Palestine and the media
The problem with the Gaza disaster appeal video is that it focused itself on the Palestinians as victims rather than being a call for peace. This is not new. The media’s focus on the Palestinians as victims has been a considerable part of the problem over the last 20 years. During the First Intifada, when children threw stones at Israeli soldiers, pictures were beamed around the world and it became the biggest media story of the day, but the effect on both Israel and the Palestinians was disastrous.
The need of western-world television viewers and magazine readers was to share the suffering of a small people, but children in the West Bank and Gaza found themselves with a choice of going to school or going to where the western press scrum were gathered and be a hero before cameras that told their story to the whole world. Perhaps a billion dollars worth of media was made out of that story, by Reuters, AP and the BBC, but I doubt if the Palestinians received a single penny of that money.
The Israelis, meanwhile, were still believers in free press in those days. Their view was that the Intifada was a movement by the Palestinians to find their own identity. They allowed the cameras in and put their side of the story believing that their openness would be recognised and appreciated as compared to the policies of their barbaric Arab neighbours. However, their reputation throughout the world was ruined by these protests and a whole generation of Israelis grew up unsure of themselves and the purpose of their country in this part of the world.
Egypt had refused to take back the Gaza strip in the peace deal done with Sadat, while Jordan was hardly queuing up to take responsibility for the West Bank. The system of proportional representation meanwhile meant that the 10% vote of the religious right gave them the power to decide which of the two main parties would form a government, and their demand was that no biblically important land should be given up even if the Palestinians were capable of forming a government.
And so the lack of political decisiveness led to the incremental crackdown on Palestinian rights, which were perceived as weakness by the Palestinians whose violence grew in direct proportion.
By the time I revisited Israel in the 90s, I came out of the airport to find that the Israelis were organising Palestinian taxi drivers into a slow lane and Israeli taxi drivers into a fast lane. This was due to the policy to deny the Palestinians the benefits of the Israeli economy. Following the ‘67 war the Israelis had opened the borders to give the Palestinians free movement of goods, capital and labour. Relatives in Gaza visited relatives in West Bank for the first time in living memory.
Following the military occupation of the benevolent regimes of Egypt and Jordan the Palestinians found prosperity through their new construction jobs and Israel’s need for a cheap source of labour was satisfied, so the Palestinians pretty much built the state of Israel during the 1970s. But the spontaneous acts of Palestinian violence; the stabbing of a woman at a bus stop, another in a street market, more, made the Israelis fear that they’d let a demon they didn’t understand into their society.
It’s said in the Middle East that the Israelis’ cannot govern Arabs because of their western sensibilities. They refer to the murder of 7,000 Kurds by Saddam which cemented his authority, and also the Syrian town of 10,000 inhabitants which was bulldozed by Assad, the population buried beneath the dust. The Israelis were never capable of imposing the authority in such a way, so cracked down tentatively and increasingly, never quite believing that there would ever be peace but never being able to find a solution other than more soldiers.
We used to have discos in the bomb shelters in my Kibbutz in the mid 80s. These shelters were about the size of a village hall with high ceilings and the bare concrete walls that would bounce back the sound of the loud rock music so that it was like being in one of the actual speakers of the sound system.
The number of Israeli casualties from Kassam missiles over the last year has been so small that you’d think these missiles were fireworks; they’re not. The low casualties are due to the preparedness of the Israeli people. Most of the Israeli casualties happened when missiles were being fired infrequently.
Once Hamas announced the end of the cease fire and began systematically firing missiles Israeli casualties stopped happening. This is because half a million were now living underground.
It’s difficult to imagine how peace can come for these peoples, but it’s important to recognise that the international media has played its part in creating the conflict. If the charities wish to raise money for this cause they should make a film about the hope of peace rather than a film that dwells on the victimhood of a tiny people.
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This is a guest post. Dan McCurry blogs here.
· Other posts by Dan McCurry
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Reader comments
…and we’re publishing this kind of pathetic apologia on LC now? Sheesh…
” A Tiny People?”
What kind of *crap* is this? Mealy-mouthed arguments against a free press and claims that it’s impossible to govern Arabs without massacres? What on Earth is this doing on a ‘liberal’ site?
The problem with the Gaza disaster appeal video is that it focused itself on the Palestinians as victims rather than being a call for peace.
Hmmm. The DEC’s specific purpose is to raise money for victims of humanitarian crises. The people in Gaza are victims of a humanitarian crisis. Therefore, the DEC makes an appeal on their behalf, and for that sole, specific reason.
