Last year the PBS News Hour was anchored by Judy Woodruff, who in two marquee interviews, exhibited a callous indifference to the Palestinian perspective. One was her interview with Secretary of State Antony Blinken last June, barely a month after Israel killed Shireen Abu Akleh. Woodruff pressed Blinken about the Saudis’ murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 but said nothing about Abu Akleh. Then last fall, Woodruff did a softball interview of then former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, promoting his new book, allowing him to push for a military threats against Iran — and treating Palestinians as an afterthought, toward whom Netanyahu might have good faith:
“What sort of life do you foresee for them in the years, generations to come?… And do you see a home for Palestinians in years to come?”
Truly embarrassing.
What a difference a year makes. Woodruff has become a senior correspondent, and one of the new co-anchors is Amna Nawaz, an Asian-American and Muslim, who obviously is familiar with the Palestinian narrative and grants it honor.
Last night Nawaz interviewed former Israeli PM Naftali Bennett and repeatedly asked him about Palestinians’ lack of rights under occupation, culminating with her comment: “We have seen Palestinian families en masse evicted from properties they have occupied for generations.”
What a breakthrough! Nawaz clearly feels supported by a trend she brought up: the Gallup poll findings that Democrats are now more sympathetic to Palestinians than Israelis, and by a whopping 49 to 38 percent. “That’s a real reversal in just a matter of years,” she observed. “Seven years ago, sympathy was 30 percent greater for Israelis than for Palestinians.”
Bennett looked to be thrown by her questioning. He aimed to mend relations with the U.S. establishment last night, pooh-poohing the contretemps between Biden and Israel and declaring that Israeli democracy has been redeemed by Netanyahu’s decision last month under tremendous pressure to put off his judicial overhaul plans.
“I can now openly declare that the democracy in Israel has prevailed… It’ll take a while until everyone understands it, but I think what Israel got was a great gift for its 75th birthday.
Nawaz was having none of it. She brought up the Gallup numbers, and Bennett said the usual– Israel just needs to do a better job of explaining its beautiful complexity to America. Israel is an “imperfect” democracy.
Nawaz pressed the Palestinian experience– it’s not a democracy for them:
Critics will say, how is this a real democracy, though, when you have five million Palestinians who have no voting rights, no access to government? I mean, in a true democracy, wouldn’t everyone have equal rights?
Bennett said Palestinians elected the P.A. and Hamas. Nawaz pushed back with the occupation. “But under occupation… in the West Bank, specifically, Palestinians do not have voting rights or access to government…. they do live under a military occupation of Israeli forces.”
Bennett claimed that apart from Israeli “security” concerns, Palestinians have “full freedom.”
Again, Nawaz was unmoved. She said, “people and critics who watch the mistreatment and the unequal treatment of Palestinian and Israeli citizens” have said that the U.S. and Israel don’t share values and the U.S. should condition military aid– a reference to the congressional letter signed by 14 last week.
Bennett bridled, calling that impulse a “profound mistake,” and said that “Israel is a full-fledged democracy,” with two million Palestinian citizens voting for the Knesset.
Nawaz again addressed the “five million Palestinians who are not Israeli citizens” and went on to bring up “settlement expansions,” and “the eviction of Palestinian families” and “the demolitions of their homes” as factors that the U.N. sees as “fueling… violence.”
When Bennett said that Israel doesn’t evict anyone who is legally in a home, Nawaz had the presence of mind to say, “Legal by whose determination, though?” — and added that “we have seen Palestinian families en masse evicted from properties they have occupied for generations.”
Amazing to hear those words coming from a mainstream American news anchor. Bennett appeared a bit flustered by the uncommon treatment.
In the remainder of the interview, Nawaz pressed Bennett about “settlement expansion” and said that Saudi Arabia, having resumed relations with Iran, “is calling Israel an occupation government again.”
Nawaz was surely biting her tongue. It’s too bad that she could not bring herself to say “apartheid” and cite the many human rights reports describing Israel as an apartheid state.
