| Yesterday
I was watching some TV with someone close, let's call him 'A'. on
the news they said: "a soldier was shot today by Palestinian
snipers as he was helping an old Palestinian woman to open the door
to her house". This was on channel one or two (same shit). I
always look at 'A's response to the news in order to learn about how
typical Israeli citizens look at the situation, understand and analyze
it. 'A' was terribly shocked and angry; again these low moral murdering
Palestinians use the high moral and innocence of our finest good human
hearted soldiers in a cynical way, to murder them. "We shouldn't
be so good to them", say most Israelis, just like 'A', after
hearing these 'well balanced, objective, true news'. However, what they left out from the news this evening, were some more details: the soldiers took by force the old lady's house. They used it as an army base for more than a day during a wide bloody action in her refugee camp. The woman was captive in her own house, probably needing permission for every movement. Like usually (I've seen so many images, but not on channel one or two) they converted her little apartment which she worked so hard during the years to nourish and make a decent home under the circumstances of living in a refugee camp, under occupation, poverty and war, into a young 18-20 year old rude soldiers' pig sty. The soldiers, charmingly allowed her to go get some food on the second day. Like anywhere in the occupied territories, they open and close the gates of the little arbitrary borders they make daily, this time the border between this lady's house and the street, where a real war with Israeli tanks, bulldozers and helicopters shooting and demolishing houses is taking place. Upon her succesful return to her house she needs permission again to enter. She can't open the door to her house, it's not her house today, it's an important military post. So the soldier opened the door. Then he got shot by another soldier like him (only with much less equipment) from the Palestinian side. More aspects completely left out from this news story were what the army was actually doing there for the last 2 days; in an action described as searching for the remains of the bodies of the soldiers who were killed nearby, a few days before, while demolishing dozens to hundreds of houses (yet to be known, as media coverage from there unavailable, in mainstream Israel), with more than 1,000 homeless people during this noble holy search for the soldier's body parts, leaving behind on the sandy streets of the refugee camp scattered Palestinian bodies shot from Apache helicopter missiles and tanks in the small refugee camp called 'Brazil'… Oh, how the Israeli media celebrated the images of the Palestinians taking the soldier's body parts with them for negotiations, while neglecting to mention that only a few months before that, the Israeli army decided and started taking and keeping Palestinian body parts for the same reasons. Israelis were shocked, condemning Palestinians as brutal beasts, forgetting or ignoring images shot privately by Israeli photographer-soldiers showing Palestinian warrior bodies and body parts under the feet of the proud soldiers who killed them. There are many ways to listen to a story. Many ways to learn about reality. Most people don't bother. Most people yesterday, hearing the news reacted just as they were supposed to react, just like 'A'. Supposed to react by whom? Why does the TV news department leave out important details from a critical story? Who decides and for what purpose? Who is shaping the broad public opinion? Who is rewriting the national myth? who profits from all this death? |
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