Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land: US Media and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

The Situation:

This film was extremely informative, but very one sided at the same time. Certain parts of the film opened my eyes to certain aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. I was aware that Israel was currently in territory which they had occupied since the 1960s, and I was also aware of the fact that the United Nations Security Council was pleading for a cease fire years ago. What I was unaware of until today in class was the way that Israelis have been plowing down houses and recreating communities to be occupied by Jews. The only thing that was flowing through my head that could be perceived as comparable to these events, and they were also mentioned by a fellow classmate, was the occupation of the Nazis upon the Jews in Poland. Israel is basically attempting to create communities illegally on Palestinian soil and call it there own. This would be like the United States infiltrating Mexico and creating communities for American right beyond the border of the United States and Mexico. I feel that not only is this a violation of countless policies of the United Nations, including the Geneva Convention, but also a human rights problem and war crime. Palestinians are being left with no homes, money, and their belongings, if their lucky, left on the streets.

The USA Media:

It is disgusting how twisted our media is, but not shocking. Considering the fact that Israel has always been a close ally with the United States, it is not shocking that the United States government would support Israel and attempt to cover up what they would perceive as unacceptable news to the public. The conflict is very multifaceted and complicated to the point where research could be done, on both sides, for probably years, and an individual would still be unable to retrieve every fact about the conflict. It hurts me that when we turn on our television, the information that we receive has already been so filtered that it might as well be as credible as reality television. I don't think that the media in the United States will ever be able to be 100% truth because of relations with other nations, and also information and secrets within the government that the public will never be made aware of. As much as I would love to see peace in the Middle East, and some sort of solution surface for the people who are being injured and murdered daily, I honestly don't believe it happening for a long period of time.

Propaganda in Films:

I was appalled by the realism that was conveyed in Reel Bad Arabs. I brought up in class and must reiterate how shocked I was to see Aladdin, the Disney cartoon, brought up in this film. That was one of my favorite films growing up as a child and I think subconsciously I recognized Arabs as "bad people" because of the films portrayal, but it was done in such a clever manner that I never realized how derogatory it was. The lyrics of the song would also simply roll off my tongue, while never realizing what I was saying. The lyrics about cutting throats, I learned, were edited out of the score of music, but there are many children, including myself, who grew up singing these songs while watching the film and not realizing what we were conveying and how racist that was. It definitely proves how propaganda can be used on any age person, and how easily it can be slipped into the minds of young children. Disney is one of the top producers of children's films and they should most definitely not be producing films with such derogatory material for children to learn such negative thoughts about people from other cultures.