Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land

The film "Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land" will be shown at the anti-war Store Front Wednesday, Aug 8 at 7pm. This is a very clear evaluation of the way the US mainstream media distorts our perceptions of events in the Middle East. A discussion will follow for those who are interested.

"Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land" is an excellent film that analyzes mainstream media coverage of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. This is a very significant film and an important issue. Through analysis of media coverage of the Israeli Palestinian conflict, the film opens a discussion that applies to US media coverage of the Middle East conflict in all of it's aspects. The subject is how are our perceptions colored, and our cultural prejudices reinforced by the way information is presented to us. This is one of the most important discussions we can have today.

Much of the analysis comes from Israeli and Palestinian activists, as well as from American media critics like Noam Chomsky and Robert Jensen. The film is accompanied by a second disk with maps and other references including a very complete bibliography of online sources of information about the Middle East and Palestine/Israel sorted according to perspective. There are also discussions of projects by Israeli and Palestinian activists. And, I have another brief film of settlers on the West Bank made by local activists working with the people there if anyone is interested in seeing it.

The film will be shown at the Anti-War Store Front on Wednesday, August 8th at 7pm and a discussion will follow. That would be 'next' Wednesday for the calendar challenged. The event is free and open to the public. Please mark your calendar if you live in the Rochester Area. Plan on attending and bring a friend.

To give an idea of the kind of misrepresentation the film analyzes, I will give an example that I know of from the last few days of news. This is a speech made by Gordon Brown, the new British Prime Minister, in the US after his meeting with President Bush. Among other topics, he addressed the situation in Darfur, which he referred to as "the greatest humanitarian disaster the world faces today". To support this statement, he provided the following statistics: 200,000 dead, 2 million displaced and 4 million without adequate food and water. We, of course, all know that the cause of the Sudanese disaster is terrorists, and, well, the Sudanese government (those bums!).

What Brown fails to mention is that the figures for the same statistics in post-invasion Iraq more than double those presented for Sudan: more than 600,000 dead, more than 4 million displaced and half the population without clean drinking water and adequate nutrition. Instead, he goes on to talk about the the fact that the British will continue to support American initiatives against "cold blooded killers who will kill innocent people to achieve their objectives. Now, who would that be? Well ,the terrorists, of course.

This brings to mind an image that is commonly presented even among progressives and anti-war people. It captures a certain incomprehensibly disturbed being who will actually "blow himself up" to kill innocent people. Whether you are willing to love this person and try to redeem him somehow or hate him outright, his actions are still 'incomprehensible' and disgusting.

But, what about the guy who flies out in an F16, a B52, an Apache helicopter, or whatever, and guns down a group of innocent civilians while they are sleeping in their beds, celebrating a wedding or funeral, or driving down the road, and then flies home to his base at the end of the day, ready to do it again if asked? This latter guy is a hero. He's one of us, and we want him to come home so we can heal him. Are his actions less horrible than those of the suicide bomber? What makes them more comprehensible? Does anyone even ask these questions? No.