Is it the media or are they just plain prejudiced

Is it the media or are they just plain prejudiced?

Laila Yaghi

6/12/02

I often ask myself, why do many Americans side by the Israelis? Is it the media or are they just extremely prejudiced against Arabs?

The media has certainly played a huge effect on the American mind, but many Americans have always been prejudiced throughout history against any minority. I have tried to convince myself over and over again that Americans are not prejudiced and that they are much bigger than that. But the reality is that many of them are prejudiced and they are not “much bigger than that.”

The media has certainly played an important role in all of this; nonetheless, many articles have been published on what is really going on in Palestine. Many Palestinian American students have tried to inform Americans through articles about the reality in Israel. There were many pictorial evidence and many articles written by even Jewish writers about what is really going on in Palestine. Despite all these articles, Americans continue to blame the Palestinians for the violence and unstable conditions in Israel.

As a College student, I did many projects on the Palestinian people. I explained the history of the Palestinian people; how they existed from time immemorial in Palestine and now the Zionists are claiming Palestine as their own. I furthermore, explained to the students the devastations that Palestinians face in their daily lives; from water resources and land taken away from them, to poverty and hopelessness. I showed pictures of little children, no more than twelve, throwing rocks on Israeli soldiers carrying guns, but none of the students showed any interest to any of my topics. I only had one student defending the Israelis’ and another asking me, “If there is going to be any peace in that region”! I felt that the students were insensible and thus my hopelessness intensified.

The Washington Report is an excellent monthly magazine that talks about what is going on in Israel and other countries in the Middle East. Yet, the Americans are reluctant to side by the Palestinians or at least empathize with their suffering!

The media here in USA has mendaciously shown stories about Israelis helping injured or sick Palestinians in hospitals and treating the Palestinians as equals to the Israelis. While many articles on the net have been published contradicting these stories. In fact a Dutch Doctor was denied access to enter Israel. The Doctor was a volunteer who tried to bring medicine to help the Palestinians. The Doctor was returned to his country after being detained for ten hours! And what about the ambulances that were forbidden to enter Jenin to help the injured, are these Palestinians treated as equals to Israelis? The US media down sizes the suffering and agony of the Palestinians while on the other hand intensifies the suffering of the Israelis!

Yet, Bush seems to constantly blame Arafat for not initiating peace. Look at his statement, asking Arafat to condemn the suicide bombing in Arabic! What language does Arafat speak? As Rachelle Marshall States in the Washington Report:

“Rice did not say how Arafat could have done either when he was under house arrest…Nor did she explain how Arafat can arrest militants while the Israelis kill his security forces, bomb his jails and courtrooms and destroy their records.”

More and more articles are written about Palestine and despite the biased media and constant defamations against Palestinians and Muslims, I will never give up hope that one day the Palestinians will rise from the “holocaust” and become a very strong independent nation.