Palestina: erresilientzia (14)

Resilience: the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.

Thomas Fazi@battleforeurope

oooooo

Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1799367419707686966

oooooo

Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1798995257490821243

oooooo

S.L. Kanthan@Kanthan2030

oooooo

Mohamad Safa@mhdksafa

oooooo

Robert Martin @Robert_Martin72

Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1799258242415263902

oooooo

Palestine Highlights@PalHighlight

Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1799366564480688147

oooooo

Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1799188477076246863

oooooo

COMBATE |@upholdreality

Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1799121649960132698

oooooo

tim anderson@timand2037

Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1799348383934812657

oooooo

Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1799348772818084276

oooooo

oooooo

Sulaiman Ahmed@ShaykhSulaiman

Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1799033310074581075

oooooo

Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1798611244091613596

oooooo

Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1799232923218137357

oooooo

Patrick Henningsen@21WIRE

Dr. Anastasia Maria Loupis@DrLoupis

Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1799155112616608236

oooooo

Gaza Under Attack_@Palestine001_

Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1798685470202986717

oooooo

Dr. Jill Stein@DrJillStein

oooooo

S.L. Kanthan@Kanthan2030

Lord Bebo@MyLordBebo

Secretary Antony Blinken@SecBlinken

oooooo

Scott Ritter@RealScottRitter

oooooo

Arnaud Bertrand@RnaudBertrand

eka. 6

We are taking steps to impose visa restrictions on the Georgian Dream Party and others who are undermining democracy in Georgia. Georgia’s leaders should reconsider their actions and work to move forward with their nation’s long-stated democratic and Euro-Atlantic aspirations.

Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1798820428024049854

oooooo

oooooo

Palestine Highlights@PalHighlight

Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1799672631928779254

oooooo

oooooo

Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1799450850102051172

oooooo

Sulaiman Ahmed@ShaykhSulaiman

oooooo

Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1799461162591060210

oooooo

Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1799366129028387094

oooooo

Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1799242433257222425

oooooo

Mohamad Safa@mhdksafa

oooooo

Tiberius@ecomarxi

oooooo

Max Blumenthal@MaxBlumenthal

Afshin Rattansi@afshinrattansi

Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1799467572741505393

oooooo

@tobararbulu # mmt@tobararbulu

Bideoa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8jN-Suxos0

Israeli occupation of Palestine tends to be a touchy subject for news media, so much so that they break journalistic standards and writing etiquette just to avoid implicating one party over another — which still seems to end up working out in Israel’s favor and never Palestine’s. That’s led to a media environment that can’t clearly call out the ethnic cleansing and apartheid inflicted upon Palestinians, doesn’t point to context when talking about the results of decades-long oppression and displacement, and can’t help but equivocate about two disproportionately affected populations. But maybe that’s starting to change.

Sana Saeed looks at what U.S. media coverage has gotten wrong about recent events in Gaza, Sheikh Jarrah and occupied Palestine, and offers her own media critique.

Transkripzioa:

0:00

You’re a well-known anchor at a major American news network

0:03

covering an ongoing story

0:04

about an allied country engaged in a military assault

0:07

againts a population in a territory it illegally occupies.

0:11

In the midst of this, a story breaks that your ally’s military has now bombed

0:15

a building that houses journalists.

0:17

Is your reaction going to be dismay?

0:19

Condemnations? Demands that journalists and other civilians be

0:23

protected? Or is your response going to look a lot like CNN’s Brian Stelter’s?

0:29

I think the obvious question that comes to mind is

0:32

what were the Israelis supposed to do?

0:34

If they are sure, if they had intelligence that can be

0:36

vetted, that Hamas was using these news bureaus

0:40

as a shield, as a hiding place?

0:42

What were the Israelis supposed to do?

0:44

Covering Israeli occupation and apartheid seem to be excruciatingly difficult

0:48

for many major media outlets, especially here in the United States.

0:52

There’s a lot of sanitization of language,

0:54

whitewashing of the situation

0:56

and an erasure of the real power imbalance that

0:58

exists between Israelis and Palestinians,

1:01

even an erasure of Palestinian humanity.

1:03

Do you support the protests, the violent protests

1:06

that have erupted in solidarity with you and other

1:10

families in your position right now?

1:11

We’ve seen this type of rocket fire during major

1:14

operations, in major wars.

1:16

Violence spiraling out of control in the Middle East,

1:19

fires in Tel Aviv. Military strikes a neighborhood

1:23

in Gaza. That began as a land dispute in Jerusalem.

1:28

Since May 11, the Israeli military has

1:30

been bombing Gaza.

1:31

The airstrikes followed an escalation of ongoing

1:34

Israeli state violence when worshippers at the

1:36

Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem were attacked by

1:38

Israeli police during the last days of Ramadan.

