[Peace-discuss] "To Help Palestine, Be Pro-Israel Too", from Ira Chernus

[C. G. Estabrook]

I suggested earlier that this line seems to me parallel to arguing in the fall
of 1939 that "Three viewpoints on the invasion of Poland fill the U.S. press:
pro-German, anti-German, and neutral or even-handed.  All three are harmful to
the suffering people of Poland. The one view that can help them is the one that
barely gets a hearing. It's pro-Poland, pro-peace, AND pro-German."  --CGE

Stuart Levy wrote:
> Wanted to point out four notable articles that appeared this week. Here's the
> first:
> 
> To Help Palestine, Be Pro-Israel Too by Ira Chernus [Prof. of Religious
> Studies, UC Boulder] http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/06-13
> 
> Three viewpoints on the Gaza war fill the U.S. mass media: pro-Israel, 
> anti-Israel, and neutral or even-handed.  All three are harmful to the
> suffering people of Gaza. The one view that can help them is the one that
> barely gets a hearing. It's pro-Palestine, pro-peace, AND pro-Israel.
> 
> [...] Yet a neutral, even-handed approach in the U.S. news media is dangerous
>  for the people of Gaza too.  It treats Israel's massive high-tech firepower,
> which has killed over 500, as somehow equivalent to Hamas' aimless, largely
> ineffectual rockets that have killed five. That gives Americans the
> impression there's a fair fight going on between two equally violent and
> equally suffering sides. Most people conclude that if neither side is the
> good guy, it's none of our business and we should just ignore it. At least
> they themselves ignore the conflict. That gives the "pro-Israel" lobby and
> the U.S. government a freer hand to follow a one-sided course.
> 
> [...] That might seem to leave only one fruitful approach: Stand up for the
> Palestinians, condemn Israel as the aggressor, and demand that it stop its
> attack immediately. It's understandable that Americans of good moral
> conscience might take such an approach. But from a practical point of view,
> it will not do the Palestinians of Gaza any good. It might even harm them
> more.
> 
> Political action that is merely "pro-Palestinian" allows the mass media to
> portray the engaged public divided into two neat camps-pro-Israel and
> anti-Israel-as if those were the only two options. Of course the mass media
> like simplistic pictures of two protest groups, diametrically opposed, on
> opposite sides of the street.  It boosts their ratings. But it also lets
> supporters of Israeli policy feel even more justified, saying that "everyone 
> who's not for us is against us."
> 
> It also encourages the average American to assume that there is no way out of
> this mess except to choose sides. In that case, since most know only what the
> political leaders and mass media tell them, they will choose the Israeli
> side. [...]
> 
> and more.  Well worth a full reading.  I recommended this article to some at
> the Mosque who were wondering how to talk about the Gaza crisis and
> Palestinian issues with their non-Muslim coworkers, neighbors, etc. We need
> ways to break out of rhetorical cages. 
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