Hurrah for a 'Journalist'

A Palestinian boy who lost his family members in an Israeli air strike. Photo Courtesy: Reuters

While covering the recent Israeli savagery in Gaza, Swedish Radio correspondent Johan-Matthias Sommarstrom was approached by a little boy as he returned to his hotel after a day of reporting in the troubled Strip.
The Palestinian boy, about six years old, had dressed up as a journalist with a homemade flak jacket. "I'm a journalist, I am reporting on what is happening here, this is my flak jacket." the boy told Sommarstrom, who loaned him his Press helmet to complete the look. The youngster stood proud as he posed for the camera.
Sommarstrom said on Swedish Radio: "He has seen us journalists go in and out of the hotel, he has seen that we survive. I think that in his pretending play he wants to be like us, someone who survives."

Sommarstrom posted the picture on Twitter with the caption: 'Young boy in #Gaza pretending to be a journalist with his home-made flak jacket had to lend him my helmet.'

The image from Gaza has become a symbol of the sufferings Palestinians have been going through since the fighting between Israel and Hamas militants broke out on July 8.

No Israeli civilians were killed by Hamas in 2013 or 2014 before Israel Defence Forces launched Operation Protective Edge on July 8 in the Hamas-governed Gaza Strip earlier this summer in response to the killing of three Israeli teenagers. There is no evidence that the killing of the three Israeli teenagers was under direct order of Hamas. What ensued is not a war—rather; it was a top military power unleashing massive firepower against an occupied Palestinian population.

If three American citizens were killed by Mexican drug traffickers on the US-Mexico border, would that entitle the US military to bomb entire Mexico City?

Before an open-ended ceasefire was announced on 26 August, more than 2100 Palestinians were killed, most of them civilians. Sixty six Israeli soldiers, six Israeli civilians, and one foreign worker were also killed. The great disparity between the casualties on the two sides once again shows that the Israeli military action has been disproportionate. By attacking civilians in their homes, bombing hospitals, schools and infrastructure, Israel gave up the principle of attacking only military targets. Israeli tanks also indiscriminately sprayed flechettes (small darts) in densely populated areas like Gaza.

“I am reporting on what is happening here,” said the young 'journalist'.

Hamas's incessant rocket salvos violate international law, but caused only one death. Although every life is valuable, the magnitude of Hamas's violations pale in comparison to Israel's war crimes. We must remember that the Holocaust does not give Israel immunity from criticism, nor can every critique on Israel's policies be brushed off as anti-Semitism.

The real question is this: What are the objectives of Israel—the superior power in this asymmetrical conflict—in Gaza? A war every two or three years isn't particularly convincing. When there is no clear-cut strategy on either side, both can claim victory, which they have.

In fact, the overwhelmingly disproportionate responses by the Israeli war machine are creating a new kind of problem for Israel—in the domains of diplomacy, regional politics and international law, Israel's legitimacy is seriously questioned. In European capitals and elsewhere, Israel is being denounced as a “terrorist state.”
In a recently published article in Project Syndicate, Shlomo Ben-Ami, a former Israeli foreign minister, writes, “Contrary to what Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu believes, the main existential threat facing the country is not a nuclear-armed Iran. The real peril is to be found at home: the corrosive effect of the Palestinian problem on Israel's international standing. The devastation caused by Israel's periodic asymmetrical confrontations, combined with the continuing occupation of Palestinian lands and the ever-growing expansion of settlements, has fueled a growing campaign to undermine Israel's legitimacy.”

Many believe that Israel's Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement will serve no other purpose than bringing about the implosion of the Jewish state. The challenge, therefore, for Israel is to set clearly defined political goals. As long as the Palestinian conflict remains unresolved, Israel's moral foundations and international standing keep getting weaker.

Israel must start with lifting the blockade and opening Gaza to the world. The social conditions the people in Gaza live in should be improved. Hamas must disarm. At the same time, The US, the UN, the EU and Russia must use all their muscles—political and diplomatic—to resume negotiations for a solution acceptable to both parties.

The Israel-Palestine conflict is unique. It is an infinitely complex odyssey of two nations with exclusive claims on sacred lands and religious shrines that are central to the faiths of millions of people worldwide. Conflicts like this never determine who is right—only who is left. Innocent lives including those of children are lost. But who's counting with both sides claiming God to be on their side?

Our little boy does not understand all that. In the middle of the macabre calculus of bloodshed, he dresses up as a journalist. He wants to live. But he does more than just that. Instead of just trying to survive, which he could have achieved by hiding somewhere, he finds a purpose to live for. “I am reporting on what is happening here,” he says. He wants the world to know.

May be it is the power of his “reporting” that has brought about the ceasefire.