Dear friends,
the following article is written by my dear friend Mosheer Amer from Gaza.
I was speaking with him last night just before/as Israel's ground invasion began. As the news of the ground invasion came through, I was in tears and told him to keep safe. His response was to tell me not to be worried, that morale was high and that the people were steadfast. I am constantly amazed by both the courage of my Palestinian friends and Palestinian sumoud (steadfastness).
I was speaking with him last night just before/as Israel's ground invasion began. As the news of the ground invasion came through, I was in tears and told him to keep safe. His response was to tell me not to be worried, that morale was high and that the people were steadfast. I am constantly amazed by both the courage of my Palestinian friends and Palestinian sumoud (steadfastness).
This weekend there are rallies taking place all over the world in support of Gaza, opposing Israel's massacre. Please join the rally in your city and make your voice heard and stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people. The details for the Australian rallies are here.
In solidarity, Kim
In solidarity, Kim
***
Middle East Eye. Thursday 17 July 2014
Mainstream media pursues reporting that is antithetical to the
promise of ethical journalism and contributes in prolonging the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict
"I want to apologise now and
tonight for my error on the broadcast Tuesday. We’ll correct it
tonight on [ABC]", said a tweet from America's ABC News
Diane Sawyer on 10 July after she falsely misreported the scene of
the aftermath of an Israeli air raid on Palestinians in Gaza as
destruction caused by Palestinian rockets.
Whether Sawyer's misreporting of events on the ground is a case of
gratuitous ignorance or wilful omission, it actually points to a
common pattern in mainstream news reporting that sees events only
through Israeli lens and rationales and that often fails to present
facts that loom large among Palestinians.
While playing a role of apparent objectivity in a situation of
complete injustice, recent BBC and CNN reports actually erase from
view the horrendous realities of the Israeli occupation and the
callousness of Israel's attacks against the Palestinians, especially
in Gaza, that led to the killing of over 200 Palestinians, of which
more than 77 percent of them are civilians, including 36 children,
the wounding of over 1500 Palestinians, and the destruction of over
626 houses and other civilian infrastructure, according to UN
reports.
Presenting Israel as victim to Palestinian violence and as having
no choice but to defend itself is too common a pattern in these news
media. Take, for example, the analysis by BBC journalist Kevin
Connolly that squarely locates the current crisis with Palestinian
rocket fire which in turn provokes Israeli responses:
"But Israeli civilians judge the
rockets by the intent behind them and not by their military
effectiveness. They are grimly familiar with the ritual of running
for shelter with their children when they hear a 15-second warning.
They expect their government to put a stop to it. The problem is that
there's no easy way of doing that."
In a similar fashion, the lead paragraph
in a CNN report on 15 July read, "An Egypt-backed cease-fire
between Israel and Hamas fell apart Tuesday as rocket attacks from
Gaza were again answered by Israeli airstrikes." The report
rationalises Israeli actions as retaliation to Palestinian rocket
fire - and yes underlines the word "again" - thereby
assigning responsibility for initiating the violence to the
Palestinians.
Nowhere in the two reports is there any mention of the Palestinian
people's right to self-defence and that no people would accept to
live under a military occupation that continues to besiege them,
oppress them and subject them to economic suffocation, deprivation,
collective punishment and other forms of physical and structural
violence.
What is problematic about these reports is the utter lack of
background information that puts Israeli and Palestinian actions in
context. Reading the BBC and CNN reports, one can only see that the
context of Israel's crippling siege on Gaza, where 80% of its 1.8
million population are Palestinian refugees who were displaced from
their homes in historic Palestine in 1948 and since then have been
facing the harsh reality of Israel's military occupation, siege and
humiliation in the world's largest open-air prison.
Disguising the reality of occupation as war between two equals is
a stark case of problematic news framing. A BBC headline on 11 July
which read, "Gaza-Israel conflict: What can Israel and Hamas
gain?", and the lead paragraphs, falsely frame the
situation as nothing more than a conflict between two equals trying
to maximise their political benefits.
Another 10 July BBC headline reads "Israel and militants
trade fire as Gaza toll rises" which again scants the stark
asymmetry between Israel's superior fire power and its
state-of-the-art anti-missile defence system, and Palestinian
home-made rockets that caused panic among Israelis, an Israeli
fatality and minimal damage to property. There is no mentioning
whatsoever of the fact that Palestinian Gazans have no military
capability to shoot down warplanes raining down bombs and death, nor
do they have bomb shelters to go into in one of the most densely
populated areas in the world.
Much space in these reports is given to quoting Israeli sources
and explaining Israeli reactions to Palestinian fire rockets and what
Israel can do to stop it, while giving a passing mention of the
impact Israel's attacks and siege on Gaza's population. Blatant
omission of incidents showcasing Israel's targeting of Palestinian
civilians is a persistent pattern and the real impact of Israel's war
on civilians is never humanised or put into perspective. Take, for
instance, the Israeli attack on 11 July on the Fun Time Beach coffee
shop on the beach near Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza, which killed
nine civilians, including two 15-year-old boys, and wounded three,
including a critically injured 13-year-old.
Thus, Palestinian suffering and victims become invisible and
unworthy to be reported, and reporting on Palestinian casualties is
sanitised and abstracted, and a detached, mitigated language
predominates the reportage when Palestinian victims arrive to
hospitals with charred bodies and torn limbs.
Such reporting that only scratches the shallow surface of reality shields Israel from the same moral scrutiny it applies to the Palestinians. What is worse, it provides a self-serving moral universe unburdened by the inconvenience over the suffering and pain of the unworthy “other”.
