{"id":2928,"date":"2023-03-21T09:46:43","date_gmt":"2023-03-21T06:46:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sawtoroba.com\/Eng\/?p=2928"},"modified":"2023-03-21T09:46:43","modified_gmt":"2023-03-21T06:46:43","slug":"racist-language-obscuring-palestinian-deaths-top-headlines-in-novemberauthor-sarah-oneal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sawtoroba.com\/Eng\/?p=2928","title":{"rendered":"Racist Language, Obscuring Palestinian Deaths Top Headlines in NovemberAUTHOR:\u00a0 Sarah O’Neal"},"content":{"rendered":"
Racist Language, Obscuring Palestinian Deaths Top Headlines in November<\/div>\n
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DATE:<\/div>\n
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January 22, 2023<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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AUTHOR:<\/div>\n
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Sarah O’Neal<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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BLOG SERIES:<\/div>\n
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Press on Palestine<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Editor’s Note:\u00a0This article is part of the\u00a0Press on Palestine\u00a0series, an initiative by\u00a0Palestine Square. It includes selections from November 2022.\u00a0Press on Palestine\u00a0highlights bias in mainstream American reporting on Palestinian and Arab-Israeli affairs.<\/h4>\n
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  1. The New York Times<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 November 23, 2022<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    2 Bomb Attacks in Jerusalem Kill 1 and Wound at Least 18<\/em>\u00a0by Patrick Kingsley and Isabel Kershner<\/p>\n

    In their co-written article, Kingsley and Kershner go to great lengths to detail the deaths of Israelis while obscuring the deaths of Palestinians.<\/p>\n

    The article offers readers a recount of the explosion and the origins of the victims. When they finally address the Palestinian loss of life, they do so in merely two sentences: noting that the violence was equally sustained, without revealing details about the Palestinian who was killed or their background. Whereas Israeli victims are given extensive backstories, and their family members are provided with space to speak about what they experienced, Palestinian victims are kept voiceless by the authors.<\/p>\n

    This is followed by an image of Palestinian mourners carrying the body of a Palestinian teenager murdered by Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF). The victim, Ahmed Shehada, is only named in the image caption, not in the article. By showing readers an image of Palestinian men participating in a funeral service \u2014 with zero context for their mourning practice or grief \u2014 Kingsley and Kershner attempt to depict Palestinians as angry \u201cmilitants\u201d rather than acknowledging that they are bereaved people who are publicly mourning.<\/p>\n

    Kingsley and Kershner emphasize that this bombing is the first attack on Israeli civilians in over six years (they mention this multiple times) without addressing the massive increase in violence by IOF and illegal settlers on\u00a0Palest<\/a>inian civilians in 2<\/a>022\u00a0alone. When the violence and deaths of Palestinians are finally mentioned, it is done so in a way that attempts to justify the Israeli regime’s criminality. In the eyes of Kingsley and Kershner, the rise in violence begins with Palestinians as the initial agitators and the Israeli military and settlers as victims reacting in self-defense. But the racist implications are revealed here when Palestinians are referred to as \u201cArab assailants.\u201d This solidifies the stereotype of the angry and innately violent Arab that\u00a0NYT<\/em>\u00a0relies upon to propagate the myth of Palestinian aggression and Israeli victimization. \u201cPalestinian anger\u201d is mentioned multiple times, once more decontextualizing the resistance of people being occupied by a brutalizing force.<\/p>\n

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    1. The Washington Post \u2013\u00a0<\/em>November 15th, 2022<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Palestinian kills three Israelis outside settlement in escalating violence<\/em>\u00a0by Shira Rubin<\/p>\n

      In her article for\u00a0The Washington Post<\/em>, Shira Rubin covers the stabbing and killing of three Israelis by a Palestinian teenager. In a time when\u00a0extrajudicial killings of Palestinians\u00a0by the IOF are ceaseless, situating this stabbing as justification for an \u201cIsraeli crackdown against Palestinians\u201d is irresponsible and abhorrent reporting.<\/p>\n

      Although Rubin acknowledges that 2022 is set to be the deadliest year for Palestinians, she examines the violence from the lens of the criminal IOF, falsely attributing the majority of Palestinians killed as being connected to terrorist attacks. Not only does this erase the hundreds of innocent Palestinians who are murdered yearly by the Israeli regime, it further justifies propaganda about Israeli state-sanctioned killing being justified under the guise of \u201cfighting terrorism.\u201d<\/p>\n

