Politicizing the Playground

Last Wednesday, three children arrived at Harvard from Balata, a small town in the West Bank, and spoke about the trauma of living under Israeli occupation. This was part of the Picture Balata project, which gives young children, ages 11 to 18, cameras and tells them to document life in their small town. The stories the children told were both emotional and moving. However, why would children be chosen to communicate such a complex and controversial political issue?

Surely, it is not because they are the most qualified, but rather because they influence peoples’ emotions. When you were in middle school, did you have independently formed political opinions? Did you seriously question the beliefs of your parents and authority figures?

The discussion was not simply about the difficulty of life in Balata; a discussion such as this would be irrefutable by anyone outside of the refugee camp. The problem is that the stories the children read were filled with political statements—unverifiable, at the very least, and logically untrue at other points.

Children have neither the background, education, nor the independence to consider their situation and make intelligible decisions about their conditions and the political environment of their country. Proof of this incapability came as soon as their prepared and seemingly coached remarks were completed and the audience asked questions. Very basic topics were brought up, such as what the children thought of media coverage or what they thought of the politics in the region, and in several cases, the children simply could not form opinions, even after multiple translations were offered. The children had their talking points down very well, but when it came to independent thought, they were unable to expand their original assertions.

Taha, the eldest of the photographers at 17, claimed that the Israeli people want the town’s residents to suffer, and that this is why the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) attacks. In explaining why children have no places to play, he claimed that if the residents built playgrounds, “The occupation would come demolish them because they don’t want the children to have a normal place to play.” Tahreer, another photographer, states in the Picture Balata slideshow, “The Israelis don’t want us to be free.” These claims are highly charged and controversial, and such conclusions have very little to do with the actual situation in Balata. They are mere speculation and do nothing to actually solve the real problems.

Perhaps this is because they are children, and their presentation was nothing more than a repetition of the story told repeatedly by their parents and other authority figures, including those who organize Picture Balata. This point is not meant to disparage the children themselves, but the adult manipulators who advise their speeches and inculcate them with mistruths. The exploitation of children for political means is an old propagandist tactic—clearly the children were chosen for their innocence and emotional appeal.

In addition to this unacceptable form of emotional persuasion, the Picture Balata presentation contained factual errors. These were not merely “interpretive” differences; several of the statements were either clearly untrue or dubious. One such questionable statement was made in the introduction which claimed that “soldiers invade the camp four to five nights a week.” The 25,000 residents of Balata, a community established nearly 60 years ago, do not live in the desolate “camp” implied by the children. In actuality, they live in concrete and stone houses, and there are shops, schools, and many other amenities which make this area a town. Even Green Left—Australia’s “leading radical newspaper”—reports that prior to 2006, the Israeli army had not entered the town since mid-2004. In the last year, there have been several operations in which the IDF entered Balata seeking known or suspected terrorists who had either carried out attacks on Israel or collaborated with others who had, but the claim that the IDF enters the town almost every night is an exaggeration, if not an outright lie.

When the IDF does take police action, it is to prevent terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians and the state. Tahreer, one of the photographers, states in the Picture Balata slideshow that the IDF “kill[s] fighters who defend the camp against the occupation.” If there were no weapons in the town, and if there were no bomb makers in the town, and if there were no militants in the town, the IDF would likely leave it alone. It is always difficult in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to establish causality and blame, but offering shelter to criminals and those who murder civilians is an invitation for police intervention. Just as one who harbored a known murderer in any civilized country would be subject to search and imprisonment, such are some residents of Balata. Tahreer calls the terrorists and gunmen who the IDF kills “martyrs,” but calling someone who conspires to murder civilians a “martyr” and a “freedom fighter” is a lie. Such an individual deserves no noble status, no recognition.

Finally, Hadil, only 15, told the story of the Palestinian “exile” from Israel in 1948. She claimed that the Palestinians were simply sitting in their homes peacefully when the “Zionists came into the land” and “killed and destroyed” until the people “got scared and fled.” Her comments suggest that there was suddenly a mass forced exile and murder of Muslim civilians by the new state of Israel, but this claim is historically false.

Whether one believes it, the claim is controversial and dubious and has little to do with the current events in Balata and what the children actually know from their experiences; the assertion conveys a political message imposed by others. Hadil concluded by claiming triumphantly that “the Zionists shall be chased out of our land,” the same rhetoric used when planning the massacre of the Jews and the destruction of Israel in 1948.

Picture Balata perpetrated these falsehoods and propaganda to convince Americans that the Israelis are the “terrorists,” that the surgical strikes of the IDF are equivalent to the Palestinian suicide bombings, and that police actions which are necessary to maintain the stability of the region are worse than the indiscriminate murder of women and children. Tahreer photographs “martyrs…because they are our heroes.” Those who murder innocent Israelis only provoke violence. Those who harbor these murders deserve to be treated like the criminals they are. While no one would argue that the lives of the people in Balata are easy, much of the suffering is brought on by their own actions, and Picture Balata distorts the facts through reprehensible propaganda which will never produce peace and progress.

Shai D. Bronshtein ’09, a Crimson editorial editor, is a social studies concentrator in Lowell House.