Cropoganda

On February 24, Israeli troops entered Dheisheh refugee camp near Bethlehem to arrest a Palestinian terrorist. During the ensuing street clashes, Jihad al-Jafari was shot and killed. If you accept the Israeli version of the story, al-Jafari was the "leader of the rioters" and was fired upon only after a soldier was physically injured and the others felt endangered by incendiary devices and cinder blocks which were being thrown down at them from the rooftops.

Al Jazeera, which provided the above photograph, does not deny that Jihad was on the roof when he was shot, but claims that he was asleep at the time of the raid and only went up to the roof when he heard a commotion in the street below. The only evidence for this assertion appears to be from an interview given by Jibreen al-Bakari, the Palestinian Authority Governor for the area to the Voice of Palestine.  According to a local resident, al-Jafari "was a very nice person. The soldiers had no reason to kill him. He was innocent. A simple, lovely kid."

While I find it hard to believe that al-Jaafari was so naive as to be unaware that the rooftops of the refugee camps are the meurtrières of the modern age, he does, indeed, look like just a kid in the article's accompanying photograph.

Or does he? Here is the uncropped photo:

Obviously, the above photo plays havoc with the narrative that the journalists at Al Jazeera present. The editorial decision to crop the photo should seriously call into question their "reporting."

Yet, perhaps the worst offender was the New York Times. While the Times article briefly presents the Israeli version of events early on in the article, the rest is dedicated to the unverified Palestinian claims that al-Jafari sleeepwalked his way onto the roof. Even worse, the Times gives voice to the unsubstantiated claim that, "Israeli snipers immediately opened fire and shot him in cold blood."

In almost the same breath, the Times reporter Isabel Kershner, proceeds to tie this incident to the withholding of tax revenues and reductions in the electricity supply to the Palestinian Authority. How these events are interconnected remains unclear, but the reporting definitely smacks of an attempt at what social scientists call "contextualization" - a "big picture" approach that attempts to situate events into a broader context.

In those cases where causal links can be demonstrated, contextualization can be an important corrective to simplistic or reductionist explanations. On the other hand, where causality cannot be demonstrated or is assumed, it can be misused to dispense with agency (i.e. free will) by citing supposed underlying causes. In this case, Kershner elicits sympathy for the predicament that Palestinians find themselves in while tacitly absolving them of any responsibility for their actions.

At the same time, Israeli actions are simply presented as a given. They exist in a contextual vacuum and the article makes no attempt to uncover or disclose why the Israeli army chose to "raid" the camp in the first place.

Worst of all, even though the Times undoubtedly had acccess to the above photo, it's editors chose to crop it out all together. In his writings, Foucault called this the "administration of silence" or the other side of discourse that serves to delimit it. It certainly seems like the editors at the Times chose to completely crop out the photo lest its readers try to form their own opinions about Jihad.

Mainstreaming Hate in France

The New York Times has a piece out today questioning whether France should be setting limits on Dieudonne Mbala Mbala's hate speech.  Mbala ia an ant-Semitic "comic" who has made a name for himself as a Holocaust denier and inventor of the "quenelle" (an inverted Nazi salute). The article seems to imply that denying him "free speech" is a slippery slope that could infringe upon the civil liberties of all French people if allowed to get out of hand.

While I agree that the ideal is a world where free speech is protected, part of me wonders what the reaction would be if a Jewish man or a white person began to perform anti-Muslim shows in France? Not only would the authorities shut them down immediately, they would almost immediately be murdered.  Even in the US, with its "tradition of free speech," I do not recall that the New York Times editorialized in favor of the minister who wanted to burn Korans down in Florida or the guy who made the movie that this administration blamed for the Benghazi debacle.

In Europe, Theo Van Gogh was assasinated and Ayaan Hirsi Ali - a sitting member of parliament - was forced into exile. In Denmark, the cartoonists who drew a picture of Mohammed are still living under constant threat and the NYT feels that this is a good time to remind everyone that MUSLIMS in France could face discrimination if cretins like Mbala are not effectively dealt with.

This story fosters a completely false analogy and then effaces the identity of those Muslims and far-Leftist third-worlders (trois-mondistes) who are fanning the flames.  The former have become the "Jews" of the post-9-11 world - i.e. the "oppresed" who need to be sympathized with, and the latter are the Times's  core audience.