      By making this claim, Palestinian death is rationalized as a necessary consequence of Israeli self-defense. Interestingly, this narrative does not work in reverse: no matter the loss of life or brutality sustained by Palestinians at the hands of the IOF and illegal settlers daily, retaliation is always held in contempt.<\/p>\n

      \u00a0 \u00a03. The Wall Street Journal \u2013\u00a0<\/em>November 15th, 2022
      \nPalestinian Kills Three Israelis, Injures Others in West Bank Attack<\/em>\u00a0by Dov Lieber<\/p>\n

      Dov Lieber writes about the details of the attack before addressing the escalation of violence by Israeli forces in the West Bank. Lieber also mirrors\u00a0The Washington Post<\/em>\u00a0by asserting that most Palestinians killed were militants engaged in \u201cviolent battles with [Israeli] soldiers.\u201d<\/p>\n

      Lieber claims that there is a correlation between the \u201cgrowing violence\u201d and the decline in the Palestinian Authority’s popularity amongst Palestinians. This is followed by a statement from a former prime minister that Israel is actively fighting \u201cextensive terrorist structures.\u201d By implicitly linking Palestinian militancy and terrorism, Lieber reinforces the idea that Israeli violence against Palestinians is a legitimate effort to defend and protect the \u201cIsraeli state.\u201d By targeting the Palestinian Authority, Lieber attempts to shift blame for a 75-year-long military occupation to other Palestinians.<\/p>\n

      \u00a0 \u00a04. The Wall Street Journal \u2013\u2060<\/em>\u00a0November 29th, 2022
      \nIsrael Moves Troubled Military Unit Out of West Bank<\/em>\u00a0by Dion Nissenbaum, Aaron Boxerman, Fatima Abdulkarim<\/p>\n

      Nissenbaum, Boxerman, and Abdulkarim write about an ultraorthodox military unit \u2014 Netzah Yehuda \u2014 that has recently been removed from the West Bank due to its violence against Palestinians and anti-Occupation Israeli activists.<\/p>\n

      Interestingly, instead of using words such as brutal, cruel, or violent,\u00a0WSJ<\/em>\u00a0refers to this extremely violent unit as \u201ctroubled.\u201d A deliberate word choice that obscures the reality of what is at stake. Troubled is a word used to describe a young person experiencing difficulty in school. Troubled is a word that could explain the emotional outbursts of a teenager. Troubled is not the appropriate word to describe a military unit engaged in casual brutality against the people it is occupying and massacring.<\/p>\n

      What this also implies is that excessive violence in Israeli military units is the exception in the IOF and not the norm. The move to remove the unit has more to do with the Israeli regime crafting its public image, rather than with any concern about Palestinians being robbed, beaten, tortured, detained, or shot at by young IOF thugs.<\/p>\n

      Interestingly, none of these articles offer up a single Palestinian voice. Desperate to protect the apartheid state, the pro-Israel\u00a0WSJ\u00a0<\/em>refuses to acknowledge that Palestinians can have any insight into the force that occupies, polices, and controls Palestinian life. This clear bias in reporting speaks to the dehumanization of Palestinians that is intended by\u00a0WSJ\u00a0<\/em>executives and\u00a0Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation as a whole.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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      ABOUT THE AUTHOR:<\/div>\n
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      Sarah O’Neal is a poet, organizer, and writer from the Bay Area.\u00a0Her work is informed by interests in mourning rituals, queer Muslim poetics, and Black liberation. You can find her on twitter\u00a0@atayqueen\u00a0or\u00a0at\u00a0www.sarahadbiboneal.com<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Racist Language, Obscuring Palestinian Deaths Top Headlines in November DATE: January 22, 2023 AUTHOR: Sarah O’Neal BLOG SERIES: Press on Palestine Editor’s Note:\u00a0This article is part of the\u00a0Press on Palestine\u00a0series, an initiative by\u00a0Palestine Square. It includes selections from November 2022.\u00a0Press on Palestine\u00a0highlights bias in mainstream American reporting on Palestinian and Arab-Israeli affairs. The New York …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2929,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sawtoroba.com\/Eng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sawtoroba.com\/Eng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sawtoroba.com\/Eng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawtoroba.com\/Eng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawtoroba.com\/Eng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sawtoroba.com\/Eng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawtoroba.com\/Eng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sawtoroba.com\/Eng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawtoroba.com\/Eng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sawtoroba.com\/Eng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}