Peter Hart, Activism Director for FAIR, writes in the Huffington Post:
For years prominent corporate media pundits have told us that the world — and the media — would embrace a dramatic, non-violent Palestinian resistance movement. If only such a movement — perhaps led by a Gandhi-like figure — were to finally emerge, we are told, the media coverage will come, and sympathy from across the world will strengthen support for the Palestinian cause.
This is nonsense – there has been non-violent Palestinian resistance for years. But that fact hasn’t stopped pundits like Time’s Joe Klein, as recently as last year, from wondering why Palestinians haven’t found their Gandhi. Or New York Times columnist Tom Friedman from writing a column (5/24/11) arguing that if Palestinians would simply adopt peaceful resistance, “it would become a global news event. Every network in the world would be there.”
Or consider New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, writing (7/10/10) under the headline “Waiting for Gandhi,” that if Palestinians would finally pursue nonviolent resistance, “Those images would be on televisions around the world.”
“So far there is no Palestinian version of Martin Luther King Jr.,” Kristof wrote — though he singled out one possible candidate, activist Ayed Morrar, who “spent six years in Israeli prisons but seems devoid of bitterness.”
Perhaps that is the standard — jailed by the Israelis, but not bitter.
But what about someone, right now, resisting Israeli detention practices? Someone whose hunger strike is attracting attention around the world? That is Khader Adnan.
Hart’s piece ends, “[Adnan’s] plight is sparsely covered in the U.S. corporate media, and would seem to go unmentioned by these pundits who seem eager to tell stories like his. It might lead one to believe that Friedman and his ilk don’t really mean what they write.”
Khader Adnan has popped up in my local rag, and it’s an original piece, not something authored by the Guardian, AP or NYT as regularly happens in Oz newspapers:
Riots feared as hunger striker’s health worsens
The Jenga State doesn’t have the capacity to deal with the situation (again).
If you need the other side to produce a Gandhi, you are on the wrong side.
Of course we know that the comments a la “if only there were a Palestinian Ghandi” are bullshit propaganda. But it’s helpful pointing it out again and again, so good job.
The NYT has, for it, an unusually close look at one Palestinian child’s treatment at the hands of the IOF. In it, near the top, is a passing reference to Khader Adnan. Weirdly, it doesn’t name him.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/world/middleeast/palestinians-trial-shines-light-on-justice-system.html?_r=1&ref=middleeast
Those media people (who are “waiting for PG”) are liars. They all know how the USA’s media works, and the mere presence of facts (such as the large number of non-violent Palestinians) cannot “force” coverage in USA’s MSM. Furthermore, by now, it is safe to say that either they KNOW about the Palestinian non-violent protests or SHOULD KNOW.
They mistake waiting for a Palestinian Gandhi with waiting for messiah. One is a question of fact (and the facts are with non-violence); the other is theological or party-line. For example, until recently (may change be on the way!) NYT will speak of PGs but not “see” them in their swarms. That has been the NYT’s “party line”.