Israel and the Flotilla: On the Dangers of a Binary View

[shira]

snip

And was Egyptian denial due to fear of Israeli retaliation? Perhaps -indeed that is a convenient construct, which does likely contain kernels of reality. However, more significant, the borders remained closed because, simply put, Egypt doesn't want to face a mass migration of Gazans.

These and other such details are irritating distractions, messy deviations, from a chiseled, binary portrayal which both the media, its bipolar audience and master media manipulators seek to display when we think about Israel and Palestine, Muslim and Jew. As world media becomes ever more comfortable with the portrayal of Israel as monolithic villain devoid of conscience, anti-Israeli criticism begins to ascend in volume, and commentary further deteriorates. This is a frightening descent and should concern all of us, irrespective of one's politics, faith or relationships.

At one stage, a spokesperson for Hamas appeared on the BBC citing that Gazans have no need for aid, adding " we do not need to fill our bellies". Well, the world thinks otherwise. In his astonishing defiance revealed by a casual, throwaway comment, the spokesperson revealed the prime goal of the Flotilla's mission, as he perceived it: to run the gauntlet against the blockade, not to alleviate material needs of his suffering electorate. The Flotilla was a bald and blatant political move designed to humiliate and provoke.

His remarks reveal the extent to which Palestinians are now objectified political pawns, rather than a people. While we are comfortable with the longstanding objectification of Palestinians by Israelis as the 'other' in the form of a security threat (after all Israel must balance a constant struggle to determine the needs of a terrorized Israeli citizenship over the needs of an exploding ever-younger ever impoverished, increasingly radicalized Gaza population) we fail to encounter our own sinister objectification of the Palestinians which we accomplish so effectively all by ourselves. This objectification is not only held by their revolving, corrupt leadership, but also by an objectifying Muslim world. We the Muslims need the Palestinians to remain locked in their plight so that they might continue to serve as the Ummah's scotoma (a blindspot) which literally prevents us from seeing our own more immediate distresses, distresses which might demand our attention and perhaps even require societal interventions . We would be lost, disarmed, and stunned without an external locus for our rage which is so piercingly trained on Gaza and the West Bank, so piercing in fact that Darfur barely warrants a sidelong glance.

more...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/qanta-ahmed/israel-and-the-flotilla-o_b_613660.html

[shira]

1. more from the article...

It is increasingly clear Israel is judged by very different measures and with decreasing objectivity by every actor independent of Israel. Israel herself cannot be objective because she is entrenched in a terrible dilemma. A Hamas that cares not to fill the bellies of those starving in Gaza is also the same agency spending millions of dollars on televised indoctrination designed to manipulate young, plastic minds. See for yourself: go to Palestinian Media Watch. Children, in the prime ages of 5-7 are critically vulnerable to developing attachment figure-like relationships to God. At precisely these ages, they are bombarded with "Hamas Box Office" productions: aspirational propaganda extolling the virtues of suicide bombing as vengeance. Through his work at Palestinian Media Watch, Itamar Marcus has revealed just how institutionalized terror has become in the territories. Work by Dr. Pehr Granqvist and colleagues at the University of Stockholm in Sweden has shown it is precisely at this time and stage of child development at which belief systems are most influenced, and concrete immutable beliefs can be established. Useful, therefore to introduce young minds to the concepts of self-destruction which are quickly embedded, and absorbed and nurtured. Who is decrying the morality of this manipulation? Who is the war criminal now?

Israeli concerns about opening Gaza, while still being unable to determine whether arms, bombs and other tools of terrorism, including the now-ubiquitous would be suicide bomber could enter, is a serious and valid concern, one which does not earn a sound-byte of discussion. Contrary, therefore, to popular reports, an Israeli life carries less international capital, it seems, than we may once have believed. As one Jewish friend of mine here in New York City put it to me in his own inimitably blunt way: "Jewish blood is cheap" but not, I argue, quite as cheap as that of a Pakistani Muslim pacifist in Lahore.

