Topic: Conversation with Beshara Doumani

topic by
John Calvin
12/29/2001 (19:59)

THE MAGAZINE OF THE CALIFORNIA ALUMNI ASSOCIATION -- FEBRUARY 2001, VOL. 111, NO. 4

http://cal.alumni.berkeley.edu/monthly/monthly_index/feb_01/qa.htm

A conversation with Beshara Doumani

An Arab-American historian charges that the media's representation of the conflict in the Middle East turns reality upside down.

By Russell Schoch

Q: You, and many others, have criticized how the Palestinian–Israeli conflict is represented in the U.S. media. What is wrong with it?
A: The framing of the conflict in the mass media in this country is different from anywhere else in the world, including in Israel itself. The U.S. media is curiously out of touch with the realities in the Middle East. There’s what might be called an “Israeli spin” on how the conflict should be perceived—a spin that is targeted at the United States, where it is accepted uncritically.

Q: Can you give an example?

A: Well, the notion that the United States is or can be an “honest broker” in the Middle East is a ridiculous notion, and I think is seen clearly as being so everywhere in the world, except for here.

Q: Why is this a ridiculous notion?

A: The U.S. government sends billions of dollars every year to Israel, in both economic and military aid—Israel receives the largest amount of U.S. aid of any nation in the world. The U.S. government has supported Israel on a diplomatic front almost alone against the rest of the world. One need look only at United Nations resolutions condemning Israel—for its invasion of Lebanon, for consistent violation of human rights, for its occupation of territories taken in the 1967 war, and so on. In most of these cases, the vote ends up as the entire world against two—the U.S. and Israel.

Q: I remember one U.S. Senator recently saying on television: “There is no daylight between us and Israel. We’re one hundred percent behind Israel. But we can be honest brokers in the Middle East.” Those are contradictory statements, aren’t they? ....

the framing of the conflict is still highly slanted. For example, the primary weapon Israel has wielded against the Palestinians during the previous Intifada [1987-1993] and the current one is a state of economic and military siege that has exacted a brutal price on Palestinian society. But late last fall, just when the current siege was really tight, an article appeared in the New York Times titled, not “Palestinians under siege,” but “Israelis under siege”—talking about a settler community and how they are afraid for their lives.

Another example: It’s very clear, in the most recent Intifada, that war has been declared on the Palestinians, who have paid very heavily in loss of life. But there was a very deliberate and conscious campaign by the Israeli government—if you read the Israeli press, it’s very clear—that this is going to be our propaganda, this is going to be the position we take: “It is the Palestinians who are laying siege to Israel.” In Israel it’s talked about as a propaganda campaign; but in the United States the campaign is accepted as truth, in the sense that in the first few weeks of the Intifada, the constant refrain was: “Arafat should call for an end to the violence.” ...

: What do you consider the most important point in the Middle East conflict?

A: The first thing, the most important thing, to realize is that the Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem are living under occupation. Americans haven’t had to live under occupation, and most people don’t understand what that means.

Occupation is a very brutal and brutalizing process. It’s a very violent process. And when an uprising, a popular uprising—an Intifada—breaks out against occupation and for independence and self-determination, it’s an expression of an unbearable situation that cannot continue. It should in no way be seen as a war between two equal parties bent on the destruction of each other.

It may not seem rational to throw stones at tanks and soldiers with high-caliber weapons who shoot back to kill. But in many ways it’s a rational response to an irrational situation. Speech is impossible sometimes.

Once people recognize that what’s happening here is a question of people under occupation wanting to be free, I think the situation would make a lot more sense.

But we’re repeatedly told that it is Israel that is making concessions and Palestinians who are refusing peace. One can only call this the arrogance of power. Israel, as the super-power of the region, has over and over again dealt with the issue of Palestinian nationalism through military means, as opposed to diplomatic means. That is the only way we can understand the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, the only way we can explain the “iron fist” policy during the first Intifada, and the massive violence against the Palestinian population today.

Q: What lessons do you draw from all this?

A: That resistance to injustice—occupation, invasion, whatever it may be—is almost never represented in the U.S. mass media for what it is, a kind of heroic resistance by people in order to take control of their lives; instead, it’s discussed in a language of marginalization: gangs, mobs, rioters, terrorists, etc. It’s presented as irrational behavior by people who are not fully civilized or educated like you or me, but by a kind of people that are driven by passions and a thirst for violence.

The notion of Palestinians as terrorists is something you see repeated over and over again in the U.S. media, whereas elsewhere in the world it was recognized a long time ago that the Palestinian movement is a legitimate nationalist movement.