Palestine the Truth

From The Morning Star Monday 4th May

Myths, spin and misery
Monday 04 May 2009Ramzy Baroud Printable Email The struggle between Hamas and Fatah appears from a distance like a typical Third World political scuffle.

It has been depicted as a battle over the interpretation of democracy that's got out of control or simply a "power struggle" between two political rivals vying for international aid and recognition.

It's common to read deceptive news reports that promote this line.

"Hundreds of Palestinian patients have been trapped in the Gaza Strip, unable to travel abroad for crucial treatment for cancer and other diseases, because of political infighting between Gaza's militant Hamas rulers and their Palestinian rivals," was how one Associated Press report put it.

Such sinister terminology as "Gaza's Hamas rulers" - which happens to refer to a democratically elected government - is now commonly used by Western news agencies and those who readily recycle their reports.

The AP report above makes no mention of Israel's role in Palestinian rivalry. The only mention of the US referred to "US-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas," (main pic) who "controls the West Bank."

Is this journalist serious? Even if they willingly overlooked the fact that Palestinian rivalry has little to do with Israel's blockade of Gaza, even if the US-led international campaign to isolate Gaza and its government was purposely disregarded, since when did Abbas "control" the West Bank?

That's the same West Bank that remains in the grip of a decades-long Israeli military occupation, where illegal Jewish settlements run into the hundreds and where countless checkpoints, "bypass roads," military zones and the giant Israeli wall - an entire matrix of control - has been described by many leading international observers as apartheid.

True, the situation in Gaza has reached such harrowing levels that the injustices committed in the West Bank have been shunted down the agenda as if they are inconsequential. But the Israeli assault on Palestinian freedom, human rights and international law in the West Bank has not ceased for a moment, even when thousands of Palestinians in Gaza were being brutally murdered.

But neither the inhumane siege and murder of Gazans nor the suffocating occupation of the West Bank seem to awaken the curiosity of those who, foolishly or cunningly, blame the victims for their own misery.

That shouldn't mean that Hamas and Fatah or any other Palestinian party is absolved from their own failings when it comes to human rights, freedom of speech or any other area over which they possess an iota of control.

If individuals from Hamas have violated human rights in Gaza, then such actions should be recognised, condemned and corrected. The same is true when Abbas's government violates the edicts of democracy in whatever limited jurisdiction it has.

But the media's outrageous claims, whether indirectly blaming Hamas for the deadly Gaza siege and its consequences or haphazardly granted Abbas a position of "control" over the occupied West Bank, are plain contemptible.

The manipulation of the term "democracy" is also worthy of note.

An unsuspecting follower of the media would never guess that Hamas was elected democratically and that a democratic government with a majority in the parliament could not possibly have staged a "coup" against itself.

That same individual would no doubt also be unaware that the legal term in office of celebrated Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has already expired and that its renewal would require fresh elections or the consent of the Hamas-dominated parliament.

Now President Abbas is reportedly assembling a new government which is expected, once again, to exclude the majority party in the parliament.

The government, if formed, will likely be headed by Salam Fayyad, whose international prestige stems solely from the fact that top US officials including former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice have praised him as trustworthy. Fayyad has never been elected and has little popularity among Palestinians.

And even if Hamas agreed to Abbas's appointed government, it would be impossible for the parliament to convene and vote. A large number of elected Palestinian legislators are currently being held as political prisoners in Israel.

When a news story is dominated by selective terminology, numbers, names and dates without proper and balanced context, the reader is sold nothing but misinformation.

Consider an Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) report published in late 2008 which ranked and classified 167 countries into four categories - full democracies, flawed democracies, hybrid regimes and authoritarian regimes.

The Palestinian Authority was ranked number 85, crossing from a flawed democracy into the hybrid regime category. The explanation? According to the EIU, "the Islamist Hamas movement that won the parliamentary election in early 2006 and Fatah, who hold on to the presidency, have failed to bridge their differences.

"Instead, factional infighting has worsened in recent years, culminating in the takeover of power in the Gaza Strip by Hamas while the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, of Fatah has tried to maintain his grip on the West Bank. Political violence has worsened."

The word "Israel" is not mentioned. Not once.

Despite the fact that "factional fighting" and failure to "bridge their differences" are largely down to external pressures - including Israeli and US ultimatums to Abbas, violence against Hamas and conditional international aid to both - Palestine is ranked as if it were an independent nation in complete control of its own affairs.

Israel, meanwhile, was listed by the EIU at number 38, merely a "flawed" democracy, perhaps for the simple fact that it recognises itself as a "Jewish state" and discriminates against anyone who doesn't fit the criteria.

"If you control the language, you control the debate," it's been said.

But, when the perception of an entire nation depends on how terms are coined and sentences are constructed, then language takes on other meanings - deceptive, demonising and immoral ones.

Ramzy Baroud is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com.

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