That day will come. Nawaz plainly feels buttressed by Israel’s critics in Congress and its sinking sympathy among Democrats, but she took it upon herself to grant Palestinians dignity on a mainstream platform. It’s a pity that we need to celebrate the discovery that Palestinians are human beings, but it was thrilling to watch this interview and see an Israeli politician on his back foot for once.
Saying that the Palestinians in the West Bank govern themselves ( as Bennett did ) is like saying that the residents of Podunk, Iowa govern themselves: yes, the citizens of Podunk can decide on the garbage pickup schedule and whether or not to build a new wing on the Podunk public library, but state and federal laws supersede any decisions they may make. And if the citizens of Podunk had to pass through dozens of military checkpoints to travel from the west side of town to the east, no one would have any illusions about the situation.
Does Bennett think Americans are idiots?
It’s ironic that the response to the question about the Gallup poll was that Israel needs to do a better job of bringing the reality — the “beautiful reality” (he speaks like Trump) — to the American viewer.
Meaning, Israel needs to double down on the propaganda it peddles through the Israel Lobby and various interest groups, and apply more financial and political pressure than ever before.
The runny nosed propagandist attempted to use the interview to market Israel as a tourist destination, some beautiful, flourishing, friendly democracy. “It’s not about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”.
Sure it isn’t. It only came into existence on the BACKS of Palestinians, by stealing their land and driving them out by force.
Watch Farha on Netflix for a glimpse into how Israel drove out the indigenous Palestinians from their own lands in 1948.
I need a few pages to break down the spin and lies he peddled in that interview.
Even excluding the occupied territories in which Israel keeps installing colonies, in contravention with international law, it is STILL not a democracy by any western definition of the word.
And it is NOT a democracy because there are LAWS, on the books, that clearly discriminate against Non-Jews. Such laws would be considered undemocratic in any western democracy.
Any non-Jew can be arrested and placed under Administrative Detention, a British-era law that allows the state to imprison a person without Due Process, without bringing charges against them. Sometimes the state claims that it possesses “secret evidence”.
There is also the ironically-named Law of Return, a law that allows any Jewish person, from anywhere, to move to Israel and instantly become a citizen is another law that is undemocratic. No Christian, no Muslim, no Buddhist can do that.
And if you move to one of the colonies in the occupied West Bank or Jerusalem, the Israeli government will give you vouchers and subsidies, to encourage you to break International Law and violate it. Why? Because it deems it its biblical right.
Since PBS is at least partly funded by the public, I have long hoped that the PBS Newshour would lead the way in breaking through the corporate media’s thick blanket of censorship regarding Israel. My thanks and congratulations to Amna Nawaz for her courage and integrity in punching the first hole in that wall!
“Legal by whose determination, though?”
That was truly well played! In volleyball terms it’s called the ‘set and the spike’.
Bennet walked right into that one thinking, like a good little girl in US media, she’d just move right along after his feckless little lie about Palestinian’s being allowed to vote for their own leaders and “govern themselves”, clearly not expecting her to make a point about EXACTLY whose “laws” are being applied in the West Bank and the Palestinians in regards to evictions and home demolitions, and who gets to vote for that government that makes and enacts those same laws.
The irony, is that it doesn’t really take that much to expose the bullshit these Israeli leaders spew every single day. The slightest of scratching at the surface or even just following up with a half thought out question is usually enough. Far too often the US media just rolls over and lets them drive the conversation, duck difficult questions, or leave their propaganda out there hanging in the air unchallenged, as they briskly move along to easier softball questions.
The likes of Bennet, Netanyahu, Regev, Danon and all the other usual suspects rolled out onto US news have had it waaaaay too easy for waaaay too long. They’ve been treated with kid gloves and think that, despite being born on third base, every one of their easily refuted Hasbara talking points to shut down the conversation is like hitting a triple.
Progress, yes … though note that at the beginning, Amna Nawaz implicitly accepts the Israeli invention that East Jerusalem is not occupied.