{"id":29524,"date":"2021-06-15T12:32:43","date_gmt":"2021-06-15T04:32:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/new-wp\/?p=29524"},"modified":"2021-06-15T12:32:43","modified_gmt":"2021-06-15T04:32:43","slug":"secure-palestinians-right-to-narrate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/secure-palestinians-right-to-narrate\/","title":{"rendered":"Secure Palestinians\u2019 Right To Narrate"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThere were villages. There were cities. There was a\nPalestinian society before 1948. We do exist.\u201d \u2013 Edward Said. Born in Jerusalem,\nSaid was a Palestinian American intellectual, thinker, political activist, and\nliterary critic. As one of the few people who are said to properly frame the\nPalestine-Israel issue, Said used his writings to fight for the denied\nPalestinians rights throughout his life. For instance, the article \u201c<em>Permission\nto Narrate<\/em>\u201d which he wrote in February 1984, described what he felt was\nmost denied for Palestinians. According to Said, the right to narrate has\nconstantly been denied by international media. Consequently, Palestianians were\nnot able to communicate their history and stories to a world controlled by a\nZionist narrative of Palestine.&nbsp;This narrative aims at creating the\nconviction that it is a convenient homeland only for Jews around the world.\nApart from analysis on the MacBride Commission report regarding Israel\u2019s acts\nof aggression in the 1982 invasion of Lebanon and stereotypic perceptions and\nattitudes towards Palestinians as terrorists and rejectionists while Israel as\npeace and security seekers, Said also highlighted the campaign waged by\npro-Zionist publications. This campaign aims at preventing the international\nmedia from reporting the truth. Thus, any images showing Israeli troops engaged\nin bombing civilian targets are characterized as anti-Semitic.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The suffering of the Palestinians is realized\nby the international community despite their silence. The world community is\nalso aware that the Palestinians were deceived through various historic events.\nThese include the greatest betrayal by the British through Balfour Declaration\nin 1915. This declaration affirmed the British support for the creation of a\nJewish \u201cnational home\u201d in Palestine to gain their support for its war. After\nthe war, the League of Nations divided the defeated Ottoman Empire into \u201cmandated\nterritories\u201d and Palestine became mandated British territory. The League of\nNations embodied the British previous policy in creating a national home for\nJewish in outlining the mandate for Palestine. This means handing Palestine\nover to the Zionists which cause the massive immigration of Jews from Europe\nand elsewhere into the territory under British auspices from 1918-1947. In\naddition to this mass migration, there were also Palestinians who were forced\nto flee to its borders. Although the right to return to the origin country is\nguaranteed by international instruments such as the Universal Declaration of\nHuman Rights and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Israelis\ngave various reasons including through its Citizenship Law of 1951 to prevent\nPalestinian refugees from returning to their homeland.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There were many reports of Israeli atrocities\nincluding brutal killings of Palestinian civilians and merciless detainment of\nPalestinian children and women since the establishment of the illegal state of\nIsrael in 1948 to the present. Human Rights Watch in its report entitled \u201c<em>A\nThreshold Crossed \u2013 Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and\nPersecution<\/em>\u201d, April 2021 stated that Israeli authorities have deprived\nmillions of people of their basic rights by virtues of their identity as\nPalestinians. In the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem and Gaza\nStrip particularly, movement restrictions, land expropriation &#8211; such as the\ncase of Shaikh Jarrah neighbourhood &#8211; forcible transfer, denial of residency\nand nationality, and the mass suspension of civil rights constitute inhumane\nacts. When these acts are carried out to maintain domination, they are in fact\napartheid, a crime against humanity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Though such reports are more than enough to\nrepresent the sufferings of Palestinians, they continue to be drowned by the\nmainstream media in the West. Three decades after the publication of Edward\nSaid\u2019s landmark essay, media narratives in the West remained unchanged. This is\nproven from Maha Nassar\u2019s research mentioned by Omar Zahzah in his article, \u201c<em>Digital\napartheid: Palestinians being silenced on social media<\/em>\u201d. In 2020, Nassar,\nanalyzed opinion articles published in two daily newspapers, The New York Times\nand The Washington Post as well as two weekly news magazines, The New Republic\nand The Nation, from 1970 to 2019 that is over 50 years period. Nassar\ndiscovered that the editorial boards and columnists have been discussing the\nPalestinians, repeatedly in a condescending and racist manner, without even\nsensing the need to listen to Palestinians themselves. However, the\nunprecedented event of publishing a front-page collage of children of Gaza\nkilled in the recent Israel bombardment by The New York Times and Haaretz has\nsent a new and meaningful message which should be applauded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Undeniably, many turn to social media to raise\nawareness about struggles ignored or undermined by the mainstream media\nchannels. The full use of social media has proven to be effective in the recent\n11 days Saif al-Quds War and the following events including the recent campaign\nto free Sheikh Jarrah activists, Muna and Mohammed al-Kurd. The clash between\nthe two different narratives was very impressive. Unfortunately, social media\ncompanies immediately took the action to suppress free speech and distort\nnarratives about Palestine by halting the dissemination of fair comments and\/or\nclosing accounts by arbitrary means without due justification. In this regard,\nthe Malaysian Alliance of Civil Society Organisations for the UPR Process\n(MACSA) calls for Malaysia to be the first country in the world to enact the\n\u201cPalestinian Struggle Anti-Cencorship Act\/Ordinance\u201d is timely. Nevertheless,\nMACSA recognizes the rights of these companies to suppress hate speech but the\nclarification of what constitutes hate speech must be made. Support for\nPalestinian freedom and liberation must be strengthened despite multiple\nobstacles and challenges. The hope and cry of the oppressed must be duly\nfulfilled. This is in line with verse 75, Surah al-Nisa\u2019 in the Quran\nwhich states, \u201c<em>And why should ye not fight in the cause of\nAllah and of those who, being weak, are ill-treated (and oppressed)?- Men,\nwomen, and children, whose cry is: &#8220;Our Lord! Rescue us from this town,\nwhose people are oppressors; and raise for us from thee one who will protect;\nand raise for us from thee one who will help<\/em>!&#8221;).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cThere were villages. There were cities. There was a Palestinian society before 1948. We do exist.\u201d \u2013 Edward Said. Born in Jerusalem, Said was a Palestinian American intellectual, thinker, political activist, and literary critic. As one of the few people who are &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_analytify_skip_tracking":false,"_wpzoom_pinterest_image_url":"","_wpzoom_pinterest_hidden_image":"0","_wpzoom_pinterest_description":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[139],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-straits-times","category-139","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29524\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}