Through an examination of four key stories from 2021–2022 concerning the Israel-Palestine conflict, we compare the reporting of major American press organs to the simultaneous coverage of the same stories in the domestic Israeli English-language press. In a news gathering environment that is rich in domestic Israeli press coverage in English, we ask the question: does American journalism go outside the norms, practices, and opinion range offered by domestic Israeli news gatherers? We conclude it does not. In fact, the English-language Israeli press and America’s mainstream news organizations constitute one media ecosystem.The four stories from 2021–2022 are: (1) the historic inclusion of an Arab Israeli-Islamist political party in the Bennett-Lapid coalition government, formed in June, 2021; (2) the BDS imbroglio over Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, which broke out July, 2021; (3) the Government of Israel’s response to the invasion of Ukraine, beginning in late February, 2022; and (4) the death of American-Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in Jenin, the West Bank in May, 2022. To help make a point about the distinctions between Israel and American news media, we also briefly look at the press coverage of the Abraham Accords, a story throughout 2021–2022.There are distinctions to be found beyond our broad conclusion concerning the shared news ecosystem, which are best delineated on the editorial pages of the different news organizations. In our survey of 2021–2022, the two American news organs most critical of Israel were CNN (for its investigation of the death of Abu Akleh) and the Washington Post (in its opinion section), while the two friendliest were Fox News and the Wall Street Journal. The continual bashing of the New York Times by American pro-Israel media monitors struck us as obsessive and unwarranted.
