The Holy Church of Sepulcher and Suplexes.

In her book “The Israelis, Ordinary People in an Extraordinary Land” Donna Rosenthal focused a chapter on the traditionally diverse Christian population in Israel. She mentions the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem to showcase the diversity of worldly denominations and the hostile yet sacred environment that surrounds the Christian community living in the Jewish State.

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher is located in Jerusalem between Suq Khan e-Zeit and Christian Quarter Rd. According to the churches non-denominational website, Christians believe this is the site in which Jesus was crucified, buried, and resurrected. The church holds the cross Jesus was hung on, the cave in which he was laid to rest (short rest), and also a rock known either as Calvary (Roman Catholic name) or Golgotha (Greek Orthodox name) that was present at his crucifixion. The first church was built on this land in the year 306 when Constantine conquered Jerusalem, destroying and rebuilding on top of the Roman temple for the God Venus that was supposedly constructed to hide the sacred site of Jesus. It has been an important and dramatic site of religious interest ever since. It has been destroyed by Muslim invaders twice, rebuilt and renovated by different Christian communities, and remains a major pilgrimage site for most Christians.

For centuries the various denominations of Christianity including but not limited to the Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Armenian Orthodox, Franciscan, Syrian Orthodox, Egyptian, and Ethiopian Coptic clerics have argued and fought for control of the church. So much so that in 1852, the Ottoman government issued a mandate known as the “Status-Quo” that stated that the care of the Church of Holy Sepulchers is shared by the six denominations: the Greek Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, Roman Catholic, Egyptian Coptic, Ethiopian, and Syrian Orthodox churches. The entire church grounds are carefully divided into sections, while some are commonly shared; some other parts are reserved to each particular sect.

This separation of ancient sacred space has caused a lot of drama even in recent times. According to Matti Friedman in his article titled “Christians feud over Church of Holy Sepulcher” a quarrel erupted in 2002 when a Coptic monk moved his chair into the shade and too close to the Ethiopians side, chaos ensued between the holy men and in the end 11 people were hospitalized for their holy battle wounds.

Fighting between the Greek Orthodox and the Armenian congregants over the rights to areas of the church during holidays has happened on multiple occasions recently. According to the BBC article “Monks brawl at Jerusalem Shrine”, both in 2002 and 2008 the two denominations have resorted to violence to challenge, push boundaries, or uphold the status quo that divides the Church of the Holy Sepulchers. The brawls have become youtube viral videos.

Rosenthal’s point of view reflected in her book “The Israelis” looks down upon the history of religious communities fighting over the church. She spends a great deal of the section on the church focusing on the violence and bickering. She also ends the discussion with a judgmental tone towards the holy men, telling them that they have much worse problems they should be paying attention too besides this religious landmarks status quo.

The church's website is supposedly from a non denominational point of view (certain denominations such as the Franciscans have their own sites for the Church). With this position the site doesn't seem to take a side to the discussion of fighting but does reveal the frustration of the slow process of any type of denominational cooperation in its language.

Matti Friedman’s point of view in his article “Christian’s feud over Church of Holy Sepulcher” is of disappointment towards the Christian groups that practice at their. He repeatedly refers to police involvement and his bewilderment on how to fix what he considers a ridiculous situation. Similarly the BBC article had a shocked point of view. The fighting is presented in a way that makes the situation seem unbelievable. Even in the title “Monks brawl at Jerusalem shrine” makes the whole issue seem like a bad joke.

The information and data gathered for this blog from the various sources all seem reliable. The historical information from the church's website was cross checked with library and other reliable website sources. The information on denominational fighting in the BBC article and Matti Friedman’s article published in USA today is also trustworthy. The BBC is a respected news agency in regards to their data reliability and the same goes for USA today.

Israel is the land of sacred religious sites for all religious denominations. Israel is also the land of constant disputes and fighting. The Church of Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem represents both of these aspects of Israel’s identity.

