By The news all over the world are blaring about the ongoing debacle in Gaza: a million people suffering collective punishment with no power in the dead of winter. There are reports of hospital patients dying preventable deaths in their beds. The latest update is that Israel will allow “some food” into the blockaded area. Hamas leadership, meanwhile, is grandstanding.
I’m not one of those people who believes that Israel out to be destroyed, “pushed out into the sea,” or whatever. But I do believe that Israel needs to take steps toward change. This has to do with the fact that I see a real problem with the way that this nation’s leaders have conducted themselves in the region. I see a further problem with most American politicians’ blind support for practically anything Israeli politicians say or do. Of course, anything other than blind support may quickly earn you the title of anti-Semite and/or terrorist supporter (now, now, I don’t think that anti-Semitism is not a serious issue, but the way in which it gets invoked in regards to the present conflict does make it seem as though some folk have decided to hijack the cause against it). Don’t like what’s happening in Gaza today, for example? Keep your trap shut, you just might get smeared.
I also see a problem with any sort of blind support of the activities of the Palestinian leadership. Palestinian leadership has not been great. At all. The violence of various factions have not gotten Palestine anywhere. And Hamas in particular doesn’t know PR (among other things they clearly don’t know). I’ve often wondered if Hamas cares about the terrible present conditions and the people affected by them as much as they care about ideas. Now, it’s easy for me to talk smack about a group of folks that have been living under severe restrictions for many years. It’s easy for me to lecture Palestinians from the relative safety of my present home. Yet, a serious conflict requires serious solutions nonetheless.
Speaking of solutions, there is a variety of them on the table. Both Jews and Muslims have been busy trying to work things out. And yet, we rarely hear about progress and the possibility of progress. As Gaza shivers in winter, all we hear about is the seeming inevitability of conflict, suffering, and destruction. Many of us resign ourselves to it. We shift the paper aside, and shrug, and pour a cup of coffee, and listen to the latest round of grotesque Britney gossip, and go on with our day.
So here is my question: where the hell is Bono? Where is that multitude of glamorously somber celebrities to draw our glitter-hungry gaze to what’s happening, right now, right in this very moment, to the Gazans? To remind us to stop being so heartless, to speak out? Where is that topical MTV music video with passionately flailing guitars? That magazine cover? Don’t tell me they’ve got no clue as to what is going on over there.
Sure, people have their pet causes. They can’t be in ten different places at the same time. Private jet fuel doesn’t come cheap. And lots and lots of people besides Gazans are also suffering as I type this piece. I get that part. And yet it strikes me as particularly telling that Gaza, and the latest crisis that has the entire world’s attention, is being virtually ignored by people who make their living from getting attention.
Are the issues just too tough? The possibility of being labeled an anti-Semite, or, better yet, “a self-loathing Jew” (can’t speak for everyone, but many of my Jewish friends who have criticized Israel’s policies have gotten that label, and pretty forcefully too) just too daunting? Or is it the more radical subset of the Left that celebrities simply don’t want to get involved with (sometimes, I can’t say I blame them)? Is there such a thing as a “trendy” cause, and does Palestine in general, and Gaza in particular, not conform to whatever requirements needed to be awarded such status?
So what’s going on here? Am I being silly in even asking such questions? Surely not. Bloggers for Palestine (and various non-profit organizations) clearly are paying attention to how media coverage and rhetoric play into the ongoing conflict.
And in today’s world, the cover of Vanity Fair can play as crucial a role as a statement from a top-level politician. So where is it?
Do most big celebrities and their handlers only really “care” about others for as long as it’s convenient to do so? Do these people just squeeze their publicist-approved activism in between the latest awards ceremony and waxing appointment, making sure it isn’t too complicated or difficult to talk about? Nothing personal against Bono and people like Bono (for the record: Bono does strike me as someone who, in fact, cares about the miserable state of our sorry little world), but you do have to wonder.
Is this the way it’s always going to go, for Gaza, for Palestine?
[...] Of Gaza Jump to Comments I am having certain suspicions concerning Bono & [...]
Brilliant piece Natalia. Thank you so much for expressing these ideas. How can it be that Bono and Sting, who have championed virtually every cause under the sun, never spoke up for Palestinian suffering. I think Arabcomment should forward this artilce to Bono’s PR company, and demand an answer.
Definitely a good piece Natalia. (Hi from the MWU blog)
I have been observing these rock star bandwagon efforts for a good long while. I question how much effect they have five minutes after the guitars stop twanging and the last table with pamphlets closes up. Then these socially active music fans move on to their five minutes of effort on green fuel, PETA, or whatever cause catches their momentary fancy. Short attention span is rampant these days and growing. Look at the effect Sean Penn had. He was laughed at and everyone here thought he was an ineffectual dolt for sticking his nose into politics.