Yes, Muslims should be worried if Hamas is now able to obtain uninspected aid from Syria, Libya, Iran or anywhere else if the naval blockade is lifted because Hamas and their like are a means to an end answerable only unto themselves. They have no more regard for the plight of the Palestinians than the Egyptians or other silent partners in Palestinian isolation and dispossession. We are falling into the dangerous territory of over-simplification.

In our quest for the delectable crispness of binary portrayal, we become ever more detached from applying our own holier-than-thou morality on our opponent. While we dehumanize and decry the immoral IDF officer, the cruel Israeli superpower, the heartless Jewish state, we, 'the other', maintain our own moral compass intact in assessing our own contributions to ongoing tropism. Hence, Hamas, and its violent and truly cannibalistic approaches (fueling a culture which literally consumes its own children in the service of its ideology) becomes a resistance of valor and indeed apparently one above moral question.

This is a bastardization of humanity and morality. Who are we to judge the Israelis and their policies, when the wider Muslim world tolerates a total departure of the most basic Islamic values: living a meaningful life in this world, sanctity of life above all other rights, subscription to ideologies meaningfully exchanged through suicide bombing into spiritual and material currency, fundamentally abandoning the protection and nurturing of society's weakest: the child. Conveniently, for our collective moral Muslim superiority, our moral compass is off line when considering ourselves. We do not reflect. We lack introspection. Indeed our own, increasingly grotesque reflection is too awful for ourselves to behold, because within it we recognize our complicity in immorality.

For me, there is no dilemma when considering the Flotilla incident. How many miles away from Israeli waters the boat was is irrelevant. Its announced intention was clear. Its refusal to dock at Ashdod underlined the symbolism and not the literalism with which the Flotilla envisioned itself. The intention was clearly to bring about forcible political change, irrespective of regional and international costs. It was not about feeding the hungry or clothing the poor.

[shira]

2. Qanta Ahmed meets Itamar Marcus of Palestine-Media-Watch

Its staggering to see this content was produced, and expressly so, with extremely young viewers in mind. For them, the seven or eight year old network hostess is iconic, and older. Her voice greets the presumably heartbroken under-five audience at home with cheery joviality, assuring them that "not to worry kids," "a new friend has arrived on the scene," Assud. Assud, means Lion, an odd name for a bunny rabbit, I have to say, until you watch the rest of the scene.

As Assud recovers his composure at the death of his sibling and his muffled voice comes down an octave from the crescendo of hysteria, he makes a commitment to his TV parents and all the mourning child viewers at home. He reminds the viewers that Nahoul the bee actually took the place of Farfour, the Mickey Mouse doppelganger, who was martyred before Nahoul.

"Just like Nahoul took the place of Farfur, so I too will take the place of Nahoul and make all the children of Palestine happy again," says the awkward, Hamas- funded bunny.

"Inshallah, (God Willing)" encourage the grieving parents who have just buried one baby bee and now fearfully anticipate the inevitable burial of their child the Hamas bunny. I notice how facile the actors are at mimicking grief, how worn and listless their faces look. It's the only part of their acting which seems unforced. In fact, I don't believe they are acting at all. For them, this is reality.

"Inshallah, I will EAT the Jews," says the bunny, impassioned, "Kill the Jews!" This continues for sometime. Hence the bunny's name of Assud (lion)- this bunny was a carnivore, one with a penchant for Jews.

Over the course of perhaps twenty minutes, Itamar plays several such videos, all extracts of childrens broadcasting from the Palestinian Territories. This, and variations on the same theme, continue, in segment, after segment, after segment. It is mind numbing. While the storyboard reads like a bad Saturday Night Live skit, I don't find any of this funny. Rather, it is compelling in its stunningly fascinating horror.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/qanta-ahmed/the-adventures-of-itamar_b_577627.html


The comments after the article are great too.