The picture worth a thousand words

Aijaz Zaka Syed

This article was first published on November 16 2006

That night my editor went down twice to go home and then came back wondering if we, after all, should carry that particular picture on Page One. I didn’t blame him. As editor, he had to keep his readers’ sensitivities and sensibilities always in mind.And that picture of a young Palestinian woman stuffed in the drawer of Beit Hanoun morgue with her two daughters — a toddler and another one and half-year old — lying next to her was too stunning and too disconcerting even for us who are in the business of news and come across scenes of death and destruction almost on a daily basis.

The young mother, Sanah Assamna, looked as if she had just fallen asleep after having lulled her loved ones to sleep. It was just too beautiful and too painful! How could Israel’s brave soldiers kill such lovely and innocent creatures while they slept in the comfort and safety of their homes in Beit Hanoun that Tuesday night?

My boss was right to fret if by splashing such pictures on our front page, we would upset our readers. "We don’t want our readers to stare at dead bodies at their breakfast table, for God’s sake, do we?" shouted news editor from across the newsroom.

"He is right," the editor nodded in agreement. "Although I agree that this is the picture of the day — and very arresting and striking at that, we cannot publish such disturbing scenes of cruelty on Page One."

"But when the guys who are responsible for this depravity against women and children are least embarrassed about it, why should we have any qualms in bringing this to light?" I persisted.

Eventually and thankfully, we went ahead and published that picture after I pleaded with my colleagues to trust my news judgment. And I was right. That picture in cold print the next morning just leapt at you. Very striking and very, very moving!

Anyone who is blessed with children or has been a child wouldn’t remain unaffected and unmoved by this picture of complete innocence and the sheer barbarity of Israel to kill it. Seven of the 18 killed that Tuesday night in Beit Hanoun were young children, many of them toddlers. But then this is not the first time Israel has resorted to such depravity. We have been here before — with nauseating persistence. From the razing of Sabra and Shatila to the blood-letting of Jenin and Beit Hanoun, there has always been a macabre method in Israel’s madness. After all, Israel has to defend itself, as US President Bush points out every time the Israelis cowardly uses its brute force against men, women and children who have nothing to defend themselves.

And what is the big deal if it ends up killing a Palestinian woman here, a Palestinian toddler there in collateral damage. The children of Israel after all have a divine right to this ancient land. What if Palestinians have been living there for centuries? Besides, who cares if some ‘stateless’ people are bombed in the dead of night. They do it all the time those Palestinians — blowing themselves up! They are not like us. They are tormented by this irrepressible, eternal death wish. They have no love for life. They do not eat and drink like you and me. They have no families, no children and no homes to belong to. They have no dreams. They suffer no pain. They shed no tears. Actually, they do not exist for all we care.

Which is why the world does not lose its sleep when Palestinian lives are snuffed out across the large, rotting prison that the occupied territory is. Which is why every time Arab and Muslim states make regulation noises in the UN about the persecution of Palestinians, they are quickly shouted down by the Israel-US combine. The US veto power comes handy to shoot down even perfunctory and totally pointless UN attempts to hold Israel accountable. Just as the US has done in the case of UN resolution censuring Israel on the madness of Beit Hanoun.

US ambassador John Bolton rejected the resolution by arguing it “does not display an even-handed characterisation of the recent events in Gaza, nor does it advance the cause of Israeli-Palestinian peace.”

What even-handedness, ambassador Bolton? When you have women and children — as young as six-month old who in their sleep didn’t even know they were in the line of Israel’s fire — pitted against the brute and full might of a terrorist state, what even-handedness are we talking about? And what peace? How could you talk of peace when Israel continues to bomb an impoverished and hungry people?

But then this isn’t the first time the US has sprung to the defence of its trusted ally and friend. There’s a long history of Washington protecting the killers of a people whose only crime is that they were born in the land that is sacred to three great faiths. The UN resolution slamming Israel’s attack on Beit Hanoun was the fourth in three years that was vetoed by Washington.

And what even if the UN Security Council manages to pass a resolution reprobating Israel? It’s hardly likely to make any difference to Palestinians. It hasn’t in the past. This UN resolution too will be consigned to the dustbin of history where there are many such worthless resolutions, passed by the world body after elaborate diplomatic shenanigans. Israel has yet to implement a single one of them. So much for the persuasive powers of the ‘international’ community!

Truth be told, if any one can stop Israel’s terrorism, it is the US of A. And it must, if it does not want the infinite suffering of Palestinians to radicalise the whole of Arab and Muslim world. The US must rein in Israel, if it wants to protect its long-term interests in the Middle East and worldwide. It must stop playing the devil’s advocate.
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Article published here: Khaleej Times. Photo: TopPictures.com
URL: http://www.a-w-i-p.com/index.php/2013/02/26/the-picture-worth-a-thousand