Tonight there was yet another real-life horror filled news bulletin on Aljazeera. Twenty three Palestinian were killed in Gaza in 15 hours Wednesday. Israel claims it was hitting militants. Indeed I saw a hurt Palestinian fighter among the casualties shown. But again.. Palestinian children. Dead, or bleeding. Or laying on the ground in a state of hysteria.
In Gaza.. does Israel think Palestinians have anything left to loose? What kind of war is this???
Israelis (and Americans too, it seems), should bring themselves to watch more Aljazeera. The horrors of war are being beamed into every Arab home in full color. You don’t have to understand Arabic to get what’s going on!
I really lack the words that express the million thoughts in my head right now.
The last thing I want to do on this blog is spread more anger and hatred. There is too much of that out there already. But the unbelievably blind wars of Israel leave nothing but despair in my mind.
Comments
9 responses to “Do Israelis watch Aljazeera? If not, they should!”
Can’t see it yet, Ahmad. The branding campaign is still at work.
From Wikipedia:
On July 4, 2005 Al Jazeera officially announced plans to launch a new English-language satellite service called Al Jazeera International. Highly protested by many Americans, organized campaigns surfaced against Al Jazeera’s efforts to establish the planned English language network in the United States, protests lead by groups such as the United American Committee. The controversy over Al Jazeera’s establishment in North America has been dubbed “Jazeeragate” by protesting groups, and is ironic considering the country’s claims to freedom of press. Al Jazeera has announced this long-expected move in an attempt to provide news about the Arab world, especially Israel, from the Middle Eastern perspective. The new channel will have broadcast centers in Doha (current Al Jazeera headquarters and broadcast center), Athens, London, Kuala Lumpur and Washington D.C., when the station launches. The channel will be a 24-hour, 7-day-a-week news channel with 12 hours broadcasted from Doha and four hours from each of London, Kuala Lumpur, and Washington D.C.
Don’t worry ahmad it’s not you who is spreading the anger and hate, and they more than anybody else knows exactlly whats going on..no need for al-zajeera to tell them.
Still, Manal, the pictures of the injured speak. The screams of children and innocents speak. Show that to enough people in the the US and Israel and the situation might change due to the outcry of the masses.
I’ve seen it said on this blog by Ahmad that CNN is very biased. Trust me, we’re fairly sickened by that fact here in the US. The reporters and anchors seem to have a “Go, Israel!” attitude, while the whole spectacle is treated as the latest game for Xbox, with fancy graphics, sound effects and the like. They even like to name the conflict. Fox News was calling it “Cost of Freedom” early on.
yeah i know the mentalilty and backround americans have about us and our countries, and when i say americans i even mean the arabs that had been living there for generations, but the americans that realise whats truley happening, they already know, they probably understand what going on more than me and you, i have heard their opinion about CNN and the opinion of a typical american that only watches CNN,
so wether they are americans or isrealies arabs or europians,
if they search, read and care, they will come with their way of reallizing the conflict between the arabs and the the zionist (not jews for me there is a diffrence), and when they share there opion with us in a respected way, wether they stood on our side or with them it’s up to them, it’s ok with me, cause i can still learn something from what they have to say about us negativlly, but at the end we arabs are the only ones that must stand for ourselves and try something diffrent.
This is a must listen interview with Tina Naache in Beirut by an american station
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14195.htm
nice work with your blog ahmad!
your podcast is a companion on some of my home-work car trips.
love it! i visit you from portugal…
visit me at http://tterraquente.blogspot.com/
Hi Ahmad,
Some Israelis do have access to Al Jazeera English, but most prefer to watch the Hebrew-language broadcasts on the three domestic channels.
Those of us who have been to Gaza and have Palestinian friends in the PA are very aware of what is going on there; however, it is illegal for an Israeli citizen to enter Gaza as a civilian unless s/he is a journalist with a government press.
That means that the vast majority of Israelis lack deep awareness of what is going on in Gaza right now. The Israeli news channels report all the army’s activities, as well as the deaths of civilians and fighters. There are Palestinian and Jewish reporters in Gaza, reporting live; scenes of destruction, of ambulances and of interviews with Palestinian civilians are broadcast, but the dead and wounded are not shown due to a blanket policy not to show gory scenes on television (which applies to the victims of suicide bombings as well, of course – I still have involuntary flashbacks from the last suicide bombing I covered, but I know that most Israelis have no idea what those bombs do to the human body).
Most Israelis are, I think, far more absorbed by the daily Qassam bombardments of Sderot and the farming communities in the Western Negev, along the border with Gaza. Several peope have been killed and wounded over the past few days, children are not attending school out of fear, etc. There is a prevalent attitude that, since Israel withdrew from Gaza more than a year ago, the Qassam attacks are unprovoked and indicative of a lack of willingness by the Palestinians to make peace with Israel, and that the PA is spending money on weapons to attack Israel instead of investing in education, food and infrastructure.
Of course I know the situation is far more complex than that. I speak with friends in Gaza on a regular basis and I know how difficult the situation is right now – it is painful to know that my neighbours are suffering. I also know that it is human nature to focus on one’s own suffering rather than that of others, and Israelis living in the Western Negev are indeed suffering. It would not be very effective to tell them that others are suffering more. I suspect that Gazans are not particularly comforted by the knowledge that far more civilians (about six times as many, I believe) died in Iraq last week than in Gaza.
Me, I hope that we will all just acknowledge the suffering and humanity of one another and then decide that we’d be better off building peace and a hopeful future rather than killing one another.
you can watch aljazeera intenational (in english) free on http://www.relavista.tv/al-jazeera-english.html
Lisa, maybe this is the kind of narrative that Israelis should be exposed to:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/israel-and-gaza-rhetoric-and-reality
This is a very insightful political commentary by Avi Shlaim a professor of international relations at St Antony’s College, Oxford. The article is titled “Israel and Gaza: rhetoric and reality”.
I am confident that once they are exposed to such truth, then their Jewishness and humanity could steer the country’s politics from its destructive unsustainable path to a more humane approach that links their own suffering to those of the Palestinians. An awareness informed campaign is what the world needs for positive change. Such change can only happen at the grassroots.
Hope the article is insightful. A