Merely being in the company of hundreds of Palestinian journalists and other
media professionals from all over the world has been an uplifting experience.
For many years, Palestinian media has been on the defensive, unable to articulate
a coherent message, torn between factions and desperately trying to fend off
the Israeli media campaign, along with its falsifications and unending propaganda
or “hasbara”.
It is still too early to claim any kind of paradigm shift, but the second
Tawasol Conference in Istanbul, which took place 18 to 19 May, served as
an opportunity to consider the vastly changing media landscape, and to highlight
the challenges and the opportunities facing Palestinians in their uphill battle.
Not only are Palestinians expected to demolish many years of Israeli disinformation,
predicated on a make-believe historical discourse that has been sold to the
world as fact, but also to construct their own lucid narrative that is free
from the whims of factions and personal gains.
It will not be easy, of course.
My message in the “Palestine in the Media” conference, organized by the Palestine
International Forum for Media and Communication is that, if the Palestinian
leadership is failing to achieve political unity, at least Palestinian intellectuals
must insist on the unity of their narrative. Even the most compromising of Palestinians
can acknowledge the centrality of the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians
and the destruction of their towns and villages in 1947-48.
They can – and should – also agree about the hideousness and violence of the
occupation; the dehumanization at the military checkpoints; the increasingly
shrinking spaces in the West Bank as a result of the illegal settlements and
the colonization of whatever remains of Palestine; the suffocating hold on Occupied
Jerusalem (al-Quds); the injustice of the siege on Gaza, and the one-sided wars
on the Gaza Strip that have killed over 4,000 people, mostly civilians, in the
course of seven years, and much more.
Professor Nashaat Al-Aqtash from Birzeit University, perhaps more realistically,
downgraded the expectations even further. “If we could only agree on how we
present the narrative regarding Al-Quds and the illegal settlements, at least
that would be a start,” he said.
The obvious fact is that Palestinians have more in common than they would like
to admit. They are all victimized by the same circumstances, fighting the same
occupation, suffering the same violations of human rights, and facing the same
future outcome resulting from the same conflict.
However, many are strangely incapable of disconnecting from their tribal-like,
factional affiliations. Of course, there is nothing wrong with having ideological
leanings and supporting one political party over another. It becomes a moral
crisis, though,…