At least the BBC reports on the actual people of Gaza, unlike "our ‘Public’" media, NPR and PBS, or the corporate "news" outlets. But the BBC’s headline, "Gaza children struggle for education," misleads viewers, because it mushes over the Israeli government responsibility for the kids’ problems.
Katya Adler opens, "School time in Gaza. The streets are crowded. Most people who live here are under 18. Nine-year-old Huda and her brother and sister set off from their makeshift home. Their real one was bombed earlier this year in a war with Israel." Adler, like her American counterparts calls the Israeli attack a "war," giving the impression that Israel’s planned bombing of Gaza was a conflict between matched forces. She also omits the fact that the Hamas government offered to extend the six-month ceasefire.
Adler offers details the ruling U.S. press doesn’t let Americans confront: "Their school–run by the United Nations–came under attack, too. People in the school said it was raining fire that day. [Shot of the school with what appears to be streams of white phosporus]. Israel launched white phosphorus it says was aimed at protecting Israeli soldiers from Palestinian gunmen. But the school was packed with families sheltering from the war. Two little brothers were killed here. Women and children were wounded, some classrooms burnt beyond recognition. They’ve since been re-painted, but the children’s memories of that day can’t be erased."
The BBC shows the white phosphorus and blood, but Adler ignores the 40 others killed in another U.N. school that day. However, Adler does allow us to hear the actual words of a brave young survivor:
"’Everything was burnt and destroyed here,’ Mahmoud told us. ‘How can we forget the war? Lots of people died. The Israelis bombed our things. Why shouldn’t we get an education like they do? It’s our right to live in freedom and safety.’"
At least the BBC lets us meet for a moment this wonderful, beautiful boy, and gaze at the haunted face of the child sitting behind him.
Adler claims that, "Israel’s military offensive is over, but it still wants to punish Gaza’s government, run by men who believe Israel shouldn’t exist." Adler omits both the name “Hamas,” as well as the context: the democratic election by which Hamas was chosen. Adler leaves out Hamas’s offer of a ten-year "hudna" or truce, if Israel returns to the 1967 borders legal under international law.* Adler overlooks the fact that international law also bans "punishing" a civilian population for the acts of its government, so the Israeli government actions are doubly illegal.
Adler tells us that "Israel limits supplies coming into Gaza, so rebuilding war damage is almost impossible. " Adler offers more facts than do American outlets, yet her euphemisms cloud the truth. "Israel limits supplies," censors the history of Israel’s unparalleled two and a half-year-long blockade of Gaza, deleting the truth that a siege is an act of war under international law. (Israel itself launched the 1967 War in response to Egypt’s closure of only one port.) "[R]ebuilding war damage is almost impossible," masks the fact that the Israeli government intentionally prevents any rebuilding by shutting out all building supplies. "Life for everyone here is tough," massages over the certainty that–by any sane British or American standards–life in the rubble of Gaza is unbearable.
The report cuts to a school room:
The teacher asks, "What’s the time?"
A child, repeats: "What’s the time?"
Teacher asks again, "Number two: what’s the time?"
Adler informs us:
“Teachers in Gaza say living in a war zone affects children’s performance at school. Huda, like many of her friends, suffers from nightmares”:
"At night I dream the Israelis will come back and bomb us," Huda told me. "I’m scared. At school, we study and play but we still remember the days of the war."
At least Adler shows the faces of lovely Palestinian children—innocents trapped first in a prison, then in a grisly bombardment–courageously describing their pain. These heart-rending pictures compose a more vivid depiction than anything on U.S. airwaves—corporate or public. The piece ends with a picture of another gorgeous, smiling girl. But Adler’s closing lets viewers down, assuring us that, “Between Israeli air strikes and Palestinian gunmen firing rockets from their neighborhoods, being a child in Gaza means growing up in conflict.”
Adler concludes with a false equivalency, on one hand shrinking Israel’s responsibility and, on the other, magnifying Palestinians’. Adler leaves out the Israeli government siege: the infinitesimal, ever-changing rations the Israeli government allows Gazans to eat; the malicious IAF sonic booms that damage people’s hearing; the unsafe water, fouled by Israel’s bombing of Gaza’s water treatment plant; the raw sewage flowing into the sea and poisoning what little fish Gazans can get; the IDF blockade hindering fisherman from catching many fish; the anemia afflicting most Gazan children from the lack of a nutritious diet.
