How strange that just as an international controversy is boiling over whether Israel practices apartheid toward Palestinians, and veils its practice, National Public Radio airs a Cant-we-all-just-get-along report from occupied East Jerusalem that never uses the words occupy, occupation, settlers, annex, or illegal. Quite an achievement.
The story was about dialogue efforts between Jews and Palestinians living in Abu Tor, a Jerusalem neighborhood divided by the Green Line until 1967, when Israel captured East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Host Scott Simon announced it hopefully:
A small neighborhood in Jerusalem is home to both Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Arabs. Their relations have often been tense or often non-existent. But over the years, a few people have tried to break that cycle.
Reporter Joanna Kakissis then told us about Alisa Maier Epstein’s efforts to teach her neighbors in Abu Tor Arabic and Hebrew, so that they can relate to one another. Epstein appears to live on the Israeli side of the road that once formed the 1949 armistice line. But all the Palestinians she is addressing live under an occupation/annexation not recognized by the world, and some of the Jews she is encouraging are surely illegal settlers. Kakissis didn’t mention any of that.
I must confess that I admire local efforts to build binationalism from the grass roots. In this video about the co-existence project in Abu Tor, Alisa Maier Epstein says the group has decided to “put politics aside” and work on their common interest as neighbors. Residents say there had been no communication between neighbors of different faiths till this project. A young man with an American accent says he wanted to make it a “more livable, more vibrant community.”
But the structural political component here is still dominant: the Palestinians are second class citizens. Actually they are termed “permanent residents,” not citizens, like the Jews. This is the reason why, for instance, they do not vote in Jerusalem elections; because they abjure these political conditions. When NPR tells us that “a few people have tried to break [the] cycle” of mistrust between the communities, it’s dreamland journalism. These communities are vastly different in power, on a legal basis. When Kakissis says that co-existence has been an elusive goal–
Abu Tor has often been too tense with the violence between Israelis and Palestinians
there’s a good reason for that: Jerusalemite Palestinians are oppressed by Israel. The UN report on apartheid, now suppressed, is a lot more reliable than NPR.
These journalists have no self-awareness. Embarrassing. Trying to sugar-coat a system they would never tolerate in their own country. Dialogue, what a joke. Sorry, Zionists, the 1980s are over and nobody’s buying that crap any more.
Dialogue and coexistance are essential for peace in the region. The only other long term solution is genocide and that shouldn’t be on the table.
That said in order to have dialogue working there needs to be equals conducting the conversation. When one side is the oppressed and the other the oppressor it merely serves as an excuse for the abuse and crimes to continue.
Dialogue with Israel has only served to further their theft and crimes against humanity. A half century of actual facts on tbe ground proves that.
NPR’s “On The Media” had an interview today “debunking” Wikileaks latest batch of information on the CIA. The interviewee assured listeners over and over that there is absolutely nothing to be concerned about in all this. There is “no evidence” that the CIA misused any of its tools. He even tossed in their character assassination charges against Julian Assange. It ignored so much reality, and was so carefully crafted that it came across as a glaring CIA planted interview. Despite its small, head-fake nod to Snowden near the end, it looked overall like the Deep State is getting worried about being revealed.
https://mondoweiss.mystagingwebsite.com/2017/03/snowden-contradicting-liberal
I remember one of Scott Simon’s thin commentaries on Israel-Palestine in mid 1990s where he sanctimoniously blamed Palestinians for all that was going wrong with Oslo and then ended his piece with: “Mr. Arafat ….. End the violence.”
I quit watching NPR years ago.