Edward Said on the US's Predilection for Israel

     
       I recently found out that the academic demi-god of many undergraduates, Edward Said is also a tour-de-force commentator on media-politics in the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. Said is most widely known for his book Orientalism (1978) which is foundational in post-colonial studies and explores how Western academic scholarship and the popular media have created a feedback institutional structure backing narratives of Western power and intellectual superiority over Africa, the Orient, and the Middle East since the 19th century. Though Said himself is a Palestinian American, his stance is not anti-Israeli. He argues that Palestine has been ill depicted because of the anti-Islamic, anti-Arab leanings of American foreign policy and the American news media---and he advocates for journalism about the Israel/ Palestine conflict that focuses on human experience and reckons with the future from the micro rather than the macro level.

        In a new hotblooded essay, Said asks readers to consider how the media canons in Israel and in the States are engaged in efforts to convince us to support Israeli Zionists with impunity over Palestinians. I highly advise that you read the article in completion because Said is keen on describing the ins and outs of various types of propaganda- whether guerrilla or mainstream, public or international. From the article: 

       Israel has already poured hundreds of millions of dollars into what in Hebrew is called hasbara, or information  for the outside world (hence, propaganda). This has included an entire range of efforts: lunches and free trips for influential journalists; seminars for Jewish university students who over a week in a secluded country estate can be primed to "defend" Israel on the campus; bombarding congressmen and -women with invitations and visits; pamphlets and, most important, money for election campaigns; directing (or, as the case requires, harassing) photographers and writers of the current Intifada into producing certain images and not others; lecture and concert tours by prominent Israelis; training commentators to make frequent references to the Holocaust and Israel's predicament today; many advertisements in the newspapers attacking Arabs and praising Israel.

Indeed, it doesn't take much to find a whole spread of these kinds of resources available on the internet. It also seems that Israeli papers have a tendency to feature op-eds critical of the portrayal of Israel and Israeli citizens in the New York Times. This one even goes so far as to say of the Times' article; "Does every American – in fact, every person in any democracy not follow and vote with their “personal, ideological and financial agenda?” Is the Times saying Adelson is not allowed to do that simply because he is a self-made billionaire? Isn’t that what every poor man seeks to become? A rich self-made man? Is that not the essence of greatness in America – putting one’s money where his mouth is?" Whoa.

      The above from Said's article also makes me consider the propagandist implications of the free Birthright trip to Israel that many of my Jewish friends have jumped on-- an opportunity that I might now blush to have so deeply envied. In fact, it turns out that Birthright trips have been criticized fairly widely for their propagandist nature and have even been implicated in protests of the Occupy movement. The Jewish newspaper Haaretz explains: 

      In a mission statement titled "Occupy the Occupiers: A Jewish Call to Action," the Young, Jewish, and Proud (YJP), described as the youth wing of the left-leaning Jewish Voice for Peace movement, called out to young Jews to "stand up to the 1% in our own community, the powerful institutions that support Israel’s corporate-backed military control of the Palestinian people and act as the gatekeepers for our community."

         And the work of the Jewish Voice for Peace movement is hardly the only Jewish organization in America advocating solidarity among Jews and Palestinians. Said also mentioned the efforts of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee to stop hate crimes against Arabs in the US following September 11th------ as well as well as their efforts to broaden perspectives on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in the American education system. 

        I was led to Said's article when thinking about Israeli propaganda in the states because I recently read his excellent introduction to Joe Sacco's comic series Palestine. Sacco's method jives with Said's because both argue in favor of using media to expose scenarios that journalists would not be tasked or paid to write about. To this point the two advocate for an equalized exposure of Palestinian and Israeli perspectives, but also for a bottom-up approach which exposes the experiences of individuals suffering through the violence, and the refugee camps, and the lack of state control rather than recent  diplomatic events. 
        It is refreshing to see such an intellectual such as Said transverse the institution to write direct political commentary. In both aspects of his work he focuses on how governments censor news coverage and how stories are reported. And his writing provides education that disrupts the media and makes us climb back into the more sensible place of skepticism.