (conflict -reactions -responsibility -humanitarian concerns)?  What are the frames of causes, solutions and results of the Israeli settlement issue raised by the websites of American newspapers?  What are the key figures on which the websites of American newspapers focused on in addressing the issue of Israeli settlement? What are the mechanisms of framing?

Theoretical Framework
The study uses media frames theory, and to clarify the concept of framing, there are "three explicit terms denoting framing: Framing is a process of mass communication of the multilateral, frames refers to the angles which cover events, topics and different issues, some consider this term to be a kind of scientific shortcoming, because it reduces the framing process and empties it from its content, this concept does not accurately reflect the meaning of the framing process . ( 10 ) Robert Entman defined the media frames as "a deliberate selection of certain dimensions of the event, or issue, and making it more prominent in the media text in a way that regulates, identifies, and harmonizes the issue" ( 11 ) .

METHODOLOGY
This study is based on the survey methodology, which is consider a scientific effort to obtain data and information about a phenomenon ( 12 ) . The study uses a content analysis to describe the news content of the Israeli settlement issue in the websites of American newspapers. The content analysis included category of topics, news source, news frames, reason and solution frames, results frames, key figures and framing mechanisms.

The Sample
The researchers chose the websites of the New York Times and the Washington Post newspapers as a sample of the study because they have record numbers of browser numbers, and therefore they are effective and influential sites, and because of their interest on the issue of Israeli settlement in the Palestinian territories. The researchers chose three years between (Jan 1 st 2015 to Dec 31 st 2017) to be studied, because this period witnessed an escalation of Israeli settlement activity in the occupied territories in light of the stalled peace process and important decisions against the settlements.
The researchers have limited all the news topics related to the issue of Israeli settlement in this period by advanced search method in the two websites, and by searching the keywords as: Israeli Settlement, Settlers, Land Confiscation, Separation Wall, Settlements, Jewish Settlement.

RESULTS
The researchers deal with the results of the study of content analysis and analysis of news frames, then discussing and explaining them, and comparing them with previous studies. The researchers conclude from the previous results that the study websites focused on illegality of Israeli settlements frames in line with the positions of the American administrations, as well as international positions from it, so the study websites did not focus on some other settlement issues as shown in previous results, which explains their editorial policy in line with this trend.

Israeli Settlement Topics
The study of (Amer, 2008) proved that the New York Times omitted important topics, and focused on topics that do not affect the interests of Israel ( 13 ) , and that shows the study websites' reliance on this approach in dealing with the issue of Israeli settlement, and the study of (Qutob, 2011) confirmed that Israel damaged from the policy of settlement, this policy contributed in isolating itself, which showed the issue of illegal Israeli settlements in the first place in the study websites as a result of the adoption of a world position against this policy, even the allies of Israel Like France, United kingdom, United States of America have expressed their opposition to settlement policy (14) .
The researchers conclude that the issue of land confiscating on got a high rate of settlement topics in the study websites is an optimal exploitation of the Israeli government for legal loopholes that consider the West Bank as disputed land, and does not belong to the Palestinians, and that the future of these lands will be decided in the final solution negotiations. The researchers assert that a large number of reports considered the lands of the West Bankas disputed ones, and the Washington Post reported a report confirming that the West Bank lands are disputed ( 15 ) .
The study of (Hughes, 2011) showed that Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank aims to confiscate Palestinian lands in favor of expanding the Israeli settlement. Hughes added that the goal of building the separation wall -one of the tools of Israeli settlement in the West Bank -is not security, but seeks to annex settlements and increase control of land in order to control natural and vital resources ( 16 ) .
The study of (Abadjiev, 2015) confirmed that the low cost of Israeli settlements in the West Bank encourages its continuation, also the study confirmed that Israeli local investment has helped increase land confiscation ( 17 ) , the researchers through reports in the websites of study that Israel has enacted laws to facilitate the confiscation of land under the cloak of Israeli law, the study of (Al-Jadba, 2011) confirmed that the goal of the existence of Israeli settlements in the West Bank is to control the Palestinian territories and expel the indigenous people there ( 18 ) .
The researchers consideredthat the websites of study dealt with the subject of operations against settlers more than the settlers attacks against the Palestinians, which is biased in favor of the Israeli occupation, where the news reports in the websites of study focused on the humanizing the settlers who were subjected to Palestinian attacks, while the perpetrators of the attacks are often described as murderers and criminals ( 19 ) . The high rates of obstructing the peace process issue indicates the weakness of the websites of the study's interest in the peace process, this is a reflection of the American political apathy towards the solution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The researchers noted that some of the reports in the websites of study were about US procedures that prevent the boycott of Israel on cultural and economic level, a Washington Post report confirms that some states have enacted laws criminalizing boycotts of Israel. The researchers conclude that the reliance of the website of study significantly on the reporter reflected the nature of news coverage, as a result, the websites of the study relied on Israeli sources 13 Amer, The linguistics of representation: the New York Times' discourse on the second Palestinian Intifada 14 Qutob, An Analysis of Israel's Settlement Policy in the Occupied West Bank after the Six-Day War and its Impact on the Peace-Process . 15 The Washington Post, Palestinians attack inside settlements, Israeli mother of 6 killed. (Website) 16 Hughes, Territoriality, Sovereignty and the Nation-state System in Israel-Palestine: The Creation of the Palestinian Bantustan "state" and Shifting Palestinian Resistance Tactics. 17 Abadjiev, The return to Judea and Samaria: Qualitative analysis on the dynamics of Israeli settlements in West Bank and East Jerusalem. 18 Aljadba, Israeli Settlement in East Jerusalem 1967-2009: A Study in Geopolitics. 19 The Washington Post, Netanyahu wants Palestinian violence linked to radical Islam. (Website) more than Palestinian sources, the conclude is in line with the study of (Aziz, 2014), which confirmed that the New York Times relied on Israeli sources more than relying on Palestinian sources to cover the news of Palestinian and Israeli deaths during the second Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 2006 ( 20 ) .

