U.S. Media Misrepresent Palestinians

One again the world has sadly witnessed the outbreak of violence in the West Bank and Occupied East Jerusalem. But this time it is inquiring about the peace process and what went wrong. What could have Israel done that caused such arousal from Palestinian civilians? The hasty and somewhat surprising answers that have sprouted in the media insist on depicting the Palestinians as inherently violent and as the enemies of peace. In their coverage, some journalists have failed to mention fundamental truths about the real Palestinian condition. Instead, they further the offensive and unjust myths of the Israeli state. The opinion article by Justin C. Danilewitz, appearing in The Crimson's October 2 issue, presents the public a convincing, but rather manipulative example of the journalistic bias that has hurt Palestinians for decades.

Danilewitz depicts the recent confrontations as an Intifadah II, occurring within the broader context of a desperately ailing peace process.

References to protesting civilians as "rock-throwing delinquents" and to the Palestinian civilian police as "vigilante commandos" portray the author's desperate attempt to convince the reader that his personal judgement is the truth. The claim that Palestinian police officers fired "automatic weapons upon the Israelis who armed them" overlooks the fact that these arms were purchased under the Oslo agreement, and with Palestinian money. The images purveyed by such propaganda upholds the political axiom around which Israeli hawks, and their more poorly informed counterparts in the U.S., mobilize: We have tried peace but we can not/will not trust those who opted to fight back.

This altered facet of reality can be quite convincing for those unaware of the circumstances of the region and the bloody history it represents. But is it really conceivable that Palestinians chose to sacrifice over 70 of their own and jeopardize their hope to end years of illegal occupation and savage massacres because of an "innocuous, inconspicuous and wholly inoffensive tunnel?" Can anyone be truly convinced that Palestinian protest towards the irresponsible affairs of a more powerful state are only "hysterically paranoid comments?" Former prime minister Shimon Peres expressed his disappointment by saying that no Israeli mother he knows is willing to sacrifice her children for tourism, that nothing positive could come out of opening this project, and that a 2000-year-old tunnel could remain closed for a couple more years.

To say that the recent violence in the occupied territories was solely caused by Israel's illegal opening of a tourist tunnel in occupied East Jerusalem is similar to attributing the death and destruction of the First World War to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Serbia. Commentary in the U.S. media, Danilewitz's article included, has diverted the readers' attention from the fact that this tunnel violates both international law, which states that territory occupied by war cannot be changed by the occupier, and the Oslo agreements, which stipulate that changes in the Holy City must be suspended until its final status has been determined. The media, instead, annul the entire significance of the tunnel by justifying it with religious and archeological glory.

This new uprising, and indeed Palestinian disillusionment with the Oslo peace process, has little to do with religious extremism. Rather, the expression of Palestinian discontent derives from Israel's unremitting violations of Palestinian economic, social, and political autonomy.

These violations include the symbolic attempt to undermine the sanctity of the al-Aqsa Mosque and the denial of Palestinian access to Arab East Jerusalem, a city central to Palestinian life. These are aggravated by the systematic de-Arabization of the city, and the destruction of any demographic obstacles that halt the complete annexation of the illegally-occupied city. Essentially, Palestinians have been reduced to foreigners in their own city. The violated peace process, as it stands, has done little to stop Israeli abuse, and this is what the Palestinians protest.

Danilewitz and many others have the responsibility to mention the reprehensible conditions of Israeli occupation before drawing conclusions.

Forty percent of the Gaza Strip, and 65 percent of the West Bank, have been effectively annexed for illegal settlements, roads, and the like. Unemployment is in excess of 60 percent. So even before the violence broke out, discontent was unquestioningly widespread.

It should be clear by now that this confrontation is not about "stone throwing delinquents" protesting the tunnel, but, rather, Palestinian students and other civilians protesting the worsening of the Palestinian condition. As for accusations of violence, stones were forced to reckon with unadulterated warfare. Palestinian police tried in fact to protect their people but that does not take away from the fact that the sovereignty of all three Palestinian autonomous zones was violated when Israeli tanks and helicopters invaded, thereby underscoring the inutility of the Oslo accords.

At this point, one has to understand that the primary responsibility of the Palestinian police is not to serve as agents of the Israeli government within Palestinian territory, but to protect civilians and Palestinian public and private property. The Palestinian police faced an old enemy who was shooting fatal rubber bullets at their own population. A response at that moment was eminent, but it was the Palestinian police who in fact helped end violence after all. As for the Palestinian threat of "arms build-up" against countries who want to stop "unconventional warfare," one can only guess what this means. Forty thousand poorly-armed and poorly-trained Palestinians are hardly a threat to Israel's military potency, which is the only country in the region that bears nuclear weapons and refused to sign the U.N. nuclear non-proliferation agreement.

The media representations of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict resonate with biased rhetoric and propagandist images. As a result, the Palestinian movement must continue to invest energy in dispelling malicious misconceptions instead of working towards a very necessary peace.

As long as these misrepresentations continue to be propagated, justice will never be part of the peace we make with promises. A just and durable peace must transcend this war of argumentation, biased generalizations and misleading and manipulative conclusions. We must transcend the limitations of the peace process, for which, as Danilewitz concludes, reality has set in, and pursue a durable settlement based on the shared principles of social equality, political justice, national dignity and individual respect. --Leila Suwwan de Felipe, '99   Waqaas Fahmawi, '99   Members,   Harvard Society for Arab Students