In reporting the brutal murder in Melbourne of Palestinian Israeli exchange student Aya Maasarwe, the Australian corporate media have referred to her either as an 'Israeli' or an 'Arab Israeli', the latter being the preferred Zionist term for the Palestinian minority who managed to avoid being driven into stateless exile in 1948, were kept under military lock and key until 1966, and who only thereafter received Israeli - second class - citizenship.
I can't recall seeing Aya anywhere in the media described as what she was, a 'Palestinian Israeli'. Here is yet another example of how a hopelessly biased, Zionised media misrepresents, marginalises, and erases Palestinian reality.
Another Palestinian Israeli, the poet Mahmoud Darwish, wrote the following lines, taken from his 1966 poem, A Lover from Palestine. He was, of course, referring to his stolen homeland. My thoughts are of Aya Maasarwe as I type Darwish's words here:
Palestinian, her eyes and her tattoo
Palestinian, her name
Palestinian, her dreams and her sorrow
Palestinian, her scarf, her feet, and her body
Palestinian, her words and her silence
Palestinian, her voice
Palestinian, her birth and her death
2 comments:
Your post reminded me of this by Rafeef Ziadah. Always brings tears to my eyes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKucPh9xHtM
SBS late news 23/1/19 described Aya Maasarwe as an Israeli Palestinian, whereas ABC breakfast news 24/1/19 described her as an Israeli of Arab descent. It seems as if the words Palestine or Palestinian can only be used in negative references on our ABC.
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