When a family of nine is killed in an airstrike, what is the proper way to grieve?
That question might not occur to you, but readers of the New York Times (11/20/12) were treated to correspondent Jodi Rudoren‘s unusual critique of a funeral for members of the Dula family, whose home in Gaza City was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike on Sunday.
New York Times (11/20/12)
“There were few if any visible tears at the intense, chaotic, lengthy funeral,” she wrote. “Instead, there were fingers jabbing the air to signal ‘Allah is the only one,’ defiant chants about resistance and calls for revenge, flags in the signature green of Hamas and the white of its Al Qassam Brigades.”
She added:
At the destroyed Dalu family home, a man climbed atop the pile of rubble where a dozen photographers had positioned themselves and hoisted the body of one of the four dead children into the air several times, as though a totem.
Rudoren observed:
Much of the militant pageantry most likely was meant as a message for the news media, and thus the world, given how the Dalus had instantly become the face of the Palestinian cause. But the tone, far more fundamentalist than funereal, was also a potent sign of the culture of martyrdom that pervades this place, and the numbness that many here have developed to death and destruction after years of cross-border conflict.
Rudoren added that “the mourners, except for a few close relatives inside the mosque, were neither overcome with emotion nor fed up, perhaps because the current casualty count pales in comparison to the 1,400 lost four years ago when the Israelis invaded Gaza.”
It’s not hard to believe that mourners who are not close family might react differently at a funeral in the middle of what has become a war zone. But many readers couldn’t help but notice that Rudoren’s point seemed to be that there was something a little off about the behavior she was witnessing. What kind of people, she seemed to be wondering, grieve this way?
Jodi Rudoren, on Facebook
A more unfiltered glimpse into Rudoren’s mindset came via her Facebook page. As reported on Mondoweiss (11/20/12), Palestinians in Gaza “have such limited lives than in many ways they have less to lose” than Israelis. “I’ve been surprised that when I talk to people who just lost a relative, or who are gathering belongings from a bombed-out house, they seem a bit ho-hum.”
Rudoren also shared that her “first tears in Gaza” were for a friend and her children back in Jerusalem.
Away from the tearless funeral procession, things were different. A Reuters account from the hospital:
“Is this your wife?” asked a medic inside the morgue.
“Ahh, what happened to your face sweetheart?” her husband said, weeping and collapsing into the arms of his spouse. The woman’s face was burnt beyond recognition.
Rudoren objected to the Mondoweiss piece about her Facebook post, explaining that writer Phillip Weiss
provided his own inaccurate context or embellishment, rather than doing what any good journalist—any decent person?—would have, which is to ask what I meant.
Reporters like Rudoren have space in the newspaper to describe the world, and their written words are supposed to convey their meaning to the paper’s readers. It’s the job of critics to analyze those words as they are published—not as they would be understood if the writer were standing by the reader’s elbow ready to clarify.
It’s been observed that warmakers can dehumanize an enemy by making their cultural values seem bizarre. General William Westmoreland’s famous comment that the “Oriental doesn’t put the same high price on life as does a Westerner” comes to mind.
If one were to ask Rudoren whether that’s “what she meant” by her comments, the answer would surely be no. But just as surely, the more important question is not what she meant, but what message readers received from her words.
That’s precisely (the precision thing again) what she meant. Else she would have been much more sensitive to how she was portraying these people.
And, like Westmoreland, Rudoren is a “warmaker”, as is every journalist who enables these horrors by alternately ignoring and distorting them, and their victims.
But, of course, that is their job, isn’t it?
Gaza is an object lesson in the role of the corpress in colluding with imperialism, and make no mistake, this is as much about US policy as it is Israeli.
To justify inhumanity, you must make your “enemy” appear inhuman.
In doing so, the mainstream media forfeits any claim to objectivity
And to any semblance of humanity.
If my house were bombed and my child killed, I don’t know how I would react. But it would be *totally* different from the way these subhumans act. Like, what parent of a murdered child in America ever wants retribution? And we are *very* visible with our tears!
I was going to lead with, “Hart gets it all wrong again!’ But that would be like saying, “Dog bites man!
Hart simply fails to acknowledge the morbid tendency of the Palestinians to encourage martyrdom, even of their children. At least when it comes to the murdering of Jews.
Here’s just one of many examples, from Palestinian Television on December 23, 2007:
PA TV interview with father of suicide terrorist Ayat al-Akhras, who murdered two people and injured 22 in a suicide bombing in Jerusalem, March 2002:
Host: “Father of [suicide terrorist] Martyr Ayat al-Akhras – you and your cause deserve the greatest respect… Ayat was very young [17] when she was martyred… In our view, Ayat is a hero, and we want to hear more and remember this Martyr, since we hold her memory dear in our hearts.”
Father: “[Ayat’s] goal was to study journalism, to promote her Palestinian cause around the world…”
Host: “Through Ayat’s heroic act [suicide bombing] she succeeded in reaching the entire world.”