The Israeli Bedouin Community: The Struggle of Land and Lifestyle

“The biggest issue and root cause of the majority of problems that the Israeli government has with the Bedouin, stem from their misunderstanding of what it means to be Arab.”. This statement by Rasha Athamni (An Israeli Arab youth delegate to the U.N. [Representing Israel]) illustrates the difficulty and confusion of the experience of the Bedouin in Israel. Donna Rosenthal spends a chapter in her book “The Israelis: Ordinary people in an extraordinary land” focusing on various experiences of the close to 200,000 Bedouin that live in Israel today. This feeling of confusion and being misunderstood mentioned by Rasha is also a primary theme in Rosenthal’s chapter. These issues have evolved and persist today, focusing on the sensitive Israeli dispute over land.

Bedouin city of Rahat

The majority of modern day Bedouin in Israel and across the Middle East are descendants of the independent semi nomadic tribes that once roamed the Middle East. They ignored borders and lacked allegiance to any nation, constantly moving around the vast area they consider their rightful property. The Israeli government website for the Knesset has a section titled “Bedouins in the State of Israel”, 4 pages stating the governing bodies official understanding of the history of Israeli Bedouin. The pages mention that when Israel became a state in 1948 the Bedouins were on movement restrictions and had their living grounds reduced, many flew to Galilee and Gaza but around 11,000 stayed. In 1951 they were forced into a small triangle in the Negev and after the passing of legislation of the Land Purchasing Law in 1953, the Bedouins lost all rights to the any land outside of their living area, which was currently forced upon them. The Israeli government then began to develop the Bedouins previous land into Jewish settlements, nature reserves, military camps and firing zones.

According to Professor Kassem Nabulsi, this issue of land is the biggest obstacle in the way of a comfortable Israeli Bedouin relationship. In his discussion at California State University Northridge he explained that the Bedouin issue is diverse among the northern and southern Bedouin but they unify on the feeling of the injustice of stolen lands and their growing frustration towards the Israeli government.

This anger and confusion rooted in land disputes from over 50 years ago have developed into modern day racial tensions between the Bedouin Israelis and the Israeli police. In his article “Is Rahat the Ferguson of Israel”, Ben Sales covers the 3 days of riots in the Bedouin town of Rahat in protest against the Israeli police killing of an unarmed young man. The police say that he was a bystander in a drug dealer and the residence of the city claim he was murdered while innocently on his doorstep, the disagreement took to violence in the streets. The citizens of Rahat interviewed in the article said that the Bedouin public finds itself in despair at the amount of racism and that they have lost hope at a diplomatic future.

Rahat and the treatment of Bedouins have become an example of the social inequality of Israel in the national sense. In her article “How Rahat Became a Symbol of Israeli Inequality”, Allison Deger talks about how the city that was at one point the image of a path to peace, Rahat has become the symbol for the terrible mistreatment of Arabs in Israel. Whether it be the failing school systems, deprived government funding, or police brutality, the Bedouin of Rahat or losing patience working with the Israeli government.

This growing tension in the Bedouin Israeli community may have begun in relation to land rights but has evolved into a racial, cultural, and overall debilitating social dispute.

Rosenthal’s point of view reflected in her book “The Israelis”, views the Bedouin Israeli community as a people in need of serious help. She has a sympathetic view towards the Bedouin and a concerned view as an Israeli. She shares the stories of Bedouin individuals that have been victimized by their situation in Israel. She ends her chapter with a quote by Professor Abu-Saad warning that if nothing drastic is done soon “the next intifada could come from the Bedouin”. To end on such a note expresses her perspective of fear and concern for the immediacy of action.

The Knesset website is supposed to reflect the perspective drawn from Israeli legislation and laws. From the sites description of the Bedouin history there is a similar feeling to Rosenthal's book, sympathy and concern but also with an added tinge of guilt and defensiveness. The pages document a lot of disappointments the Bedouin have toward the Israeli government, disappointment in the group that’s writing the informational page and this relationship creates a sense of guilt for the wrongdoings. Throughout the page the author also expresses a defensive point of view as it lists all the efforts the government is taking towards fixing the Bedouin issue, failing but attempting.

Both Rasha Athamni and Professor Kassem Nabulsi express a sympathetic view towards the Bedouin Israeli community and resentment towards the Israeli government for its actions towards the group. They focused on the confusion and lack of cohesion between the government and the Bedouin people. Both Rasha and Dr. Nabulsi were born and raised in Arab towns in Northern Israel and identify as both Israeli and Arab. While their points were critical of the government they also reflected a sense of responsibility for the actions of their home country.

