NPR and the Gaza pullout
The Israeli pullout of Gaza is finally over, the last settler moved. I’m heartened by the progress on the ground, the sense that on at least a part of the occupied territory the Palestinians have their land back, and in parts of Israel some citizens are probably safer. Nonetheless, there are so many unknowns that a few fears keep gnawing at me. The unilateral character of Israel’s pullout, while perhaps necessary given the lack of real control by the Palestinian Authority, has left Gaza chaotic. The whole moment seems a curious mélange of promise and peril, and only time will tell which will win out.
Given this complex reality, I’ve been amazed at the lack of detailed discussion in the mainstream American media. The focus has overwhelmingly been on the settlers, many thousands of images of their anguish. At one point this weekend, the emphasis reached the level of absurdity on NPR, which chose to air a clip in which a Holocaust survivor compared the current nonviolent, financially-compensated relocation by a democratically-elected government with the extermination of the Jews by the Nazis. Before and after the clip, NPR provided little context into when, where, and how Israel annexed the land, nor what the likely affect on Israeli security would be. What's worse, Palestinian voices were essentially absent from the discussion. How odd it is that even our most trustworthy news stations went for a simplistic analysis and some striking quotes, rather than in-depth analysis.