If they’d taken the route you suggest, then the appeal would’ve been explicitly political, wouldn’t have been shown on any network and wouldn’t have raised much money. Which wouldn’t have been much help to either the victims or the peace process.
I am sorry but this post is a disgrace.
The charities who actually witness the situation on the ground cannot win. Oxfam called for an immediate ceasefire i.e. a period of peace and were attacked for being political. DEC then release an appeal to show the humanitarian need (conveying no political message) and they are accused of presenting those who live in the Gaza strip as victims.
How on earth will a film about the hope for peace help those who at present need food, water and shelter. The chairites in the region simply cannot win. Call for peace or do not and focus on the reality, someone will complain regardless.
“If the charities wish to raise money for this cause they should make a film about the hope of peace rather than a film that dwells on the victimhood of a tiny people.”
*Coughs*
Don`t worry John its one balanced piece compared to 20 anti Israel rants .
“The problem with the Gaza disaster appeal video is that it focused itself on the Palestinians as victims rather than being a call for peace.”
I’m sure others have said this, but the DEC is an aid body, to help people in need, not to play politics and decide what is right or just. If the start doing that then their integrity is threatened.
Well, its another viewpoint. I don’t think a liberal-left line should only stick to one position, even if the editor and most writers disagree with it…
This is a joke, isn’t it? Of course the DEC appeal wasn’t a call for peace; it was an appeal for aid from a coalition of charities. Also a joke is the idea that half a million Israelis live underground because of the Qassams, but even if true at least they have somewhere to shelter when they’re fired; the Palestinians of Gaza have nowhere to hide.
“What kind of *crap* is this? Mealy-mouthed arguments against a free press and claims that it’s impossible to govern Arabs without massacres? What on Earth is this doing on a ‘liberal’ site?”
In the 30s some on the Left had a thing for Stalin (as some on the Right had a thing for Hitler) so it’s not exactly without precedent 
.
“Tiny people” was probably the wrong word. Small would have been true. Israel and the Palestinian territories are about the size of Wales combined. Palestine contributese absolutely nothing to the world economy but they did have a subsistance economy before Hamas destroyed this and replaced it with a welfare dependancy economy funded by Iran. It is the policy of the leader that Hamas should be like a bird with two wings. One wing has a gun while the other has a charity collection box.
As for the comments that say that the suffering of the Palestinians presented in a video is not political, then why did the charity withdraw the original video and re-edit it over three days in order to make it more acceptable?
As for the comment that the Israelis are somehow at fault for the fact that the Palestinians have no bomb shelters, perhaps you should ask why Hamas deliberately choose to fire them from densely populated areas, including from the roof of a populated school filled with children fully in the knowledge that the Israelis will respond.
As for the comment about mealy-mouthed arguments against a free press; are you objecting to its publication?
Dan,
“Palestine contributese absolutely nothing to the world economy but they did have a subsistance economy before Hamas destroyed this and replaced it with a welfare dependancy economy funded by Iran.”
Do you really reserve your concern for those that contribute to the international economy?
“As for the comment about mealy-mouthed arguments against a free press; are you objecting to its publication?”
I can’t speak for Andrew, and don’t object to the publication of this article, but there is a fairly weighty difference between an editor selecting pieces to publish and a state denying journalists the freedom to report.
Ben
Actually, that sounded a bit bastardish. Change it to greatest concern.
Ben
Now that’s some grade ‘A’ Hasbara, how about Mark Regev next?
Hamas destroyed the economy, yes, that’s a good one. There I was thinking that Israel was determined to make the Palestinians of Gaza dependent on them for their aid by destroying the last few factories left and controlling the supply of food entirely, while at the same time destroying farms and orchards in the West Bank by gobbling up land for settlements and the “security wall”, but I suppose as usual it’s all Hamas’s fault. Easily the worst piece ever published on this site.
“deliberately choose to fire them from densely populated areas”
Because Gaza doesn’t have areas that it could advertise in tourist magazines as Rural wildernesses.
Perhaps in future the Israelis could suggest some designated rocket launching areas, they could be a bit like smoking rooms. A place to ensure nobody else was hurt from the battlefield.
Ha! An article is contradicting the ‘liberal’ stance on here by criticising the advert, and people say it shouldn’t be posted. Typical ‘liberalism’, or should I say ‘neo-socialism’, where you only want to see articles that appeal to your political feelings.
You have the right to disagree, but you don’t have the right to deny others the right to their opinions.
“You have the right to disagree, but you don’t have the right to deny others the right to their opinions.”
Who’s denying him his opinions? Or are you just relishing in your own over-reaction?
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