From Public Radio international, a feel-good story by Matthew Bell about an Israeli doctor treating patients in Tel Aviv who are ferried to him from Gaza:
One of the doctors working on Odai [al-Kefarna]’s case was Akiva Tamir. While the vast majority of Israelis have almost no personal contact with Palestinians anymore, Tamir is an exception....
“I think I have treated in my life more Palestinians than Israelis. They are my patients, like any other patients,” Tamir told me before examining Odai and the other new arrivals. “I don’t think that we Israelis hate Palestinians in general. And I don’t see hatred from their side. Down to earth, the people would rather cooperate and help each other and live a quiet life together, from both sides. It’s politics that’s the problem,” Tamir said.
And at times, he admits that it’s been difficult to completely separate himself and his work from the harsh political reality that’s defined Israel’s relationship to Gaza in recent years.
“We had difficult days,” Tamir said. “In Gaza, they deliberately bombed a school bus of Israeli children before we left Gaza. And on the same day, Palestinian children from Gaza arrived to be treated here. You know, it crosses your mind that there, people kill our children and here we save their children. But except of that, we love the children. It doesn’t matter that they are Palestinians.”
I asked Anees of Jerusalem to comment:
Do I need to comment? : )
It's just proof that even a doctor (assuming they are supposedly
higher beings) who is doing kind of humanitarian work here, can fail
to see reality outside the Israel reality distortion field – 'They are
irrational killers, all of them! We never did anything to them!', is
the message he is telling us, unchallenged.
And thus, proof that PRI – which is an American media company – is
very happy to continue to be within that field as well, a hasbara
mouthpiece to the unknowing American audience.
Yadda yadda!
“And I don’t see hatred from their side. Down to earth, the people would rather cooperate and help each other and live a quiet life together, from both sides. It’s politics that’s the problem,” Tamir said.”
OMG, horrible. Maybe the guy who treats lots of Palestinians and lives there knows a little more than you, Phil.
And now you agree with that quote hophmi? You’ve always maintained that Palestinians are filled with irrational genocidal joo hatred.
“You’ve always maintained that Palestinians are filled with irrational genocidal joo hatred.”
Unfortunately, some Palestinians are, and pledge allegiance to charters which say so. But not all, and probably not most. The question is not whether I agree, but whether Phil does.
If you were wondering, the bold part of the quote above is why many people here find you to be a dishonest and disingenuous internet person.
Assuming for the moment that the figure of 7 million Palestinians in the world is correct, you’re saying that the number of Palestinians who have “pledged allegiance” to “charters” that seek to destroy Israel are *probably* between zero Palestinians and 3,499,999 Palestinians?
Your post naturally brings us to this question: In addition to being a known liar, are you also a colossal idiot?
This story is designed to hide what Israel is doing to the Palestinians. That it is deliberate makes it tainted which means it should not be confused with “well meaning.”
Someone is going to have to explain to me how this is not complete horse shit.
The “vast majority” of people don’t have personal contact with 20% of the population of this tiny country?
Maybe it means that they aren’t friends with Palestinians or maybe they’re separating occupied Palestinians from Palestinian-Israelis. Either way it’s stupid.
Haytham, it starts from the cradle:
link to jkcook.net
and goes on and on:
link to jkcook.net
Spend some time in Jonathon Cook’s archive to understand better. He lives there and reports largely from the Palestinian Israeli perspective.
Israeli-Arabs make up 20% of the population of Israel. Most Israelis probably have some contact with Israeli-Arabs. Palestinians OTOH, are not Israeli citizens, and are not allowed into Israel except with special permission. Most Israelis probably don’t have contact with them. In a similar way that during the cold way, most Americans didn’t have contact with Russian nationals, but at least a much larger fraction of Americans had contact with Americans of Russian ancestry.
I don’t understand. Are you guys lecturing me? Your understanding of Israel inside the green line is obviously rather limited. Fredblogs, did you even read what I wrote? I think not.
Bumblebye and Fredblogs I would be shocked if either of you have spent more time in Israel than I have or have studied, thought and wrote about the conflict half as much as I have.
I’m an Israeli citizen of Palestinian descent. I have spent a lot of time there with family. I got married and had my honeymoon there in 2005. We own land there.
I have literally hundreds of family members there, several of whom are doctors, lawyers and university or high school professors. They interact with Jews all day every day. Until the last few years, when things tightened up, Jewish Israelis (even soldiers on leave, and in uniform) would come to my family’s village and eat at some of the well known family owned restaurants there regularly. (There is a small falafel restaurant and a small shwarma restaurant, both of which are well known throughout Israel.)
Some Jewish Israelis may *wish* that they didn’t interact with Arabs but there is *no* place they can go to completely avoid them. I almost can’t believe this silliness I’m reading.
Honestly, that is just ridiculous.
This is quite similar to the puff pieces you see about American troops building a school in Iraq or flying a critically ill child to the US for life-saving surgery. These stories focus on a tiny slice of life, ignoring the fact that we slaughtered many hundreds of thousands and drove millions from their homes and shattered their society.