News Source
It is worth mentioning that the correspondent of the New York Times -Isabel Kershner -is permanently resident in Israel, and although she adopts all Israeli terms, one of the Times of Israel writers strongly attacked her because she criticized in one of her reports the Israeli democratic and expected its demise, Accordingly, Alan Edelstein called on the public not to adopt the New York Times as a source of news about Israel; because it has one dimension in coverage ( 21 ) .
The New York Times website followed a more engaging approach with the reporter to write reports on Israeli settlements and news of Palestinian operations against Israeli settlements in the West Bank, such as Zia Hadid, who is of Palestinian descent, and participated along with more than one journalist in reporting settlements in the West Bank. Such as the report sheparticipated in its writing about the Israeli Foreign Ministry's disapproval of the EU's labeling of goods produced in settlements when exported to the EU ( 22 ) .
The Washington Post website relied on British-born Israeli journalist Ruth Eglash, who worked for the Jerusalem Post, as a writer specialized in international media, as well as the newspaper's chief of staff William Booth. Media reports said Ruth had married a supporter of Israeli policies in the US, the report said that Ruth had difficulties in providing fair and non-emotional coverage towards the Palestinians, especially since the newspaper refused to disclose whether Ruth Eglash had told her officials about her husband's pro-Israel attitudes as stipulated by the laws in the paper ( 23 ) . Ruth described herself in an article in Huffington Post with the Jordanian journalist Hani Huzaima as an Israeli citizen, in the same report, she spoke passionately about Israel and defend the values they represent Israel ( 24 ) . It is clear from this table that the reliance of the websites ofstudy on the news report in the media marketing of Israeli settlements is very consistent with the results of Table (2) that shows the press source of the Israeli settlement materials in the websites of the study, where the presence of one or more correspondent of the newspaper makes its dependence on the report. This finding is similar to the study of (Ross, 2003) and (Issa, 2016), which showed that US newspapers often focus on reports in covering updates, rather than reports that have some analysis ( 25 ) .  21 Edelstein, Isabel Kershner, the NY times and the demise of our democracy. (Website) 22 Hadid, Israeli Foreign Minister Denounces E.U. Proposal to Label Settlement Products. (Website) 23 Abunimah,Washington Post's new Jerusalem correspondent married to pro-Israelpropagandist. (Website) 24 Eglash: Hazaimeh, Why We Can't Write This Story. (Website) 25 Issa, News frames of the Israeli aggression on Gaza 2014 in the website of the New York Times: an analytical study, pp (154). The high rates of Confiscating Palestinian Lands and Military checkpoints near Settlements' frames stands to reason, Israeli occupation forces and settlers are heavily present in Palestinian daily life, this is consistent with the study of (Cornett III, 2008), which confirmed that heavy Israeli repression in Palestinian daily life createda catastrophe and exacerbates the conflict . ( 26 ) The researchers believe that the concordance of the results of this study with the results of the following studies explains why the frames of the dismantling of settlements get a low rates, one of the most important reasons is that Israel considered the settlement as an internal issue, and its unwillingness to export the dismantling as a solution to the settlement problem in the West Bank, this is consistent with the study of (Qutob, 2011), which reported that illegal settlements in the West Bank were part of a deliberate plan as a means of creating facts on the ground ( 27 ) , and also differed with the study of(Hughes, 2011), which reported that the creation of a Palestinian Bantustan state is an Israeli interest in order to maintain the demographic balance in favor of a Jewish state, the study also confirmed that Israeli policy shifted from the full annexation of West Bank to the policy of building the Palestinian Bantustan state ( 28 ) .

