Film takes aim at media coverage of 2014 Gaza attacks

A short new film on the historical, political and humanitarian situation in Palestine takes aim at the corporate news media’s coverage of Israel’s July-August 2014 assault on Gaza.

Israel killed 2,251 Palestinians during the attacks, including 551 children. Approximately 75,000 people remain displaced two years later.

“Despite overwhelming evidence of the disparity of power between Israel and all Palestinians and the aggressiveness of Israel’s exercise of its power, including excessive and brutal violence and collective punishment in Gaza in the form of occupation, siege, and frequent military assaults against dense and captive civilian populations,” the film’s producers assert, “mainstream media and educational materials continue to frame Israel as the victim.”

Gaza in Context, they add, is an attempt to situate the attacks in 2014 – and attacks of the past and future – within Israel’s broader settler-colonial aspirations in Palestine.

The film explains Israel’s historical treatment of Palestinians in Gaza, but does so “without committing the common error of treating Gaza in isolation from the rest of Palestine,” according to Raja Shehadeh, co-founder of the Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq.

Gaza in Context is a clear, concise primer for media workers, educators and audiences new to the Palestine issue, with news footage and graphics that highlight Israel’s aggressions and colonial projects over the last seven decades.

A project of the Forum on Arab and Muslim Affairs at the Arab Studies Institute, Gaza in Context offers a comprehensive teaching guide for use in classrooms and by activist groups.

“Understanding these systematic offensives means understanding where Gaza fits in the larger question of Palestine,” narrates Noura Erakat, an activist, human rights attorney and assistant professor at George Mason University, who co-directed and co-wrote the 20-minute film.

Shifting the framework

Erakat told The Electronic Intifada that during the 2014 attacks, advocates for Palestinian rights “waged a defensive front in the mainstream news media, but we never managed to shift the framework.”

“The world watched and followed these horrors for 51 days and we never took advantage of transforming this tragic moment into a learning moment,” Erakat said.

“Our efforts poured into Gaza In Context attempt to do that now.”

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Comments

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I watched this video on Aletho News website - it is perfect.
congratulations to all the people who were involved in its creation & especially the commentator who executed the message with such clarity.

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Everyone must see this film. May its truth be witnessed by all. I see the death of so many innocent children, looking the face of Netanyahu.
He deserves no praise, no support, and one day he will be prosecuted
and executed.
Maybe the little girls who wanted to stab the guard at a checkpoint,
were the sisters of those little boys murdered on the beach. It's
never been tit for tat, it's a genocide oversaw by Obama and Kerry
and a Congress that few can respect. Or maybe they had no parents to
even give them a warm bed, water, and love.
We know the Israelis are more than willing to give them cell beds,
while some U S citizen Zionist reads his bible and says God gave me
this land and Netanyahu and his Israeli soldiers will back us up with
bullets,even give us weapons to do it ourselves.
Good News, they just freed a 12 yr old Palestinian girl. You don't
have to teach children how to feel towards Israeli occupation.
It's a double standard to Israel. American Politicians can't be
accepting Israeli crimes, they are so heinous. Better keep deaf,
dumb, and blind. BDS is growing and it must succeed for the UN and
the betterment of mankind.

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A wonderful, clear and passionate exposition. Send this film everywhere, around the world.

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Thankyou SO MUCH FOR THIS FILM WE NEED TO SPREAD IT ALL OVER THE WORLD ASAP, PEACE AND LOVE, BEES

Nora Barrows-Friedman

Nora Barrows-Friedman's picture

Nora Barrows-Friedman is a staff writer and associate editor at The Electronic Intifada, and is the author of In Our Power: US Students Organize for Justice in Palestine (Just World Books, 2014).