You see, Hart, there’s no use denying that unhealthy tendencies appear in every culture. In Jewish culture, for example, there’s an unhealthy tendency towards self-hatred, which can manifest itself in zealous anti-Zionism. In Arab culture, as set forth above, there’s an unhealthy tendency towards glorifying martyrdom in the service of murdering Jews.
Subhmans?! I’m not sure whether one cries publicly says much about what one is actually feeling, but the way someone chooses to characterize other human beings sure is revealing.
I’m wondering if Frankly Curious was being sarcastic, as I would imagine that almost all parents, regardless of where they live, would at least initially want retribution if their child was murdered.
This more comprehensive article does a really fine job of dissecting Rudoren’s basic bigotry via phrasing in her article… Textbook analysis for showing how propaganda works, in fact.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/11/23-3
one more on the same topic:
http://mondoweiss.net/2012/11/exile-and-the-prophetic-gaza-and-the-ethics-of-jewish-power.html
William knows that Israel declared war on Gaza before Hamas even took office. Israel tried to get Fatah elected, and when Hamas won, Israel retaliated for that democratic choice by sequestering trade receipts, enacting embargoes, and carrying out blockades, all acts of war against Gaza, and recognized as such under any code of international law. Hamas’ paltry retaliations were answered with Israel’s massive bombing and drone attacks and chemical weapons. Even this Novemeber, four years later, Israel broke a truce just in time to kill the chief Hamas negotiator after he had been poring over cease-fire papers. They also blew up press agencies, which were specifically targeted by their terrorist Air Force, which doesn’t deserve the Star of David ensigna. on its wings. It is little wonder that the Turkish PM now calls Israel a “terrorist state”, especially after the IDF had murdered 9 Turkish citizens on the high seas in May of 2010. There again, the Israeli seals were losing in non-lethal hand to hand combat with some Turkish civilians, so they resorted to what these cowards always do best, and that is to kill Arabs with US weapons. 9 unarmed Turks were shot in the head at close range. Passengers filmed it, but the IDF seized all cameras and film and never returned them. Some of the Russian mercenaries in the IDF actually used the credit cards of the deceased in TeL Aviv boutiques. It’s amazing that this rogue state that drains our US taxes can make itself into a martyr. Just amazing.
William, isn’t results for example 1400 dead Palestinians, mostly civilians, a good indicator of ones intent? When the Zionist came to Palestine before 1948 with their Zionist ideology to form a Jewish homeland on land that was already occupied set in motion the need for huge military stockpile and murder.
America which spends annually $1 trillion for “military defense” and backs Israel unequivacally has determined the course of occupation, blockade, war crimes, and murder of civilians.
The suicide bombers, morbid tendency to pursue martyrdom in the killing of Jews: Is it a tendency or a desperate attempt to fight against a system that have been imposed on a people that smothers, sufficates, and kills all aspirations.
Giving one side an unlimited amounts of weapons like the US does while the other side were limited to stone throwing is what creates the tendency to want martyrdom.
The Arab world including Iran are wising up to America’s disproportional military aid to Israel. Rockets shot by Gaza for the first time reached Telivive. It was obvious that Netanyahu wanted a much higher casualty than 120. But the new Arab spring nation of Egypt, resurgent Turkey, Qatar, and other Arab nations wasn’t having it.
Israel needs to pray that America doesn’t suffer a bankruptcy and can no longer put itself in debt militarily to support Israel’s military adventurism. I have a feeling that as soon as Israel is weakened in anyway there will be it’s Arab neighbors waiting to due substancial damage. World opinion will not object either because Israel will have deserved whatever hostile reaction it gets.
Joseph Stalin said that “Killing of a single man is a tragedy, but killing 1,000,000 is a statistic.” In the long run, who will remember the hundreds Palestinians that were killed by the Israel, we shall remember the three Israelis killed, or am I mistaken?
Jodi Rudoren is just another neo-liberal racist who cannot even get herself to try to understand the non-white victims of white/ supremacy.and their suffering.
I think that all parents use martyrdom for war in the same ways that all nations do. No one in any country wants to think that their children died for nothing. Isn’t that why the U.S. gives medals, and tri cornered folded flags to the family of the dead? WW II had those Gold Star Mothers. Israel has Masada, and the U.S. has Gettysburg.
Although, when the death of someone like Pat Tillman comes along, with a military cover-up, that death makes all war deaths so cynical and small. As to the writer and her opinion of “proper grieving” , I don’t think that a person is really a journalist until that person can look at the different parts of an issue, but still see human beings on all sides.
There are so many layers to why Rudoren is to be questioned. First, what is the difference in context between a tragic death and one when you are under attack? What is the appropriate way to respoond when you lose children? Are there cultural differences in expression of grief? Is the reporter objective and evaluating this scene neutrally or does she have unexamined social, cultural, and political biases? Is the reporter an outsider who may not understand the context? Has she tried to ask the members of the funeral party about their feelings and intents? I live in a culture very different from my own and the local grieving process would be viewed as hystrionic in my culture where my culture’s process would be viewed as callous here. There are so many possibilities for what the reporter is “seeing” and interpreting that it just seems insensitive to offensive to make those kind of comments without providing more background or context to explain how she is qualified to make these sorts of judgments in her situation.