Conflict Frames
The arrangement of the conflict frames in the total coincided with the findings of the study of (Hoffman, 2010), which reported that the government has the ability to exert influence on the media on foreign policy ( 29 ) . Although the rates of balanced reactions was higher than supportive frames, the supportive frames occupies a strong rates in the websites of the study which reflects the policy of those websites, and this result is consistent with the study (AbduIshaiba, 2013), which stated that US coverage of the conflict adopts double standards when judging Israel's practices, this coverage describes the Palestinian attacks as terrorist, while attacks by the Israeli occupation as part of legitimate reactions, the study also showed that the US media is biased in favor of Israel, which displays a false and distorted picture ( 30 ) .

Reaction Frames
The low rates of the anti-settlement reaction frames show a bias of the study's websites. This finding is consistent with the study of (Amer & Amer, 2011) which reported that there is a constant tendency in press reports in the American media to select news styles, information and vocabulary that fit the Israeli justifications ( 31 ) . The analysis of the websites of the study show that the Israeli government is primarily responsible for the Israeli settlements, and this is very much in line with the official position of the administrations of Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump. But the Washington Post website held the US administration more responsible for settlements than the New York Times. The Washington Post website conducts a more critical editorial policy of US policies on the Israeli settlement issue.

Frames of Responsible Parties
However, there was some contradiction in the official positions of the Trump administration. At the beginning of his reign, he expressed his disagreement with the idea that settlements impede the peace process. This contrasts with the study of (Amer & Amer, 2001) where journalists in the New York Times and The Washington Post presented Israeli settlement activities in occupied Jerusalem and the West Bank as detrimental peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians ( 32 ) . The researchers believe that the high rates of Israeli humanitarian concerns in the website of the study indicates their clear adoption of the Israeli narrative, but the most important is that the websites of the study show this narrative in a human context, this consistent with results of table (1), in which the subject of operations against settlers received a high rate, which led the websites of the study to focus on Israeli humanitarian concerns. This finding contrasts with the study of (Issa, 2016) which stated that the New York Times website focused on the frames of Palestinian humanitarian concerns more than Israeli humanitarian concerns ( 33 ) .

Humanitarian Frames
This finding is consistent with the findings of the study of (Ross,2003), which proved that the New York Times portrayed Palestinians as terrorist &criminals undermining calm during the attacks of September 11, 2001 ( 34 ) . The results refers to the fact that the frames of controlling Lands&Israeli Political Motivations have the highest rates gives a clear indication of the features of Israeli public policy towards the West Bank, and this is consistent with the results of the study of (Qutob, 2011), which proved that illegal settlements were created in the West Bank under a well-thought-out plan to create facts on the ground ( 35 ) , and this also coincided with the study of (Hughes, 2011) which stated that Israeli policy had shifted from a policy of full annexation of West Bank land to a policy of establishing a Palestinian Bantustans state ( 36 ) .