     Ben Sales and Allison Deger present somewhat different points of views in their articles discussed above. Ben is overwhelmingly sympathetic to the Bedouin struggle and seems to understand the suffering and resulting riotous behavior. On the other hand Allison Deger focuses on the out of control behavior of the Bedouin in response to Israeli police along with the root causes. Her article while describing the rational buildup of tension, also explains the extent of irrational acts of the Bedouin rioters, something Ben seems to push aside as just an outcome without placing responsibility.

     According to the Knesset website all of the data used is in reference to Knesset government offices, records, and legislation, which are all reliable sources of data. Rasha Ahamni and Dr. Kassem Nabulsi are both qualified Israeli cultural representatives, Ahamni representing Israel to the United Nations and Professor Nabulsi who is a professor of Middle Eastern studies. Their opinions are a reliable source of reference. Ben Sales is the Israeli correspondent for JTA: The Global Jewish News Source which is a respected news agency that has been around for almost 100 years, a reliable source. Allison Deger is the assistant editor for the Mondoweiss news website founded in 2006 that has also produced reliable journalism.

     The Bedouin community in Israel is in desperate need of attention from the world and especially the intellectual minds of the world. What I’ve uncovered is that this Bedouin situation is extremely complicated and I haven’t found a proposed solution that works. The issue needs to be tinkered with the by best religious, political, philosophical, anthropological, and psychological minds we have in hopes of easing the terrible situation.

Israeli Haredi Radio

In her book "The Israelis, Ordinary People in an Extraordinary Land”, Donna Rosenthal dedicates a chapter focusing on the Haredi Ultra Orthodox communities in Israel. Among many issues she discusses how the Haredi culture of adhering to strict religious guidelines faces difficulties in the modern day society of mass shared information and communication. The Haredi community is suspicious of and looks down upon most forms of shared information in fear of pollution of morality as a result of secular influence.

On page 189 Rosenthal states that most Haredim do not own a television, they believe the shows and news are full of immoral temptations that will evoke in people the “Yetzer Ha-Ra”. Even more so than television, Haredim officials despise the internet. According to Rosenthal, a Haredim Rabbi bulletin calls the internet a “danger one thousand times greater than television” and most Ultra orthodox Rabbis require followers to delete home browsing links from their computers (pg 199). The Haredi community in Jerusalem known as “Edah HaChareidis” forbids all links to the internet calling it “a deadly poison which burns the soul”.

While television and the internet are not supported, Haredi radio is an aspect of mass communication that Haredi families such as the Steins, written about in Rosenthal's book, are allowed to partake in. According to the text, radio is one of the only accepted and openly utilized forms of mass communication in the Israeli Ultra Orthodox community. These Israeli Haredi radio stations are a unique feature of the countries diverse identity.

In his book “God, Jews, and the Media: Religion and Israeli Media”, Yoel Cohen discusses the role of radio in the Israeli Haredi community. He mentions that a 1995 survey conducted by the Israeli Advertisers Associations found that 56% of the Haredi community didn't listen to any radio at all while 26% listened to Orthodox religious radio. Cohen mentions that perhaps numbers were so low because most ultra orthodox stations were not approved by the Israeli Government.

In 1996, recognizing that the religious communities needed their own station; the Israeli government approved the establishment of Radio Kol Chai (The voice of life) which was geared towards both the Haredi and Modern Orthodox communities. Cohen explains how the station quickly shifted to a strictly Haredi station in order to attract the stricter religious audience to cope with low ratings as a loose religious station. When the channel made the switch they had to tighten up the programming as to not offend some Haredi listeners, such as by removing women singing (which is forbidden in the Haredi community in accordance with Kol Isha)

Image accredited to Kol Chai Radio

According to their website, Kol Chai is the most listened to Radio station in the Haredi Israeli community. They cover a range of topics including family, food, music, and news. Interestingly the radio station is available online as well, enabling listeners to tune in from outside of Israel, while utilizing the internet that many in the Ultra Orthodox Rabbinate condemn.

