Why on earth is our local media and the Israeli right-wing playing the September 20th move like it is a beating on a War Drum?
I have been inspecting our local media position on this and now I know it is certainly not a coincidence: From the quotes of Palestinian officials to the ultra-Right wing Israeli politicians.
Today, an article by Ma'an confirmed my suspicions. The article, titled Steinitz says UN bid 'greater threat' than Hamas, was comparable to the head-line version in the Arabic Ma'an (published in the early hours on September 01st) which was about settlers preparing for the upcoming "storm" with weaponry and fighting-back strategy: a woman vs. a woman, and a child vs. a child!
In today's english version article, Israeli Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said: "If the Palestinians made good on their plans to seek United Nations membership, Israel would 'respond,'" his claim was that "This Palestinian initiative represents a more serious threat than that posed by Hamas".
Steinitz, the Lekud party member (Netanyahu's current party until further notice) already blocked the payment of 380 million shekels ($106 million) in tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority, in what seems like an early threat towards the move.
Ma'an published the article with an "iconic"-like photo completely unrelated to the topic being discussed with the caption that says: "A protester waves a Palestinian flag during clashes in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh near Ramallah". Exactly how is this related to an article where I'd be more interested in seeing even the picture of the Israeli right winger? I have no clue. But the fact that an Israeli right-wing politician was mentioned, a blockade of tax revenues and the comparison to Hamas sort of calls for a demonstration to bring down the walls in a village in the West Bank. I don't know how well I've made my comparisons. Probably not well at all, because it is unrelated, pure and simple. These demonstrations if anything are completely in line with the Israeli finance minister in their rejection of the UN bid, although for completely different reasons that are completely contradictory to his racist perspective.
A picture the Arabic headline was used of three Gypsy-like Jewish settlers carrying rocks was slightly more related to the subject of "women vs. women, a child vs. a child". The women, laughing but obviously hostile, seem to be used by the news network to alarm the Palestinian readers to the seriousness of the September 20th move. Knowing how stubborn Palestinians are: they'd want to fight off these women, and not feel threatened by them.
(Pictures from both articles are included in the article).
The article did not fail to mention that the settlers already have nearly half a million pieces of weaponry and an "incalculable" number of ammunition which will be pointed towards the unarmed peaceful Palestinians protesters who will be marching upon these settlements. As the news network seem to want to believe will be the result of the UN bid.
The article discusses the fighting-back plan which was sketched by ultra-right wing Jewish parties who seem to share one thing with our local media: overplaying the possible threats of the other. The right-wing settlers clearly do not want to wake up one morning to a Palestinian state that might have a potential to host them (although so far the entire world recognizes that these settlements are located inside occupied territories yet they still live and prosper there and the world isn't doing much about it). The Palestinian media on the other end seems to want this kind of local attention and mobilization I'd go as far as accusing the local media of wanting a third Intifada (assuming we actually had two previous innocent society-driven Intifadas, and not merely a pre-made recipe for further concessions.)
Both articles showed two major failures to be recorded for both the media itself and the already too strong but unsustainable Israel's right wing.
As I sit and read these articles which appear on daily-basis in the Palestinian and Israeli Right-wing media I wonder: Who's enjoying the sound of beating on war-drums? Who's the "fifth-queue" as we call those who spread false-alarms in Arabic.
I don't want to be associated with this deceptive self-interest current. Nor do I want to be the victim of fraud.