The last paragraph offers this chestnut, "Dieudonné's got this constituency out in the banlieues and he speaks to them in code, he doesn’t have to say, ‘The Holocaust never happened." Pray tell, who is it that lives in the banlieues?  Might it be primarily North African MUSLIMS? If the NYT knows, it certainly isn't saying so. Perhaps they are the ones speaking in code?

By fostering this false analogy and bending over backwards to try and demonstrate that Muslims also have it bad and are being "persecuted," they are essentially equating the victimizers with the victims.

Meanwhile, in the streets of Paris, Jews are being brutalized on a daily basis and neither the NYT or any other major paper cares to cover these outrages. See HERE and HERE for just two recent examples. 

Yes He Does!

Not surprisingly, few Western newspapers reported this story because they don't believe that Abbas could really mean what he said.

I believe that this denial stems from several factors: 1) A strong desire for things to work out; 2) An inability to appreciate the fact that not everyone in the world shares our humanistic and enlightenment values. This leads to what Salman Rushdie called "soft prejudice" or the inability to believe that the "other" could really mean what they say. It is prejudice because it stems from a patronising attitude. It is dangerous because it inevitably leads to cognitive dissonance.

This, in turn, leads Westerners to not report these stories or to write them off as sops for internal consumption that should not be taken too seriously.

Yet, the very fact that these statements are most often made in Arabic to Arabic news outlets and not in English to Western audiences should actually set off alarm bells.

For starters, it is much easier to lie in a language that is not your mother tongue. Foreign languages simply do not have the emotional resonance and are not as fraught with meaning as one's mother tongue. Anyone who has learned swear words in a foreign language understands this dynamic.

Secondly, the fact that these statements are primarily for internal consumption suggests that Abbas and others who employ this tactic are aware of what they are saying and how it will "play in Peoria"

So, without further ado, this is what the "moderate" Abbas said to the Jordanian newspaper Al Dustur (emphasis mine):

...Abbas said that he is against an armed conflict at this time, but things may differ in the future.

Abbas, a leading figure of the Palestine Liberation Organization, was quoted as boasting about the fact that he was the one to "fire the first bullet of the resistance" back in 1965, adding it was the PLO that taught many around the world "how to resist, when resistance is most effective and when it is not."

"I had the honor to lead… we taught everyone, including the Hizbullah, the ways of resistance. They were all educated in our training camps."

According to al-Dustur, Abbas does not demand of Hamas to acknowledge Israel, but rather wants it to join a government which will negotiate the recognition.

"I demanded that a unity government be formed, to negotiate with Israel… that is what I told Syrian President Bashar Assad – and he backed me up.

"Hamas entered an election based on the Oslo Accords, which recognize Israel. I am not the only one pushing for such recognition, the Arab initiative – which is a consensus in the Arab and Muslim world – calls for it as well."

The Palestinian president also said he objects to Israel's definition as a Jewish State: "We negated the concept in the Annapolis peace conference and it almost ended because of it… they wanted us to state we recognize Israel as a Jewish State in the closing statements, but we wouldn't hear of it."

So, please remind me what exactly is the difference between Hamas and Fatah? Clearly their differences are over tactics and strategy and not over substance.

Dubious Distinction

According to Phillip Jacobson, who recently spent three days in Sderot and reports on the harrowing experience for the Daily Mail:

Sderot has a unique civic claim: on a rocket-per-head-of-population basis, it is the most targeted town in Israel, indeed the world.

It is more than six years since the first rocket was launched from Gaza.

Since then, well over 2,000 Qassams – named after a fiery Muslim preacher – have landed in or around the town killing 13 people (including four children) and injuring several dozen more. Since the beginning of this year, at least 300 rockets have been fired.

While the media has constantly asserted that the source of Palestinian anger is this, that, or some other Israeli action, it never asserts the reverse. When Palestinians were blowing themselves up on a daily basis, the media did its best to understand the phenomenon. Their conclusion? What did Israel expect when Israel was occupying Palestinian lands? What did you expect, when Israel had so "humiliated" the Palestinians?

Well, since then Israel ended the occupation and an entire Israeli population has had their homes turned into a battlefied. Where are the apologists now? Why is no one prognosticating dire warnings about what this may lead the residents of Sderot to do? Will anyone defend the residents of Sderot if they take the matter into their own hands? Or do they deserve what is happening to them and thus do not even deserve our compassion and comprehension?

The fact that almost no Western reporter has bothered to do what Mr. Jacobson did - spend three days in the line of fire - sadly leads me to the conclusion that this is, in fact, what most reporters think.

