The Press As A Political Player: Israel's Atrocities - Yet Unreported
11 October 2010By Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban
The United Nations Human Rights Council this week
adopted a resolution condemning Israel for its attack
on the aid flotilla on May 31. The report said that
there was evidence which justifies prosecuting Israel
for the "willful killing, torture, inhuman treatment
and causing of great suffering or serious injury to
the innocent people who had attempted to deliver
humanitarian aid to Gaza". The experts added that "six
of the deceased were the victims of summary
executions, two of whom were shot after they were
severely injured and could not defend themselves".
They pointed out "grave violations of international
law, international humanitarian law, and international
human rights law" were committed. Nevertheless, the
Belgian ambassador, speaking on behalf of the European
Union recommended abstention. The American ambassador,
Eileen Donahoe, stressed that Washington opposed the
resolution, which means that they both support the
crimes of murder and torture practiced by Israeli
troops against unarmed civilians and think the crimes
justified.
Despite the fact that the committee stressed that
Israel committed "willful killing", the report
drafters did not refer Israel to the International
Criminal Court, as it should also have been referred
after the Goldstone report in the wake of the war on
Gaza (2008-9), during which Israel killed over 14,000
Palestinian civilians. Diplomats said the two
decisions took into account public and private calls
from Western countries and the Palestinian Authority
to "avoid any measure which could create more
difficulties for the recently resumed Middle East
peace process". Yet, the two reports call for new
discussions of the two issues in the Council's session
in March - April next year.
This is how murdering innocent people is treated -
with softness, kindness, quiet, procrastination and
deliquescence – only because the culprits are Israeli
soldiers supported and protected in all their crimes
by Western powers and because the victims are Arabs
and Muslims from Palestine and Turkey.
Even the facts published in the report which
characterized the "Israeli army's violence" as
"brutal" did not get its way to TV networks and other
media. No one heard of that except those who follow
the two cases closely, because those who own and run
the media have reached such a degree of complicity
with political actors that only what is allowed by
political masters reaches the audience.
This is the only time that the Human Rights Council
endorses a report which condemns Israel's atrocities.
Yet, the report did not get the support or coverage it
deserves simply because the European Union and the
United States hastened to oppose it pretending
"concern over the peace process". The truth is rather
their concern for Israel's ability to continue to
commit its crimes, persecute the Arab population and
expel them from their houses, neighborhoods and cities
to be replaced by foreign settlers.
The second intervention by the media this week has
been the blackout on a group of Jewish activists on
board of the boat Irene who sailed to Gaza to show the
world that not all Jews support the Israeli blockade
policy. Among them is holocaust survivor Reuven
Moskovitz (82), the Captain of the ship Glyn Secker,
former Israeli army officer Itamar Shapira and
Assistant captain and former Israeli air force pilot
Yonatan Shapira. How would the media cover such an
event while the rulers of Israel shout and call for
the Jewishness of the Israeli state? They try to build
the peace talks on this foundation, which is a racist
foundation, for an entity which includes Muslims and
Christians; unless, by such slogan they intend to
carry out ethnic cleansing against people who lived on
this land for thousands of years.
Even when Israel alone is to blame for the logjam in
the negotiations, the language used by spokesman of
the US State Department tries to exonerate Israel of
any responsibility. When Israel resumed building
settlements, which amounts to ethnic cleansing against
the natives, Philip Crowley said: "We are
disappointed, but we remain focused on our long-term
objective, and we'll be talking to the parties about
the implications of the Israeli decision". He used the
word "parties" to imply that all parties are
responsible for this obstacle, while in reality Israel
alone was responsible for the failure of negotiations
for the past twenty years.
Take another example. Palestinian child Karam Khaled
Da'na, 13, was served a military court order to be
removed from his family home to the prison of Ofer.
Taken away by the Israeli soldiers, he shouted to his
father that he wanted to go home to play with his
brothers and sleep in his room. What would the EU and
US ambassadors to the Human Rights Council say to this
child? Would they abstain from voting? What if this
child were one of their children? What would they say
to the people of the neighborhoods of Selwan and
Jarrah in Jerusalem as Israeli occupation courts have
started passing rulings to take over ancient Arab
neighborhoods, not mere houses, to eat up the Ancient
Arab city and Judaize it as quickly as they can?
It is very relevant that in 2009 more than a hundred
journalists were killed while doing their job. I have
no doubt that all of them were trying to show the
truth even paying for it by their lives which they
sacrificed in all nobleness and honor.
Has the media, whose mission is to search for and show
the truth, become complicit with politicians to hide
the crimes committed against humanity in every
possible way? For the media to be true to their
original mission, they should tell the story of the
native population's suffering with the settlers, as it
is, in order to go beyond the judgments of the
ambassadors of the European Union and the United
States and reach out to the conscience of the free
world which, no doubt, will support Palestinian
justice when it realizes the enormity of the injustice
and persecution Palestinians suffer day and night.
Prof. Bouthaina Shaaban is Political and Media
Advisor at the Syrian Presidency, and former Minister
of Expatriates. She is also a writer and professor at
Damascus University since 1985. She's got Ph.D. in
English Literature from Warwick University, London.
She was the spokesperson for Syria. She was nominated
for Nobel Peace Prize in 2005.
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