Israel — Losing It.
Trying to convince us to live in an imagined present, that has no history.
As I write this, Israel continues its brutal assault on Gaza. At least 550 Palestinians have been killed. Two thirds of those killed, were civilians. An entire family of 28 living together in an apartment block are among the dead. A rehabilitation centre bombed. Israeli tanks have shelled a hospital. Palestinian children playing soccer on the beach have been bombed by an Israeli soldier who triggered the missiles that killed them. 27 Israeli’s have been killed. 25 of those are soldiers. They were killed while launching incursions into Gaza. Two Israeli civilians are dead. All of this in the last two weeks.
John Kerry, the US secretary of State has said that “Israel is under siege”. Benjamin Netanyahu, who is the commander in chief of the Israeli army, has said that “they (Hamas) use telegenically dead Palestinians, for their cause”. Israeli families have gotten together on hilltops that overlook Gaza, to applaud the killing, over a picnic.
Meanwhile, angry Palestinian sympathizers have taken to social media, waging their own individual media wars. Some with immense honor and sincerity. Most with utter indignation. And some with inexcusable anti-jewish racism.
What the hell is going on?
Many of us have seen this before. The destruction and death. The endless television rants and “tweets” of accusation followed by counter accusation. Arguments stripped of any depth, context or real information.
Maybe that’s exactly what those who are hoping to lead the conversation around this, intend.
Israeli government spokespersons almost always talk to points that are limited to the “immediate”. Rhetoric and accusations are abundant. “Self defense” claims aim to deflect from the IDF F16s that drop bombs on people. “Hamas are using Human Shields” is thrown about to justify the heavy and obvious civilian casualty deaths resulting from Israel’s “self defense”. But more importantly, this is done to demean and degrade Palestinians, fighters and ordinary civilians alike. “Only an uncivilized people would allow themselves to be governed by a group who is so reckless with everyone’s life” is the implication.
By reducing the conversation to the immediate, Israeli spokespersons hope to restrict the narrative. A trap is set where the cycle of heavy Israeli airstrikes against Hamas rocket fire, reduces the discussion to a blame game. Who fired first?. Who must stop firing first? Any meaningful exploration of the events and circumstances that lead to this situation in the first place, falls at the wayside.
These two interviews do a rare job of putting Israeli spokespersons on the spot. Yet even those discussions revolve around the here and now.
Framing the discussion and coverage around the Palestinian-Israeli issue, through the perspective of the “immediate”, advances Israel’s cause tremendously. It ensures that Israeli spokespersons won’t have to answer any uncomfortable questions. They are guaranteed that there won’t need to fidget in their seats while being taken to task over Israel’s illegal siege of Gaza. Or, the illegal road blocks in the West bank. The illegal bombing and incursions of Gaza in 2008/9 and 2012. Not to mention Israel’s continued illegal settlement expansion in the West Bank. Or Israel’s illegal gains in the 1948 or 1967 wars.
That’s a lot of illegal. Illegal according to who? According to the United Nations and internationally agreed upon Geneva Conventions.
So this is why even a smart reporter seldom throws the “Hamas uses human shields” accusation back at an Israeli spokesperson, despite the fact that credible UN and third party investigations reveal that it was the Israeli Army, who used Palestinian children as human shields during its illegal land incursion back in 2008.
Those points aside, perhaps the most important affect of reducing the discussion to the “immediate” is that it simplifies the discourse for an already news barraged public. The daily bloodshed that is spilled in Syria and Iraq. The brutal government crackdowns in Egypt. Hamas rocket fire. All of that is skillfully lumped together. After all, it’s easy to get everything muddled up. The public is tired. They’ve heard so much about sectarian and state sanctioned violence in the region. By claiming “self defense” and dehumanizing the Palestinians, Israeli spokespersons are hoping to feed into one of the cruelest and most racist meta-narratives of our era. “These Arabs and Muslims are all backwards and uncivilized” and we are surrounded by them.
Carefully disassociating Israel’s own state sanctioned violence and the racially loaded rhetoric that underpins its brutal killing of Palestinians.
But is everybody buying it?
Our twitter feeds, have also been delivering us news about deleted pro-Palestinian celebrity tweets. We’ve shared embarrassing mistakes and subsequent corrections from established news brands, over who the real victims are. Protesters in the UK, protested against their independent, but state funded, national broadcaster for being “pro-Israel” before they officially protested against their government, for having the same bias. Star correspondents are being upstaged by their younger counterparts who are daring to be more frank when reporting, confusing network news-gathering bosses as they now juggle trending social media campaigns with newsroom politics and editorial policy. And these aren’t peripheral incidents. Rihanna, Dwight Howard, ABC, NBC, and the BBC are all pillars of our contemporary culture.
The world is becoming wiser. Social Media has flattened the distribution of information. Viewers scroll through their Facebook feeds, peppered with images of Palestinian children, left numb and bloodied by Israeli bombs, while simultaneously watching TV hosts allow Israeli spokespersons to say that they regret the loss of civilian life.
TV anchors who just allow the show to go on, without interjecting with meaningful, intelligent questions are increasingly, simply, embarrassing themselves . Their lack of journalistic scrutiny is being questioned. They are being held to account, for not doing their job, which is to hold others to account.
In fairness this back and forth isn’t that new. Arguments about media showing a pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian bias and audience reactions to that are as old as media coverage of the actual issue. And yes, individual social media feeds are often echo chambers where one side of the argument is amplified over the other, and hardly ever a place where all views cross pollinate. But all the impassioned debate, along with increased access to it, means more interest. More interest, means more memory.
When Israel bombed and then invaded Gaza in 2008, there were not many international journalists inside of Gaza. Reporting from where the bombs were landing, as they shattered and broke buildings and human bodies. Many reports actually claim that my fellow colleagues Ayman Mohyeldin and Sherine Tadros (who were both at Al Jazeera at that time) were the only English speaking International journalists in Gaza back then. That may not be true, but the point is that one could count the number of international journalists in Gaza without needing many hands.
By 2012 all major news networks had teams stationed around and in Gaza. Big media aside, tens of freelance journalists brought us pictures, videos and cries of the devastation and human tragedy through their twitter accounts and blogs.
Come 2014 and you have all of that again, but with even more intensity.
This is no guarantee, that the truth won’t be clouded. It almost always is. But, deflecting away from the context to the “immediate” will become more and more difficult as a collective global memory becomes more entrenched.
But some truths assert themselves.
25 Israeli soldiers have been killed so far during Israel’s ground incursion into Gaza. This a huge military insult when one considers the relative fire power between the IDF and Hamas fighters. Israel’s Prime Minister who is the leader of its powerful army is reducing himself to posturing about the unfair use of “telegenically dead Palestinians”. Israel’s foreign Minister is calling for international media organizations (Al Jazeera) to be banned from Israel. CNN journalists are being harassed by Israeli citizens, keen to revel in another peoples suffering.
These truths all scream desperation.
A powerful, violent drunk. Swinging his arms sluggishly as he grovels in the dark. Murmuring nonsensically. Trying to convince us to live in an imagined present, that has no history.
Ashfaaq Carim is an Editor at Al Jazeera Media Network. He lead aljazeera.com’s online news gathering during the protests that swept across the Middle East and North Africa in 2011. Since then he has worked across the Networks multiple channels and platforms, where he was an integral part of the editorial development and launching of america.aljazeera.com . Most recently, he has been on the editorial launch team at AJ+ ; Al Jazeera’s new mobile first video and engagement product that launches later this year. Follow @AshfaaqC
