Jul
14
2016
By Daoud Kuttab
“We haven’t had water for nearly 40 days,†a caller to the Voice of Palestine radio station told the presenter of the show July 8. The caller lives in the picturesque village of Artas, southwest of Bethlehem, which is known for its fertile land and imposing monastery. Residents of the village are the latest victims of this summer’s extreme water shortage that has hit many parts of Palestine, but especially the Bethlehem governorate.
 Not far from Artas, in the village of al-Khader, residents have taken to the streets to protest the water shortage. “We have decided to go out into the streets and protest,†Ahmad Salah, a Palestinian who spent years in an Israeli jail, told Al-Monitor.
Calling himself a social activist, Salah said that the protest that began July 9 was completely spontaneous. “We don’t belong to any political party; we are Palestinians who simply want the water problem to be solved,†he said. The videos that Salah posted on his Facebook page show young people in the center of the town chanting “Bidna mayâ€Â (“We want water”).
Salah said that the governor of Bethlehem agreed to meet with the protesters and promised them that water would reach the village by July 11. At exactly 6 p.m. that evening, once it became clear that al-Khader was still without running water, the youth were out protesting once more. Continue Reading »
Jul
14
2016
By Daoud Kuttab
One of the lessons professional journalists have learned over the years is that objectivity and balance can sometimes be wrongly used.
If, as a journalist, you are witnessing rain, you are not obliged to report that one side says it is raining and the other side says it is not. You have an obligation to your audience to tell it simply that it is raining.
Such false balance is often seen in conflict-resolution cases where the side attempting to mediate a case where one side is clearly guilty and failing to act to resolve the conflict, presents a “balanced†solution to a skewed situation, accusing each side of committing some kind of mistake.
This false balance naturally produces an angry response from the side that is actively trying to produce a solution.
In its attempt at striking balance in the asymmetrical Palestinian-Israeli situation, the Quartet, made up of the US, UN, EU and Russia, balances Israel’s nearly 50 years of military occupation and illegal colonial settlements with Palestinians’ “incitement to violenceâ€.
The often-repeated accusations that Palestinian school textbooks and media are instruments of incitement to violence have long been scientifically debunked even though they were regularly repeated by Israeli officials and Israeli apologists. Continue Reading »