Have You Heard?

Here is something that will never make the evening news. From the website Ya Libnan:

The state-run National News Agency reported that Abbas Abbas, 13, was shot and seriously wounded by Syrian border guards ( Hajanah) at the Grand River borderline in north Lebanon. He died later from his wounds at the hospital in
Akkar.

Apparently, Lebanon is trying to get Syria to demarcate their mutual border and the Syrians are not too keen to do so. In fact. only yesterday Syrian troops invaded Lebanon:

The Syrian intelligence forces and Syrian border guards invaded Lebanon yesterday and stormed the house of Hussein Ali Aldedda and fired three bullets at him wounding him in his hand, elbow and hip, before withdrawing back to the Syrian territory according to the Arabic daily Al-Nahar

Aldedda ( 41) lives in the Bekaa region , inside the Lebanese territory near the Syrian border. No explanations were given for the Syrian actions.

Surprise, Surprise!

To kick off the new format, here is an interesting article that I think should call into question some of the prevailing assumptions regarding Palestinians and Gaza. According to the AP story "Travel Brings Surprises to Gazans":

A little travel has gone a long way toward changing perceptions in Gaza.

After excursions to Egypt across a border breached by Hamas militants, some Palestinians pepper their local Arabic dialect with Egyptian expressions while others say they are shocked by the poverty there.

In fact, the economic situation in Gaza and the West Bank is not only better than in Egypt, it is better than in many Arab countries. From 1967 to 1993 (the period of Israeli occupation) the territories had the fourth fastest growing economy in the world.

Thanks to the Second Intifada and a Palestinian leadership bent on confrontation, the economy has deteriorated considerably since Oslo. Nonetheless, it is still better than in countries such as Egypt. Even with the Israeli economic blockade. Check out the UNDP HDI stats if you do not believe me (Palestinian Territories rank 106 and Egypt ranks 112).

Said Mohammed stood in a Gaza City market, next to his pickup truck with red Egyptian license plates. From the back of the truck, two men, who had paid Mohammed to deliver the cargo, sold Egyptian-imported smoked herring to curious residents. ...

"I've always wanted to see Palestine anyway," said a smiling Mohammed, a slight dark man with black eyes. Pointing to cars crowding a nearby street, he said: "I thought conditions here would be harder than this. I thought people would be starving."

The fact that Mr. Mohammed thought he would witness starvation in Gaza is a testament to how effective the Palestinian propaganda machine is and how well the Arab and Western media play along with it. Even worse, I would argue that this is a symptom of the disease called "Holocaust inversion" - an attempt by Israel's enemies to paint Israel as the Nazis and the Palestinians as no different than wartime Jews trapped in concentration camps and slowly dying of starvation.

A common quip is that Hamas should drop its "Save Gaza" slogan, coined in response to Israeli border closures, in favor of "Save El Arish" - in this case, from Palestinian shoppers.

Still others jest that Egyptians will storm Gaza if the breach is sealed because the Palestinians have picked them clean.

For seriously impoverished and starving people, it appears that Gazans seem to have had no problem coming up with the necessary funds to go on a shopping spree.

Bad News

I wanted to bring everyone's attention to a new blog in the hopes that they will pass on this information to their friends. The blog is called "Bad News from the Netherlands" and is part of a campaign to present only bad news from different places in the world.

This blog and nascent movement is the brainchild of Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Dr. Gerstenfeld, who is himself originally from Holland, created this site to highlight how the media can negatively brand a country with selective reporting.

"This blog states up front that it provides only negative facts. It shows that by using real news stories without context, one can make any country look bad."

To check out the site: http://badnewsfromthenetherlands.blogspot.com/

Biladi, Biladi!

Clearly the exodus of reporters following Alan Johnston's kidnapping in Gaza has benefitted those who prefer to sow mischief away from the limelight. Here is an article from Haaretz that demonstrates that if it is not being reported for all intents and purposes it is not happening. In general, the fact that the media does not feel it necessary to relate this story conveys the casual racism that I have referred to previously - that Palestinians (or people of color) killing Palestinians is no more interesting than "dog bites man".

What is even more disturbing however, is that for some reason not even the human rights organizations seem particularly bothered by it. Could this be because it is bad for business?

Reporting this widely makes the Palestinians look violent and this means that they lose the mantle of victimhood and the cherished position of underdog. What bleeding heart will shell out money for a group that they see as aggressors?

