A Balancing Act

by Samah Sabawi

27 October 2003

A cartoon on the pages of the latest edition of The Economist caught my eye and left me perplexed. It depicted a huge bulky Palestinian man, wearing a belt full of explosives, charging toward an equally bulky and large Israeli man dressed in riot police attire holding a club in his hand.

It took me a while but I finally figured out why the cartoon upset me. It wasn't because it reinforced the stereotype that Palestinians are angry suicide bombers. That has been done so much lately, it only causes me to sigh and move on. It wasn't because it depicted Israelis as riot control police only using clubs in the face of explosives. That too has been done to death and no longer warrants a reaction from me. It was something far more subtle and a lot more dangerous.

The poison seeped from the Cartoonist's attempt to be balanced by showing that both men were equal in size and charging toward one another with equal fury. I find this to be misleading as one could walk away thinking that the Palestinian/Israeli conflict is in fact a balanced one, when nothing is further from the truth. It reminded me of the CBC's news coverage that is so carefully worded to reflect balance and filled with; “Cycle of violence”, “Tit for tat killings”, “In retaliation of…” etc.

As Israel continues its ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population in a slow, terrifying and effective manner, I am finding it harder to accept these attempts by the media to appear balanced and to be politically correct by assigning the responsibility of violent aggression equally on the Palestinians and the Israelis. By doing so, they are blurring the lines between the oppressed and the oppressors and between the occupied and the occupiers. They are enabling many to sit back inthe comfort of their apathy, fling their hands in the air and say “you know, they are both crazy and they deserve what they get!”. There is a danger that the public will lose sight of the real issues in this quest to appear balanced.

What if the attacks on the World Trade Center were to be reported in a carefully 'balanced' way? How enraged would we have been if CNN announced that “The cycle of violence continued today as a plane flew into the WTC in New York killing thousands of people in retaliation to the earlier actions taken by the US government which lead to the deaths and displacements of thousands in the Middle-East. This Tit for Tat killing created a lot of chaos in the streets of New York as many vowed to avenge the deaths of their loved ones”.

Now, let's take a look at the “tit for tat violence” we've heard so much about. Israeli gunfire has killed more than twice as many Palestinian civilians as the number of Israelis killed by the random acts of the few desperate suicide bombers. The number of Palestinians injured is more than four times the number of Israelis. The number of Palestinian homes demolished by the Israelis since 1967 has exceeded 9,000 according to the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, leaving 50,000 Palestinians homeless and without shelter, while the number of Israeli homes demolished by the Palestinian is Zero! Israel is responsible for creating millions of Palestinian refugees – in fact, the world's largest refugee population, while the number of Israeli refugees caused by Palestinian aggression again is Zero! Palestinians endure Curfews, Israelis don't. Palestinians endure roadblocks, Israelis don't. Palestinians lose their lands and their homes to Israeli settlements; there are no Palestinians settlements, and no campaign by the Palestinians to ethnically cleanse Israeli lands. The “Tit” appears to be much larger than the “Tat”, this is not a cycle of violence, but the will of the powerful to dispossess and to steal from the powerless. There is no balance to be found here.

Don't get me wrong, I strongly believe that we have to be objective, see all sides, examine all arguments and claims, but eventually, I believe we have to have the moral courage to present a picture that is as close to the truth as possible, and if the truth is not balanced, the picture should not be. We can be politically correct, avoid generalizations and stereotypes, but that does not mean we have to be muted. While Palestinians and Israelis are equal in their grief, they are not equal in their losses, they are not equal in their deprivation, they are not equal in their suffering, they are not equal in their living conditions, they are not equal in their choices, they are not equal in their weapons, they are not equal in their power to end the conflict, they are not equal in their might and they are certainly not equal in their aggression.


Source: The Palestine Chronicle – www.palestinechronicle.com
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