The US media, Camp David and the Oslo peace process

Abstract

This article examines US mainstream press coverage given to the aftermath of the Camp David negotiations in July 2000, offering a critical perspective on the events and reactions to the failed summit. In doing so the article is able to identify and highlight the detrimental effects of inaccurate reporting of the IsraeliPalestinian conflict in the US press. It demonstrates how this misrepresentation of failure at Camp David has contributed to the ever-decreasing prospects for a just and viable solution to the conflict. This important snapshot of the long-standing IsraeliPalestinian conflict, it argues, accurately encapsulates the flawed nature of many dominant truths of the debate over the conflict. Consequently it can provide a critical lens through which to draw broader conclusions about the issues that continue to impede and undermine the prospects for balanced negotiations and peace in the region. The conclusions reached through the analysis of mainstream US press reactions to the Camp David summit are subsequently contextualized through an exploration of the largely neglected issue of water sharing in the Palestinian Territories. The celebrated water-sharing agreements in the Oslo period are shown to have failed to bring about any meaningful change from the discriminatory water-distribution policies pursued by Israel in the occupied territories between 1967 and 1993. The article thus demonstrates how US mainstream press reactions to the failed Camp David summit simply reinforced the misleading impression of Israeli cooperation and compromise which masks a historically grounded policy of domination over the Palestinians. It concludes that only an approach grounded in critical theory, emphasizing different conceptions of security in the region, can offer its people a brighter and more peaceful future.