So long as BBC and ABC and other mainstream media pursue reporting
believed by Palestinians and many activists to be antithetical to the
promise of ethical journalism, it will contribute to prolonging a
conflict and increasing the blood-spill peoples in the region,
especially the Palestinians, have been paying.
- Dr Mosheer Amer is Professor of Discourse Analysis & Linguistics at the English department of the Islamic University of Gaza.
Photo: Palestinian relatives mourn during the funeral of Bashir Abdel Aal, a 20-year-old who was killed by Israeli tank shells (AFP)
Mainstream
media pursues reporting that is antithetical to the promise of ethical
journalism and contributes in prolonging the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict
"I want to apologise now and tonight for my error on the broadcast Tuesday. We’ll correct it tonight on [ABC]",
said a tweet from America's ABC News Diane Sawyer on 10 July after she
falsely misreported the scene of the aftermath of an Israeli air raid on
Palestinians in Gaza as destruction caused by Palestinian rockets.
Whether Sawyer's misreporting of events on the ground is a
case of gratuitous ignorance or wilful omission, it actually points to a
common pattern in mainstream news reporting that sees events only
through Israeli lens and rationales and that often fails to present
facts that loom large among Palestinians.
While playing a role of apparent objectivity in a situation
of complete injustice, recent BBC and CNN reports actually erase from
view the horrendous realities of the Israeli occupation and the
callousness of Israel's attacks against the Palestinians, especially in
Gaza, that led to the killing of over 200 Palestinians, of which more
than 77 percent of them are civilians, including 36 children, the
wounding of over 1500 Palestinians, and the destruction of over 626
houses and other civilian infrastructure, according to UN reports.
Presenting Israel as victim to Palestinian violence and as
having no choice but to defend itself is too common a pattern in these
news media. Take, for example, the analysis by BBC journalist Kevin
Connolly that squarely locates the current crisis with Palestinian
rocket fire which in turn provokes Israeli responses:
"But Israeli
civilians judge the rockets by the intent behind them and not by their
military effectiveness. They are grimly familiar with the ritual of
running for shelter with their children when they hear a 15-second
warning. They expect their government to put a stop to it. The problem
is that there's no easy way of doing that."
In a similar fashion, the lead paragraph in a CNN report on 15 July read, "An
Egypt-backed cease-fire between Israel and Hamas fell apart Tuesday as
rocket attacks from Gaza were again answered by Israeli airstrikes."
The report rationalises Israeli actions as retaliation to Palestinian
rocket fire - and yes underlines the word "again" - thereby assigning
responsibility for initiating the violence to the Palestinians.
Nowhere in the two reports is there any mention of the
Palestinian people's right to self-defence and that no people would
accept to live under a military occupation that continues to besiege
them, oppress them and subject them to economic suffocation,
deprivation, collective punishment and other forms of physical and
structural violence.
What is problematic about these reports is the utter lack
of background information that puts Israeli and Palestinian actions in
context. Reading the BBC and CNN reports, one can only see that the
context of Israel's crippling siege on Gaza, where 80% of its 1.8
million population are Palestinian refugees who were displaced from
their homes in historic Palestine in 1948 and since then have been
facing the harsh reality of Israel's military occupation, siege and
humiliation in the world's largest open-air prison.
Disguising the reality of occupation as war between two
equals is a stark case of problematic news framing. A BBC headline on 11
July which read, "Gaza-Israel conflict: What can Israel and Hamas gain?",
and the lead paragraphs, falsely frame the situation as nothing more
than a conflict between two equals trying to maximise their political
benefits.
Another 10 July BBC headline reads "Israel and militants
trade fire as Gaza toll rises" which again scants the stark asymmetry
between Israel's superior fire power and its state-of-the-art
anti-missile defence system, and Palestinian home-made rockets that
caused panic among Israelis, an Israeli fatality and minimal damage to
property. There is no mentioning whatsoever of the fact that Palestinian
Gazans have no military capability to shoot down warplanes raining down
bombs and death, nor do they have bomb shelters to go into in one of
the most densely populated areas in the world.
Much space in these reports is given to quoting Israeli
sources and explaining Israeli reactions to Palestinian fire rockets and
what Israel can do to stop it, while giving a passing mention of the
impact Israel's attacks and siege on Gaza's population. Blatant omission
of incidents showcasing Israel's targeting of Palestinian civilians is a
persistent pattern and the real impact of Israel's war on civilians is
never humanised or put into perspective. Take, for instance, the Israeli
attack on 11 July on the Fun Time Beach coffee shop on the beach near
Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza, which killed nine civilians, including two
15-year-old boys, and wounded three, including a critically injured
13-year-old.
Thus, Palestinian suffering and victims become invisible
and unworthy to be reported, and reporting on Palestinian casualties is
sanitised and abstracted, and a detached, mitigated language
predominates the reportage when Palestinian victims arrive to hospitals
with charred bodies and torn limbs.
Such reporting that only scratches the shallow surface of
reality shields Israel from the same moral scrutiny it applies to the
Palestinians. What is worse, it provides a self-serving moral universe
unburdened by the inconvenience over the suffering and pain of the
unworthy “other”.
So long as BBC and ABC and other mainstream media pursue
reporting believed by Palestinians and many activists to be antithetical
to the promise of ethical journalism, it will contribute to prolonging a
conflict and increasing the blood-spill peoples in the region,
especially the Palestinians, have been paying.
- Dr Mosheer Amer is Professor of Discourse Analysis & Linguistics at the English department of the Islamic University of Gaza.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Photo: Palestinian relatives mourn during the funeral
of Bashir Abdel Aal, a 20-year-old who was killed by Israeli tank shells
(AFP)
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