1:41

And this was following ongoing Palestinian

1:43

resistance against the forced and

1:45

illegal displacement of Palestinian families from

1:47

the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in occupied

1:49

East Jerusalem to make room for more Israeli

1:52

settlers, a situation that isn’t

1:54

unique to this neighborhood.

1:55

Almost immediately, English language news media, especially U.S.

1:58

outlets, chose a side under their guise of objectivity.

2:02

And we can see it in the language that’s been used.

2:05

State-sponsored illegal forced displacement

2:07

became “evictions”, something

2:09

Mohammed El-Kurd, a resident and writer from

2:11

Sheikh Jarrah, called out on CNN.

2:13

To start, it’s not really an eviction. It’s forced

2:15

ethnic displacement, to be accurate,

2:18

because an eviction implies legal authority, while

2:21

the Israeli occupation has no legitimate

2:22

jurisdiction over the eastern parts of occupied

2:24

Jerusalem under international law.

2:26

Israeli police attacks on Palestinian Muslim

2:29

worshipers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque

2:30

became “tensions” or “clashes,” a term which

2:33

not only erases the genesis of the violence an

2:36

occupying state force inflicts on the people

2:39

it occupies, but also obscures the power imbalance

2:42

between Israelis and Palestinians.

2:45

A decades-long

2:45

Israeli occupation of Palestine and a

2:47

now recognized system of apartheid becomes

2:50

a “conflict,” another term which presents the

2:53

occupier and the occupied as equals.

2:56

The Israeli military assault on Gaza, which at the

2:58

time of filming this has claimed over 230

3:02

Palestinian lives, becomes a “war” between a

3:05

heavily armed country and the people living

3:08

on a tiny strip of land that it occupies.

3:10

And if the war isn’t with Gaza, then the war is with

3:13

Hamas, whose military wing is up against

3:15

one of the world’s most technologically advanced

3:17

and well-funded militaries, which is also the only

3:20

country in the region with nuclear capabilities.

3:23

And I’ll throw it to John Oliver to

3:25

quickly explain why Hamas rockets and Israeli bombs just don’t make for a meeting of equals.

3:30

…the use of the phrase “tit for tat war” in a conflict

3:34

where you just pointed out one side has suffered

3:36

over 10 times the casualties,

3:38

something which speaks to both

3:40

the severe power imbalance

3:42

at play here and how that often gets obscured by

3:44

how we choose to talk about it.

3:46

In addition to sanitized language, there’s also the passive voice which

3:50

suddenly becomes dominant in an industry where that’s a big grammatical no-no.

3:55

Palestinians aren’t killed by Israeli bombs.

3:57

They die. Israelis, however, are killed.

4:00

Buildings aren’t destroyed by Israeli airstrikes.

4:03

They collapse after Israeli airstrikes.

4:05

And mainstream coverage, even when it’s

4:07

good, like the “Last Week Tonight” segment, still often presents current events

4:11

devoid of seven decades of context.

4:13

The recent events in Jerusalem can’t simply be reduced to a flare-up or

4:18

an escalation. Describing these events in this way and demanding a restoration

4:22

of calm, whatever that means, diminishes the greatest act of violence

4:26

that is inflicted on Palestinians on a daily basis — the occupation.

4:31

All coverage and context needs to go back to that.

4:34

Sheikh Jarrah does not exist in and of itself.

4:36

It exists in the context of seven decades of

4:38

settler colonialism, whose purpose has

4:40

been the dispossession and

4:42

subjugation of the indigenous population.

4:44

Attacks on Al-Aqsa don’t exist in and of

4:46

themselves, but are part and parcel

4:48

of a long existing Israeli strategy to dismantle and

4:51

discourage Palestinian mass gatherings.

4:53

This is especially true in this particular case

4:56

when the attack followed protests against the

4:59

continuing state backed Judaization of Jerusalem

5:02

by forcing out the Palestinian population.

5:04

And we can’t talk about the West Bank without talking about how among almost

5:08

3 million Palestinians, there are more than 700,000 illegal Israeli settlers.

5:13

We can’t talk about Jerusalem without pointing

5:16

out how the Israeli-controlled city has a policy of

5:19

keeping the ratio of Palestinians to Israeli Jews

5:22

40:60.

5:23

That’s an official policy to ensure Jewish dominance of the city.

5:26

And then Gaza? We can’t talk about Gaza without mentioning that it’s a small

5:31

strip of land the size of Detroit, home to 2 million Palestinians.

5:35

There is no official border that demarcates it, and it’s under siege from

5:39

Israel by land, air and water.

5:41

Of the 2 million Palestinians in Gaza,

5:43

1.4 million are refugees who were expelled from or

5:47

fled their homes due to the ethnic cleansing

5:49

campaign carried out by Jewish militias before

5:52

Israel’s creation in 1948.

