A reporter for The Los Angeles Times wrote about the Israeli and Palestinian conflict:If a picture is worth a thousand words, a thousand pictures just might win the war ... Every photograph-and indeed, every word-is a weapon in the mediaU.S. newspapers are directly involved in this media war. They relay, create or help frame the press images of both Israelis and Palestinians.Because more Jews reside in the United States than elsewhere, including Israel,2 the media war between Israel and Palestine for more favorable press treatment in the U.S. press is even more intense. Coverage of Israel will likely affect how Americans and the world perceive this Jewish nation. Similarly, with a growing number of Arabic immigrants in the United States, depictions of Palestine and the Muslim world are increasingly likely to influence American politics. Both sides in this prolonged dispute3 are battling for international support for their causes, which makes it a compelling area of study as news coverage can impact regional, and perhaps worldwide peace.Research QuestionThis research explores, both quantitatively and qualitatively, one central question:RQ1:How did reporters use Israeli or Palestinian official news sources in four major U.S. newspapers-The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and the Houston Chronicle-from Jan. 21, 2000, to Jan. 21, 2002?Specifically, this research investigates if these newspapers provided balanced coverage between Israeli and Palestinian sources and if the newspapers under analyses vary.This research is important to journalists as it provides a retrospective on the coverage of two peoples in conflict. What underlies this research inquiry is a mission to determine whether journalists are fairly framing and providing context of a conflict that allows its readership to come to its own conclusions, which is central to journalistic practice.Literature ReviewSeveral studies have examined the depiction of Arabs in the U.S. press.4 In general, since the establishment of Israel as an independent country in 1948, research pointed to an anti-Arab and a pro-Israeli bias in the American press. For example, Mousa's5 content analysis of the Arabs' image in The New York Times between 1916 and 1948, a time frame the author considered the cornerstone in the development of the Arabs' images, found that Israeli sources who provided unfavorable attributions of Arabs were most often cited. Mousa suggested that unbalanced coverage contributed to negative public opinion of Arabs and positive public opinion of Israelis.6The latter opinion is reflected in Wilson's study that found that white people were more willing to have social contact with Jews than with all other minority groups, including blacks, Asians and Arab Americans.7 In a more recent study, Sylvester and Wu8 content analyzed news stories, briefs, photos, cartoons and editorials, from January through October 1998, and found that the Inquirer's news reports provided coverage of both sides of the Arab and Israeli conflict, however, Israeli sources appeared more frequently than Palestinian sources in the news stories, leading to a more pro-Israeli bias.MethodData SetThis research considers a more expansive view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than the research mentioned by content analyzing four newspapers-The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and the Houston Chronicle. The time frame, Jan. 21,2000, through Jan. 21,2002, is also lengthier than the Sylvester, et al., study and covers a turbulent time in America's history, Sept. 11, 2001. The four newspapers under study were chosen for their high circulations,9 and because the communities they cover have large populations of Jewish Americans and Arab Americans.10Using the search terms Israel and Palestine in the Lexis/Nexis database, the researchers yielded a total of 549 news stories:* The New York Times-175* The Washington Post-124* Los Angeles Times-182* Houston Chronicle-68. …