Guest contribution by Jareer Kassis
In a recent Haaretz article, Amira Hass reported that Israel denied yet another American citizen of Palestinian descent re-entry into the occupied West Bank. As always, the Israeli authorities invoked the perpetual “security risk” excuse without bothering to elaborate on why an American high-school teacher who held a position at a Quaker institution in Ramallah was deemed a threat. While denying entry of Americans who belong to a particular ethnicity into Israel or the territories it controls (and is required by the Oslo agreements to grant access to) is almost routine, it comes as the U.S. Congress is considering granting Israeli citizens visa-free entry into the United States. If Israel is allowed to join this “Visa Waiver Program (VWP)”, it would necessitate the Secretaries of Homeland Security and State having to lie.
Both the House and Senate versions of the bill include a stipulation that, for Israel to be admitted to the VWP, both the Secretaries must determine that:
“The Government of Israel has made every reasonable effort, without jeopardizing the security of the State of Israel, to ensure that reciprocal privileges are extended to all United States citizens.” (Emphasis mine.)
The evidence gathered over multiple reports spanning the last few years shows that Israel’s treatment of United States citizens is anything but reciprocal. As early as 2006, then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice complained to the Israeli foreign minister (the undeservingly respected Tzipi Livni) about the ill-treatment of Palestinian-Americans by Israel, and also promised later that year to “ensure that all American travelers receive fair and equal treatment”. Yet the reports of Americans humiliated and/or denied entry at Israeli borders are abundant. [Read more...]
When Nesa’iyéh first launched, I was excited to see the public’s reaction at having a Palestinian resistance-themed photography exhibit go live in a major American city. What I failed to recognize, however, was the exhibit’s role in objectifying its subjects—Palestinian women of all ages—as novel additions to the resistance movement, as things to be looked at and admired for their beauty above all else. Needless to say, I am no longer excited.
When +972′s privileged journalism belittles the Palestinian struggle
Effort can be appreciated. But when the effort is spent on lazy, privileged journalism that belittles a struggle and an entire population, that is when the effort needs to be stopped in its tracks and addressed.
+972 Magazine co-founder and contributor Yuval Ben-Ami recently published a piece recounting an evening he spent watching over Gaza’s skies as Israel shelled the territory from above and as Palestinian fighters returned fire, arguably in response to the four Gazans that had been killed earlier in the day.
He had bravely chosen to leave behind his cappuccino that morning and make his way from Tel Aviv to a kibbutz just beyond Sderot, about as close to Gaza’s border as a civilian could get.
There he joined a group of likeminded photographers hoping for the best shots. In essence, they were banking on human tragedy, a military assault, quite possibly the deaths of innocent civilians, to give them a photograph and a story they could use for their own personal gain.
They waited, “looking down at impoverished, futureless Gaza and at neglected southern Israel, secretly hoping for them to burn for our amusement,” Ben-Ami writes. It is a chilling sentence. What is worse, though, is that this problematic language, its self-righteous tone, and its patronizing attitude toward Palestinians is reflected in virtually every letter of every word of every sentence in this piece.
One can easily — word emphasis: easily — make the argument that this privileged and rather offensive reportage is common to +972, because it is. But Ben-Ami has provided us with an excellent example and that is what we will examine for the time being. [Read more...]