Images of Israeli conflicts skewed
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Drew Robert Winter
After illegally occupying territory for more than 40 years, killing thousands of civilians in its frequent military offensives, ignoring constant resolutions from the United Nations, and habitually imprisoning and starving an entire population, Israel has finally admitted it has a problem. But not a policy problem — an image problem.
An article in The New York Times Thursday reported Israel is investing in a “prettier face,” to quote Arye Mekel, the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s deputy director general for cultural affairs. An additional $2 million will be allocated to the ministry to essentially emphasize Israel isn’t the racist genocidal Middle East sore it’s cracked up to be. I imagine Mekel’s job difficulty is somewhere between balancing a car on his nose and toilet-training an angry rhinoceros. AIG has an image problem. Anorexics have an image problem. Israel has a scumbag government problem.
This tragic comedy comes on the heels of an Israeli Defense Forces attack on a peaceful protest in the West Bank that left American activist Tristan Anderson in critical condition when a tear gas canister struck him in the head. Anderson and his partner, Gabrielle Silverman, were taking photographs as the protest of the security wall wound down.
According to Silverman, Anderson’s ambulance was held at a checkpoint for 15 minutes because Palestinian ambulances are never allowed to go to Israeli hospitals and an Israeli ambulance had to be driven to the border. When they were preparing to close the ambulance doors, she said, an IDF soldier blocked their path and smirked at them, refusing to move.
A San Francisco protest of this incident in front of the Israeli embassy also resulted in a scuffle between demonstrators and police.
Unfortunately, eagerness to resort to violence is commonly expressed in countless videos depicting IDF soldiers, decked out in military hardware and carrying American M-16 rifles, firing at Palestinians armed only with rocks and slingshots as American-made F-16 fighter-bombers and Apache gunship helicopters fly overhead and raze Palestinian buildings.
Palestinians have inadequate food, water and medical supplies due to Israel’s blockade, they are facing attacks on peaceful protests, and nearly 90 percent of Israel’s citizens favored the Gaza war. Selling this as decent behavior is like selling klan hoods in Harlem.
Israeli politics committed to violence a long time ago, and no amount of buffing will erase what Israel is inflicting on the Palestinian people. In America, although support for Israel remains high, my sense is that the “tit-for-tat” argument is starting to lose ground in the wake of Al Jazeera’s reported 100-to-1 casualty ratio of the Gaza invasion.
In his letter to the editor, Consider both sides regarding Israeli, Palestinian conflicts (SN 3/18), Scott Kelber responded to Joshua Kaplan’s pro-Israel letter, Think about current lives, hardships of many Israelis (SN 3/17), by saying what America’s Pro-Israel Lobby does their best to obfuscate: “Any attempt to disguise criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic is dishonest. You can oppose the actions of Israel without being anti-Semitic.”
Even Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a former toe-sucker extraordinaire of the Jewish state, on March 4 condemned the demolishing of Palestinian settlements in East Jerusalem. You know it’s bad when Smithers is denouncing Mr. Burns.
The solution to the rocket attacks and conflict (and the image problem) is as clear as it has ever been: withdraw troops from occupied territories, lift the blockade on supplies, destroy illegal portions of the wall, recognize a Palestinian state. But Israel’s politicians have no interest in peace on those grounds.
So, Mekel is left with sending poets and artists around the world to show Israel’s softer, cultured side. He admitted $2 million wouldn’t be nearly enough, saying, “We need 50 million. We need 100 million.” Israel has a slight benefit as a predominantly white population, but South Africa couldn’t swing apartheid 20 years ago. Mekel has a better shot trying to convince the world that Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe is a peaceful democratic leader. He’d have better prospects if he took the $2 million and tried to bribe Jesus.
Drew Robert Winter is a State News guest columnist and English and journalism senior. Reach him at winterdr@msu.edu.
Commentary
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student
(03/19/09 8:00pm)Report
Highly biased, but interesting…
Grandma Taters
(03/20/09 8:14am)Report
D. Bobby still working the stoopid angle, gotta like it!
D. BOBBY'S ELEPHANT
(03/20/09 8:45am)Report
D. Bobby for a Rachel Corrie grant. Improve the gene pool.
Be sure he’s carrying a copy of “The Nation” with him, when he goes. He apes it, so well.
Careful now
(03/20/09 10:11am)Report
Oh my your file with all the ‘Israeli Lobby’ organistions, leagues, support groups, board rooms etc., is getting thicker and thicker. You are walking in a mine field and that is no joke. The JDL may be knocking on (or down) your door any day now.
d bob
(03/20/09 10:51am)Report
i came for the smug half-smile and stayed for the disgusting opinions
fail.