Kol Chai is not alone in the field of online Israeli Haredi radio station broadcasting. Kol Barami is an Israeli Haredi radio station that began broadcasting in 2009 and also utilizes internet broadcasting along with FM radio. According to their website about 200,000 households listen to the station everyday that broadcasts programming approved by Haredi rabbis, spiritually accepted public figures, and religious public leaders. The website also mentions how the station emphasizes listening habits supported by the Haredi community as reflected in public opinion surveys conducted regularly.

These Haredi Israeli radio stations provide an avenue to express the strict religious traditions of the Ultra Orthodox utilizing mass communication.

Rosenthal’s point of view reflected in her book “The Israelis”, looks down upon the Haredi community as expressed through the tone and scope of information she provides. She focuses on what the community does not allow in accordance to shared information and quickly overlooks the importance of the Haredi radio stations. She also failed to mention how the radio channels are broadcast over the internet along with the FM radio stations.

Yoel Cohen also somehow skips this vital internet radio factor in the chapter on Haredi radio in his book. This however does not imply a negative viewpoint of the Haredi community because he goes into depth about the issue of the internet amongst Israeli Haredim in subsequent chapters of the book. Cohen successfully holds a central point of view, showing both positive and negative aspects from both sides of the argument. The data in Cohen's book is reliable. Cohen is a well established writer and the book was published by Routledge, the worlds leading academic publisher of the Humanities and Social Science

The websites representing the two Haredi radio stations (Kol Chai & Kol Barama) both hold a favorable point of view towards the Haredi community and obviously their respective radio stations. Like any business they talk highly of themselves and even higher of their audience. The programming while done in accordance to rabbinical standards is also shaped by the audience’s opinion, and the majority of the audience for Kol chai and Kol Barama are the Ultra Orthodox. Both of the websites have a point of view that is highly favorable to the Haredi community. The data referred to in this blog post taken from these two websites is reliable. Both radio stations are mainstream in Israel and are supported by the Israeli Knesset which governs the radio stations and their websites accountability.

The Haredi radio stations in Israel serve an important niche of Israeli society. The Ultra Orthodox communities, with their strict guidelines on exposure to information, needs these radio stations to safely share information to their community.

Peace: A Five Letter Word

On March 10th 2015, the Arutz Sheva Israel National News website, published an article titled “Rabbi Yosef’s Daughter Clarifies: Shas is Leftist”. The article reports on what Rabbanit Adina Bar-Shalom, a leading voice for the Shas party, said at a meeting in Tel Aviv hosted by the Geneva Initiative and what her opinion reveals about the Shas political perspective. As the title implies Rabbanit Adina is the daughter of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who was one of the most influential rabbis of modern Israel and more importantly founded the Shas party in 1984. He was the voice of the Sephardic and Mizrahi ultra orthodox Jews, acting as Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel from 1973-1983. As a founder he created the Shas party with his ultra-orthodox Sephardic beliefs in mind and guided the party with these values as the Shas spiritual leader until his death in 2013. After Yosef’s death, Bar-Shalom his daughter has become a major source for her father's opinion with concern to the Shas party, and politics and religion as a whole. She is a major political influence in her own right, being recognized as an Israeli Prize winner  in 2014 for her special contributions throughout her life to Israeli society and the State of Israel.

The article focused on her discussion points at the Geneva Initiative meeting on March 9th 2015 concerning peace deals between Israel and the Palestinians. She mentioned her fear of the consequences of electing another radical right wing government in the upcoming elections (in which the right wing Likud party ended up winning). Her fear is that the tremendous amount of blood spilled over the conflict within the past couple years will increasingly get worse as the right wing government continues to fail to produce a viable peace agreement. She further goes on to mention that if there is a peace process in the upcoming elections, Shas including the chairman Aryeh Deri and other Shas members of the Knesset will push adamantly for the success of the initiative, just as her father would have wanted. The authors of this article respond to Bar-Shalom's claim that her father would have supported the peace process, claiming that Deri (the current chairman of Shas) was the real mind behind the Shas peaceful position at the Oslo accords, not Yosef.

