Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Hidden Article

This posting has been hidden because it breaches the Indymedia UK (IMC UK) Editorial Guidelines.

IMC UK is an interactive site offering inclusive participation. All postings to the open publishing newswire are the responsibility of the individual authors and not of IMC UK. Although IMC UK volunteers attempt to ensure accuracy of the newswire, they take no responsibility legal or otherwise for the contents of the open publishing site. Mention of external web sites or services is for information purposes only and constitutes neither an endorsement nor a recommendation.

E-Mails From Palestine

By Elliott Colla | 09.04.2002 18:09

E-mail reports of atrocities in besieged West Bank cities are sneaking through Israel's ban on media in the occupied territories. Can this news be trusted? When students in PNS contributor Elliott Colla's classroom compare the crisis to Bosnia, Kosovo or Rwanda, can he confidently tell them that Israel is not Serbia, and Ramallah is not Srebrenica?

rantic e-mails are one of few things regularly breaking the sieges of Ramallah, Nablus and Bethlehem. Israel designates entire cities "closed military areas" to ban journalists, so there is no eyewitness media confirmation of accounts that appear on the one outlet that appears to have remained free: the Internet. I see them and my students see them, and we worry.

The stories come electronically from friends or appear on sites that I have in the past found reputable. They paint a grim picture: Palestinian cities lie in ruins and Palestinians are burying their dead at mind-numbing rates; entire towns, villages and camps have been emptied of men and boys age 15 to 40, rounded up in the night by the Israeli Army; a massive humanitarian catastrophe has begun to descend on thousands of families who have run out of water and food after a more than a week of heavy fighting. Human rights Web sites now contain the first eyewitness accounts of finding groups of bodies of activists summarily executed at close range; medical Web sites report on the deliberate targeting of Arab hospitals and ambulances.

My students, raised on the humanitarian crises of the 1990s, now ask about parallels in Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda. How do I confidently tell them that this event is different? That Israel is not Serbia? I am at a loss when they ask, "Didn't the Serbians label the Bosnians and Kosovars 'terrorists' too?" How does one respond when there is a complete newspaper and other media blackout on what's happening on the ground?

Supporters continue to argue that Israel has the right to pursue terrorists in a war without limits, but no one yet has put forth a persuasive answer for why the Jewish state has forbidden all journalists from covering the scenes of devastation that attend war.

Indeed, what good reason does Israel have to hide the self-proclaimed justice and precision of its anti-terror operations? Its army has said that it wants to protect the lives of journalists. More astounding, perhaps, is the new line adopted by Israeli press handlers: They want to prevent the spread of pro-Palestinian propaganda among journalists. No doubt the military brass is still steaming over stories like the recent broadcast of close-up footage showing a chilling "accidental" death. Israeli television had accompanied soldiers in a raid on a refugee camp near Ramallah. As troops blew down the door of a private home in Bethlehem, Israeli television audiences watched in horror as a Palestinian woman injured in the blast died in front of her children. The Israeli reasons for a press blackout are not convincing, especially when accusations of war crimes are growing.

I want to think that reports of mass suffering in Palestine are not true. The accounts sent by distraught friends, the pictures that appear on respectable Web sites, the reportedly eyewitness stories sent out by established international agencies: They not only bespeak shocking human tragedy for the Palestinian people, but they will also, unless contradicted in the course of free press coverage, undermine the moral claims Israel has used to pursue its relentless war. Israeli human rights workers understand this and have been complaining even more loudly than the American press that the news blackout can serve no good.

Many of us would also like to tell our students that Israel is not Serbia and that Ramallah is not Srebrenica. But as long as the Israeli military closes off its military operations to news coverage, we have the moral duty to take seriously the reports of atrocity that arrive in our mailboxes each day.

By Elliott Colla

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech