Last week, Students for Justice in Palestine held a demonstration on the UCLA campus as part of the International Day of Action for Palestine, an annual event held on college campuses around the world. An article in the Daily Bruin covered the story with quotes from both SJP organizers and Bruins for Israel organizers in its attempts to achieve balanced and unbiased reporting. However, in providing background information, The Bruin provided a censored context for readers which contributes to the erasure of Palestine, Palestinian life and Palestinian identity.
The second sentence of the article argues how the SJP event “took place a day after multiple terrorist attacks in Jerusalem and central Israel (which) left three Israelis dead.” This sentence is followed by an abrupt transition to a description of the SJP demonstration on the UCLA campus. To the untrained eye, this may seem absolutely uninteresting. Many students will have read this sentence and continued on without a second glance. But to those conscious and aware of the systematic and sweeping attempts to erase Palestinian life, this rhetorical setup is very dangerous. The Bruin mentions the deaths of the Israelis without even so much as mentioning that Palestinians are also being killed, let alone, the overwhelming number of Palestinians being killed, the military occupation of their land, the bulldozing of their homes and on and on.
I say this because media erasure of Palestinian deaths is a fundamental aspect of maintaining the Israeli occupation. By reducing Palestinian life to something disposable, unimportant and unreportable, the killing of Palestinians becomes permissible. For those unaware of the media tactic to disappear Palestinians, it is a process by which the media reconstructs the occupation, the attacks on Palestine and the ongoing lopsided brutality between an occupier and the occupied as sterilized political actions lacking violence. I find it irresponsible and ultimately dangerous, that The Bruin would take part in such a callous political project.
Therefore, I have decided to rectify the limitations of last week’s article by reproducing the names of the Palestinians killed by Israelis and the Israeli Defense Forces since Oct. 1, the beginning of the third intifada. All 44 of them.
Mohannad Halabi, 19. Al-Bireh, on the northern outskirts of the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Fadi Alloun, 19. Jerusalem.
Amjad Hatem al-Jundi, 17. Hebron, West Bank.
Thaer Abu Ghazala, 19. Jerusalem.
Abdul-Rahma Obeidallah, 11. Bethlehem, West Bank.
Hotheifa Suleiman, 18. Tulkarem, West Bank.
Wisam Jamal, 20. Jerusalem.
Mohammad al-Ja’bari, 19. Hebron, West Bank.
Ahmad Jamal Salah, 20. Jerusalem.
Ishaq Badran, 19. Jerusalem.
Mohammad Said Ali, 19. Jerusalem.
Ibrahim Ahmad Mustafa Awad, 28. Hebron, West Bank.
Ahmad Abedullah Sharakka, 13. Al Jalazoun refugee camp near the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Mostafa Al Khateeb, 18. Sur Baher, Jerusalem.
Hassan Khalid Manassra, 15. Jerusalem.
Mohamed Nathmie Shamassnah, 22. Kutneh-Jerusalem.
Baha’ Elian, 22. Jabal Al Mokaber, Jerusalem.
Mutaz Ibrahim Zawahra, 27. Bethlehem, West Bank.
Ala’ Abu Jammal, 33. Jerusalem.
Bassem Bassam Sidr, 17. Hebron, West Bank.
Ahmad Abu Sh’aban, 23. Jerusalem.
Ibraheem Dar-Yousif, 46. Al Janyia village, west of the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Fadi Al-Darbi, 30. Jenin, West Bank.
Eyad Khalil Al Awawdah, age unknown. Hebron, West Bank.
Ihab Hannani, 19. Nablus, West Bank.
Fadel al-Qawasmi, 18. Hebron, West Bank.
Mo’taz Ahmad ‘Oweisat, 16. Jerusalem.
Bayan Abdul-Wahab al-‘Oseyli, 16. Hebron, West Bank.
Tariq Ziad an-Natsha, 22. Hebron, West Bank.
Omar Mohammad al-Faqeeh, 22. from Qotna village, near Jerusalem.
Shadi Hussam Doula, 20. Gaza.
Ahmad Abdul-Rahman al-Harbawi, 20. Gaza.
Abed al-Wahidi, 20. Gaza.
Mohammad Hisham al-Roqab, 15. Gaza.
Adnan Mousa Abu ‘Oleyyan, 22. Gaza.
Ziad Nabil Sharaf, 20. Gaza.
Jihad al-‘Obeid, 22. Gaza.
Marwan Hisham Barbakh, 13. Gaza.
