Articulating
The Unprintable
By June Rugh &
Ramzy Baroud
14 November, 2007
Countercurrents.org
Ramzy Baroud, veteran Palestinian-American journalist and Editor-in-Chief
of the Palestine Chronicle, recently completed a speaking tour of the
United States’ East Coast to promote his second book, The Second
Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People’s Struggle (Pluto
Press, 2006). The Second Palestinian Intifada is a far-reaching account
of key events of the past five years that transformed the political
landscape not only of Palestine and Israel, but of the entire Middle
East. With a critical eye, Baroud takes the most controversial issues
head-on: the alarming escalation in suicide bombings, the construction
of the Separation Wall, the devastating hunger and unemployment in the
Occupied Territories, the brutality of the Israeli army, the political
surprise of the Palestinian elections. On November 12, 2007, Baroud
was interviewed by June Rugh, a freelance writer, in Seattle, Washington.
June Rugh: Good afternoon,
Mr. Baroud. Your book, The Second Palestinian Intifada, has been widely
praised by eminent scholars and intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky,
Ilan Pappé, and Norman Finkelstein. Coupled with the national
media awareness of the momentum building towards the US-based Palestinian-Israeli
peace conference, did your book tour receive considerable attention
from the press?
Ramzy Baroud: On the contrary,
the silence has been deafening. Let me clarify: The Second Palestinian
Intifada has received wide coverage in the progressive, alternative,
Asian, African, and Arab media, and has been reviewed many academic
journals, in print and online. But not one corporate newspaper—that
I know of—has touched it so far.
JR: Not one? Are you surprised?
RB: Actually, I’m not
surprised at all. In Western corporate media, it is the most predictable
and consistent practice: if the narrative doesn’t fit the dominant
“liberal” ideology, it is simply omitted. And it’s
not just the media boycott of the book. Sometimes the local newspapers
refused to cover the events of my tour. Rather than straight reportage,
certain newspapers opted to publish defamatory articles and letters
to the editor that chastised the academic institutions for inviting
me to speak and deliberately misinterpreted my comments.
JR: In other words, they
literally replaced your words with other content—a kind of journalistic
ventriloquism. Can you give an example?
RB: The most disturbing case
occurred around my talk at Virginia Wesleyan College, in Norfolk, Virginia.
Norfolk has a powerfully committed antiwar community—in addition
to fourteen military bases, interestingly—and I was very much
looking forward to speaking to this audience. My core message was a
call for justice for the Palestinian people based on coexistence, coupled
with global alternatives to war and racism. In my talks, I always address
other regions of concern in addition to Palestine; notably, Iraq, Venezuela,
and Nicaragua. I feel it’s crucial to give a cross-cultural perspective
to encourage the audience think beyond the usual geopolitical limitations
and ethnocentricities. Yet a local Jewish newspaper announced the event
on the front page as a “pro-Palestinian journalist”—suddenly,
I’m a speaker with a narrow agenda.
JR: What happened when you
spoke at the college?
RB: A local rabbi and his
supporters came and heckled me with questions and outrageous claims.
One said that in 1880 there were more Jews than Christians and Muslims
in Palestine; another claimed that my effort to explain the sociopolitical
context of suicide bombings was the same as endorsing the horrific attacks
of 9/11. Zoberman himself accused me of being a “Hamas sympathizer”;
and since Hamas is on the US State Department’s list of terrorist
groups, his implication is clear.
JR: This brings to mind an
observation by Steven Salaita: that the discourse of mainstream America
is shaped in such a way that if an Arab expresses any feature of political
identity, he or she immediately evokes the “undefined but identifiable
terrorist.”
RB: Yes, I’d say that
applies here. The Rabbi’s supporters followed me to a second event
at a local theatre, and when I refused to modify my statements, he began
a campaign of letter-writing and calling the college and local papers,
describing my message as “poisonous.”
JR: So as far as mainstream
media goes, you—and your book—are either ignored or vilified.
What is it that strikes a nerve? Is it the topic of Palestine, or your
particular perspective?
RB: The subject of Palestine
always strikes a nerve in American media. Even more, though, the fact
that I was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Gaza to a dispossessed
family forced to leave its ancestral village in 1948—leaving behind
burned homes and bullet-riddled bodies—does not make me a desirable
voice for the “liberal” media. I was raised in a place where
I had to negotiate my daily survival among Israeli tanks and soldiers.
As a Palestinian, I advocate for a just peace and dignity for my people,
who remain hostage to the inhumanity of the Israeli occupation; as an
American, I protest my country’s contributions to violence in
the Middle East. This is not the kind of writer that the New York Times
wants to profile. It’s too far out of their readers’ comfort
zone.
JR: So, as a Palestinian,
you find yourself doubly effaced: first, by the Israeli government,
and then again, by the Western press.
RB: Yes, you could say that.