Bar-Shalom continued to talk about her father Rabbi Yosef and his politics, claiming that her father loved Eli Yishai(who recently broke off from Shas to form the right wing-haredi and religious party, Yachad -Ha’am Itanu) but disapproved his right wing path. She mentions that Yishai committed an act that her father forbid when he ascended the Temple Mount in 2007, which exasperated the Arab-Israeli tension. Again the authors of this article refute Bar-Shalom’s claim of her father's opinion, they believe that Yosef actually approved of Yishai more than Deri, instead of Bar-Shalom's claim of the opposite.

The article ends with a discussion of the condition of the Arab citizens of Israel. Bar-Shalom claims that Israeli Jewish ignorance about the reality of the maltreatment of Israeli Arabs is what has fostered the hatred. She believes that if the State of Israel acted correctly to address the needs of Arab Israelis, the non Jewish population could be utilized as a bridge of understanding, instead of a wrench in the gears of peace. The authors conclude the article by presenting information that portrays Arab Israelis as opposing the state of Israel.  They mention that according to a poll late last year, 29% of Arab Israelis blamed the state of Israel for increased terrorism, and that this meant that a third of Arab Israelis approved of this terrorism(a claim I will refute). The authors add that Arab Israeli protesting (against the state of Israel) on Israeli independence day is a prime example of how blatant Arab Israeli disapproval of the State is.

The article summarized above was co-written by Uzi Baruch and Ari Yashar. Uzi Baruch is the Editor in Chief at Arutz Sheva and Ari Yashar is a member of the Arutz Sheva  24-hour News Desk. Arutz Sheva is a media network that identifies with religious Zionism. It is known for being a right of center news agency, some comparing it to the Israeli equivalent of US Fox News or the Palestinian Ma’an News Agency.

This religious Zionist/right wing tone is exemplified throughout the article. The authors give tacit disapproval of Rabbanit Adina Bar-Shalom concerning her advocacy for accelerated Israeli-Palestinian peace deals and her criticism of the right wing government. They dismiss Bar-Shalom’s claims about her father's political opinion on two occasions, undermining her reliability. When she put the blame on Israeli Jews for the continuation of difficulties in the countries conflicts, Baruch and Yashar lay claim that the blame is truthfully on the Arabs. They mention how Arab Israelis protest against the state annually on its own independence day and  how a third of them approve of terrorism, demonizing the Arab citizens of Israel after Bar-Shalom defended them as not the source of the problem.

The article also makes a false assumption in its second to last paragraph about the ramifications of a poll on Israeli opinion of terror. The poll claims that 29% of Arab Israelis blame the state for the wave of terrorism after last summer's war, and the authors falsely assume that this meant that a third of Israeli Arabs approve of the terrorism. This claim is irrational, just because they blame the state of Israel for the increased terrorism does not mean that they approve of the terrorism itself. One can believe in an actions origin without approving of the action. Baruch and Yashar’s irrational assumption, belittling and demonizing the Arab-Israelis,  gives support to their right wing/ religious Zionist underlying aspirations.

Regardless of the authors point of view, the sources used in this article are all reliable. While the Arutz Sheva media network began in 1988 as an illegal radio station broadcasting from a boat in the Mediterranean sea, it has evolved into the self proclaimed number one place for news from Israel, the Jewish World and the Middle East. In 1999 the Knesset granted it a licence to broadcast and absolved Arutz Sheva from earlier illegalities. The internet radio show still broadcasts, along with a website, and the B’Sheva newspaper is the fourth most widely read newspaper in Israel. This article may have a right wing overtone but the information is legitimate. It has become more and more evident as I continue to analyze the Arab-Israeli conflict through journalism,  that one article is never efficient to get a proper understanding of an issue.

Democratic Difficulties

On February 18^th 2015, The Ma’an News Agency published an online article titled “Israel court quashes ban on Haneen Zuabi election campaign”. The article reports on the recent Israeli Supreme Court decision to overrule the Central Election Committee ban on two candidates for the Knesset in the upcoming elections. The Central Elections Committee barred Haneen Zuabi and Baruch Marzel last week, relinquishing the ability of both candidates to be on the ballet in March. According to the Israeli government website, one function of the Central Elections Committee (CEC) includes approving the list of candidates for each election.  The orders from the CEC still required the approval of the Supreme Court which denied the ban.

