[antiwar-van] FW: [ISM-Van-General] Shooting the messenger

[hanna kawas]

-----Original Message-----
From: ism-van-general-admin at ender.indymedia.org
[mailto:ism-van-general-admin at ender.indymedia.org]
Sent: Sunday, August 03, 2003 12:14 AM
To: general at ism-vancouver.org
Subject: [ISM-Van-General] Shooting the messenger


Shooting the messenger

Gordon Murray
ISM Vancouver

Rather than confront or discuss the disturbing issues of Israeli military 
occupation raised by Carel Moiseiwitsch's exhibition at the grunt gallery 
"Life in Occupied Palestine," the Jewish Western Bulletin (JWB) and 
writer Pat Johnson have chosen to launch a series of vitriolic and 
personal attacks against the artist and the gallery. 

Moiseiwitsch was careful to label her drawings with the date and place of 
the incident portrayed and included a large group of photos in the 
exhibition which document the incidents and the destruction she witnessed 
-- neither of these facts are mentioned in the JWB.

But the JWB is not interested in evidence or argument, nor that 
Moiseiwitsch drew from events that she actually saw. They simply fall 
back on unsubstantiated charges that the exhibition "vilifies Israelis," 
"borders on hate material" and is "reminiscent of Nazi Germany." Why 
bother with facts when you can smear and slander much more easily?

In his July 25, 2003 front-page article, Johnson pointedly tells us that 
the images "are not random photographs culled from the front pages of 
recent newspapers." Which is exactly the point. We need people like 
Moiseiwitsch to witness and to show us images of Israeli army violence 
against Palestinians because North American -- and especially Vancouver 
-- newspapers refuse to print them. 

In an August 1, 2003 follow-up article that seems to have little 
justification except to continue banging a drum about "anti-Semitic 
propaganda" and "hate crimes," Johnson denounces Moiseiwitsch's "drawings 
and writings depicting Israeli military violence and Israeli soldiers 
revelling in the humiliation and murder of Palestinians." Coincidentally, 
these were the very charges brought against the Israeli Occupation Forces 
(IOF) last week by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI). 

In its annual report released on July 21, 2003, ACRI -- Israel's largest 
human rights group -- said that for Palestinians living in the West Bank 
and Gaza Strip, "egregious violations of human rights are taking place, 
as well as unprecedented injury of innocent civilians."

The report found that "most of the abuses occur not as a result of 
operational necessity on the part of the IDF,  but from vindictiveness on 
the part of the soldiers, who receive implicit approval to denigrate the 
dignity, life and liberty of innocent Palestinian civilians."  

ACRI charges that Israeli soldiers are "malicious and cruel" and details 
several horrific cases of abuse of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers, 
including one in which a soldier carved a Star of David into the skin of 
a Palestinian civilian using a piece of glass. 

For some reason, the ACRI report was not deemed newsworthy by the Jewish 
Western Bulletin. It preferred to threaten the public funding of the 
grunt gallery and call for public demonstrations against Moiseiwitsch's 
exhibition, which has little overt brutality.

The JWB's charge that Moiseiwitsch's exhibition is "one-sided" seems 
breath-takingly hypocritical given their complete silence about the 
Israeli army's abuse of Palestinian human rights. In fact, we constantly 
hear "one side" -- about Israeli suffering -- in the mainstream media 
such as the Vancouver Sun, The Province, Global TV, CTV, The National 
Post, The Globe and Mail and the CBC, but almost never hear the "other 
side" -- of the Palestinian suffering under a barbaric Israeli military 
occupation -- that Moiseiwitsch portrays so eloquently. 

This distortion in mainstream coverage of the occupation is well 
documented in studies of the US media. For example, a study of the San 
Francisco Chronicle by media watchdog "If Americans Knew" found that, 
between September 2000 and March 2001, the Chronicle reported only six 
percent of Palestinian children's deaths in headlines or lead paragraphs 
while reporting 150 percent of Israeli children's deaths (one teenager's 
death was reported three times). The Chronicle gave readers the 
impression that approximately equal numbers of youths had been killed on 
both sides when Palestinian children were being killed at a far higher 
rate -- 27 per cent of Palestinians killed were under 18 (93 children), 
while only six per cent of Israelis killed were minors (4 children). 

The Jewish Western Bulletin's July 25, 2003 editorial complains that in 
Moiseiwitsch's drawings "Israel Defence Forces soldiers make offensive 
comments to Palestinians, such as 'You are nothing to me, a vile pest to 
be destroyed.'" This would come under the rubric of "just following 
orders" because the former Israeli chief of staff, Rafael Eytan, used to 
talk of the Palestinians as "cockroaches in a glass jar". Prime Minister 
Menachem Begin called them "two-legged beasts" and, in August 2000, 
former General and then Prime Minister Ehud Barak called them 
"crocodiles".