Besides, shining a light on the tribal warfare that is going on at present risks being banned from the area. Since organizations such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and UNRWA are already heavily invested and plan campaigns around the terrible suffering of the Palestinian people at the hands of the Israelis, this is a non-starter. It effectively becomes an internal matter.

Of course, if one were to borrow the relativist logic that is so often yet selectively used by the Left, then one might ask what difference it makes if a Palestinian child is killed by a bullet fired from an M-16 or one fired from an Ak-47? Apparently it matters to some.

Here are some examples:

Several weeks now the Gaza Strip has been burning. This is not a matter of fighting between Hamas and Fatah activists or actions by the Israel Defense Forces, but battles between armed groups that for the most part are identified with large clans. Nearly every day for the past two weeks ,men, women and children have been killed in Gaza. Every day civilians are being wounded by deliberate or stray gunfire, the result of the unrestrained use of weapons. The number of armed men in the Gaza Strip, according to various estimates, is greater than 100,000. These men belong to security mechanisms, political organizations and above all to clans, and are trying to ensure the economic interests of their kinfolk. There is a tremendous amount of weaponry in the inhabitants' homes, the entire purpose of which is a potential quarrel with a neighbor, an acquaintance or a driver on the road.

In recent weeks attacks on Western and Christian targets in the West Bank have also become common. Members of terror cells identified with Al-Qaida-type organizations - compared to whom Hamas people look like boy scouts - are blowing up and destroying institutions linked to Western culture such as the American School, a church library and dozens of Internet cafes.

But the world is ignoring this. The media in Israel and the West, which reported on every person killed or wounded in the conflicts between Fatah and Hamas or because of "the Israeli occupation," are not taking any interest in Gaza. Even before the release of the Winograd report, the television news broadcasts and the major newspapers focused on trivial matters and chose not to deal with the danger to the lives of every Palestinian living in Gaza.

(For those who are unfamiliar with Haaretz or think that this is just self-serving Israeli propoganda, I would point out that this is the most left-wing of the mainstream Israeli newspapers and has a long track record of favorable reporting of the Palestinian cause.)

The Pravda Moment - Lifting the Veil of Objectivity

For several days now I have been meaning to blog about the recent decision by the British National Union of Broadcast Journalists that voted 66 to 54 to boycott Israeli products. Since this makes Israel the only country in the world that is being boycotted, it has been getting a lot of press, almost all of it bad.

While some prominent British journalists have publicly renounced their membership in the union, the Foreign Press Association in Israel has officially slammed the decision as, "counter to core journalistic values." Some have angrily called on Israel to respect the boycott by imposing one of their own on British journalists who want access to the story.

Most of those commenting on this episode have marvelled that the motion condemns Israel for the "savage, pre-planned attack on Lebanon" and calls for the end of Israeli "aggression in Gaza and other occupied territories". Aside from clearly being tendentious, it seems to willfully overlook the fact that Israel is was provoked by the kidnapping of its soldiers in the case of Lebanon and has been out of Gaza since 2005.

Others have questioned the timing of this decision, especially considering the fact that BBC reporter Alan Johnston has been held captive in Gaza for over 40 days and the motion does not even refer to his abduction. And this only days after the unsubstantiated report that he was beheaded by his captors!

In fact, the motion not only fails to mention Johnston's ordeal but refrains from censuring the Palestinians in any way. Perhaps this is for the best since it was the Palestinian government of Haniyeh and Abbas that were quick to announce that Johnston was safe and sound, quelling the rumors of his death.

For now, no one seems to want to ask the difficult question of how or why the government knows anything about Johnston's status and why they do not put an end to his captivity if they have access to his captors. Perhaps it is in bad taste to bring up such details when the Palestinians have undertaken such "concerted efforts" to have him released.

In any case, and in what must certainly constitute a first, even the hardly fair and mostly imbalanced Guardian felt obliged this week to publish a critical op-ed leader opposing the NUBJ decision. The author of the piece was perspicacious enough to note that the problem with the motion was that it oozes exceptionalism and has, "troubling editorial aspects" since it strays, "beyond the reasonable and traditional concerns of a journalists' union."

Yet a closer read of this article reveals that the Guardian's sudden change of heart has much more to do with the understanding that such a provocative act is counterproductive because it removes what may be termed the "veil of objectivity". Referring to journalists who cover the Arab-Israeli conflict, the article notes:

"It is doubtful that many of them will have welcomed a motion which will inevitably be seen by some as casting doubts on whether they can truly approach their work in a spirit of fairness and disinterested inquiry."

