On the West Bank

Sejak orang Palestin mula bertindak melawan tentera Israel kira-kira empat tahun dan enam bulan yang lalu, rangkaian berita seluruh dunia (kecuali Al-Jazeera aku bet) tak habis-habis melaporkannya dengan konsep, pendekatan dan perlaksanaan yang tak jujur. Pandangan aku sebagai seorang mamat yang sucker terhadap perkembangan Timur Tengah, mainan bahasa yang digunakan pemberita biasanya menyebelahi tentera penceroboh daripada orang Arab yang kena jajah dan biasanya copkan sedara Islam ni macam makhluk asing dalam 'War of the Worlds' yang mengancam survival Israel. Konflik di antara Israel dengan Palestin ditunjuk, terutamanya buletin-buletin yang komersil, semacam sebuah pertempuran dua kuasa yang deduanya bersalah dan bertanggungjawab. Gentle cakap, ini adalah sebuah kesamaan taraf yang bapak kencing gila. Macam mana benda ni boleh jadi? Aku pun tak tahu. Mungkin, sepanjang 37 tahun rampasan tentera tu jadi, segala violation masyarakat, politikal, hak awam dan rampasan tanah Palestin yang terjadi secara langsung membuatkan krisis sebuah konsep sama ada telah dilupakan ataupun disalahertikan. Mungkin juga, kita jarang diberitahu macam mana negara Israel tu terbentuk; benih kepada ladang dilema ni. Disebabkan oleh tu, Israel mempunyai identiti diorang sendiri; kewujudan dan hikayat yang penonton boleh paham. Orang Palestin pulak dibentuk macam binatang. Maka, personaliti dan pandangan diorang terbenam di bawah bebanan dan tragedi yang diorang pikul seumur hidup. Even kajian pun setuju bahawa ideologi Israel yang lebih mendominasi liputan. There is far more coverage of Israeli deaths than Palestinian, even though far more Palestinians have died and they have the evidence that unerringly shows it. Israeli violence is tempered not only by the weight of coverage but by the very language used to describe incidents. One example is a template for hundreds: when Israeli police killed 13 Israeli citizens of Palestinian origin in October 2000, inside Israel, soon after the armed uprising in the occupied territories began, BBC and CNN coverage was a fifth of that given to the Palestinians who stormed a police station in Ramallah a day later and murdered two captured Israeli soldiers. These Palestinians were 'a frenzied [lynch] mob... baying for blood'. No such lurid prose was used to describe the Israeli killing of their own citizen Arabs. In the Israeli reprisals that followed the Ramallah killings, ITV said the Israelis were 'abandoning their restraint'. This was after two weeks in which Israeli forces had killed 100 Palestinians, most of them civilians (no, not Telosan's Civilian). Cause and effect are misreported. Why does the 'cycle of violence' start? In October 2002, the BBC repeatedly referred to the killing of the Israeli tourist minister as the reason for Israeli army reprisals against Palestinian towns and villages. It did not mention the fact that the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine had killed the minister in reprisal for the Israeli assassination of its leader. The cycle is always shown as Palestinian attack and Israeli reprisal. Broadcasters consistently fail to suggest that it might be the military occupation that engenders armed resistance or that Israeli actions may be such as to provoke Palestinian violence. The study finds that the daily despairing and degrading consequences of living under military occupation are rarely reported. Walaupun banyak pinggan mangkuk cakap orang Israel pun ada hak untuk hidup, jarang sekali... jarang sekali kita dengar walau sebijik cawan pun cakap orang Palestin ni pun punya hak yang sama.