{"id":10530,"date":"2013-01-20T17:20:07","date_gmt":"2013-01-20T17:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/?p=10530"},"modified":"2013-01-23T07:18:23","modified_gmt":"2013-01-23T07:18:23","slug":"january-20-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/2013\/01\/20\/january-20-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"January 20, 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Hate, by Khalil Bendib<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

How the media let Israel get away with murder<\/a>: The Electronic Intifada<\/a><\/h3>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
Charlotte Silver<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
17 January 2013<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n

Relatives of Samir Awad mourn after the 17-year-old died of gunshot wounds on 14 January.<\/span><\/p>\n

(Issam Rimawi<\/a>\u00a0\/\u00a0APA images<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Israel spends a lot of time talking about secure borders and how the need for them drives its policies regarding the Palestinians. With few exceptions, the media act as willing promoters of this perversion of reality.<\/p>\n

Between 11 and 15 January, four young Palestinians \u2014 aged 17 to 22 \u2014 were shot dead by Israeli occupation forces. The murders took place in the\u00a0Gaza Strip<\/a>\u00a0and at different points along\u00a0Israel\u2019s wall in the West Bank<\/a>. In all instances the Israeli army justified the use of lethal force by invoking its need to protect the integrity of the wall and Israel\u2019s borders.<\/p>\n

On 11 January, 22-year-old Anwar Mamlouk was reportedly just outside the\u00a0Jabaliya<\/a>refugee camp in Gaza when Israeli soldiers gunned him down.<\/p>\n

The next day, Odai al-Darawish, 21, was shot to death at three o\u2019clock in the afternoon while crossing Israel\u2019s wall in the West Bank to get to work in Israel. Initially, Israeli sources claimed the soldiers shot al-Darawish in his legs, in accordance with the \u201crules of engagement\u201d (\u201cIsraeli troops kill Palestinian trying to cross barrier<\/a>,\u201d\u00a0The Chicago Tribune<\/em>, 12 January 2013).<\/p>\n

But medical sources quickly revealed that he was hit in the back, indicating that he was likely shot while trying to run to safety (\u201cIsraeli forces shoot, kill worker south of Hebron<\/a>,\u201d Ma\u2019an News Agency, 12 January 2013).<\/p>\n

Al-Darawish was from the village of Dura, near\u00a0Hebron<\/a>, where in September last year a man attempted to immolate himself in a desperate protest of the dire economic conditions Palestinians face in the occupied West Bank (\u201cPalestinian man attempts to set himself on fire in West Bank village of Dura<\/a>,\u201d\u00a0Haaretz<\/em>, 17 January 2013).<\/p>\n

Mustafa Jarad was aged 21 and a farmer from\u00a0Beit Lahiya<\/a>\u00a0in the northern Gaza Strip. He was shot in the forehead by an Israeli sniper on 14 January while working his land. But despite the Israeli gunman\u2019s skillful marksmanship, Jarad was not killed immediately.<\/p>\n

Doctors at\u00a0al-Shifa hospital<\/a>\u00a0in Gaza City tried to remove the bullet from his severely injured brain, but Jarad died after surgery (\u201cMustafa Abu Jarad, murdered in Gaza, by the Israeli army<\/a>,\u201d International Solidarity Movement, 15 January 2013).<\/p>\n

Shooting a schoolboy<\/h3>\n

On 14 January, Samir Awad, a 17-year-old from\u00a0Budrus<\/a>, a\u00a0West Bank<\/a>\u00a0village located near\u00a0Ramallah<\/a>, was shot from behind in the head, torso and leg while running away from soldiers.<\/p>\n

Samir had just completed his last exam before school break and had joined a group of boys to protest the wall. Samir\u2019s family has lost five acres of land with 3,000 olive trees due to the construction of Israel\u2019s wall; Samir had also been jailed three times for his participation in demonstrations (\u201cIsraeli forces shot youth in the back as he ran away, say Palestinians<\/a>,\u201d\u00a0Guardian<\/em>, 15 January 2013).<\/p>\n

English-language reports of these murders have been scant where they exist at all. For example, the press is in disagreement over the circumstances of Anwar Mamlouk\u2019s death. Reuters reported that Anwar\u2019s brother, Hani, stated that Anwar had been studying outdoors when he was shot (\u201cIsraeli forces kill Palestinian along border with Gaza: Hamas<\/a>,\u201d NBCNews, 11 January 2013).<\/p>\n

The\u00a0BBC<\/a>, however, relayed only the Israeli military\u2019s version of events and reported that Anwar had entered the \u201cforbidden area\u201d along Gaza\u2019s boundary with dozens of other Palestinians (\u201cGaza: Palestinian farmer killed by Israeli gunfire<\/a>,\u201d 11 January 2013).<\/p>\n

Shifting the blame<\/h3>\n

The New York Times<\/a><\/em>\u00a0took the murder of Samir Awad, the fourth in the spate of Israeli willful killing of unarmed Palestinians, as an opportunity to remark on the \u201cgrowing unrest\u201d in the West Bank, bizarrely shifting culpability for the deaths onto Palestinians (\u201cIsraeli forces kill Palestinian at barrier<\/a>,\u201d 15 January 2013).<\/p>\n

It must be noted that when 17-year-old\u00a0Muhammad al-Salaymeh<\/a>\u00a0was slain by a border police officer in Hebron on his birthday in December 2012,\u00a0The New York Times<\/em>\u00a0remained silent.<\/p>\n

Reading the\u00a0New York Times\u2019<\/em>\u00a0coverage of the murder of Palestinians by Israelis is an apt lesson for any aspiring spin-doctor on the language of equivocation.<\/p>\n

The paper\u2019s reporter\u00a0Isabel Kershner<\/a>\u00a0pivots the focus of Monday\u2019s murder in Budrus away from Israel\u2019s trigger-happy soldiers operating in a world of endless and unquestioned impunity and onto Palestinians\u2019 \u201csimmering restiveness\u201d; their increased participation in \u201cdisturbances\u201d of the \u201crelative stability\u201d that Israel has tried to maintain; and their \u201cdire financial crisis that has prevented the\u00a0Palestinian Authority<\/a>\u00a0\u2026 from paying \u2026 government workers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Notably there is no explanation provided as to why the PA has not been able to pay its tens of thousands of workers, namely that Israel has stolen the Palestinians\u2019 tax and customs duty funds.<\/p>\n

Omitting key facts<\/h3>\n

This is how\u00a0The New York Times<\/em>\u00a0turns the cold-blooded murder of a teenage boy into a deliberately obfuscating story that describes an opaque haze of \u201ctensions\u201d and \u201cgrowing unrest.\u201d<\/p>\n

This exonerating cloud of ambiguity is kept afloat by the newspaper\u2019s methodical omission of facts: not only the facts of the recent murders of Odai al-Darawish, Muhammad al-Salaymeh and Anwar Mamlouk, but those of the countless incursions,demolitions<\/a>\u00a0and violence that Israel perpetrates against Palestinians every week (\u201cWeekly report on Israeli human rights violations in the occupied Palestinian territory<\/a>,\u201d Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, 10 January 2013).<\/p>\n

These are the kind of facts that, if properly reported by the journal of record, would allow readers to know that it is Israel who is the violator of the terms of the country\u2019s own precious \u201cborders.\u201d Proper reportage would give stark and unassailable lie to the notion that it in order to protect these borders, it must shoot and kill innocent men and boys, or women and girls.<\/p>\n

Deferring to Israel<\/h3>\n

The awful truth of what happened this week lies outside stories in which gunned-down youths are identified by their intentions to trespass, and in which the wall is described as designed to keep out \u201cterrorists.\u201d Yet the BBC,\u00a0The New York Times<\/em>, Reuters and AP all deferred to Israeli military sources to report on the deaths of four young people. The result is that their readers are told that Israeli soldiers followed the proper protocol to protect Israel\u2019s sovereignty and borders.<\/p>\n

With the notable exception of British newspapers the\u00a0Guardian<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0The Independent<\/em>(see \u201cDid Israeli troops deliberately provoke boy, only to shoot him in the back?\u201d<\/a>\u00a016 January 2013), the media dutifully joined ranks with the State of Israel, grinding out the useful fiction that implicates these dead young Palestinians as menaces to the security and stability supposedly maintained by the chimera of separation.<\/p>\n

As for borders, it\u2019s exceedingly likely that the grief-stricken parents of the slain youths would love to see the existence of any kind of boundary on Israel that might protect their children from the presence of a threatening, violent and usurping entity.<\/p>\n

Charlotte Silver is a journalist based in occupied Palestine and San Francisco. Follow her on Twitter:\u00a0@CharESilver<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How the media let Israel get away with murder: The Electronic Intifada Charlotte Silver 17 January 2013 Relatives of Samir Awad mourn after the 17-year-old died of gunshot wounds on 14 January. (Issam Rimawi\u00a0\/\u00a0APA images) Israel spends a lot of time talking about secure borders and how the need for them drives its policies regarding … Continue reading January 20, 2013<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10530"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10530"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10534,"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10530\/revisions\/10534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}