In other words, if it becomes clear that those who are reporting the news are really members of a bigoted, callous and editorializing organization that passes one-sided anti-Israel motions on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, then they will lose their ability to influence public opinion with the air of authority and pretense of neutrality.

This reminds me of a conversation I once had with an Armenian Jew who had recently arrived in Tel Aviv from Baku. After our conversation began touching on world politics, I teased him by saying that it would be difficult to have an intelligent conversation with someone who grew up brainwashed by the Communist propaganda of Pravda and Izvestiya.

Unfazed by my harsh words, he proceeded to tell me that the difference he noticed between former Soviet citizens and all the Westerners he had met since emigrating was that, growing up in Azerbaijan, everyone knew without a doubt that the media was lying. This forced them to seek out other sources of information and led them to develop their own critical judgment on world affairs. Westerners, on the other hand, had an abiding belief in a "free press" and uncritically swallowed pretty much everything that they were told.

Occupation and Control in the Jewish Quarter

Here is a classic example of what happens when you send someone to report on a part of the world they know little or nothing about. Perhaps not surprisingly it comes from the BBC -Deep Tension Over Jerusalem Holy Site by Matthew Price.

The report is a first person account of the recently inaugurated excavations near the Dung Gate in Jerusalem. After describing the exasperation of an Israeli colleague who declares that, "Its just a ramp", Price proceeds to disagree and writes an article to explain to the obviously dimwitted Israeli that it's really, "all about control."

That control lies at the root of the problem is glaringly self-evident because, as Price is quick to note, the whole of East Jerusalem (and hence the Old City) is territory (illegally?) occupied by Israel.

As far as Palestinians are concerned, and to be fair most of the world, the Old City - which lies in East Jerusalem - is occupied territory.

While the inherent irony of a Brit explaining the "real" intricacies of the Arab-Israeli conflict to an Israeli is totally lost on Price, he would do well to read some history or even just a map of the Old City. The Dung Gate is not only the way leading to the Wailing Wall, it happens to be the only gate leading directly into the Jewish Quarter - a part of the city "with a nearly continual Jewish presence since Roman times".

Why "nearly continual"? Because during the 1948 War, when Jordan illegally occupied the Old City, it proceeded to expel all the Jews. Perhaps this was because throughout the past 2,000 years the Jewish community was the largest community in Jerusalem. Perhaps it was simply ethnic cleansing to ensure that the city be judenrein. In any case, for 19 years, Jews were not allowed to pray at the religious sites and could do nothing as those sites were systematically desecrated. For 19 years there was no Jewish "control" of the Jewish Quarter. For Mr. Price to hearken back to those days demonstrates once again that there is nothing more dangerous than a little knowledge.

Finally, as the article approaches its denouement, Price waxes poetically:

The church bells began to ring out. Then the muezzins started up, calling Muslims to prayer. When I first came here I heard these sounds and felt hopeful.

Surely these were the sounds of co-existence? Now I just hear the sound of centuries of competing claims to this city.

Notice that the sound of church bells does not initially bring forth any negative associations in the writer's mind. Of course the Jewish component of this imagined Nirvana of coexistence is left up to the reader's imagination.

Who's Orientalizing Now - "Soft Racism" in the Media

Today the Palestinian arch-terrorist Khaled Meshaal and his henchman Prime Minister Haniya are meeting in Mecca under Saudi auspices with Palestinian President Abbas to discuss a unity government and an end to the spiraling violence in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. While I am not much of a betting man, I can say with certainty that a failure to reach some sort of compromise or accord will go down in Palestinian history as the second Nakba (Catastrophe). No doubt the Saudis are twisting arms and the Europeans are holding out an end to their economic embargo if a unity government is formed and Abbas agrees to run cover for Hamas.

Since the Hamas victory at the polls and Fatahs fall from grace last year, there has been increasing tension between the opposing factions which has developed into open warfare following Abbas’ threat to dissolve the government and call for new elections. The recent fighting has included mortar attacks on Abbas’ Presidential Palace, shots on Prime Minister Haniyah’s motor cavalcade (injuring one of his sons), attacks on rival institutions of higher learning, rival mosques and the turning of residential areas into battle zones as snipers and gunmen commandeer rooftops and apartments. Even ambulances have not been off-limits to the carnage and some of those injured in the fighting have even been kidnapped from their hospital beds. Both sides, it seems, have once again proven themselves as masters at brinksmanship - employing violence to achieve their political goals.

