Gaza: War, from a distance

When Jon Snow went to report on the conflict in Gaza, he was barred from entering the conflict zone, along with other Western journalists. It's wrong, he says

Monday, 19 January 2009

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GETTY IMAGES

Veiled conflict: Jon Snow has been barred from entering the conflict zone, along with other Western journalists

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There have been two versions of the assault on Gaza played out over the past three weeks. One is the moderated account aired in the West; the other is the unexpurgated account of civilian deaths filmed in vivid close-up inside Gaza.

Has the Western account, restricted by the Israeli ban on journalists in the conflict zone, been so reduced as to dull the scale of protest? Has the volume of images of death injury and destruction played and replayed in the Arab media served to radicalise and enrage the Islamic world still further? Thus creating a gulf so unbridgeable that it defeated even the passage of a unanimous UN call for a ceasefire? I want to take you on a personal journey that I made to the region last week.

I am standing on the so-called "hill of shame" – a strange bump of terrain with three trees on top and a cascade of camera's tents and television dishes pouring down the other side. This is as close as the world's media has come to the Israeli invasion of Gaza. I have been unable to clarify whose "shame" the hill celebrates. Is it the stream of ordinary Israelis who come to cheer the booms of Israeli bombs and shells and the plumes of resulting smoke? Is it the shame of reporters stymied in their attempts to reach Gaza? Either way it has made me think again about war reporting.

People talk about the smell of cordite and the first-hand contact with fear. The Israeli blockade of Gaza and the exclusion of all journalists from the conflict emphasise, in a way that I've not really understood before, how important it is for those who report the horror of war actually to experience what they're communicating.

The noise and distant smoke of war in this spot, perhaps a mile back from the fence with Gaza, is simply a tableau, because I feel no fear and I can see no victims and hear no cries.

Later, I see on al-Jazeera the aftermath of those attacks: wailing women running in the streets, carrying the wrapped remains of tiny children. And somehow I remained detached, no closer an observer than if I were in my own living room in London.

Had I been on the ground in Gaza, I would have found out the baby's name, talked to its father, perhaps been to the home – made that human emotional connection between the death of a child and our own living experience. The thing that binds us together and shocks us as humans.

Wrapped remains and wailing women shock, but do not connect in the same way. We see the image, we know it's bad, but we do not experience the emotion. When the Israelis exclude the media, they know what they are doing.

By the next day, I have spoken to two al-Jazeera correspondents by video link on the roof of their studio complex in Gaza City. But as the Israeli military communications unit reports that they have started another phase of this invasion, venturing ever deeper into the urban areas of Gaza, the al-Jazeera reporters could tell me very little either. They can see little of the ground force activity and have to depend on the doctors in the hospital to tell them the human consequences of what has happened.

Such is the nature of this conflict. And it is one the like of which I have never had to cover before. The access has never been so absolutely barred.

I move from the hill to nearby Sderot. This is the front line the Israeli government press office wants me to cover. There is a hole in the bus shelter roof caused by one of the random and ill-guided rocket attacks. Israel's Channel 10 runs blanket coverage of their impact upon Israel's civilian areas. At the time of writing, three Israelis have been killed in these latest attacks, while the army has claimed the lives of more than 1,000 Gazans.

This is the fog of war; full access to the consequences of Hamas attacks, but no direct access to the carnage resulting from the Israeli assault on Gaza. It's a war in which the propaganda machines have been in full cry. The Israeli Defence Forces have uploaded more than 30,000 "action clips" on to YouTube and elsewhere. The Arab media has streamed horrific close-ups of wounds and dead bodies that cannot be seen on British television. Meanwhile, Hamas leaders remain in hiding inside Gaza, with Western journalists unable to interview them or hold them to account for their attacks.

As with every military conflict, the inevitable first casualty is the truth. It is caught in a pincer movement of lack of access and our own regulations, which forbid the most searing images from airing on the dominant mainstream media. The consequence is that the Arab world is seeing a vastly different account of this war from that which we are seeing. That presents a dangerous dynamic for the future.

'Unseen Gaza' is on Channel 4 on 22 January at 11.05pm

Comments

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Is Not war

kam2sam wrote:

Monday, 19 January 2009 at 01:29 pm (UTC)

First of all this is not a War, its is an aggression by the Zionist with the support of their regional allies. Because War would also be among the two countries and not between World No.1 or 2 Army of Israel and an Innocent Gazans Children (people)who have no choice but to resist and never Bow Down in front of current Evil Forces of our Era. Long Live Resistance.

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War from a distance.

victor_mcandrew wrote:

Monday, 19 January 2009 at 02:37 pm (UTC)

'' Meanwhile, Hamas leaders remain in hiding inside Gaza, with Western journalists unable to interview them or hold them to account. ''

Say no more, Jon Snow, it's clear where your sympathies lie.

Hamas are responding to Israel in the only way left to them. These Qassam rockets are little more than fireworks, launched from milk bottles. They land mostly in the Negev dessert. There have been more deaths from fireworks in Britain, in the last seven years than deaths caused by Qassam rockets. They are a symbolic response from the most courageous resistance fighters in the world. Do me a favour, Jon Snow, go back to your comfortable chair in the Channel 4 studio and spew out your 'Israel has the right to defend itself' mantra and talk glibly about Hamas terrorists there. You suck.

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Re: War from a distance.

ewhr wrote:

Sunday, 25 January 2009 at 11:32 pm (UTC)

To be fair to Jon Snow, he reported in the programme how the Hamas leadership were hiding and out of contact with the press so as to avoid being tracked by the Israeli military. Further, he was explicitly critical of the level of propaganda that Israel was feeding to the western media.

