Over the past few days, thousands of people in the Middle East and around the globe participated in coordinated protests commemorating the 1948 expulsion from Palestine of approximately 700,000 Palestinians who were subsequently barred, by the new state of Israel, from returning to their homes.  These events, including the forced seizure and occupation of Palestinian land, have come to be known as the Nakba.

The Arabic word Nakba is commonly translated as "catastrophe." Western journalists, however, frequently describe the Nakba for their audiences as the "Palestinian reaction to the creation of the state of Israel," recasting the observance as an attack against Israel rather than a reaction to a violent act of ethnic cleansing.

This past weekend, some of the protesters at the Israeli frontiers with Syria, Lebanon and Gaza crossed border fences, whereupon Israel troops opened fire. Twelve people were killed and hundreds injured, all of them Palestinians. And yet, almost universally, news media described the Nakba-related events in terms that suggest the Israeli response was proportional to the Palestinians' actions. From CNN, the New York Times and the Christian Science Monitor to the San Francisco Chronicle and Salon.com, outlets depicted the events as "clashes." By contrast, when the Syrian government uses overwhelming force to suppress dissent, the most common descriptor employed is "crack-down." Journalists, of all people, should know that words matter. Thus they should acknowledge that this difference in word-choice makes a difference.

While uprisings against repressive regimes in North Africa and other parts of the Middle East have been framed as an "awakening," Palestinian protests have been left out in the cold during the "Arab Spring." As Israeli police officers in black hoodies and face-masks drag protesters away at gunpoint, some journalists hunt for ulterior motives from Israel's subversive neighbors. Following the lead provided by Israeli government spokespeople, BBC News posed the question: Palestinian Protests: Arab Spring or Foreign Manipulation?

In covering Israel's treatment of Palestinians, U.S. news media typically fail to tell the full story--when it gets covered at all. Just as American reporting on Israel's Palestinian occupation often omits the kind of legal or moral analysis that is typically applied to similar conflicts, coverage of the Nakba protests places Palestinian dissent outside the frame of the "Arab Spring." Yet the common elements of a people seeking dignity, human rights and freedom from oppression should tie the Palestinian cause to similar popular uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and elsewhere.

Some journalists are starting to make the connection. Just this morning, NBC's Richard Engel said that the Nakba protests extended the wider movement's previous boundaries, and the Christian Science Monitor ran a piece entitled, "Nakba Protests Bring Arab Spring to Israel's Doorstep." In an era when Americans are seldom troubled by Israeli killings of Palestinian civilians, this shift in perspective is a welcome correction to previous distortions. Still, it's too soon to say that journalists are encouraging their audiences to cheer for Palestinians along with other Arab and North African protesters. Tellingly, the Christian Science Monitor story was filed under "Terrorism and Security."

Dalia Hashad