The Guardian’s Oliver Holmes describes his quest for positive news in one of journalism’s most notoriously difficult beats

Reporting from Jerusalem: 'the focus is always on how the story is told'

I had pretzels and a beer ready to pop. It was after 10pm and I was watching a live feed of mission control. An Israeli-built spacecraft was approaching the lunar surface and due to touch down within minutes. It was a straightforward good news story – the first privately funded attempt to land on the moon.

Flight engineers had their eyes glued to screens and I was listening to one talking through the details in Hebrew. Then, amid the technical jargon, I heard a jolting phrase in English: “Not OK”.

Crap, I thought. Can’t one sleep-deprived reporter get a break?

I had just covered a gruelling election that everyone seemed to agree was bitterly divisive, regardless of whom they supported. Benjamin Netanyahu won a fifth term with help from far-right allies despite three looming corruption indictments he dismissed as a “witch-hunt”. His election campaign was also condemned for anti-Arab scaremongering.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Oliver Holmes: ‘Covering this place is so contentious that there is a whole book written abouton the Guardian’s history with Israel’ Photograph: Supp

This moon lander, instead, was the advancement of science – beautifully untouched by the poison of politics and conflict – and I wanted to report its success.

I had arrived in Jerusalem a year earlier, taking on one of journalism’s most toxic beats: Israel-Palestine. Covering this place is so contentious that there is a whole book on the Guardian’s history with Israel. Unlike anywhere I’ve ever reported, the focus here is not on what happens, but how that story is told, dragging us journalists into the fight over the narrative.

I was deported from Yemen and shot at in Syria, yet I have never experienced such a determined, day-to-day attempt to influence the independence of our work as I do here.

This is done with online attacks and relentless complaints, and also with smiles. Lobbyists offer to “help” by setting up interviews or trips, but only those that promote their cause. These groups don’t understand how our goals are completely at odds. If they succeed, to make press coverage of Israel glowing, while playing down the country’s failings, then we neglect our goal, which is, of course, to report fairly and objectively.

Last month I was reporting on the Israel-Gaza frontier, where Israeli soldiers have shot more than 7,000 Palestinians, killing close to 200, participating in a year-long protest movement. A UN inquiry found they had intentionally fired on children, medics and journalists, possibly committing war crimes. Israel says it is reasonably defending its border.

This was an unusually quiet day, but you could still hear what sounded like occasional gunshots from sniper positions. Sirens blared behind the fence inside Gaza. I had stood on that side during previous demonstrations, taking cover behind a sturdy ambulance in a field. Now, I was with the Israeli army on the other, meeting its commanders.

As I was leaving in my car, someone from the army’s communications team came up to me beaming and asked whether the headline was going to “be to our liking”. I asked whether she had studied journalism while training for her role. She said no.

So fundamental is the PR battle – instead of what actually happens – that the head of the army’s media unit, Lt Col Jonathan Conricus, lamented that the killing of nearly 60 Palestinians one particularly bloody day was an “overwhelming victory, by a knockout” for Gaza’s rulers, Hamas, which supports the rallies. “It has been very difficult to tell our story,” he said.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A photograph of the moon taken by the doomed Israeli lunar lander shortly before it crashed. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

The obsession with the media comes down in part to an argument I hear a lot – that the Israeli government’s real problems are not due to what it does but rather in its failure to effectively communicate its message. In January, I attended a conference entitled, Israel and Image: The Global Battle for Israel’s Good Name. Bizarrely, it was a discussion panel that included the Israeli spoon-bending illusionist Uri Geller and the US actor Roseanne Barr, whose sitcom was cancelled after she posted offensive tweets.

What was not considered during the talk was that Israel might not have a public relations problem. I have never witnessed such a savvy, dynamic PR operation for any cause or country.

But the default position, it seems, for any critical voice, is to shoot the messenger. Human Rights Watch is fighting a losing court battle to prevent its researcher from being deported from Israel. Hamas in Gaza, meanwhile, simply beats up or locks up journalists.

Ultimately, I ignore the fight. My job is to provide an accurate account of what is going on, regardless of how it is interpreted.

One of the boons of working as a journalist here is that you are part of a tiny group, along with diplomats, that travels between deeply separated societies. Many physically cannot, like the Palestinians who are trapped in Gaza.

I live within walking distance of the stunning Old City of Jerusalem, in the same neighbourhood as a growing number of Jews who are fleeing the rotten rise of antisemitism in Europe and the US. I hear French and English spoken as much as Hebrew on the street. I play football 20 minutes away in Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank. And my work takes me to Gaza, which despite its prison-like conditions, has some of the most upbeat people I’ve ever met.

It’s a privilege worth the slog. The Guardian’s former Middle East editor Ian Black sent me an email before I arrived quoting the first British military governor of Jerusalem, Ronald Storrs: “There is no promotion after Jerusalem.”

And yet there is one regular criticism of our work that I do agree with. It’s that, like any place in the world, relentless negative news does not paint a complete picture.

To combat that, I’ve written about an Israeli company that makes nanosatellites and another that produces exoskeletons for people with disabilities. In Gaza, a tech hub has started training young people to code and make a living.

But it’s a tough task. I wrote what, to many readers, was an uplifting article about a troupe of Palestinian actors. Two months later, the Israeli air force flattened the theatre where the group rehearsed, alleging it contained an office for Hamas – something the artists working there daily said was a lie.

Still, I continue to scour for a cheerful tale. And that’s why I sat in disappointment while watching those brilliant minds at mission control trying to land that damned lunar probe.

I could see a screen with coloured boxes showing information. One changed from green to red. Seconds later, the lander – unable to slow itself – smashed into the moon.

Another news story with a bad ending, I thought. But three days later, the team picked itself up and announced they would try again. Another spacecraft was to be built.

Good luck to them. I’ll get the beer and pretzels.