Meanwhile, Adler implies that Palestinians are equally responsible for blighting the youngsters’ childhoods. She falsely intimates that “Palestinian gunmen” continue to fire rockets at Israel, ignoring the ceasefire the Palestinians have honored before and after the Israeli invasion. Adler does not explore how the Israeli control of Gaza continues its Occupation, or how the Israeli government stifles every facet of the children’s growth. Calling the kids’ and their families’ captivity a “conflict,” distorts a great power “Goliath” choking a tenacious "David”–who merely clings to its own land–into a battle between equals. If Palestinians were Jewish, would Katya Adler even present them as heroes, casting their tormentors as villains?
******
The BBC used to report more actual facts about Palestine and Israel, but it–like its national counterparts in the U.S.–has bowed to Blair-Bush-Obama-Likud government perspective. Just as Kenneth Tomlinson turned NPR and PBS into National “Re’Public’an Radio and Broadcasting Service,” the new heads of the BBC have limited its truth-telling. The BBC Chairman Gavyn Davies and Director General Greg Dyke resigned after publishing Andrew Gilligan’s [true] report that the Blair government "sexed up" the evidence of WMD in Iraq. Gilligan learned of the exaggerated claims from British weapons expert Dr. David Kelly, who was later outed as the source. Kelley was found dead in the woods amid the furore; Gilligan was smeared in a whitewash led by Lord Hutton. Eventually, though, The Independent and others reported that "Secret Emails Show Iraq Dossier Was ‘Sexed Up.’" Not only did the Bush-Blair cover-up succeed, but two venerable public sources of news were damaged.
Another question about Adler’s piece: were the “Two little brothers “ who “were killed here,” the same described by The Guardian at the height of the Israeli assault?
"[T]hree young men who were cousins died when the Israelis bombed Asma elementary school in Gaza City. They were among 400 people who had sought shelter there after fleeing their homes in Beit Lahiya, in northern Gaza…"
Co-authors Chris McGreal and Hazem Balousha revealed that, “Abed Sultan, 20, a student, and his cousins, Rawhi and Hussein Sultan, labourers aged 22, died. Abed Sultan’s father, Samir, said the bodies were so mangled that he could not tell his son from the cousins. ‘We came to the school when the Israelis warned us to leave,’ he said. ‘We hoped it would be safe. We were 20 in one room. We had no electricity, no blankets, no food.
“‘Suddenly we heard a bomb that shook the school. Windows smashed. Children started to scream. A relative came and told me one of my sons was killed. I found my son’s body with his two cousins. They were cut into pieces by the shell.’
“The UN was particularly incensed over targeting of the schools, because Israeli forces knew they were packed with families as they had ordered them to get out of their homes with leaflet drops and loudspeakers. It said it had identified the schools as refugee centres to the Israeli military and provided GPS coordinates."
The Guardian details the grisly, preventable killing of Gaza youth that Adler leaves out. But its headline is as evasive as the BBC’s: "Gaza’s day of carnage – 40 dead as Israelis bomb two UN schools • Bloodiest attack of campaign so far." The title first implies that the responsibility for the bloodshed might be “Gaza’s,” before naming the fact of Israel’s bombing.
British headlines may be timid, but at least the articles they "cover" do inform. The U.S. media however, deprives the public of such actual news, immersing us instead in "stories" of the "balloon boy" –a comparatively "narrow" tale of a single boy, even if true. But American "broad"casters forgo squeezing out a single line, let alone pictures, of Mahmoud and Huda or their dead compatriots, though our money pays to bomb them. "Our" "narrow"casters were easy prey for the balloon hoax, because such fictions captivate the lazy. In turn, the audience sacrifices more than precious minutes: we lose our freedom to know.
During NPR’s pledge break on Friday about 1 P.M., a local announcer advertised NPR’s updates on the balloon as a reason to donate to WOSU.
*I changed the phrasing here. Thank you to readers who debated this point: you’re all right, and precision matters.
Meanwhile, thanks to the many wise friends who comment on this site: I learn from you every day.