(03/20/09 11:02am)Report
“toilet training an angry rhinoceros”?
“selling klan hoods in Harlem”?
What the hell is wrong with you???
Oh and I’m sure that if there was a Palestinian state it would definitely turn out to be your peaceful democratic love state, just like all the rest of the Arab countries.
karma
(03/20/09 11:43am)Report
Your ignorant comments are highly amusing and further prove the article’s points. Thank you! :)
justice
(03/20/09 12:18pm)Report
Pay no attention to these critics. They may shout “bias” or “ignorant”, but see that they have no legitimate critique. Your facts are correct, Israel’s official statements concur. Arguments of “do you think a Palestinian state would be any more peaceful” are foolish…“our crimes are justified because they would potentially do the same against us” is not a morally sound argument. Continue to defend justice – well done!
Shame
(03/20/09 12:21pm)Report
Shame on “D. Bobby’s Elephant” for your comments about Rachel Corrie. Have you no tact, no respect for the dead? I am appalled by your willingness to make jokes about the death of a fellow American at the hands of a foreigner. Citizen or not, you are no American.
D. BOBBY'S ELEPHANT
(03/20/09 12:39pm)Report
“Shame on “D. Bobby’s Elephant” for your comments about Rachel Corrie.”
Rachel Corrie wanted to be a martyr, just like most mentally-disordered lib-burr-als. Like D. Bobby.
She got her wish. If you have a problem with that — contact her.
Also wish you and D. Bobby would visit your friends overseas. You’d might be stoned to death (with rocks, not MJ), or have your ears torn off and/or mouths crushed. Before you died. That’s real torture.
Mr. Anonymous
(03/20/09 12:56pm)Report
If the JDL were to persecute anyone criticizing Israel is an open admision that they do have a problem. And the “Israel Fan Club of Crybabies” don’t scare me. While Mr. Robert Winter have opinions I disagree, like “animal rights”, he is so RIGHT in his criticism toward Israel’s policies. And I am happy to see people losing all fear to express criticism toward Israel. And no amount of art will make us change our negative opinions on Israel. That Israel has a symphony orchestra playing Beethoven and Tchaikovsky? So do Brazil and Mexico. Israel and its supporters, like some Harvard law profesor I will not mention his name, live in “denial”. There is an old saying in Spanish: “no hay peor ciego que el que no quiera ver” which in good English means: the worst blind is the one who refuses to see the truth. And go ahead, call me “antisemite”. I am already laughing.
interesting
(03/20/09 1:18pm)Report
To be fair, if you read history, this kid is nothing like a young Hitler. Hitler described himself as a youth as a “misunderstood artist”. I think Mr. Winters knows exactly what he is saying.
John
(03/20/09 1:20pm)Report
D. Bobby’s Elephant, the epitome of class.
Hey...
(03/20/09 3:07pm)Report
At least his articles are consistently stupid, otherwise people might just begin to think he’s not a raving liberal lunatic and begin to assume he’s just someone who needs the attention badly enough to play the part.
jim
(03/20/09 4:09pm)Report
Idiot. Israel is not a predominantly white country.
Drew need to learn his facts...
(03/20/09 4:22pm)Report
1. withdraw troops from occupied territories.
Israel did try that. They withdrew all troops from Gaza and the Northern West Bank. Guess what happened? Hamas started shooting rockets at Israel from Gaza. You know the first person killed by a Hamas-Gaza rocket? An Arab farmer in Israel. Israel wants to withdraw from 90% of the West Bank (they are already out of the Gaza Strip), but Israelis fear that it will mean more rockets.
2. lift the blockade on supplies
Israel has offered to do this. All they ask is that Hamas recognize Israel and Israel will effectively end the blockade. Is it Israel’s fault Hamas cares more about its ideology than its people?
3. Destroy illegal portions of the wall, recognize a Palestinian state.
Israel would love to have a Palestinian state to recognize. But Hamas has no interest in a Palestinian State that does not Include 100% of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and all of Israel. Israel offered them almost all the West Bank and Gaza in 2000, and Arafat said no. The security barrier (80% fence, 20% wall) has been highly effective. 1000 Israelis were killed by suicide bombers before the fence, so Israel has an obligation to keep it up. I do happen to agree with Drew that the borders of the fence should be changed so that they interfere less with the lives of the Palestinians.
4. But Israel’s politicians have no interest in peace on those grounds.
On all points, you have been proven totally and completely wrong.
