The Guardian runs a piece a hit piece on Israel by Ewa Jasciewicz that makes for compelling reading. Reading it, you are compelled to ask whether she has a pathological hatred of Israel or whether she is simply incapable of thinking her way out of a paper bag. Jasciewicz is the latest martyr to the horrors of Israeli justice, locked up a in hot dry prison cell, suffering daily from its cold dampness, all because she believes, believes I tell you, in social justice and human rights. Well, not exactly.
Life for journalists wanting to report from Israel has just become harder. I was detained two weeks ago by the Israeli authorities while trying to enter the country in order to complete a number of commissions for the British magazine Red Pepper. I have been held in custody at Ben Gurion airport ever since, while appealing against deportation.
In other words, she can just leave.
Then we get a whole series of non sequiturs.
During my initial interrogation at the airport in Tel Aviv I was asked if I knew any violent Palestinians. Responding in the negative, I was told: "We think you do, but we can accept that you don't know that you do."
It shouldn't have come as a surprise to me that the Israeli state sees all Palestinians as potential terrorists. Thus anyone who associates with them is, at best, an unwitting associate.
No. Israeli security thinks it possible that she is incapable of distinguishing terrorists from other Palestinians. In other words, they accept that she might not be an active terrorist, but just a half-wit.
She provides evidence that Israeli security might be on to something.
I believe that I was particularly targeted because of my involvement with the International Solidarity Movement, a non-violent, Palestinian-led organisation that stages protests against the occupation. I am proud to be associated with it. White westerners are not supposed to leave their comparative comfort zones and get involved in violent conflicts in the Middle East. Nor are they supposed to put their bodies between bullets, tanks and children. They are not meant to dismantle government security walls, accompany ambulances, live and laugh with, and grow attached to, "security threat" families and communities.
Note the scare quotes around "security threat". So apparently there aren't any suicide bombers after all, or terrorists, because there aren't any security threats (and do not miss the reference to white westerners). But then she says maybe there are terrorists after all.
Yesterday I accepted in court that I had interviewed terrorists as part of my journalistic work, but maintained that I had not been duped into helping them. I am a journalist and I know when people are being manipulative. I know myself.
She cannot seem to make up her mind. But that precious "I know myself" at the end suggests she does not have any self-image problems. She follows it up with this.
I am happy to declare that my writing has a biased and loaded agenda: the promotion of human rights and social justice. I am motivated by the belief that writing can serve as an agitational tool for those who wish to challenge oppressive realities, demand grassroots power and reclaim lives lost to racist and colonialist agendas.
She writes this without any apparent embarrassment.
The reference to white westerners and racism reminds me of Mandela's comment:
Why should there be one standard for one country, especially because it is black, and another one for another country, Israel, that is white.
The most famous refutation of that racist tripe came here.So is Jasciewicz a deranged Israel hater who makes up racist lies about the country, or is she, as Thurber said of one of his characters in "University Days", that she isn't dumber than an ox, but then again, isn't any smarter? Beats me.Posted by sjostrom on August 26, 2004 10:53 AM
