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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 19 - 25 October 2000 Issue No. 504 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 19 - 25 October 2000 Issue No. 504
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Elections Palestine International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Features Travel Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Crowds and corpses
By Hani Shukrallah
Finally, the most fervent prayers of the Western media were answered. A Palestinian "mob" was caught on camera committing a grizzly "lynching" of two "innocent" Israeli soldiers -- one of whom had been dragged from the arms of his bride -- who had somehow lost their way, driven five miles into the heart of Israeli-army-besieged Ramallah, been "caught" at the funeral of Khalil Zahran ("one of almost 100 Palestinians killed during the past two weeks of clashes" -- no family info here, just a count), arrested and brutally murdered by the enraged mob. The rest of the story is, of course, a field day for reporters, editors and commentators to offer their most eloquent expressions of outrage and most graphic descriptions of brutal native barbarians on a rampage of murder and blood-lust. The imagery and adjectives are ready to hand, of course -- they've been developed, tested and refined for over three hundred years, with Chinese "mobs" in Shanghai, Hindu "mobs" in Calcutta, Arab "mobs" in Algiers and "mobs" of blacks anywhere from the Cape to the (Gold) Coast.
At last, a story that strikes all the right chords, feels just right and, more importantly, provides a counterbalance to the uncomfortable images of the previous two weeks, whose poignancy tended to slip through despite all efforts of "detached" and "objective" reporting. Now is the chance to wipe the slate clean. True, over 100 Palestinians have died and over 3,000 been injured (there is no problem in reporting these figures over and over again), but then few if any of them seem to have had wives, mothers, brothers, sisters or friends. They had no individual lives before they died, "in the violence," no faces or bodies, birthdays or wedding nights; they're either crowds or corpses. As for the thousands of "injured," we need only be thankful that they are not dead; we need not look too closely into what it will be like to go on living without eyesight, without a leg or an arm, or both; what is it like for a child to grow up with a shattered and disfigured face, a quarter of a lung?
Nor should we look too closely into what the two Israeli soldiers were supposed to have been doing in the midst of a funeral procession in the heart of Ramallah. In fact, we should not look into it at all. It would be in extremely bad taste to inquire into such matters when we have shots of the blood-stained hands of frenzied youths and such tailor-made quotes as "this is where we gouged his eyes out." Never mind, then, that the official Israeli story would not withstand the logic of a six-year old; never mind that it was bunglingly changed twice before the final official version was put out (along with appropriate wedding photos of the victims) for the Western media to lap up; and never mind that the only possible explanation of their presence at that particular time and place involves one form or another of the murderous dirty tricks for which the Israeli prime minister and his opposition opposite number (and, perhaps, soon-to-be "national unity" partner) are so well known. Never mind that the victims in this case would not have been soldiers but civilians, and never mind again that they would have included even more Palestinian children, dead and "injured."
Everyone who cares to knows that Jewish settlers in the past two weeks have been breaking into Palestinian homes, ambushing Palestinian civilians, beating, torturing and killing in cold blood. Everyone who cares to also knows that, only last week, thousands of Israeli Jews went on a rampage of violence in which they attacked, brutally beat, killed and injured Palestinian civilians who were supposed to be citizens of the "Jewish state." The "pogrom" -- as described by the Israeli peace group Gush Shalom -- was perpetrated in full sight of the Israeli army and security forces, who later joined in the carnage. None of this, however, drew anything even remotely close in outraged and graphic description.
When this kind of reaction comes from the Western media or from the likes of Hillary Clinton and Rick Lazio, it is, after all, familiar, even understandable. That it also comes from a prominent human rights group is no less than shocking. To my erstwhile friends at Human Rights Watch, whose oh-so-dispassionate statements on the brutal carnage in Palestine have achieved the amazing feat of apportioning blame between the Palestinians and the Israelis; who have been calling for an investigation into the practices of both the Israeli and Palestinian security forces; and who, after "a week-long investigation" found Israel guilty of "a troubling proclivity to resort to indiscriminate lethal force in response [to firing from Palestinian security forces and to Palestinian demonstrations];" to my erstwhile friends at Human Rights Watch, I have one thing to say: You've got to be kidding.
This week, 136 Israeli and American Jews, including lawyers, university professors, teachers, journalists and writers, put their signatures to the following statement:
"We Jews, citizens of the State of Israel and other countries, are sickened that the Barak government would let the war criminal Ariel Sharon enter a Palestinian area and provoke terrible violence. Unfortunately, this just illustrates the determination of the current Israeli government to keep Palestinians permanently separate, unequal, closed up in small territories, and exiled in foreign lands. We protest the ever-escalating violence against Palestinians. We urge the US Congress to suspend all foreign aid to Israel."
Human Rights Watch, which has had "a proclivity" to demand the suspension of American aid to states guilty of gross human rights violations, has made no such demand with respect to Israel.
Related:
Intifada in focus 12 - 18 October 2000© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