Nature Boy
(03/20/09 4:27pm)Report
A well written article. It’s important that people see both sides of this war for the sake of seeing the Truth in what’s really going on here. Is this article biased? Of course it is, but this is bias in favor of HUMAN RIGHTS/PROPER JUSTICE. I’d take the side against OPPRESSION any day.
Well done.
mara-kame
(03/20/09 4:30pm)Report
Israel its doing to Palestine what the Nazis did to them, that did not justify what they are doing to Palestine, shame on shame and shame on Israel for this GENOCIDE, KARMA will get you all soon.
FREE PALESTINE
(03/20/09 4:35pm)Report
FREE PALESTINE!
FREE TIBET!
FREE AFGHANISTAN!
FREE IRAK!
FREE WORLD FROM THE US of A, CHINA AND ISRAEL!
anon
(03/20/09 4:45pm)Report
“1. withdraw troops from occupied territories.
Israel did try that. They withdrew all troops from Gaza and the Northern West Bank. Guess what happened? Hamas started shooting rockets at Israel from Gaza. You know the first person killed by a Hamas-Gaza rocket? An Arab farmer in Israel. Israel wants to withdraw from 90% of the West Bank (they are already out of the Gaza Strip), but Israelis fear that it will mean more rockets.”
Israel withdrew from Gaza? Sure, only to keep the IDF at the borders and to impose an ILLEGAL economic blockade. Israel and Hamas had a ceasefire which virtually ended the poorly-made rockets (which killed about 1 person a year, more people die from fireworks in Israel). If Israel is concerned about rockets, why break the cease-fire on Nov.4 by killing 6 hamas members?
“2. lift the blockade on supplies
Israel has offered to do this. All they ask is that Hamas recognize Israel and Israel will effectively end the blockade. Is it Israel’s fault Hamas cares more about its ideology than its people?”
Israel didn’t simply offer to do it, it signed a cease-fire agreement PROMISING to do it, and by the way, it was ILLEGAL in the first place and in case you didn’t know, an economic blockade on the scale Israel imposed on Gaza is an act of war. Hamas leaders have repeatedly stated that they would accept a two state solution that included gaza, west bank and east jeruselum. Israel wants all of jeruselum and refuses to consider the Palestinian right of return. Hamas isn’t the one that broke the ceasefire, its Israel who’s demonstrated that they’re incapable of abiding by an agreement.
“3. Destroy illegal portions of the wall, recognize a Palestinian state.
Israel would love to have a Palestinian state to recognize. But Hamas has no interest in a Palestinian State that does not Include 100% of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and all of Israel. Israel offered them almost all the West Bank and Gaza in 2000, and Arafat said no. The security barrier (80% fence, 20% wall) has been highly effective. 1000 Israelis were killed by suicide bombers before the fence, so Israel has an obligation to keep it up. I do happen to agree with Drew that the borders of the fence should be changed so that they interfere less with the lives of the Palestinians.”
Come on now, have you read the accords? You know what kind of state Israel was “offering” the palestinians? One that would allow Israel to control the borders, the airspace, the roads, and allow for illegal jewish settlements to slice through arab land and continued checkpoints and jewish-only roads to accommadate the illegal settlers.
4. But Israel’s politicians have no interest in peace on those grounds.
On all points, you have been proven totally and completely wrong.
No sir, on all points, YOU have been proven wrong.
Sharj
(03/20/09 5:34pm)Report
Excellent article Drew!!! Good to see the discussion of the other side of the stories that we hear. It’s about time to stop blaming the victims and tell the truth about the ugly occupation that has been in the making for the last 60 years. The occupation that has devastated the lives of millions and deprived Palestinians from their basic rights of their land and freedom.
Mr. Anonymous
(03/20/09 5:43pm)Report
The Israelis withdraw BUT keep building settlements and staeling lands from the Palestinians. How come Mr. Anon doesn’t mention that? The “Israel Fan Club of Crybabies” can’t fool me.
D. BOBBY'S ELEPHANT
(03/20/09 5:55pm)Report
John, the epitome of class.
Wish John and D. Bobby would visit their friends overseas. They might be stoned to death (with rocks, not MJ), or have their ears torn off and/or mouths crushed. Before they died. That’s real torture.
Avram
(03/20/09 5:56pm)Report
goto youtube and type “pallywood” in the search field and watch the first video. very very interesting.
Avram
(03/20/09 6:15pm)Report
Here you go: www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_B1H-1opys
Totally changes the debate doesnt it?