Khalil Omar Othman, 15. Gaza.
Nour Rasmie Hassan, 30. Gaza.
Rahaf Yihiya Hassan, 2. Killed along with her mother in an Israeli airstrike, Gaza.
Yihya Farahat, 23. Gaza.
Shawqie Jaber Obed, 37. Gaza,
Moahmed Ehmeed, age unknown. Gaza.
Jadalizadeh is a graduate student in gender studies.
And how many of these Palestinians died after trying to kill Israeli civilians, most likely influenced by the vehemently antisemitic Palestinian media? Come on, these things don’t happen in a vacuum.
Thanks for highlighting the widespread media bias against the plight of Palestinians that most people in America have little clue what is really going on.
Israel is a racist terror state built on lies and violence.
It’s the occupation, refusal to let the refugees return, Jim Crow laws of Israel, apartheid in the West Bank, seige on Gaza,and legal limbo with constant threats of further ethnic cleansing for Jerusalemite Palestinians
It’s not bias if it’s based on fact.
I mean if you really want to not disappear the Palestinians so named above, perhaps next to the location you can add the description of what they were doing when they were killed.
I’ll start you off:
Mohannad Halabi – allegedly killed 2 Israeli men, stabbed a woman and her child
Fadi Alloun – allegedly chased by a mob and shot by police
Amjad Hatem al-Jundi – allegedly stabbed an Israeli soldier and stole his gun
Thaer Abu Ghazala – allegedly shot by Israeli security man for allegedly stabbing an Israeli soldier and three others in Tel Aviv
I’ll let someone else finish the list but 3 of 4 being alleged terrorists is not a good start. Going around and stabbing people with knives and machetes should be something condemned.
If you want Palestinian identity to be tied to people who are driving over bystanders walking on the sidewalk, and then hacking them with machetes to death, that is your prerogative. I would advise against that identity. Propping up terrorists to the same level as innocents will not help your cause.
Could some of these people been arrested rather than killed? Perhaps. That’s a legitimate question and concern. But the man with the machete was shot and kept trying to attack people and was shot and kept trying to attack until he was finally shot dead. In that case, I imagine most people would agree that he had to be repeatedly shot. Is he in that list? If he’s in the list, then it is possible the other people did the same thing. See this is the problem with equating terrorists with innocent people. Don’t do it, you are only hurting your cause.
There are people who want to support the Palestinians. And then you go and praise terrorists and we take a step back. Running around and stabbing people and then getting killed will not create sympathy.
Yes, the media probably has a bias. Guess what, so do you. And it makes your cause harder to take seriously when you rage about the media bias and then in the same letter say look at these poor people killed and the first 3 of 4 were killed either during their attacks or when they were being arrested. It’s disingenuous to say this list is of innocent people killed by Israel and just stop at that. Stop honoring people who killed innocent people.
But murdering Jews is part of their culture. Are you against Palestinian culture? What are you, intolerant?
Thank you for revealing the media bias towards Palestinians. Listing the locations where Palestinians were killed demonstrate who is the aggressor and who is the oppressed. It is absurd to think violence can be avoided if a country establish settlements in another’s territory, call the indigenous people terrorists, and destroy certain population’s homes. Let’s say one day, Canada builds settlements in North Dakota, while destroying the indigenous people’s homes. Then, people and the government would react, violence will rise, and people will resist. Then, Canada cannot argue she is protecting their citizens in settlements from terrorists or that people in North Dakota don’t want to share lands. If ordinary people, militias, or soldiers get killed from both sides, it is the aggressor’s fault. It is the fault of the country that builds settlements and erases other population. The same thing applies here: the violence is the result of expansionist and apartheid policies of the country that builds settlements and commits ethnic cleansing.
Jews are a tribal people. They are the indigenous inhabitants of Judea/Israel just as the arabs hail from Arabia. The Jews have maintained their connection to the land just as Dine and Lakota have kept their loyalty to the land. The arabs there, most of whom came within the last hundred years, are colonizers of the Jewish Homeland. Did you know that the old Jews used to be buried with a bag of dirt from the Holy Land, so important was/is the connection between the Jewish People and the land? We have always maintained presence there, though not in the majority because of laws passed by the Arabs forbidding our living in our ancestral lands. Now we have returned in our majority. The arabs that live there, though they have not been there very long and are invaders ,have standing, but not a veto. If they pay their taxes, are good neighbors, serve in the forces, then they can be part of the shining light that Israel represents in the region. If not, then they will have to return to their ancestral homelands.