Frames of Reasons
The researchers' analysis of news materials at the websites of the study shows that US support for Israeli settlement in the West Bank was very clear after Trump took office in early 2017, a report in the Washington Post stated that Trump donated to a university in an Israeli settlement with 10,000$ ( 37 ) , this gives strength to the current supporting the Israeli settlement in the United States. The researchers believe that the frames of the resumption of the peace process, legal claims, and land exchange have got low duplicates in the the Websites of the study, this was consistent with the results of Table (6), where the parties responsible for the Israeli settlement process are the Israeli government and the US administrations, thus the solutions that have obtained low rates is not a priority for these parties, this is consistent with the study of (Cornett III, 2008), which concluded that Israel refuses to reach a solution to the problem of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, thus exacerbating the threat posed by its Arab neighbors ( 38 ) .

Solutions Frames
The results of Table (8) indicate that the possession of the frames of the two-state solution at the highest percentage in the Websites of the study constitutes an international consensus to resolve the issue of Israeli settlement, which is one of the keys to the political solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Israel didn't respond to the political pressure exerted by the countries of the world to stop Israeli settlements. It is clear from the previous table that the possession of the confiscation of Palestinian land as the highest result of Israeli settlement was consistent with the results of tables (6) & (10), where the confiscation frames of the Palestinian territories comes first, as well as consistent with the results of table (2) where the issue of land confiscation came third in the ranking of Israeli settlement issues. This is in line with (Hughes, 2011), which states that Israeli policy has shifted from a policy of full annexation of West Bank land to a policy of establishment Palestinian Bantustans state ( 39 ) .

Frames of Results
It was found that the frames of the abuse of Palestinian civilians, the disruption of negotiations, and the collective punishment of Palestinians have got average ratios, that was consistent with the findings of (Hoffman, 2010),which stated that the US government has the ability to extend its influence on the media on foreign policy. The A media, and the government form certain frames, the fact that the US government in the end is the passage of most information ( Israel, for its part, went too far in the policies of annexation and expansion, especially after President Donald Trump came to power. This is consistent with the study of (Hughes,2011), which stated that the establishment of the Palestinian Bantustans state is an Israeli interest to preserve the demographic balance in favor of the Jewishness of the state. The researchers conclude from receiving the Keywords the first place in the websites of the study the desire of the both websites to emphasize the contexts of the presented narrations, by preponderance the Israeli key figures on the Palestinian & international key figures, and the fact that the Israeli humanitarian demonstrated on humanitarian concerns in the websites of the study, the website of the study used biased keywords in favor of the Israeli narration in reports that covered the issue of Israeli settlement, this study is consistent with the study of (Isa, 2016) where it showed that the New York Times used quotations with a high rate, 77% ( 42 ) , and this is also consistent the study of (Amer and Amer, 2011) where language analysis of the New York Times and The Washington Post showed that the vocabulary used in both newspapers when talking about Jerusalem is very close to the vocabulary used by Israelis ( 43 ) .

Key Figures
The high rate of quotations indicates attitudes of the websites of the study, the high rate of quotations besides the outnumbering of Israeli key figures on the Palestinian & International key figures indicates the bias of the websites of the study to highlight the Israeli narrationat the expenses of the Palestinian In the view of the researchers that the lack of use of drawings and maps in the websites of the study gives unreal impression to the reader about the form and the path of Israeli settlement. For example, the Washington Post relies on the facts omission which has great importance, the newspaper removes data that are detrimental to the justification of Israeli actions ( 44 ) .

CONCLUSION
 The volume of coverage of the Israeli settlement issue in the study sites was 365 news subjects, 175 news articles in the New York Times website and 190 news articles in the Washington Post site, which reflects the interest of the two websites to follow up settlement affairs, and convergence in the volume of interest between the two sites.  The websites of the study relied on the reporter as being the only source in writing press reports on the issue of Israeli settlements, this indicates the interest of both websites to follow up the issue of Israeli settlement.
 The websites of the study used the report as the first place for the press forms of the Israeli settlement issue, with 88.3% in the New York Times and 95.3% in the Washington Post.
 Although the main victim of the Israeli settlement issue is the Palestinians, the percentage of Palestinian humanitarian concerns in the two websites was weak, with 33.6% compared to 66% for Israeli humanitarian concerns. 41 Issa, News frames of the Israeli aggression on Gaza 2014 in the website of the New York Times: an analytical study 42 Ibid. 43