The article briefly discusses each candidates political views and their subsequent reason for the CEC’s attempted ban. Haneen Zuabi is an active member of the Knesset who is running for re election this year and is a representative of the Balad political party. While the committee gave no official reason for the disqualification, her lawyer Hassan Jabareen said that it was because Zuabi was determined to be “hostile to the Jewish State”. This hostility stems from her (and her parties) rejection of Israel as a Jewish State, believing that it should be one single country in which Arabs and Jews have equal rights  Zuabi was also banned ahead of the 2013 election but that decision was also overturned by the Israeli Supreme Court, oddly mirroring the events preceding this years election.

The other candidate that the CEC voted to ban was Baruch Marzel. The article describes Marzel as an extreme right winger and a follower of the right wing political activist Rabbi Meir Kahane who was assassinated back in 1990.  Marzel is a member of the Kahane inspired Otzma Yehudit nationalist political party in Israel.  The article mentions that his disqualification from the CEC was due to alleged racist comments and actions towards Arabs and other migrants. Marzels attorney said the alleged comments and actions either never happened or were misunderstood.

           

The article ends with some background information on the Arab population living in Israel. It mentions that there are 1.3 million Arab-Israelis, composing 20 percent of the overall population of the country. While they constitute 20 percent of the population they are projected to possibly win a mere 10 to 13 seats in the 120 member Knesset, only around 10 percent. The article ends with a history lesson about how the present day 1.3 million Arab-Israelis are descendants of the 160,000 Palestinians who remained despite the mass displacement during the creation of the State of Israel in 1948.

The authorship of the article summarized above is credited to the “Ma’an Staff”. The Ma’an News Agency is the largest independent media group in the West Bank and Gaza strip. While Ma’an is popular in Palestine the company has been criticized for having an anti-Semitic tone. While there is not blatant anti Semitism in this article, there does exist a heavily pro-Arab/pro-Palestinian viewpoint. This viewpoint is expressed in three main ways. First of all the article is heavily focused on Zuabi (the Arab candidate) and little attention is given to Marzel (the Jewish candidate). His name is not mentioned in the title and only 3 lines of the article are dedicated to his analysis compared to 7 lines for Zuabi. It seems to me that Marzel was just added as an inadequate attempt at representing both sides of the issue, he was thrown in as a side note.

Secondly the only opinion represented in the article is that of Adalah, an Arab-Israeli legal rights group which is a strong pro-Palestinian/anti-Israeli advocate.  They are quoted in the article condemning the CEC, calling them racist with improper motives to portray Arab members of the Knesset as terrorist. What this quote fails to mention is that only one of the two candidates banned were Arab which undermines the theory that the CEC is trying to portray strictly Arabs as terrorists. It would be more appropriate to claim that the Committee is trying to portray all radical politicians as terrorists, since both Zuabi and Marzel are considered radical politicians and are not both considered Arabs.

The third aspect of the report that reflects a pro-Arab tone are the final three paragraphs of the article that outline some information about Arab-Israelis. There is no purpose to include this information other than to paint the Palestinians in Israel as victims and are deserving of our sympathy. While the content is reliable, it is one sided and inefficient without posting similar information about the Jewish population of Israel.

The specific data and sources included in this article are all reliable. The Ma’an news agency, while one sided is respected as reliable. The reporting work is also contributed to AFP (Agence France‑Presse) which is one of the oldest international news agencies in the world.  AFP has a respectable history of trustworthy journalism which gives the article and its data legitimacy. In my opinion this article’s downfall is its biased one sided nature not its source or information legitimacy. This is a similar trend that I found in the previous Ma’an article I reviewed concerning Palestinian Cartoonists and a trend that I assume I will run into repeatedly as I continue to research the Arab-Israeli political news. 