JR: One of the objectives
of your tour was to promote The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle
of a People’s Struggle. What is your primary goal in getting people
to read this book?
RB: To present an alternative
reading of Palestinian history. To help people realize, among other
things, that Palestinians should be praised for their courage in taking
on the risks of democracy; that they should not be forced to suffer,
and a civil war provoked, because their elections resulted in a government
that is not a regime compliant to the US government. That the terms
“extremism” and “moderation,” as used in the
corporate press, are not objective concepts, but rather tied to whether
a government or political agency serves the interests of the Bush administration.
These are concepts you’ll never see in the mainstream media.
JR: So, in a sense, you are
raising awareness that an alternative narrative of Palestinian history
even exists.
RB: Exactly. And this issue
goes beyond me and my particular book. As you know, well-known figures
such as Jimmy Carter, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt—even the
usually untouchable Desmond Tutu—have recently been victims of
smear campaigns, accused of anti-Semitism and so on, simply because
they were presenting the Palestinian perspective and, implicitly or
explicitly, criticizing US and Israeli government policy.
JR: And that’s in the
public forum. It’s striking that even in academia—traditionally,
the last bastion of open debate—there is now also a systematic
silencing of alternative readings of Palestinian history. Norman Finkelstein
was essentially forced to resign position at DePaul University; Ilan
Pappé recently left the University of Haifa for similar reasons.
RB: Even the area of publishing
is no longer safe. Pluto Press, the publisher of my latest book, is
currently fighting for the right to distribute Joel Kovel’s book,
Overcoming Zionism, in the United States. Kovel’s book was published
by Pluto Press and is distributed in America by the University of Michigan
Press, under contract with Pluto. But when the Michigan chapter of the
pro-Israel group StandWithUs denounced the Overcoming Zionism as anti-Israel
propaganda and discredited facts, the university press stopped its distribution.
In early September, the press’s executive board decided to continue
distribution temporarily; but the incident has caused the university
press to review its relationship with Pluto Press, with a decision due
in late November. A statement from the University of Michigan says explicitly
that Pluto Press’s decision to publish Kovel’s book brings
into question the viability of the university’s distribution agreement
with the publisher. So sometimes, quite literally, the phrase “Stop
the press!” is treated as a reasonable request.
JR: In other words, what
we’re seeing is not just a chilling effect, but a deep freeze
that appears to be settling over all alternative sources of information.
Do you have suggestions for people who want to counteract this, who
want to keep these lines of communication open?
RB: Yes. It’s important
to actively support progressive publishing companies such Pluto Press,
and to be aware of the attempts to shut down distribution of their books.
I’d urge everyone to go to their website and see the books they
offer. It is vital to keep information sources flowing to counteract
the deceptively complete discourse presented in the corporate media.
And be aware of other news sources: progressive websites such as Counterpunch,
and other resources such as the Palestine Chronicle, Zmag.org, etc.
JR: It strikes me that by
referring to your book and the progressive press as “alternative
narratives,” we are implicitly affirming the primacy of mainstream
media. Yet the fact is that your book, which deals with on-the-ground
realities of the second intifada, is not “alternative,”
but central, and vital to any real understanding of the Palestinian
struggle.
RB: Quite right. In fact,
if you want a true alternative reality, I’d suggest a front-row
ticket to the upcoming peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland. That
will be a parallel universe constructed to serve the needs of the Bush
administration, with very little to do with the actual needs of either
the Palestinian or the Israeli people. It will be a media spectacle,
starring Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas as the already-disempowered players,
and with little result—except for preserving the US and Israeli
governments’ status quo, and keeping the region ruled by military
occupation, state violence, and, inevitably, terrorism.
JR: One challenging issue
you address in The Second Palestinian Intifada is the increasing violence
used by Palestinians against the Israeli military and Israeli civilians.
You write that it is important to “contextualize this phenomenon,
not to justify it, but to present the Palestinian response as a tragic
yet predictable human reaction to decades of subjugation.” Do
you think it’s possible for the American audience to get beyond
the image of a suicide bomber and see the larger phenomenon behind it?
RB: Yes, I do. I assume intelligent
readers, and thoughtful readers will ultimately be able to put themselves
in the position of the Palestinians described in the book. To eliminate
violence, one must be brave enough to examine the root causes. That
requires a mixture of humility and imagination—a mental exercise
rarely required by the corporate media.
JR: Finally, in practical
terms, how can one buy a copy of The Second Palestinian Intifada?
RB: You can order the book
directly by sending a check of $23 USD, which includes shipping charges,
to Ramzy Baroud, PO Box 196, Mountlake Terrace, WA 98043, USA. If you
have a PayPal account, you can send $23 USD, including your shipping
address: [email protected].
-For more information on
Ramzy Baroud, please visit his website at http://www.ramzybaroud.net.
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