- These are the names: Al'a Hilo, 23, and his brother Said,
28; Tamer Qata, 27; Amar al-Dayeh, 19; Abd al-Karim Bakroun, 25; Mohammed
Salhoub, 27; Abd al-Rahman Kassam, 26; Munzar Safadi, 27; Ali Abu al-Hir,
30; Iyad Abaed, 27; and Abd al-Rahim Abu Naja, 30. Eleven Palestinians,
who were killed in the Israel Defense Forces operation in the Sejiya neighborhood
of Gaza City last Wednesday. Most (not all) of them were armed, but were
they all marked out for death? Together with two others killed in Nablus
and one in Jenin, 15 Palestinians died in that day's bloody harvest.
-
- The next day the headline in the mass-circulation daily
Yedioth Ahronoth blared, "City under shelling." Which city? Sderot,
in southern Israel. In the twin paper, Ma'ariv, none of the headlines and
sub-headlines contained any mention of the Palestinians who were killed
or of the destruction wrought in Sejiya by the Givati infantry brigade
combined with tanks and helicopters. Only Sderot, only the Qassam rockets,
only us. Four Qassams landed in the southern town in the wake of the Sejiya
operation, lightly wounding a forklift driver, Vladimir Valodya, 48, who
works in a local factory that makes shower stalls (he was initially said
to be in serious condition).
-
- Israel was preoccupied exclusively, and almost hysterically,
with him and his city. A future historian who peruses the papers will reach
the conclusion that Sderot was the only city that was shelled last Wednesday.
Israelis again learned that they are the only victims of the violence.
As for the killing and devastation in Sejiya, who heard about it? Who knows
about it? Similarly, the fact that the rocket attack was in direct response
to the action in Sejiya, following three weeks of quiet on the Qassam front
and an effort by the Palestinian Authority to put a stop to the rocket
attacks, was barely noted. The Palestinians are shooting, and it makes
no difference why.
-
- The afternoon current events programs on television,
which are a particularly good index, dealt only with the Qassam rockets.
No call from Gaza, no report from the dead or critically wounded. Even
the intention of "New Evening" (Channel One) to interview an
IDF officer who would describe the Gaza operation - from the army's point
of view - was torpedoed by the IDF Spokesperson's Office. After the Qassams
struck, the unit joined the militant effort to present only the Sderot
story, and the interview with the officer was canceled. No one thought
of interviewing anyone from bloodied Gaza. The Israeli media again told
the truth, but not the whole truth. Only the evening newscasts partially
balanced the picture.
-
- One shouldn't make light of the terror that struck the
people of Sderot or the wounds of Valodya. But on that same day Gaza endured
wholesale killing and destruction. In the first 20 days of the month, no
fewer than 56 Palestinians were killed (according to the Palestinian Center
for Human Rights), including seven children and teenagers. What did we
hear about them? What were we told about the circumstances in which they
were killed? Hardly anything. Does knowing about them necessarily mean
identifying with them? Don't Israelis have an obligation to know what happened
in Sejiya? After all, even the defense establishment warns after every
harsh operation that a wave of terrorist attacks can be expected in response.
What we are seeing, then, is a systematic effort to conceal information,
entailing a serious breach of trust by the media.
-
- Focusing exclusively on our victims while ignoring the
other's victims is morally contemptible, but above all this it has grave
political ramifications. With such selective and distorted information
at the disposal of the Israeli public, it is little wonder the country
has moved so far to the right. Every sensible person who is nourished by
the Israeli press would reach the same conclusions. If the Palestinians
really are firing rockets at us while they are ensconced securely in their
homes, as could be understood from the reports of the Israeli media, the
political conclusion is clear: the only solution is force. If there is
no occupation, no appalling wrongs and no war crimes, the only possible
conclusion is that the Palestinians really were born bloodthirsty. The
news pages and the current events programs on radio and television shape
public opinion in this way more than a thousand learned and enlightened
op-eds.
-
- "We have different views partly because we see different
news," the columnist Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times last
week. Krugman was talking about the great divide that has opened up between
Europe and the United States, but his comment is even more true of the
Middle East. Every night the Arab world - and to a lesser degree, the Western
world - is exposed to images of atrocity from the territories, whereas
the Israeli viewer doesn't have a clue about what is happening less than
an hour's drive from his home. He knows only about the brutal suicide bombings
and the Qassam rockets.
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- http://www.haaretzdaily.com
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