5:54

These refugees, like all Palestinian refugees,

5:56

were blocked by Israel from ever returning to their

5:59

homes, despite the United Nations demanding

6:01

that they be allowed to.

6:03

Now, American mainstream coverage of Israel, of occupied Palestine, isn’t surprising when we look

6:08

at how closely aligned the media establishment is with not only the American government but its

6:13

foreign policy interests.

6:15

It’s the same reason that this happened,

6:18

that the American mainstream uncritically

6:19

reported and amplified an Israeli

6:21

strategy to make Hamas think that the military was

6:24

going to do a ground invasion.

6:26

And Israeli and pro-Israeli voices and perspectives

6:29

dominate cable news shows

6:30

and even daytime shows

6:31

despite the vast amount of Palestinian commentators available.

6:34

Do the Palestinians, even though they don’t have a

6:36

state, do they have the right to

6:38

defend themselves?

6:40

What do you mean? They have the right to defend

6:42

themselves from who?

6:44

We are not attacking Palestinians.

6:46

What we have here is a terrorist organization,

6:49

Hamas, on one side and our ally, democratic

6:54

ally, Israel on the other side.

6:58

And therefore, we have a responsibility to support

7:02

Israel and its right to defend itself.

7:04

And it’s not surprising that The New York Times,

7:06

the leading newspaper of record, continues to use

7:08

language and reporting, which at best

7:11

equalizes Palestinian and Israeli violence and

7:14

suffering and at worst

7:16

dehumanizes Palestinians.

7:18

Since 1984, every New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief has

7:21

lived in a West Jerusalem home

7:23

that was ethnically cleansed of its inhabitants

7:26

during the Nakba, which is what Palestinians call

7:28

what happened in 1948.

7:30

And the Times also has had staff and reporters

7:33

covering the occupation in various capacities who

7:35

have children who served in the IDF.

7:38

How many Palestinian Jerusalem bureau chiefs has the Times had?

7:42

How many Palestinian staff reporters does it have on the ground?

7:45

Or how many Palestinian ground reporters does any other major American

7:48

newspaper or cable outlet have on the ground?

7:51

Now, everything that I just laid out might make the situation

7:55

seem so incredibly dire, but this time there

7:59

has been a bit of a shift.

8:01

This is a war crime.

8:03

This is ethnic cleansing. You know, they can do all

8:06

their propaganda and

8:07

say that this is a private land dispute,

8:09

but looking, it doesn’t take much. Looking at the

8:11

history of this country and

8:12

seeing how this country came about. It came

8:14

about by stealing people’s

8:17

homes and stealing people’s lands and destroying

8:19

people’s villages.

8:20

Palestinians are at best third-class citizens in the

8:23

nation of their birth. The idea that it’s even

8:25

remotely controversial to call what Israel has

8:27

imposed on Palestinians a form of apartheid

8:29

is laughable.

8:31

United Jerusalem is a city that is a success story

8:34

and will continue to be so.

8:35

OK, well, according to Israeli reports, only seven

8:38

percent of the building permits issued in

8:40

Jerusalem over the past few years have gone to

8:42

Palestinians. They make up 40 percent of the

8:45

city’s population.

8:46

What we need is more than the cessation of

8:48

violence. We need sanctions against Israel in order

8:51

to put pressure on one

8:53

of our time’s apartheid regimes.

8:56

For the record, destroying a civilian residence

8:59

sure seems like a war crime, regardless of whether

9:02

you send a courtesy heads up text.

9:04

Bolstered by the recent Human Rights Watch

9:06

report, which supports what Palestinians have said

9:08

for decades, terms like apartheid and ethnic

9:11

cleansing have made it into the mainstream.

9:13

And while there is a long way to go to significantly shift the narrative into

9:17

one which doesn’t give equal time, space and moral footing to the occupied

9:22

and the occupier, there are some suggestions that we are witnessing a change.

9:26

And there is a part of me that wonders,

9:29

in addition to the rising tide of progressive politics,

9:32

how much of a role did the reckoning

9:34

over racism in the U.S. media last summer

9:36

following the George Floyd protests

9:38

have to play in some of these changes?

9:40

What we’re seeing today is that Israel’s structural racism and violence

9:44

are no longer deniable.

9:46

And both those who watch the news and those who make

9:48

the news are boldly challenging the media and political establishment to call

9:52

out Israeli apartheid and to stop protecting it and enabling it.

9:58

So in the midst of filming this, we actually saw a leak of an internal CNN

10:02

memo that said that the Ministry of Health in Gaza should be referred to

10:06

as “the Hamas-run Ministry of Health.”

10:12

You can’t make this up. Thanks so much for watching.

10:15

Stay tuned, because we here at AJ+ are working on a new show,

10:18

called “Backspace,” which does a lot more of this: media critique.

10:22

We’ll see you guys soon.