While it’s true that “the job of critics to analyze those words as they are published,” that doesn’t mean Phillip Weiss gets left off the hook. He’s been pretty caustic toward others he disagrees with. The best case in point is how he went after Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake because they don’t advocate for Palestine like he wants them to. So he went after her on Twitter in a very unhelpful and spiteful manner. I stopped reading Mondoweiss after that incident.
Above all O Lord keep me very far away from the truly good and decent John Steinbeck has Tom Joad lament in The Grapes of Wrath. For all it’s first rate reporting I think FAIR misses the the propaganda queen’s point here: “But many readers couldn’t help but notice that Rudoren’s point seemed to be that there was something a little off about the behavior she was witnessing.” Rudhoren has perpetrated the same Zionist prestidigitation: blaming the victim.
The only reason why such bigotry , biase, and one-sidedness is allowed is because zionist elements exercise such overt control over the nainstream corporate media.
Whereas the South African, and Jim Crow segregation system was excoriated daily in the media there is an unwritten rule that critising anything regarding Israel will jeapordize your career.
The internet is still different where lambasted, and rightly so, for it’s heideous treatment o the Palestinians. As we speak there are zionist elements attempting to conrol the flow of information regarding Israel/Palistine.
Rudoran is surely a racist just as Rachel Maddow of MSNBC is. This why the corporate media pay them high salaries. Selling your soul to the devil doesn’t take much courage or integrity. Just do what you are told to do and you will be materially rewarded but end up in hell later on.
The people who speak of the insufficiency of the feelings of the Palestinians are incredibly stupid. How about the “heroes” of the American armed forces who shoot and kill many of the enemy in the knowledge that he will likely be killed is always memorialized as a hero for the rest of time. Hurray! Only people who have an agenda against humanity would ever voice criticism of these victims of mass murder, now 62 years old and running.
Pointing to the idea that these people don’t value life(and yes that ties into this suicide mentality)really needs to be understood, if there be any truth in it.Just saying they are numb to it by now , and therefore no longer value life like “normal” people is just not going to cut it. A real study is needed . Not one clouded by political arguments or zionist conspiracy nonsense as proposed by “Tee”.In the real world -anger and revenge against the Israelis for killing your family in an airstrike can be understood.But why is no anger is given to the animals who had a missile battery next to the house that caused the airstrike?To them is given a hearty” praise Allah”.
I believe this is all a grand manipulation, with Palestinians as the pawns.That is why the terrorists plant themselves among the population.It is a win win for them.As always they care little about civilian death ….on either side!That is their game.And using a twisted form of Islam they move to “zombie fy”(sorry for that word)people into caring less and less for human life.Even their own.Israeli attacks help with this sick stew.The children watch cartoons of Palestinian kids jumping on Israeli tanks wearing suicide vests while their parents cheer and Allah awaits.Hitler new it begins with the children.There is a cycle to all this.Long term peace could break it.I believe the Israelis ache for that peace.To the enemies arrayed against her….. I do not see it
Who has what to gain? Who has what to lose? Those seem to me to be the fundamental questions. Explanations such as terrorists do what they do becasue they are insane, hateful creatures that don’t value human life, even their own, doesn’t explain anything. For example, it doesn’t explain the origins of terrorism and its perpetuation. (And please do not claim that it’s inherent in Islam.) And to explain Zionism as the result of self-loathing is as rediculous as claiming that because Hitler had Jewish ancestors, that he suffered from self-loathing, he started WWII. Really? I would not look at Israeli society as anything monolithic; it has its class and ethnic divisions. Ditto for Palestinian society. Ditto for the US. This war has gone on for 60+ years. I’d ask the question, Who has what to gain by pursuing a policy of destablization in the region? A policy of destabilization may seem counter to what most people think, after all, we’ve heard for so long about Middle East peace talks. After all, everyone wants peace, no? But after 60 years, I’d look to see what segments of society have something to gain by perpetuating the conflict. So in short, I would not speak of US interests, or Palestinian interests, or Israeli interests. I’d ask, Who has something to gain by perpetuating the war? That seems to me to be the fundamental question, not body counts, not self-loathing, not insane terrorists, and not when the clock started in the latest round of airstrikes and rockets.
Tee Im not going to delve to much into the things you feel.I find them(and you)disturbing, and possibly disturbed.I am not qualified to talk to you about your feelings,so i will not try.I would say there is nothing wrong with seeking a caring and helping hand from someone who is qualified to listen to you,and helping you in your journey to a happier more inclusive life.All the best
Rudoren complains she’s being misinterpreted.
So Rudoren is a professional NYT reporter, no, NYT bureau chief, who is unable to explain exactly what she means? Either she’s incompetent as she claims or she wrote exactly what she meant to write.