Palestinian Writer and Legal Researcher Budour Hassan On Media Narratives Of Palestinian Liberation And Israel's Brutal Occupation Campaign

Interview by Spencer Roberts and Salvatore Laimo. The full audio of this interview is provided in the mini-player, followed by a brief summary.

We spoke with Palestinian journalist Budour Hassan about how media

narratives influence popular conceptions about the struggle for Palestinian

liberation.

Israel’s violent campaigns of repression and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians

have long been backed by US government, military, and media. Mainstream

media often fail in reporting the actions of the Israel state as war crimes—

normalizing the destruction of infrastructure, schools, media, hospitals and

housing complexes. These acts are not only defended, but rewarded by the

American government in the form of federal aid and weapons. With the

exception of a handful of Democrats, congressional support for Israel is

unanimous and the United States

single-handedly prevents the UN Security

Council from condemning Israel’s actions.

First, Hassan talks about the psychological aspects of the occupation,

including the tendency of the Israeli state and international media to refer to

Palestinians who are given Israeli citizenship as Israeli Arabs. “Israel worked

tirelessly to erase their identity,” she says of her elders, describing the

history of Israeli’s hierarchical apartheid citizenship structure.

We also talked about how the indiscriminant guerilla weaponry of Hamas is

discussed ad nauseum in media, yet little mention is made of the high-tech

hellfire wrought upon thousands of innocent Palestinians maimed and

murdered by the IDF with precise targeting technology. Budour also told us

about how the warnings we are assured precede Israeli air strikes come in

the form of missiles, which can and do kill, in cases coming after escape

routes have already been blocked with rubble. “Their firing is also a means of

intimidation,” she explains.

In spite of all this, we hear about the resilience of Palestinians and their

refusal to be defined by the occupation. “I believe that this is an opportunity,

now that people are paying more attention to Palestinian stories, [to realize]

that doesn’t stop here... These people who can do all these beautiful things

while resisting Israeli occupation will continue to live past that.”

Lastly, Budour talks about finding reason for hope in the new wave of

solidarity rising across Palestine and spreading to the international

community. “This unity that Israel has long tried to break has really been

reborn.” “We are fighting as a unified people.”