This Week in Palestine

This Week in Palestine is a small English-language magazine published every month.  (Then why not call it “This Month in Palestine”?) In addition to providing information about events going on in the region, the publication contains a collection of articles on a shared theme.  This issue’s theme is “media and society.”  I found it these articles educational, so I am going to share snippets of them with you, dear reader.  Aren’t you lucky?

1)      Dr. Mahmdouh Aker, a commissioner of the Independent Commission for Human Rights, wrote the article “Challenges Facing the Human Rights Agenda in Palestine.”  Here are some excerpts:

“When it comes to the Palestinian context, human rights have faced unique challenges.  These challenges stem from three realities:  the Israeli occupation, the Palestinian National Authority, and the West Bank-Gaza (or rather the Fateh-Hamas) divide.  Each of these has left its specific impact on human rights.  

                Naturally the Israeli occupation stands as the main violator of Palestinian human rights and national rights, whether directly, by interfering in and disrupting every single aspect of our daily lives, or indirectly, by hindering the proper functioning of the Palestinian National Authority  (PNA) and the carrying out of its responsibilities towards Palestinian citizens.  

                The PNA, since its very inception, was doomed to fail in its perceived role as a provisional step towards ending the Israeli occupation and achieving an independent state on one hand, and grasping a unique opportunity to build from scratch and from the bottom up a modern administration, on the other hand.  Leaving aside all the other flaws, mistakes, and sins of the Oslo Agreement, its main problem is the fact that it was designed to address and satisfy the unlimited and unending Israeli security needs and considerations.

                It is a universally acknowledged fact that whenever any regime gives security considerations an overriding priority, human rights will be the immediate and direct victim; and even more so when these security considerations give supremacy to “foreign” and “occupier” security rather than its national security!”  (22)

Debra’s comments:  I confess, Dear Reader, that I am far from an expert in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.  One reason I am here is to learn more about it.  The main point I take from this article (and other reading on the subject) is that first of all Israel invades and takes over land from Palestinians.  Then, because Palestinians naturally fight back at this occupation, Israeli cries “Security Concerns! We can’t give Palestinians human rights because they will fight back if they can and perhaps take back the land that we really really want for ourselves.”    The American media, in my humble opinion, tends to focus almost exclusively on the Security Concerns, while ignoring the reason these Security Concerns exist in the first place.

In another article in This Week in Palestine, Sani P. Meo, writes about a sad example of how Security Concerns play out in daily life.  One particular, busy road near a checkpoint had no island separating the lanes.  Meo writes that when the road was being renovated,

“an official request by USAID, the funder, to build an island to separate the lanes was refused by the Israeli authorities.  The reason given for the negative response was none other than “for security reasons”! Clearly, the Israelis wanted no barriers that would prevent their military vehicles from making a U-turn in order to chase suspicious cars!”

One result of this lack of a barrier happened on February 16.  On a rainy, slippery day with poor visibility, a truck coming from the opposite direction slid into the opposite lane and hit a school bus full of children.  Many of the children, along with one of their teachers died.    Meo argues that had the roads been open (as opposed to being bottle-necked by the checkpoint) so that it didn’t take 40 minutes for help to arrive at the scene, had there been island to separate the lanes, and had Palestinian government had enough funds to create a fire brigade for the local village, lives could have been saved.

2)                      Let’s move on to a lighter subject, shall we?  I learned by reading Rania Filfil’s article “Reality TV: Define Cool to Me” that although Palestinians may not have freedom, they certainly have American media.   Filfil laments the dominance and popularity in Palestine of American movies and TV shows.  She says that her children love to watch shows like American Idol, America’s Got Talent, all of the Disney series, American movies and even shows like Biggest Loser.

She writes, “And the Arab channels copy-paste because these shows sell.  We increasingly have Fox, MBC4, and MBC Action.  And all these channels that emit the American shows are now ‘proudly announcing’ that we will be able to watch ‘our favourite American series at their actual broadcasting times in the States.’  Bravo: this is an achievement for a TV viewer” (47).

American media is not the only type, though.  She writes that Palestinians are also regaled with Syrian-dubbed Turkish soap operas and are now able to get the Turkish version of “Desperate Housewives” dubbed in Syrian dialect.*  (I have to admit that I would love to see this!)

She writes that if she tries to convince her children to watch something more edifying or reflective of local culture, her children resist and go back to their Facebook or Twitter pages.  She is nostalgic for the days of her childhood when “we had authentic media that stemmed from people’s lives. . . With much simpler technology, these generations built their original copyrighted art.  They did not need to stand in line to buy other people’s shows.  They sat behind their desks and wrote scripts and prepared casters.  They produced.  They were respectably cool.  They did not import and juxtapose a totally other culture on our minds.”

*Note on the Arabic language.  There is something called Modern Standard Arabic.  This is the language you hear on Arabic media, in schools and universities, and other venues for public, educated discourse.  Arabic speakers from all countries would learn this language in school.  However, every country/region of the Arab world has its own Arabic dialect.  This what people speak in everyday life.  My understanding is that, say, Moroccan dialect would be quite different from Syrian or Palestinian dialect.  I have studied a little bit of Modern Standard Arabic (MSA)  at home; MSA is generally what they teach in Arabic language classes.  However, many of the words are different here in Palestine.  I will proudly spit out an example of my very limited Arabic vocabulary, and someone will say, “Oh, well, here we say _____ rather than the MSA ____.”

Dear Reader, there is much more to report on This Week in Palestine,  but alas I have work to do.  (I am editing some documents for the Dar Al-Kalima administrators.)