It is impossible to imagine a more nightmarish story than the story Adam Horowitz put on this blog last night about Dr. Ezz-El-Din Abu El-Aish (at left) crying on his cell phone, in Hebrew, on a live Israeli news broadcast not long after his three daughters were slaughtered by Israel. This is a signature moment of the war (i.e., it's on cable), and of the Israeli soul. It is an anti-Exodus moment. Thanks in good measure to the Israeli broadcaster, Shlomi Eldar.
Trying to understand this nightmare, Richard Silverstein emailed his friend Assaf Oron, a dailykos contributor and an Israeli living in Seattle, to translate the Arabic. Oron wrote back. Emphases mine:
It seems that the original way in which it was presented on walla.co.il – killing happening in the middle of interview – was not exactly how it happened.
Dr. Abu El-Aish was interviewed by Channel 10 before, and had been in regular contact with them. However, he was *not* on live broadcast when the shell hit. There is a youtube clip of the conversation now, though without subtitles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLUJ4fF2HN4
What we see is a regular news bulletin, being interrupted by reporter Shlomi Eldar who's on the phone with Dr. Abu El-Aish. This is shortly after the shelling. It is unclear who called who; could have been the doctor calling the station. Anyway this is secondary, as they were in regular contact. What happened was that hundreds of thousands of Israelis heard the agony of a Palestinian family right after being slaughtered by the IDF on live broadcast, and it was a family they knew and respected.
The reporter Eldar himself said words to that effect when interviewed on the matter: "through one example via phone, Israelis became aware of the magnitude of the horror visited upon the Gaza Strip. I am saying horror, because there are more than a thousand dead, a large part of them civilians, and I am sorry that it takes a phone conversation like this, and the tragedy of a Hebrew-speaking man, to transmit it."
This is from a Walla follow-up story: http://news.walla.co.il/?w=/1/1419153. They say Eldar has known Dr. Abu El-Aish for 3 years. A few months ago the doctor's wife died of cancer, and Channel 10 helped arrange his passage to Jordan (guess she was hospitalized there?).
I don't remember Eldar ever expressing "leftie" views so it may be that this personal connection has brought this war and its true meaning home to him. In the current climate of Israel, it was an act of journalistic courage to broadcast this live today, and in the way he did it. The story has now made the mainstream American news. MSNBC even has the doctor's picture: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28699078/though their version diverges a bit from the Israeli news version.
By the way, Dr. Abu El-Aish talks in Hebrew throughout the conversation, except for his calls to God – so there is no real need for Arabic translation, I think.
This story has totally taken over my day today.
