A guide for TV anchors on Palestine

Protesters at a pro-Palestinian demonstration in London on October 14. Pic/AP

Indian TV anchors are fond of shouting than reading, perhaps the reason why they insist on labelling Palestinian fighters as terrorists. They seem oblivious of the historical truth that Israel is a transplant on the soil of Palestine. Or perhaps they are blindly following Prime Minister Narendra Modi's tweet: "Deeply shocked by the news of terrorist attacks in Israel."

In this guide for TV anchors, the reader should substitute "Palestine" and "Palestinians" with "India" and Indians" - and they will realise that the most appropriate terms for Palestine fighters, including those of Hamas, are "militant" and "freedom-fighter." This does not exonerate Hamas of the crime of killing and abducting Israeli civilians, including children, notwithstanding Israel's brutal occupation of Palestine that dates back to
the 19th century.

In the 1880s, Jews were three per cent of Palestine's population. Then began the Zionist movement, based in Europe, which claimed the Jews were entitled to a State of their own in Palestine, on the grounds that it was a promise God made to them in biblical times. The Zionists funded 40,000 Jewish immigrants, between 1909 and 1911, to buy land from absentee landlords and establish settlements.

In 1917, Britain issued the Balfour Declaration, saying it viewed favourably the "establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." It was palpably unjust of the British to conceive a Jewish homeland in an area where they were merely five-six per cent of the population. After World War I, Britain was granted the mandate to administer Palestine, and the percentage of Jews shot up to 18 per cent in 1926. Palestinians resisted the expropriation of their land.

Surely, TV anchors can appreciate Palestinian sentiments, given their penchant for fanning the paranoia about Muslims overtaking the Hindu population in India.
The rise of the Nazis in the 1930s saw 65,000 Jews pour into Palestine in 1935 alone. Bankrolling these immigrants was a Zionist-Nazi agreement that allowed Jews to transfer $100 million out of Germany. The Jews grew to 32 per cent of Palestine's population in 1947. Yet the United Nations in its partition of Palestine, on November 29, 1947, gave 56 per cent of its territory to Jews.

Would we have accepted Pakistan getting all of Punjab, Bengal, Kashmir and Assam?

Armed conflict broke out on November 30, 1947. The poorly armed Palestinians could not match the colonisers, who, on May 14, 1948, declared the formation of Israel. In the next round of fighting with the Arab armies, Israel occupied 78 per cent of Palestine, with Egypt retaining control over the Gaza Strip and Jordan over the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Nearly 800,000 of the 1.3 million Palestinians were compelled to become refugees. Historian Ilan Pappé, citing documents, says the ethnic cleansing was planned.

Don't we lament the killing and uprooting of Hindus and Muslims from their homes during the Partition riots?

In the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel took over Gaza and the West Bank and began settling Jews in enclaves carved out of the Palestine Occupied Territory. Since then, Israel has built 160 settlements, where 630,000 Jews, or 11 per cent of that country's population, live today. These settlements are separated from Arab habitations by walls, making 61 per cent of the West Bank, measuring just 5,655 sq. km, inaccessible to Palestinians.

Why did we, well after 1947, liberate Goa from the Portuguese?

The Oslo Accords, in the 1990s, provided for two separate States. Accordingly, the Palestinian National Authority was constituted to govern the West Bank and Gaza, but it had just 18 per cent of the former under its direct control.

For perspective, try to imagine the India of 1947 without the princely states.

The Gaza Strip, measuring just 365 sq km, witnessed a Palestinian uprising between 1987 and 1991. Hamas was born then, ironically, with a decade of help from Israel. During the 2000-2005 uprising, Hamas led the resistance to Israel, which withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Hamas won the 2006 elections and became the administrator of Gaza.

This had Israel and Egypt, with America's support, blockade Gaza, now in its 16th year. It is the most important factor why the poverty rate in Gaza is 64 per cent, and the unemployment rate among graduates in the age group of 19 to 29 is around 70 per cent. Between 2008 and August 2023, 6,407 Palestinians and 308 Israelis died in the conflict, which Hamas escalated last week.

Hamas neither eschews the use of violence for achieving liberation nor does it recognise Israel's right to exist. In 2017, though, Hamas said it was fighting the Zionists, not Jews, and was willing to accept an independent, sovereign Palestine in the territory Israel occupied in the 1967 war. Did this proposal engage Israel?
TV anchors, echoing the colonising Israeli State, convey a sense that only non-violent resistance is legitimate. But Israel is a ruthless State - in 2003, a bulldozer ran over American activist Rachel Corries as she stood before it to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian home. Last year, they assassinated Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, whose reports they found inconvenient.

Ask yourself: would TV anchors condemn Subhas Chandra Bose for raising an army to fight the British? They need to contextualise Hamas violence and nuance their coverage of the Palestine-Israel conflict.

The writer is a senior journalist

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