The editorial also denounces images "depicting Jews in stereotypical 
ways." Meanwhile, Johnson's July 25th review takes Moiseiwitsch to task 
for not having drawings of Palestinian "training sessions for 
grenade-throwing pre-teens" or "babies dressed with bomber belts." 
Presumably, depicting Palestinians in stereotypical ways is a requirement 
for legitimate artistic expression about the Middle East. And there's no 
doubt Johnson is an art expert -- he alone has discovered that Goya 
created "Guernica" more than a hundred years before the fascists bombed 
civilians there or Picasso painted the atrocities.

In its August 1, 2003 editorial, the JWB takes particular exception with 
a chapbook entitled "Don't Kill me I'm a 
Tourist/Doctor/Farmer/Student/Child/Labourer/Teacher/Journalist/Shopper/Oth
er - A Travel Guide to Occupied Palestine" that is available at the 
exhibition. Since they weren't in Palestine this spring when the Israeli 
Occupation Army killed a peace activist with a bulldozer and shot two 
more in the head, as well as killing two foreign journalists (all in less 
than two months) the editors of the JWB can be excused for not getting 
the black humour of the chapbook. 

The editorial expresses outrage at the small book's depiction of "Israel 
Defence Forces soldiers as casually homicidal." That seems to tally with 
Gideon Levy's observation in Haaretz ("When killing becomes routine," 
July 13, 2003) that "the lives of Palestinians have become of no value in 
the eyes of the soldiers. The killing of innocent passengers, of unarmed 
passersby and of civilians in their homes has long since ceased to be an 
anomaly."

The editors must also have missed the article by former Israeli Cabinet 
Minister Shulamit Aloni (Haaretz, July 27, 2003) which questions why 
there have been only eight investigations out of the more than 2,200 
cases of Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers. The reason, according 
to the Israeli army's Judge Advocate General, is that there are just too 
many Palestinian deaths to investigate properly. Thus soldiers "are 
allowed to kill them and assassinate them and murder them with out any 
indictment or trial," observes Aloni.

Johnson's August 1st article takes the chapbook to task for depicting 
"Jewish soldiers and citizens as blood-thirsty murderers ready to shoot 
anyone, blow up schools and destroy homes." Not only ready, but willing 
and able according to Israeli human rights groups. The Israeli Campaign 
Against House Demolitions reports that more than 3,000 Palestinian homes 
have been demolished in the Occupied Territories since September 2000. 

According to Betselem, The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in 
the Occupied Territories, in the West Bank and Gaza Strip during the 
current intifada (September 2000-July 2003):
- 2,098 Palestinians were killed by Israeli security forces, of whom 384 
were minors under the age of 18.
- 32 Palestinians were killed by Israeli settlers, including a two 
month-old baby girl.
- Nine foreign citizens were killed by Israeli security forces gunfire.

In the last three years, according to Defense for Children International, 
197 Palestinian schools were damaged by the Israeli army,  185 schools 
were shelled, 11 schools have been completely destroyed, and 25 schools 
have been taken over by the Israeli Occupation Forces for use as army 
barracks and detention centers.

One has to wonder why the Jewish Western Bulletin has dedicated two 
front-page articles and two editorials to a nasty verbal seige of a 
drawing exhibition in a small non-profit gallery in East Vancouver. Yet 
not a single word about the July 21, 2003 report from ACRI, Israel's 
largest human rights group, that documents shocking and savage treatment 
of Palestinian civilians by the Israeli army. Although the JWB could 
easily have been referring to the ACRI report when they wrote "portrays 
Israel as a tyrannical, ever-present, monstrous oppressor" about 
Moiseiwitsch's exhibition.

The JWB editors seem to have underestimated their readers' intelligence 
and ability to see through the smokescreen. Certainly, the editors' call 
for boycotts and demonstrations appears to have backfired. According to 
Hillary Wood, administrator of the grunt gallery, Moiseiwitsch's was the 
best attended show since Wood has been involved with the gallery. She 
noted that the gallery received a steady stream of Jewish visitors after 
the JWB articles were published and virtually all were supportive of 
Moiseiwitsch's work after seeing it. Many of them thanked Wood and the 
gallery for putting on this important exhibition.

The Jewish Western Bulletin articles can be viewed at 
http://jewishbulletin.ca

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