Dr. Tamir no doubt has done many decent things in his career. But the message of this piece is not that a young life is being saved by medical care. That happens millions of times all over the world without any media attention. The message is that an Israeli doctor is saving Palestinian kids, even while Palestinians kill Israeli children. Even if every fact in the story regarding Dr. Tamir’s heroic treatment of one child or another is true, the message is horribly skewed and the very opposite of reality. Generally speaking, Israelis make Palestinians miserable and make normal Palestinian life impossible. This puff piece is not just a feel-good story; it has a political agenda, and a nefarious one at that.
“We had difficult days,” Tamir said. “In Gaza, they deliberately bombed a school bus of Israeli children before we left Gaza. And on the same day, Palestinian children from Gaza arrived to be treated here. YOU KNOW, IT CROSSES YOUR MIND THAT THERE, PEOPLE KILL OUR CHILDREN AND HERE WE SAVE THEIR CHILDREN. But except of that, we love the children. It doesn’t matter that they are Palestinians.”
This kind of biased “news” story is why I have stopped listening (or donating) to NPR. Since this story was about the experiences of a physician, they could have included an interview with Dr. Abu al-Aish, a physician whose experience contrasts with that of Dr. Tamir. Dr. Abu al-Aish’s three daughters and niece were killed by Israel during Operation Cast Lead. Dr. Abu al-Aish had worked in an Israeli hospital, and saved Israeli lives. It didn’t matter to him that they were Israelis, I guess.
Or maybe they could have included an interview with Dr. Jamal Abu Hijleh, a physician whose wife was killed in 2002 by IDF troops:
“Condolences are offered to the family and friends of Shaden Abu Hijleh, who was shot dead in her home in Nablus, Palestine, by an Israeli occupation soldier on Friday. Shaden Abu Hijleh was sitting in front of her glass balcony inside her house with her husband, Dr. Jamal Abu Hijleh, and her son Saed, a professor of social geography at Najah University in Nablus, when she was shot. According to her family members, an Israeli jeep stopped in front of the family’s house, a soldier got out, went to the back of the jeep, picked up a weapon and opened fire at the Abu Hijlehs.”
This is the reality in Israel where Apartheid is the norm even in so-called “mixed cities” in Israel. I was asking my tour guide for a mixed city. He suggested Nazareth. He pointed to the courthouse in Nazareth Illit noting that both Jewish and Arabs are judges. He didn’t mentioned that Nazareth Illit was Judaized and the mayor is trying to block any Christmas celebrations there and also was actively trying to keep the Christians from moving there. A Baptist church in Nazareth Illit cannot worship on Sunday and even when they worship on the Shabbat they can only do so in a garage in order to not “bother” the Jews there. Haifa is also marked as being mixed but there is only one truly mixed neighborhood in the whole city where Jews and non-Jews actually live side by side. Lod has its own mini separation barrier.
When we visited the City of David in the middle of Silwan we were kept away from any Palestinians. We only had the short walk down the hill to the entrance. When we were done with the tour our bus took us away before we could interact with the village. In addition to that, the City of David is building a series of tunnels to connect with the Western Wall complex to make it such that we don’t even have that short walk contaminated with a Palestinian presence. The City of David is owned by a settler’s organization and is connected with Beit Yonaton which is an armed camp that has no interaction with their Palestinian neighbors. Here’s when 60 Minutes visited Beit Yonaton and note the isolation:
link to cbsnews.com
HASBARA IS IN THE AMERICAN WALLPAPER
Well, of course it is. It would be foolish to expect significant components of the main stream media, including public radio, to behave differently. A major function of the media, or at least those which expect to be funded adequately and reliably, is to promulgate the ideology and mythology which binds the polity together, and which shapes group perceptions and cognitive interpretations. The majority of people willingly adapt their individual biases and simplifying paradigms to be consistent with established group ideology/mythology so as to fit in and promote harmony/solidarity.
The fact that most humans willingly adapt their cognitive interpretations to be consistent with group ideology/mythology is very significant. The tendency for individuals in a group to evaluate situations from the perspective of a shared ideology creates a de facto internalized behavioral guidance system consistent with group objectives. It should be noted that group ideology and group objectives do not reflect the input of the various members of the group, rather they reflect the biases and objectives of the group elites, who basically control the overall thrust of group activity, and who are generally more concerned with personal ambition than group welfare.
Elite control of the American society depends to a significant extent upon the shaping of perceptions, the manufacture of consent. It is critically important for the elites that the majority of the population voluntarily complies with business as usual, and, in fact, perceives it to be the natural order of things. As such, the media perform a critical role in presenting information in such a way as to reinforce the ideology/mythology. Those that do prosper, those that don’t struggle. The desired result is a citizenry which will tend to evaluate information and perceive reality in such a way as to logically behave in a manner which supports elite objectives and solidifies elite control of the political economy. Under these circumstances, expecting the media to be a trustworthy source of relevant information to be used by a well informed citizenry in democratic decision making is delusional. The media reflects the distribution of power in society and currently reflects the interests of the oligarchy. Barring a radical redistribution of power, that is the way it will remain.
Almost every day I see some hasbara in the wallpaper. On this last week’s “Real Time with Bill Maher”, he was taking very accurate political shots at the deserving, but also regurgitated one false analogy that made me cringe. He said that GOP debt ceiling obstructionists were just like the Palestinians of the Oslo Accords. They were both ignoring fair and sensible deals just to be obstinate.
That’s the danger of those who tell some truths because it allows their lies and propaganda to be accepted uncritically.
I cringed at that too.