Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth,
and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth;
– - Proverbs 24:17
During the recent conflict in Gaza I have watched live on Israeli television’s Channel 10 the phone call that Dr. Izz el-Deen Aboul Aish had made to reporter Shlomi Eldar. If you are not familiar with the incident, please read this post first.
While watching it live I could not really understand it but I instinctively knew our daily routine, as Israelis, has been disturbed. You see, up to that point hundreds of people were killed in Gaza but as an Israeli you want to believe that they were all terrorists, every last one of them. The Israeli army does not target civillians, and so you really want to believe that no one is killed by accident. The thing is when a man, a doctor, who speaks Hebrew fluently, and works in Israel, when he tells you his innocent daughters were just killed by a tank shell – well that was impossible to dismiss.
As an advocate of freedom of information and an avid believer in sunlight as the best disinfectant, I felt all I can do at the time was upload the TV recording to YouTube. I also posted it on my blog, but made no commentary except for some Israeli song lyrics that seemed an appropriate preface. Later I uploaded English subtitles for the video.
Now, a long time ago I came to the realization that the Internet brings all the crazies out of the woodwork, and so I almost never engage in any form of war of words. I usually let the Keyboard Fascists wear themselves out and that is exactly what I did in this case:
I just sat down, read the comments,
noticed the video going viral,
and made notes.
Now, 43 days later, here are my notes as written in the first couple of days following the event:
Things I learned last night:
In the 21st century, if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to document it, most people just do not care whether it makes a sound or not.
Thousands of years later, antisemitism is alive and well – it just bears different names now.
People* see what they want to see and only allow in new information if it reaffirms their own preconceptions.
People* have a dichotomy view of the world.
People* think that validating the other side’s pain surely must invalidate theirs.
* Instead of “People”, I originally wrote “Most people”, then changed it to “Many people”, then changed it to “Some people” – but now settled for “People” as I cannot ascertain the amount.
[...] I watch the pro-Palestinian rallies that have been staged in capitals across the globe, and I try to tell myself that these people are not against me, or even Israel; that they just are dismayed with all the violence. I tell myself, as Jean Renoir pointed out with such pellucid irony in The Rules of the Game, that everybody has their reasons. But here is what I finally know: with all the troubles in the world, with the terrible things that the Chinese do in Tibet, and do to their own citizens; with the horrors of genocide committed in Darfur by Sudanese Muslims; with all the bad things that Arab governments in the Middle East visit upon their own people – no need for Israel to have a perfectly horrible time – still, the focus is on what the Jews may or may not be doing wrong in Gaza. And it makes people angry and vehement as nothing else does. The vitriol it inspires is downright weird. But that makes sense, because antisemitism itself – creepy, dark, ancient and insidious – is, more than anything else, just plain weird.
– – “Standing Against A Tide of Hatred” – Elizabeth Wurtzel, January 16, 2009
Shooting and crying,
Burning and laughing,
When did we learn how to bury living people?
-- - “Shooting And Crying” -- Si Himan (translated from Hebrew)
JERUSALEM (Reuters) -- Israeli television broadcast desperate cries for help from a Palestinian doctor on Friday after his children were killed in an Israeli attack in the Gaza Strip and troops later helped surviving members of the family.
The telephone calls created extraordinary scenes during evening news broadcasts as the doctor, a Hebrew-speaking physician who spoke regularly on Israeli television, said three of his children were killed in a tank strike and others were wounded.
“My girls were sitting at home planning their futures, talking, then suddenly they are being shelled,” he said in a voice shaking with emotion. “I want to know why they were killed, who gave the order?” Izz el-Deen Aboul Aish is a gynecologist who worked in one of Israel’s main hospitals before Gazans were effectively sealed off behind an Israeli-led blockade on the Hamas-controlled enclave. He often gave interviews to Channel 10 television.
Reuters story continues here, The Associated Press has a follow-up here.
Video is in Hebrew, but can be understood by anyone now includes English subtitles:
Look on us,
Look on them -
Who is more similar to you?
- -- mock rapper X-Plain -- Throws on you TIL
With 4 out of 5 Israelis supporting the current military campaign in Gaza, Channel 2’s popular satirical show Eretz Nehederet (A Wonderful Country) could have chosen to go on vaction so not to be controversial under fire. They could have ran old episodes for that fluffy feel-good feeling viewers might crave, and no one would have contested. But the higher-ups decided to be brave and present critical views when they can still make a difference.
Now on its sixth season and with more than 30 percent of Israelis watching, Eretz Nehederet is at the cutting edge when it comes to Israeli satire, slaughtering whatever sacred cows are left in this country, using a tongue-in-cheek approach. Check out three short examples (translated to English) from the last two weeks, the first two videos were broadcast just 3 days after the campaign had started.
Ehud Barak predicting the phases of war from euphoria to dysphoria:
