The New York Times today ran an interesting piece on hipster Palestinian culture in Haifa by Diaa Hadid that portrayed a vibrant secular community of young Palestinians in the city — but the article was at least partly designed to make Israel supporters feel good about what an inclusive modern society they’ve created. Haifa is
a comfortable place for liberal Palestinians who want not only to escape the constraints of conservative Arab communities but also to be among their own people.
The featured quote from the article was about how Palestinians in Haifa are allowed to be gay. Ayed Fadel runs Kabareet, a nightspot:
“We want a gay couple to go to the dance floor and kiss each other, and nobody to even look at them,” he said. “This is the new Palestinian society we are aiming for.”
Well, Fadel has responded angrily and eloquently on Facebook that the Times wrenched his comment out of context. The entire article removes Palestinian Haifa from the broad struggle of cultural resistance to Israeli Zionist domination; Fadel objects to being used to “pink wash” Israel; (the word means exonerating Israel of its oppression of Palestinians by citing freedom for gays):
Yes I did say that, but it was a whole build up for the conversation until I reached this sentence, and I was actually trying to explain how Haifa became a place where everyone can feel safe and comfortable, so I used one of the most extremist views that our society could accept. Also mentioning the Kooz queer film festival that we hosted without mentioning that one of the most important topics in it was the Israeli pink washing – IS MISLEADING – especially when I’ve been totally used as a “pink washer” with the quote above!!
In fact, Fadel said, his interview with Hadid was mostly about Palestinian cultural resistance — but the Times censored his political comments.
90% of the interview we were talking about how the culture of the cultural resistance is growing and taking a place in so many levels, such as music, art, spaces etc. And how the Palestinian underground scene is being bigger and bigger and full of creativity and how literally it is being a place full of intelligence and rebel agenda.
The words “resist” or “resistance” don’t appear in the article. Fadel concludes that the Times was behaving like “white media.”
I don’t know if what I am writing now is even enough to cover all what have been written in this article, but hopefully that could explain the situation and make it more clear that it was another trap by the white media, that is always trying to show us as the cool yay hipsters full of tattoos and piercings – far away from the grounded reality that we are facing and fighting every day!
We agreed to do this [interview] thinking the results would be different but they weren’t. Last chance given to white media and media in general, next time we’ll be more cautious, and we don’t allow anyone to categorize us under “Israeli City of Haifa, a Liberal Palestinian Culture Blossoms” – dear editor, please liberate your liberalism aspects.
When Ayed Fadel posted his remarks, he gave a co-byline to another person quoted in the article, Fidaa Hammoud, who said in the Times that she had freedom in a Jewish community she would not have in an Arab one — her published remarks will also comfort Israel supporters. Though Hammoud does not specifically respond to the article here, we sense that she also feels quoted out of context. Hammoud is opposed to Israeli apartheid on her Facebook page; she doesn’t get to say so in the article.
P.S. The outgoing Jerusalem bureau chief for the NYT, Jodi Rudoren, just got a sendoff in Jerusalem. And not surprisingly, a lot of very powerful Israelis toasted her.
At Jodi @Rudoren's farewell party, hasbara warriors Mark Regev & Michael Oren show gratitude https://t.co/zgi4HxKE55 pic.twitter.com/wF9GonUF6T
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) January 2, 2016
A settler leader applauds her work as “great”.
A far-right settler leader thanks Jodi Rudoren for contributions like this: https://t.co/7BEK5FOggf https://t.co/pSJYih9M2l
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) January 2, 2016
NYT gives Journalism a Bad Name.
I had a bad feeling about the feelgood article when I read it, especially since it was written by Hadid who’s been like Jodi’s handmaiden. Wonder if her subservience comes with the job for NYTimes reporter. And wouldn’t you all the hasbarists took to Twitter to exult all the freedoms the little Arabs have in the Glorious State of Israel.
I once saw a picture of a group of the Palestinian intellitgensia hanging out in a coffee shop back in the thirties or forties. This is NOT new, it was a part of Palestinian culture before that society was destroyed in the ’48 war. But you’d never know that reading Hadid’s tripe.
Palestinian source for feel-good ‘NYT’ story on Haifa says newspaper censored his political views
Why am I not surprised!
The US MSM is nothing more than a medium to disseminate Zionist propaganda. For news I have long found the NYT to be worse than worthless.
This article lies at the intersection of two genres of hasbara. One is “Haifa hype,” which uses the atypical relative tolerance of Haifa to give Israel a “cosmopolitan” image. The other is a contemporary version of the old claim (going back at least to the British Mandate) that the Zionist presence in Palestine assists social and cultural progress in Arab society. Neither of these ideas is completely devoid of truth, but then good propaganda is built not on lies but on exaggerated, isolated, and decontextualized elements of truth.
RE: “Palestinian source for feel-good ‘NYT’ story on Haifa says newspaper censored his political views”
MY COMMENT: Pity the “Old Gray Lady”; she’s showing her age! That poor New York Times is suffering severely from “Buyer’s Stockholm Syndrom”*. As of yet, there is no known cure.
* “Buyer’s Stockholm Syndrome”, a/k/a “post-purchase rationalization”, is a cognitive bias [i.e. in essence, a type of defence mechanism] whereby someone who has purchased an expensive product or service overlooks [i.e., is in denial as to] any faults or defects (while exaggerating the positive attributes) in order to justify their purchase [thereby diminishing any “buyers remorse” (i.e., sense of regret / second guessing / cognitive dissonance)]. It is a special case of “choice-supportive bias”*.
● Post-purchase rationalization, a/k/a Buyer’s Stockholm Syndrome – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-purchase_rationalization
* Choice-supportive bias
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In cognitive science, choice-supportive bias is the tendency to retroactively ascribe positive attributes to an option one has selected. It is a cognitive bias. For example, if a person buys a computer from Apple instead of a computer (PC) running Windows, they are likely to ignore or downplay the faults of Apple computers while amplifying those of Windows computers. Conversely, they are also likely to notice and amplify advantages of Apple computers and not notice or de-emphasize those of Windows computers.
What is remembered about a decision can be as important as the decision itself, especially in determining how much regret or satisfaction one experiences.[1] Research indicates that the process of making and remembering choices yields memories that tend to be distorted in predictable ways.[1] In cognitive science, one predictable way that memories of choice options are distorted is that positive aspects tend to be remembered as part of the chosen option, whether or not they originally were part of that option, and negative aspects tend to be remembered as part of rejected options.[1] Once an action has been taken, the ways in which we evaluate the effectiveness of what we did may be biased.[2] It is believed this may influence our future decision-making. These biases may be stored as memories, which are attributions that we make about our mental experiences based on their subjective qualities, our prior knowledge and beliefs, our motives and goals, and the social context. True and false memories arise by the same mechanism because when the brain processes and stores information, it cannot tell the difference from where they came from.[3] . . .
CONTINUED AT – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choice-supportive_bias