Dave Brackenbury
The University hosted two talks on the Gaza conflict last week in the Samuel Alexander building as part of the Israeli Apartheid Week event organised by the pressure group Action Palestine. As’ad Abu Khalili, a professor at California State University and visiting professor at the University of California in Berkeley and Nimer Sultany, a Palestinian living in Israel spoke to students and then took questions.
In the first talk, on Thursday, Abu Khalil spoke about the American media’s coverage of the war in Gaza. He spoke out against the New York Times, citing its influence over other media sources in terms of stories and the terminology used in reporting the conflict. He said this influence reached not only into other media organisations, but even members of Congress, and denounced “the global influence of the Zionist media.”
He expressed his worry that this influence would increase with globalisation, the closing down of other media organisations’ local bureaux due to lack of funding and the growing influence of the larger newspaper organisations in the US, where fewer than 40 cities now have more than one newspaper.
The professor described Israeli history as “an anthology of massacres,” and criticised what he labelled “patriotic journalism” where journalists feel they have to report favourably towards the government’s policy. He criticised the New York Times saying that it assisted in keeping American public opinion in favour of Israel and arguing that the paper favours the “personalisation” of Israeli victims in the conflict whereas Arab victims are just a “blob.”
On Friday, Sultany, a doctoral candidate at Harvard Law School spoke about Arabs living in the state of Israel. He claimed they were “excluded from the political community,” and argued that in polls a majority of the Israeli population disapproves of marriage between Jews and Arabs. He also highlighted how poverty disproportionately affects the Palestinian community in Israel, commenting that their GDP per capita is one-third that of Israelis. He went on to describe other forms of racism and discrimination towards Palestinians and Arabs in Israel, and then took questions from the audience.
hmm. really like it ))