Judah S. Harris: Battle from my laptop

A writer explains his obsession with Israel’s war on Hamas

By Judah S. Harris

Issue of Jan. 9, 2009 / 13 Teves 5769

I’m back here at my laptop, along with my lunch, starting to write. I’ve been spending extra time here the last couple of days, since Saturday night, watching the news from multiple sources, reading blogs, scrutinizing the video clips, thinking about the events over there in the southern parts of Israel and in this now overly-celebrated region called Gaza.

I stayed up from the early hours of Saturday evening into Sunday morning. It was 3:00 a.m. when I finally shut the computer. I had been channel flipping for seven hours, following the pervasive coverage of the ground war that had begun that evening Israel time. CNN, Haaretz and Arutz Sheva were on my list, and then I added to that Al Jazeera, and anything else that Google could find for me that seemed salient and not suspicious or esoteric. I spent time with a few blogs and looked on YouTube for added videos posted by the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit. I scoured for other video material that related to the conflict, typing “Gaza” into the search box and choosing “date added” as the parameter.

As I watch and listen to the sights and the sounds these last few days, I gather up information, knowing it’s the first step we can take to properly arm ourselves. This is the Information Age, after all, and no matter how one defines the term, and when we propose it actually began, the Internet has changed what you and I think, how we think, and sometimes, because of the abundance of information, if we think.

It remains up to us to process the information we receive, before we swallow, and to project our honed opinions and beliefs in a widespread, articulate, and honest manner. Concurrent with the battleships, tanks, fighter jets and infantry, the battles of our times have solidified into confrontations to win the greatest share of public opinion. The events in Israel and Gaza have spurred unusually vocal rallies in multiple cities across the world, and incessant “on-air” interviews, many informed, but many the too-hard-to-disguise, tiring repetitions of rhetoric we’ve heard over and over.

This rhetoric I certainly encountered, as I expanded my search in the late hours of Saturday evening, tuning in a number of times over more than an hour to Press TV, an Iranian news network that broadcasts in English ‘round the clock.’

More than disappointed (bothered, actually) by the reappearance of the best authoritative source they could seem to find to bring on camera repeated times, I wrote them the following comments:

“I have been watching your live coverage this evening and question the credibility of your news presentation and reporting. The Washington ‘expert’ is the only voice I have been hearing for more than an hour (you lost your Gaza correspondent’s connection). He is repeating the same line about Israel the occupier, Israel this and Israel that. Obviously he and Press TV are not lovers of Israel, but can we have some variety please, if you want to be taken seriously in the West. I assume you want to be."

"Second, you have a ticker reporting Israeli soldier deaths in the ground offensive, but this is not confirmed. You need to state “unconfirmed” casualties. Again, only if you, as a news outlet, wish to be taken seriously. I hope you can improve your coverage and present a balanced picture of events in Israel and Gaza. I don’t think you can, but I gladly issue the challenge.”

This was not the first e-mail reaction I had sent out, having sort of “practiced” at 8:15 that evening, after watching an interview on CNN, and then sending a message to both the correspondent and the president of CNN Worldwide (a little research can often yield e-mail addresses for people you want to find).

The next day I returned to the media outlets, and surfed beyond. I read more about the warnings that Israel was offering the residents of Gaza, in the form of leaflets and phone calls, and penned a note suggesting a story angle, sending it along to a number of editors at The New York Times and Time Magazine.

The new media of blogs, videos, CNN’s iReport, social networking sites like Facebook, and basically any website that can find a core audience has enabled anybody and everybody to be a reporter (or at least an activist). For good or for bad, the traditional credentials to be a journalist are not requisites in the world of new media. These are great tools as we fight for public opinion, but we need to use them in an especially responsible manner if we are to maintain the high ground.

I would expect that supporters of Israel spend abundantly more time interacting with pro-Israeli media sources, formal or informal, but listening to the other side provides not just warning of what our opponents are saying, but necessary information as well. The depressing realities in many areas of Gaza are part of the equation and not knowing, or caring, enough doesn’t make the situation go away.

To some this might all sound like moral equivalency, but in the age of information –– almost too much information that’s thrust at us –– accuracy and honesty must be part of our arsenal, especially if we accuse the other side of lacking it.

During my extended online hours, one place has led to another. I’ve stopped at a-mother-from-gaza.blogspot.com to hear some of the experiences of Gazan residents, Nigel Perry’s electronicintifada.net, a comprehensive site advocating on behalf of the Palestinian people (he’s developed another site focused on the Iraqi people), and a blog I discovered written by an Israeli mother from Maaleh Adumim who, when her eldest son was transformed into an Israeli soldier, was in turn transformed into a soldier’s mother.

Of all that I have read and absorbed over the last couple of days, I have found the following that she expresses in her blog, israelisoldiersmother.blogspot.com, amongst the most lucid and convincing:

“They say we hit several mosques, places of worship. That too is a lie and our answer is very simple, as I wrote on Friday: A House of G-d is not an arsenal, and an arsenal is not a House of G-d. The minute you use a mosque to house explosives and terrorists, it becomes a legitimate target. This is true of your home as well. So, if you are going to store explosives and rockets in your home, the army of Israel kindly requests you not to store your wives and children there too.”

In the Information Age, the pen still remains at least as equally powerful as the sword.

Judah S. Harris is a photographer, filmmaker, speaker and writer. His work can be seen at www.judahsharris.com/visit and in a frequent e-mail newsletter that circulates to thousands of readers. His photography has appeared in museum exhibits, on the Op-Ed Pages of The New York Times, on the covers of more than 40 novels, and in advertising all over the world. He photographs weddings, family and organizational events, and can be contacted directly at judah@judahsharris. com.