Journalists Use Colonialist Tactics in Bab al Shams Coverage

By now you have probably heard that Palestinian protesters erected and declared a new village, "Bab al-Shams," in the areas known as Dhahr al Azwar, El Muntar, Safhat um al Natsh, and Shi'ab Yusuf. These areas include the space Israel calls "E-1," which is the name of an expansion plan intended to connect the Israeli colony of Maale Addumim to Israeli-occupied Jerusalem.

The site of the Bab al Shams village

On cue, the Israelis quickly removed the protesters from the site, arresting many and dumping them back into Palestinian bantustans. Bab Al Shams is the latest in a long line of Palestinian resistance acts against Israeli colonization, and while it was largely ignored by mainstream American TV press, it did receive some coverage in mainstream online publications. What was so disturbing about this coverage though is the conscious, or subconscious, adoption of a colonialist narrative despite a subject matter which was working for the exact opposite aim.

Take for example this piece from The NY Times:

Employing a tactic more commonly used by Jewish settlers who establish wildcat outposts in the West Bank, the protesters had pitched their tents on Friday on what they said was privately owned land, and with the permission of the Palestinian landowners.

TIME had a piece titled, "When Palestinians Use Settler Tactics: A Beleaguered Netanyahu Responds." The Daily Beast posted "Palestinians Learn From Zionist Playbook." The AP piece stated:

Palestinian activists erected tents in the area known as E-1 on Friday saying they wanted to “establish facts on the ground” to stop Israeli construction in the West Bank. The activists were borrowing a phrase and a tactic usually associated with Jewish settlers, who believe establishing communities means the territory will remain Israeli.

If you are looking at the world through Zionist colored glasses, as much of the Western media does, this perhaps makes sense. Where else would Palestinians learn such resistance tactics but from Israeli settlers?

In reality, this simply echoes some of the most disturbing traits of colonialism. The idea that the settlers benefit the natives by teaching, civilizing and enriching them, runs deep throughout colonial literature including some early Zionist literature.

For example, Father of Zionism Theodore Herzl wrote to the Palestinian mayor of Jerusalem in 1899, who objected to Zionism because of what it would mean for the native inhabitants,

But who would ever think of sending them away? It is their well-being, their individual wealth which we will increase by bringing in our own. Do you think that an Arab who owns a land or a house in Palestine worth three or four thousand francs will be very angry to see the price of his land rise in a short time, to see it rise five and ten times in value perhaps in a few months? Moreover, that will necessarily happen with the arrival of the Jews. That is what the indigenous population must realize, that they will gain excellent brothers as the Sultan will gain faithful and good subjects who will make this province flourish - this province which is their historic homeland.

Palestinians didn't learn these tactics from settlers and similar tactics were employed by Palestinians during and after the Nakba from 1947 to 1949. Long before the plans for "E-1" were laid, and long before the Israeli settlement of Maale Addumim (which "E-1" is adjacent to) was built, Palestinians were clinging to their land through sit-in or live-in type events.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians became internally displaced people in the wake of the Nakba and many were referred to as "present absentees." These were Palestinians who had remained inside what became Israel but whose land was taken from them.

Take, for example, the story of Kufr Bir'am. This Palestinian village was depopulated in 1948 and many of its inhabitants remained inside Israel and waited to return to their land. The Israeli military prevented this and declared the land off limits to the native inhabitants. Shortly thereafter, a new Israeli kibbutz was built on village land and the native inhabitants petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court for the right to return to their homes in 1953. The Court ordered that the state had to provide an explanation for preventing the villagers from returning (sound familiar?). Then, the State razed the Palestinian homes in the village to the ground, leaving only the village church. After the end of martial law for Arabs in Israel, the villagers staged a live-in in 1972, but the state continued to keep the land off limits to them. Most recently, the village church was vandalized.

Of course, the Palestinians involved in Bab Al Shams know this history well. The name, Bab Al Shams, comes from a famed Elias Khoury book which tells stories of the Palestinian experience firmly grounded in the framework of the Nakba. From the outset, this initiative was framed by the participants, not just as resistance to Zionist colonization of a tiny sliver of Palestine in "E-1," but to the effects of Zionist colonization in its entirety.

Beyond the inaccuracy in the suggestion that Palestinians learned such tactics from Israeli colonists, it is also creates a very misleading analogy. When Israeli colonists build "outposts", they often do so with the tacit or direct support of the Israeli state. When Palestinians erected Bab al Shams, they did so in direct resistance to the Israeli state.

Palestinians did not need Israeli settlers to learn about resistance, but they really could benefit from journalists having a deeper understanding of the Palestinian experience that isn't constantly filtered through a Zionist prism.

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