The problem with these guys is that they are not politicians or activists, they are pop stars whose power is in their fame, not their solutions and long term involvement. They flash on the TV screen for five minutes and it’s over. End of awareness.
I actually think that smaller efforts more sustained, less glitzy bursts of attention but more insidious that hammer at people will have more impact. Blogs are great, but blogs that only reach “the choir” so to speak are not effective in changing oppositional minds. Attacks and insults in eloquent essays are not either, and they only cause the opposition to hunker down and recircle.
So, the strategy would seem to be in reaching, gently and compellingly, the open spots in minds that can be made to see reason, and increasingly, reason for all of us is, do we want to stay alive and not living as scavengers upon the face of a ruined globe.
Very good indeed!
Have you read Bernard Avishai’s post with regard to this? He writes: “This is not the first time (what we call) our world has seen this kind of thing. It may be the first time it just looks away.”
I think this is an important comment – from both of you. I hope you don’t mind if I post your comment at Media Lens.
P.S. I’m glad I discovered your blog. Thanks for linking.
Nice one, Natalia. I also wonder where Bono (and the rest of the world’s philanthropists) go when the poo hits the fan down in Gaza.
I’d be willing to bet that most philanthropists are steering clear of the Palestinian issue because helping any Palestinian would mark you on government radars all around the world as a potential helper to Izzedine al-Qassam, Islamic Jihad, or worse, al Qaeda.
Moreover, it is impossible to speak about Israel unless: 1) your argument comes to a favorable conclusion about Israel; 2) you first mention the laundry list of things wrong with all Arabs, all Muslims, and all non-Jews in the region; 3) you recognize and establish, in no uncertain terms, your belief that Israel has the “right to exist.”
I’ve been on the receiving end of slung dung as both an alleged anti-Semite and avid Zionist. Strange how one topic will gain a kid enmity on all sides. Being labeled an anti-Semite, however, is much riskier than being labeled an Israel apologist or Jewish supremacist (despite the fact that I am very brown and goyim to my core).
You can lose your job, reputation, and respect as an anti-Semite, even if all you say is Israel has no right to exist (and I will bail myself out right here and now by saying no country has a right to exist). By tying Israel to all Jews everywhere, proponents of the Jewish state have a bulletproof defense, and I have to admit that I’m a bit jealous. I sometimes wish American liberals had a gimme like that. Perhaps then we could silence the goons broadcasting on AM radio for good.
In the end, though, it’s a matter of safety. Reach your hand out to help the Israelis and you are a righteous gentile. Reach your hand out to help Palestinians and you are a terrorist sympathizer pitying a population who deserved their own destruction because they wouldn’t just accept military defeat and be done with it (feel free to insert any of these outright lies: 1) “Palestine” never existed, 2) there’s a Palestinian state called Jordan despite the UN resolution in ‘48 splitting Israel and Palestine, 3) Jewish “settlers” bought all the land they occupy, 4) Palestinians left of their own accord, 5) there have always been Jews in the area, so that means all Jews have more rights than all Palestinians to the land).
[...] via Arab comment Speaking of solutions, there is a variety of them on the table. Both Jews and Muslims have been busy trying to work things out. And yet, we rarely hear about progress and the possibility of progress. As Gaza shivers in winter, all we hear about is the seeming inevitability of conflict, suffering, and destruction. Many of us resign ourselves to it. We shift the paper aside, and shrug, and pour a cup of coffee, and listen to the latest round of grotesque Britney gossip, and go on with our day. [...]
Unfortunately, there probably aren’t many album sales in speaking up for the Gazans.
Great article Natalia, as always.
But I have another question: where is the young Arab elite that claims its roots from Palestine, that spend hours criticizing the politic of Israel and the US from the confort of their home elsewhere? Why don’t they stop complaining and dig their hand for real in the heart of Palestine? Don’t you think this well educated, well paid, and well brought up society is more of a remedy to the unbearable injustices happening in Palestine than the Bono of this world?
My response will be this blog.
U have to review it. One of my friends built it and send me an invitation to review.
My answer is out there…!!
http://politicknife.blogspot.com/
Look no further Natalia. Bono has been found. He has spent this week in Davos talking about the environment with Al Gore. It’s a tough job chasing a Nobel Peace Prize, but somebody’s gotta do it!
hi wat is you contere