Journalist Seth Frantzman insists that Palestinian reality bears no similarity to what is portrayed in the media and that the truth must be learned.
Following is Frantzman’s article, which was published in the news site Mida.
Last Friday, Israeli journalist Avi Issacharoff was attacked by Palestinians near Beitunia. In an article about the event, he declared that he would not “stop doing my job.” He claimed that “my journalist mission must continue, in order to inform the Israeli and international public about Palestinian reality…that’s my obligation, and that of my colleagues. If we don’t do it, Israel’s capacity to ignore what goes on in the territories will only deepen, until there is violence of a whole different order.”
His juxtaposition of the Israeli public, his job, mission and his colleagues alongside this clichéd Palestinian “reality” is symbolic of a larger trend: The presentation of Palestinian society as a romantic, orientalist fetish of suffering; a subordinate society wherein the mission of the outsider is to craft its narrative. It is a sort of White Man’s Burden in reverse; rather than bringing civilization to the “noble savages,” the suffering of them is being beamed back so as to “civilize” the viewer.
To read more on the Palestinian reality, click here.