In journalism, “if it bleeds, it leads” is the axiom. When it comes to Israel-Palestine, though, stories tend to lead when the bleeding is done by Israelis, not Palestinians. Take, for example, the killing today of a Palestinian teenager and the wounding of several others near the Gaza-Israel border when Israeli troops opened fire on protesters. The incident happened as Palestinians were demonstrating across Israel and the occupied territories to mark “Land Day” in commemoration of the killing of six Arab citizens by Israel in 1976 while they were protesting land confiscations.
Most people would have to be forgiven for not knowing about the death today of 15-year-old Mohammed al-Faramawi, or even that it was Land Day. The story did not appear on most mainstream news sites.
Another important news story is being ignored today, with Al Jazeera being a notable exception (and Matthew Walleser on this site, today). As it reports: “Abbas Zaki, a senior member of Fatah, the political party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, has refused to appear before an Israeli military court. Zaki, who was arrested at a peaceful rally to mark Palm Sunday in Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, was supposed to face the court on Wednesday.”
Why is the incident significant?
“Zaki is the most senior ranking Fatah official to have been detained by Israel since the signing of the Oslo peace accords between Israel and the Palestinians in 1993. On Sunday Zaki was participating in a rally against Israeli restrictions on Palestinian Christians.”
These stories illustrate two points often ignored by the general public. 1) The Israel-Palestine conflict is not a religious conflict at its core; it is over land. 2) All Palestinians are affected by Israeli policies, not just Muslims. This should be food for thought to all those Christian Zionists out there who like to argue that Christian Palestinians are being persecuted by their fellow Muslim Palestinians.
Zaki’s arrest is also telling of how the Israelis feel about their Palestinian "allies" in Fatah: if you want to be more than a lapdog, you’re asking for trouble.
Another dead terrorist, nothing to see, move on.
Zaki’s arrest is also telling of how the Israelis feel about their Palestinian “allies” in Fatah: if you want to be more than a lapdog, you’re asking for trouble.
Yup
Unfortunately, the writer failed to stress that the 6 Arabs killed in 1976 were Israeli citizens, and Land Day remembers the land being stolen by Israel from its own citizens, not from those in the Occupied Territories, who don’t quite have the same sense of ownership.
Gaza is a different matter; its borders have stayed in the same place since an armistice was agreed with Egypt in 1948. Gaza is about 41 kilometers (25 mi) long, and between 6 and 12 kilometers (4–7.5 mi) wide, with a population of about 1.5 million people. Israel has maintained a 1 km ‘free-fire’ zone, within the border, to further restrict Palestinian movement in their defined territory. Much of this zone is the only fertile agricultural land that Gaza has, and a vital source of food since Israel’s blockade set up in June 2007.
Mohammad al-Faramawi was, with other protestors, within the ‘free-fire’ zone, and therefore a legitimate target.
Fatah official: Israel confiscated VIP IDs
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Just another day in Jim Crow land that never gets any American press:
link to counterpunch.org
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While I am 100% behind the point being made here—of Palestinian deaths being not reported/underreported—the case of Mohammed al-Faramawi seemed slightly different than usual.
According to the BBC editors who published a story with an oddly punctuated headline, “Gaza youth ‘shot dead’ in border incident”, which I contacted them about, even as late as 24 hours after the incident “the Rafah hospital says it has not received a body or certified a death, and from the information we have received, the teenager’s family are not 100% sure he is dead.”
As well as the confusion about if he was shot, there was also confusion about when he was shot—if it was during the clashes or before. Two days later their version remains conflicted:
link to news.bbc.co.uk
This sometimes happens. It’s a warzone after all.
His death was reported as confirmed by “witnesses” in the AFP piece you link to, but one thing that needs to be noted about the wire services is that AFP, while often first to report things, is often the least accurate. In a situation where it wasn’t necessarily clear what had happened, it wouldn’t be totally shocking that they got it wrong.
The case is complicated by a NYT report that says the boy had been missing since Monday (one days before Land Day/March 30th) and an Al-Jazeera English report that again cites witnesses says his body was retrieved by Palestinian emergency services and the Red Cross.
link to nytimes.com
link to english.aljazeera.net
The story did filter through somewhat. It doesn’t appear to have been covered by either AP or Reuters, which does make a big difference.
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