a note on Aus media & Palestine

before I submitted my article to @OverlandJournal ( https://overland.org.au/2021/05/violence-in-jerusalem-is-the-rule-not-an-exception/), i sent to Eureka Street. They've been one of the only outlets in this country who regularly commission & publish pieces critical of Israel, so I thought they'd be keen.

the assistant editor at ES said they've already got a piece on Palestine commissioned & they haven't got the budget for another one. I said I don't need to be paid - just run it! - no reply
I reframed it to make it more topical & said - run it next week. This is free content.

ES came back to me saying - the editorial board decided this piece can't be placed. This surprised me.

So, i've been checking their website to see what piece they commissioned on Palestine.

And today, I found it.

The article is not written by a Palestinian. It's written by a "Catholic faith-educator" who is on a study tour in Israel

A study tour. An article by an observer looking in - the image i get is of a spectator in a zoo

The article offers no critical insight, is vague & general

it opens:

"The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is multi-dimensional has deep roots and no easy answers. Who is the oppressor? Who is the oppressed?"

Really? It is very difficult for you to know who is oppressor & who is oppressed? After all your study-tours, this evades you?

intellectualising settler-colonialism & apartheid is not the clever move you might think it is.

to say "this is very complex. who knows who is oppressed!" when Jewish Israeli people don't worry about their homes being displaced, their children being imprisoned, when there is no military occupation of their homes & lives, is to say "I don't know what oppression is"

or, it is to say "i know what oppression is, and i choose to ignore it".

i will leave you to decide which is worse - ignorance, or deliberate blindness

the article aims to maintain a degree of balance, as if it is possible to straddle the world of the coloniser and the world of the colonised in any equitable manner

but of course, it is impossible. and the lack of balance devastates your argument

there are no two sides. yes, the colonial world is a manichaean world, but don't let this fool you that the duality of this world is in any way balanced.

to stand today and say that settler-colonial violence
has "no easy answers" is to wilfully misunderstand the question

this is not about how to keep "both sides represented". or, as the paper LITERALLY writes 'Don't be too pro-Palestinian. Don't be too pro-Israeli. Desire peace for both.'

This is about recognising injustice & dispossession and calling it for what it is

Now, I'm not salty about ES not running my piece - I'm furious that an editorial board can say "we already have an article about Palestine" & then run something that is entirely NOT about Palestine.

Something that is entirely objectifying and uncritical

that an editorial board has made THIS decision, at THIS time, illustrates the violence that Australian media does in their deliberate choices when it comes to Palestine.

I wrote the article as a measure of solidarity & to help carry some of the load that my Palestinian comrades carry.

Centre Palestinian voices.

Don't support media that doesn't.

here is a correction - thanks @Jeff_Sparrow

the article was in fact published in 2019, and it is the most recent one with the tag 'Palestine'.

So, the editorial board that said they're running a piece on Palestine lied

I'm even more furious now https://twitter.com/derridalicious/status/1391567989355339777