The Israel correspondent of the public broadcaster ARD is being honoured for her Middle East reporting – and attacked. Her alleged offence: she referred to the “historical background” of the Gaza war. The jury stands behind her.

The Middle East conflict did not begin only on 7 October 2023 and the attack by Palestinian groups on Israel with around 1,200 dead. However, the reference to a “historical background” („Vorgeschichte“) of the war that afterwards broke out in Gaza triggers the most vehement reactions. The public broadcaster ARD Israel correspondent Sophie von der Tann is now in the crosshairs of Israeli and German opinion warriors. The 34-year-old had referred to roots of the conflict dating back to the Ottoman Empire in conversation with a Bavarian “anti-Semitism commissioner” – and used the word “historical background”.

A familiar choreography began: the right-wing conservative “Welt” and the politically equally questionable “Jüdische Allgemeine” spread one-sided claims; Israel’s ambassador Ron Prosor intervened (“demonisation of Israel”); and a German-born former IDF spokesman escalated, saying von der Tann was the “face of new German Jew and Israel hatred”. And so on.

Von der Tann, who is from the city of Kassel, speaks Hebrew, Arabic, English and French, studied in Jordan, Lebanon, Israel and completed her doctorate at the London School of Economics. In 2019 she received the Axel Springer Prize. This Thursday the Hans Joachim Friedrichs Media Prize is due to follow – against which there is now also a campaign from the circle of Cologne’s “Grannies against the right” (originally founded to campaign against the right-wing party AfD). Their accusation is, von der Tann reports one-sidedly and frames Israeli military actions as “genocide” – which, however, a UN commission established.

The jury of the Hans Joachim Friedrichs Media Prize supports the nominee – not least because she “maintains her composure in the hail of criticism”. Von der Tann’s critics forget: journalism is also difficult after 7 October because Israel does not allow media into Gaza and kills journalists there in large numbers. How should this be reported on objectively?

Published in German in „nd“.

Image: Superbass, Sophie von der Tann-Deutscher Fernsehpreis 2024, (CC BY-SA 4.0).