New Video 'Moments Of Gaza' Offers a Different Look at Isolated, Coastal Palestine

New video by Fox Designs in Gaza introduces a real vision of an embattled region where some people still smile.

Video frame from Moments Of Gaza

(SALEM) - I suspect Gaza holds the world's record for the society most misportrayed, misconstrued, and most frequently subjected to political, racist propaganda.

The team at Fox Design released the video below from Gaza with one simple wish: that this new year we have now entered is indeed a good one. Adli Bseiso explains that the photography and montage is by Ayman Dahlan; the project was directed by Khaled with Fox design Palestine - Gaza.

What they deliver is far removed from most of our videos from Gaza, almost all are about Israeli aggression; activists murdered, Gaza fishermen attacked, children shot for being in so-called restricted areas; families devastated in large-scale attacks followed by Israeli military attacks against ambulance crews.

Hasbara Central

This battered and war-torn population has the entire Israeli hasbara 'reeducation' program pointing their fingers in unison and breathing down their necks, chanting "terrorist" when describing ordinary human beings.

It's like a unique game of role reversal; the Israelis fly over Gaza at will, killing people in open city squares because a "terrorist" was believed to be in the area, never mind the civilian casualties, Israel doesn't worry about that or apologize. But they aren't the terrorists, not the deadly Israelis, oh no... the people of Palestine are the only ones here who wear that dubious badge in this part of the world.

I can not imagine how anyone can maintain a good attitude in this open-air prison camp subjected to the worst of Israel's apartheid wrath.

'Hasbara' exists to convince people that they should be bigoted toward Arabs, Palestinians in particular, and that they should also rally against writers like myself and others who dare to tell the world about Israeli segregation policies that exist only a few steps away from what Adolph Hitler had in Nazi Germany, (to the dead victims of Israeli bullets, the comparison is much closer) and matches the bigotry that the post-slavery U.S. had through 'Jim Crow' laws that were enacted all the way into the 1950's right here in Oregon, barring marriages between races, among other archaic, hate and fear-inspired ideology.

Hasbara further instructs Israelis to always remember to use the term 'antisemite' when confronted with opponents of Israeli apartheid; to deny Israel's role in international crimes, and again, to always refer to Palestinians, regardless of their age or occupation, as 'terrorists'. They are not instructed to openly discuss laws that were enacted in 1951 that overrule any additional 'feel good' Israeli laws suggesting fairness toward Palestinians.

Above all else, hasbara instructs supporters of Zionist ("God gave this land to me") Israel who run into a wall in their arguments, to always refer to rule one: suggest or outwardly claim that the person criticizing Israel's crimes against civilians is an 'antisemite'.

Moments Of Gaza - لحظات من غزة / FOX [design]

Of course the largest modern comparison to Israel existed until very recently, and that is South Africa, where an all-white government ruled that blacks were in every possible respect, second-class citizens. The native population of South Africa was subjected to laws politicians designed to only apply to them.

Israel has the exact same laws in effect today against all non-Jews, which is a wider swath of humanity than any similar place. These include 'Jewish-Only' roads and arrest ages for Palestinian children are much younger than Israeli kids. Jewish media sources relate stories of Israeli settlers pelting Palestinians with stones and they write from an angle of approval. The most hellish aspect of that, are the hundreds of tiny Palestinian children imprisoned in controversial Israeli prisons where allegations of torture and sex abuse are rife; fully separated from their families, for months in pre-trial confinement. Some are as young as six. Israeli kids can't be arrested until they are twice that age.

We condemn the western and Arab countries that discriminate against Jews, and we also hold Israel equally in contempt, and we call foul on the way Israel falsely bills itself as a democracy, when it exists on land that indigenous Arab families inhabited until the late 1940's which saw an exodus of Jews fleeing from Europe and other regions. Many were militant terrorists like the notorious 'Stern Gang' that were strongly opposed by Jewish people in Israel who didn't seek to destroy the previous culture.

The Stern Gang and others, like the irgun, attacked entire Palestinian villages and have since claimed nearly all of the land in the name of Israel's apartheid laws. Hundreds of Palestinian villages that existed for hundreds of years, have been erased by Israel's 63-year old government with hardly a trace. Some have new Israeli religious 'settlement' colonies planted right on top of the historic village sites, others sit in ruin, mostly but not completely pulled down by bulldozers.

The 'rocket attacks'- words uttered by every news anchor from London to LA, define the western understanding of Gaza. The constant rocket attack reports, lead people to believe that Gaza is full of crazed militants. Those attacks from Al Quassam rockets which are compared to unguided fireworks by military experts, have killed a total of 29 Israeli people since they were first launched in the early 1990's. With their property stolen and their rights non-existent due to Israeli law, many have over the years, resisted. Who can blame them?

But move that aside. Almost all people in Gaza are just that: people. They have the same needs that all other human beings have but a program funded by the United States and executed by the Israeli government denies the people of Gaza their basic rights that are guaranteed by international law.

Basic rights, there is a lot to be said about the term.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs

An interpretation of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, represented as a pyramid with the more basic needs at the bottom Courtesy: Wikipedia

For me, all of this discussion; the establishment of a nation on other people's land, the resulting Diaspora that continues in force today, inevitably leads back to Maslow's hierarchy of needs; a theory in psychology, proposed by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper A Theory of Human Motivation.

Many psychology students are familiar with Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs; it is a theory of psychology that Maslow proposed in his 1943 paper, A Theory of Human Motivation.

Wikipedia describes Maslow's hierarchy of needs as a pyramid consisting of five levels:

The lowest level is associated with physiological needs, while the uppermost level is associated with self-actualization needs, particularly those related to identity and purpose.

The higher needs in this hierarchy only come into focus when the lower needs in the pyramid are met. Once an individual has moved upwards to the next level, needs in the lower level will no longer be prioritized. If a lower set of needs is no longer be met, the individual will temporarily re-prioritize those needs by focusing attention on the unfulfilled needs, but will not permanently regress to the lower level.

For instance, a businessman at the esteem level who is diagnosed with cancer will spend a great deal of time concentrating on his health (physiological needs), but will continue to value his work performance (esteem needs) and will likely return to work during periods of remission.

I want to clarify that I have not been to Gaza, our collective knowledge of this place comes from native Palestinians, and also a number of reporters working with our group who are and were based in Gaza. Congratulations to Fox design in Palestine for the video, Moments Of Gaza - لحظات من غزة, which was produced on the occasion of the arrival of the year 2012.

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Tim King, summer 2008, covering the Iraq War

Tim King: Salem-News.com Editor and Writer

Tim King has more than twenty years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor. In addition to his role as a war correspondent, this Los Angeles native serves as Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor. Tim spent the winter of 2006/07 covering the war in Afghanistan, and he was in Iraq over the summer of 2008, reporting from the war while embedded with both the U.S. Army and the Marines. Tim is a former U.S. Marine.

Tim holds awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing, including the Silver Spoke Award by the National Coalition of Motorcyclists (2011), Excellence in Journalism Award by the Oregon Confederation of Motorcycle Clubs (2010), Oregon AP Award for Spot News Photographer of the Year (2004), First-place Electronic Media Award in Spot News, Las Vegas, (1998), Oregon AP Cooperation Award (1991); and several others including the 2005 Red Cross Good Neighborhood Award for reporting. Tim has several years of experience in network affiliate news TV stations, having worked as a reporter and photographer at NBC, ABC and FOX stations in Arizona, Nevada and Oregon. Tim was a member of the National Press Photographer's Association for several years and is a current member of the Orange County Press Club.

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