If your objection is to the poor quality of reporting on Gaza - which has without question been the case - then i am not sure that you should have such grievance with Snow and Channel 4.

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Re: War from a distance.

victor_mcandrew wrote:

Monday, 26 January 2009 at 09:56 am (UTC)

Thank you for your attempt at support for Jon Snow and Channel 4.
You miss the underlying thrust of Snow's jibe at Hamas- That it is a cowardly terrorist organisation who need to be held to account.

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Gaza

victor_mcandrew wrote:

Monday, 19 January 2009 at 02:51 pm (UTC)

When are we going to see someone challenging Israel's right to exist and their right to self defence? Isn't it about time someone pointed out it has no right to be there at all. It is there because of its might not its right. It is a ruthless killer. It does what it likes, when it likes and has no regard for anybody or anything. It has no moral fibre and is the most cowardly nation ever to walk this planet. It murders and destroys at will, and points a middlle finger at the world and says 'Look how powerful I am, I can kill with impunity.

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ORWELLIAN LANGUAGE TO CALL THIS A WAR OR EVEN A CONFLICT

chuckman_john wrote:

Monday, 19 January 2009 at 03:43 pm (UTC)

War? Military conflict?

Did this piece have to reviewed by Israeli censors?

No sensible person calls this a war.

A crowded camp of refugees - for that is what much of the population of Gaza is - is relentlessly bombed and shelled, then invaded by tanks.

All this comes after months of an inhuman blockade.

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Jon Snow on Gaza

guil_cam wrote:

Wednesday, 21 January 2009 at 05:08 pm (UTC)

Jon Snow made an unfortunate remark about the Hamas leaders in hiding and their attacks, but we must remember that he is a journalist: He has been prevented from contacting the poorly armed resistants who cannot do anything but hide from the invaders. He is known for siding with the Palestinians and let us see what he is going to say on Channel 4 onThursday 22-01-09.
All the same, I agree with all the comments so far.

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israel's hill of shame

gillkaffash wrote:

Wednesday, 21 January 2009 at 06:02 pm (UTC)

I think that the hill Jon Snow was standing on is to the shame of Western journalists because: they did not, as far as I remember, show those Israelis rejoicing at the death and destruction of Palestinians, though we often see footage of Arab rejoicing at Israeli deaths; they did not always make clear that they were not allowed into Gaza by Israel; they accepted information from Israeli sources as fact while preceding that from Gaza with "Palestinians say . . . " though they could independently verify neither; they did not refuse to report from Israel until they were allowed into Gaza.They could have tried to report from the Egyptian border instead. they did not report the attacks by israeli soldiers on peaceful protestors in the West Bank. In short, they collaborated with Israel.

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Gaza reporting

abe_2009 wrote:

Wednesday, 21 January 2009 at 06:10 pm (UTC)

Thanks Jon, for trying to get into Gaza to see for yourself and report back to us. It is a disgrace that Israel has not allowed journalists in - this was also the case during the strangulating siege for over two years -in fact since 1967 no one was allowed to enter to witness Israel's guilty war crimes. Even today, three years after the Lebanon war - another Israeli carnage - Israel has not allowed the investigation on its bombing of a UN post to proceed. In fact it appears that giving the Israeli airforce the co-ordinates of US compounds and refuges is a guarantee that they will be bombed. Ilan Pappe, the amazing Israeli historian, who has revealed Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948 from Israeli records and from eye witness accounts, said when he was in the Yom Kippur war of 1973. "I remember the sergeant major telling us that we should kill Arabs young or they'll grow up to kill us," he says. "And that attitude is widespread. That's why tank drivers, F16 pilots or artillery commanders will kill civilians without hesitation. They've been taught to dehumanise them all their lives."
Israel has been deliberately destroying whole neighbourhoods in Gaza, razing them to the ground, and deliberately
killing women and children who were holding white flags. These crimes must be not go unpunished - the triumvirate of Olmert, Livni and Barak - Livni the daughter of a leading Irgun terrorist who blew up the KIng David Hotel killing 99, and all the Israeli generals, should be brought to the Hague like Milosovic and face criminal trials.
Abe

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Unseen Gaza

joanc53 wrote:

Friday, 23 January 2009 at 12:57 pm (UTC)

What a distrubing programme this was, from every angle, not least of which is the supression of information.

However, as someone who has worked in the Occupied Territories in the past, I would also like to say it wasnt only the Arab world or Muslims who were seeing a different account. I was glued to Al Jazeera (English) who as you know, has had people in there from the start and I am sure there were multitudes of others who were also watching. We rarely watched either BBC or CNN who simply did not match Al Jazeera's views.

Joan Carey, Humanitarian Worker

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Horrors of War

ma_rob wrote:

Friday, 23 January 2009 at 02:42 pm (UTC)

I feel that the horrific images of war, the images of dead people killed and those who are injured, should be shown without censorship.. It will make people realise the true horrors of war and why they should be avoided at all costs. Even children should be exposed to this as it will show them that war isnt something pretty.. it is horrible and nasty and when they grow up, they will think twice about supporting governments that want to wage wars.

I remember being shown horrific videos of the consequences of playing with fireworks, playing on railway lines etc when I was at school and I dont see why children of today should be protected from this sort of imagary.

By not allowing journalists to enter Gaza, the Israelis have hidden the truth as to what occured during the war. Without the presence of international observers.. it has come down to a situation of "your word against his" without any 3rd party witnesses. If Israel did not have anything to hide then why prevent journalists from entering. The excuse of saying it is too dangerous for journalist to enter is very lame. If a journalist wishes to risk his life then it is his choice and should be allowed to do so.

Rob

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