Cartoons are Crazy

On January 16^th 2015, The Ma’an News Agency published an article titled “For some Palestiniancartoonists. Religion is off limits”. The article reports on the responses of Palestinian cartoonists to the events surrounding the terrorist attack at the Charlie Hebdo Magazine at its Paris headquarters on January 7^th that left 12 dead and 11 injured. The attack was orchestrated by two French Muslim brothers who claimed to be religiously motivated to perform their attack to avenge the prophet Mohammed whom the magazine often mocked alongside a variety of religious and political leaders.  The article focuses more specifically on the attitudes of 3 Palestinian cartoonists (Mohammad Sabaaneh, Ramzy Taweel, and Baha al Boukhari) towards both the terrorist attack and the content of the Charlie Hebdo controversial issues. All three Palestinians shared two main points of view;1) that the attack was a terrible tragedy  and, 2) that while they defend free speech and condemn the violence they do not agree with the content that Charlie Hebdo published concerning the Prophet Mohammed. The first half of the article was concerned with this disapproval of both the attack and the magazines issues.

The second half of the article is separated by the bolded quote 'The pen and the smile' and focuses on the reasons why the Palestinian cartoonists are upset and what they think the response should have been. They believe that while free speech is important, faith and religion is a touchy subject that should be avoided by any aspect of mockery or satire. While some found it flat out offensive to depict the Prophet Muhammad in that way, they all agreed that violence is and was not the answer. Instead the Palestinian cartoonists believed that those offended should let it go, shrug it off, or as Mohammad Sabaaneh put it “combat idea with idea, cartoons with cartoons”. All 3 Palestinian cartoonists involved in this article acted upon this last suggestion, each publishing their own cartoon response to the events and circumstances surrounding the terrorist attack (Mohammad Sabaaneh, Baha al Boukhari, Ramzy Taweel)

The article summarized above was written by John Davison who is a journalistic contributor to AFP news agency. From the style in which Davison writes, one can presume that his point of view is disapproving of the religious based cartoons produced by Charlie Hebdo and sympathetic towards the Palestinian cartoonists. His point of view is not expressed blatantly but in the structure of his writing and his narrow area of focus. First, Davison structures the article in a way that portrays the Palestinian cartoonists in a positive protagonistic “fighting the true fight the right way” kind of light. Each cartoonist is first quoted saying something loving and positive and then only after is quoted mentioning a critical aspect, a sugar coating technique. Second, the narrow minded nature of the article is expressed in the first half of its title “For some Palestinian Cartoonists”. The opinions of this article are based off of 3 cartoonists from Gaza responding to an event involving Islamic extremism. The only reason this tiny demographics point of view was chosen by the author was because while the majority of the cartoon industry and world had overwhelming and complete support for Charlie Hebdo (Je Suis Charlie), these Palestinian cartoonists criticized the magazine even in the wake of the tragedy. Besides the three cartoonists, Davison also mentions that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Mohammad Hussein criticized the Charlie Hebdo comic calling it an insult to a third of the world. The four sources for this article are all extremely one sided and form a specific niche of opinion. Thus Davison with bias writes from the point of view that is both supportive of the Palestinian cartoonists and critical of Charlie Hebdo.

 Regardless of the authors’ point of view, the sources used are all legitimate in the sense that the facts presented are factual. All of sources are cartoonists from Palestine (illustrator Mohammad Sabaaneh of the newspaper al-Hayat al-Jadida, free-lance Palestinian cartoonist Ramzy Taweel, and the veteran illustrator Baha al Boukhari of the daily Al-Ayyam). The Ma’an News Agency that posted the article is the largest independent media group in the West bank and Gaza strip. While Ma’an is popular in Palestine the company has been criticized for having an anti-Semitic tone. This tone was shown in the article when Davison mentions that it is widely believed that the famous Palestinian cartoonist Naji al-Ali was assassinated by Israel’s Mossad intelligence services. While this rumor of Israeli involvement exists nothing has ever been proven with concern to who murdered al-Ali and therefore the inclusion of the claim is suspicious.

On the other hand the article was originally published by AFP (Agence France‑Presse) which is one of the oldest international news agencies in the world.  AFP has a respectable history of trustworthy journalism which gives the article and its data legitimacy. In my opinion this articles legitimacy is not the problem but the narrow minded viewpoint is what makes the article insufficient reading for getting a well rounded understanding of the issue.