Monday, May 16, 2011

Agit-Prop Photo Ops

This photo--large and in colour--is on the front page of the paper version of the Toronto Star. The caption reads "A Palestinian protester holds a key symbolizing his family's lost home during clashes with Israeli security forces near Ramallah on Sunday" but the subtext is "poor, poor them and their keys of 'resistence.' Will they ever get to open the locks of their 'stolen' homes again?"

The f.p. of the non-virtual G&M is similarly focused on the Palestinian "protest." It features a photo of a besieged and lonely "yout" waving a Palestinian flag, and a headline atop this story insisting that the "protest" is part and parcel of "the Arab Spring" (a term that sounds ever so much greener and friendlier than, oh, off the top of my head, "the final Final Solution").

Update: The truth, which you will never read in either rag because it conflicts with the feel-good "resistance/"spring has sprung" narrative, can be found here.

Update: My letter to the Star:
Jeez Louise, not one of those giant agit-prop 'Nakba' keys again. Every time I see one of those things--a symbol of how Palestinians have never been welcomed into Arab lands, unlike the mass of Jews evicted from Arab countries post-1948 who found a home and haven in Israel--I am reminded of an Israeli's mordant quip: "Tell them we changed the locks."

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