This is really remarkable, but not untypical for National Public Radio: a report (from Eric Westervelt, on yesterday's All Things Considered) on Israeli far-right and racist politician Avigdor Lieberman, head of Israel's Israel Beiteinu party. Lieberman's party came out number three in Israel's recent elections, ahead of Labor. It did so well in large part because of its calls for Israel's Palestinian Arab citizens to take loyalty oaths, and its plans to employ "transfer" (i.e. ethnic cleansing) in order to "solve" the Palestine/Israel territory dispute (that is, to "exchange" Palestinian Arab villages in Israel for Jewish settlements in the West Bank).
If you do a news report on a racist politician, it seems that you could find at least one voice from the ethnic/racial minority that is under threat. But Westervelt managed to produce his report without quoting a single Palestinian voice. Only Israeli Jews, seemingly, are qualified to talk about Lieberman.
Not to mention that Westervelt employs the term, "Israeli Arab," throughout his report. Palestinian citizens of Israel reject this terminology vigorously, since it is a designation designed by the Israeli Zionist establishment in order to erase their Palestinian identity.
Come on, NPR, you can do better.
6 comments:
"Palestinian citizens of Israel reject this terminology vigorously, since it is a designation designed by the Israeli Zionist establishment in order to erase their Palestinian identity."
They, do, however, believe in empowering fat Arkansans to speak on their behalf.
I don't speak on their behalf, I only report on criticisms that many of them have made of this term over the last 50 years or so. I happen to have met many Palestinian citizens over the years, the first time in 1961. In the Galilee, in the Triangle, and in the Negev.
Incidentally, hiking around in these areas has helped me avoid being 'fat.' I do cop to being an Arkansan.
It's a bit petty. Surely you met some who call themselves Arab Israelis? I have, and that's without trying.
Some Kossovar Moslems prefer to be called Albanian, some don't.
Intriguing parallel! So Anonymous is arguing that the status of Muslim and Christian Israelis is similar to the status of Muslim Serbs? Maybe NATO could do something about that. :)
John:
You supported NATO's genocidal bombings of Belgrade????
LOL! I was speaking more about the multi-state solutions that followed the invasions.
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