Of course, all of this begs the question of what the international reaction would be were Israel to have carried out any of the above actions. Undoubtedly the media would sanctimoniously editorialize about Israel’s “torpedoing” of peace efforts, “flagrant violations” of international law and “extra-judicial” kidnappings or killings. UN resolutions would be passed and EU fact-finding missions would be organized to “investigate” the matter at carefully pre-selected photo-ops. Perhaps even members of the International Solidarity Movement would volunteer to place themselves as “human shields” between the warring sides to prevent further bloodshed.

That none of this has occurred should really come as no surprise. After all, it is precisely when things take a turn for the worse that the reporters run for cover and start filing their reports from hotel rooms and the wire services provide stories by local stringers whose dedication to the truth is suspect at best. Even worse, when things become complicated and a clear good guy and bad guy are no longer easily discernible, world public opinion not surprisingly loses interest.

It is precisely for this reason that I have been following the ongoing media coverage of the Palestinian in-fighting and the language employed by the various news outlets. It is interesting that through the many “rounds of fighting” over the past two months no “cycle of violence” has yet reared its head. It appears that this merry-go-round theory of conflict which subtly posits the irrationality of “an eye for an eye” while broadly hinting at the futility of the ongoing conflict only has analytical value with respect to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

In fact, one might be excused for thinking that this implies that if the Palestinians are killing each other in reprisal shootings, they no doubt have a good reason to be doing so. At the same time, it implies that there is no sense in trying to comprehend this behavior since it is clearly irrational and should not be judged by the laws of reason. Indeed, there is no need to even posit an ultimate “root” cause or theory to explain this fratricide – rather it is widely understood and accepted that resorting to violence and bloodshed is just the local way of dealing with problems.

Unfortunately, I find this approach typical of a specific type of racism representative of an unquestioned worldview that underlies this reportage. Sure, this is not the kind of racism that leaves you lying beaten and bloody in an alley by a bunch of guys in white sheets, but it is racism no less. It posits that that, as rational-minded Westerners, we can never appreciate the irrational passions and emotions that have been unleashed and thus we also have no right to judge its morality.

This perhaps explains why there has been no mention in any of the reportage about the “innocent” civilians who have been wounded or killed while caught in the crossfire between the two factions. This absence is quite striking since errant Israeli bullets usually solicit banner sized headlines such as: “Innocent child killed by Israeli bullets!” When somewhere between 14 and 22 Palestinians civilians died in a battle that killed 23 Israeli soldiers in Nablus in 2002, the world press was quick to dub it the “Massacre of Jenin”.

Yet, as hundreds of innocent Palestinians have been killed or wounded over the past few weeks, the absence of similar headlines ascribing responsibility to either Hamas or Fatah becomes even more pronounced. This seems to imply that when Palestinians kill other Palestinians, it is too complicated to figure out who is innocent. Could it be that no one wants to ascribe “guilt” by proclaiming someone innocent? Once again, the logical conclusion is that this fighting is simply one of those irrational, Oriental things that defy simple Western notions of rationality and “right action”.

This may also explain why there is also a general avoidance of legalese and no attempt to judge the sides by the principles of international law. When Israel overturns a rock in Jerusalem or send its soldiers across the Green Line, the papers are almost unanimous in their contention that this violates long-held (yet undisclosed) principles of international law. While Palestinians have violated almost every single article of the 4th Geneva Convention over the past two months, not once has anyone questioned the legality of these actions.

Salman Rushdie has termed this attitude “soft racism”, since it essentially paints a smiley face where a Swastika really belongs. This is the kind of racism that does not believe that all those Ayatollahs and mullahs could “really” mean what they say. It is a vestigial colonial attitude that patronizes the “natives” and infantilizes them by treating them with kid gloves. It says, in effect, “We know you don’t really mean any harm by your actions, you are simply not mature enough to control your emotions or act rationally.” In essence, “You know not what you are doing and can not be held accountable for your actions.”

It is clear that the recent coverage of the Middle East and the Arab-Israeli conflict not only suffers of the Orientalism that Edward Said identified, but also from an essentializing and infantilizing of Arabs/Muslims that is clearly racist. It is time we recognized the long-standing and elaborate traditions and values that underpin Middle Eastern societies and start holding them accountable for their actions. At least no more or no less than Israel is held to account.