An appalling report on the great film “5 Broken Cameras,” by Larry Abramson of NPR last night, suggested that filmmaker Emad Burnat had brought violence upon his tiny occupied village, Bil’in, by seeking to document the oppression.
Here (thanks to Susie Kneedler) is the end of his report:
ABRAMSON: [Hamza] Suleiman [20, a photographer in Bil’in] says that Israeli soldiers are more frightened of cameras than of the stones that are often thrown at them. But his camerawork has already cost Suleiman and his family a lot. He’s been hit by gunfire and spent 11 months in prison. His mother, Fatima, says she wishes he’d put the camera away…
It’s a complaint that Emad Burnat’s wife also makes during “5 Broken Cameras” as she questions the price her family must pay for his project. In this lasting conflict, cameras are an important witness to suffering, but they also may be the cause of some of it.
A journalist questioning the rightness of journalism! When that journalism is a means of documenting oppression, no less.
I see the NPR’s commenters are all over this. Thomas Antenucci writes eloquently:
Do they argue that, or do they state it as fact? Why is NPR treating Palestinians as tendentious when it comes to basic human rights? One listener has written to say that Jews should not be assigned to cover this conflict. An inevitable, unfair response; but the reasonable question is, Is Abramson a Zionist? It’s time for the media to discuss the influence of this Jewish-nationalist ideology born amid the nationalisms of 19th century Europe in contemporary Jewish and American life.
i thought the report was worse than potrayed here. if i remember correctly, the report commented on the use of video recording by israeli jews as an attempt to bring equity to reporting on the issue of the israeli-palestinian conflict more generally, as if the weight of the media was biased against israel. also, NPR reported allegations of palestinians burning their own olive trees and erroneously attributing the acts to israelis for propaganda purposes. (apparently none of the videos confirming this tactic were available to be provided to the NPR reporter at the time, the film being sent away to be developed most likely.)
Larry Abramson blaming the camera reminds me of the Confederacy forbidding the people it enslaved from learning to read or write, as well as people of conscience from teaching them.
So, Palestinian peaceful Resistance is impossible in Abramson’s and Melissa Block’s prejudiced eyes, when a mere Camera poses the threat of “a powerful weapon”:
“MELISSA BLOCK, HOST: The camera has become a powerful weapon in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.”
“5 Broken Cameras” is unabashedly pro-Palestinian, an indictment of Israel’s settlement policy that never examines the settlers’ claims or the security force’s point of view. Settlers groups often complain they are the victims of misinformation from both Israeli and foreign left-wing groups which have trained a battalion of Palestinians in how to document alleged abuse. After years of bad press, settlers are getting organized.
ANAV SILVERMAN: To some degree, the conflict – especially in Judea and Samaria – has become a camera war.
ABRAMSON: Anav Silverman works with the Tazpit News Agency. The group tries to document the other side of the story by collecting video which they say shows abuse of soldiers and settlers by Palestinians. Every day here, in the Israeli media, there are reports of small clashes over land. Often, those claims focus on symbolically potent olive trees.”
Abramson “the other side of the story” hooey. This false equivalency bull. Abramson never uses the word ILLEGAL in the whole report. That the Settlers and the settlements are ILLEGAL what they are doing is ILLEGAL and the Israeli military on internationally recognized Palestinian land is ILLEGAL. Never even mentions that the land legally belongs to the Palestinians. The IDF, Israel, the illegal settlers more afraid of cameras because the truth is getting out. How does that go a picture is worth a thousand words. The other side of the story is that Israel, the illegal settlers are wrong…terribly wrong
Yeah, its not Big Bird that wastes American taxpayer dollars and deploys them to support Israel’s Zionist atrocities, on-going daily.
“In this lasting conflict, cameras are an important witness to suffering, but they also may be the cause of some of it.” They are the “cause” only if Israel (or low-level IOF soldiers, or armed settler thugs) make(s) the choice to respond to the presence of cameras with violence, imprisonment, torture, etc.
The “they made me do it” (they, with their feelthy cameras, made me do it) makes sense as a “defense” ONLY if what was done (the “it” that was done by me) was a crime, disreputable, etc. They made me commit a crime, it wasn’t my fault, etc., has several parts: [1] They acted, [2] I subsequently did a crime , [3] I did the crime BECAUSE they acted, and [4] I was justified to do the crime because of their act (here pointing a camera at me).
It is clear nonsense (even if israel has made photographing soldiers illegal — has it?) but NPR should not get away with parroting this drivel without analyzing the parts.