Impossible Witness: Israeli Visuality, Palestinian Testimony and the Gaza War

Stein, Rebecca L.

doi:10.1080/14797585.2012.647749

Cited by 25 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 12 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Let me now return to that event that journalists and academics (Persico 2009;Stein 2012) have noted as a remarkable exception to the invisibility of Palestinian suffering in Israeli public discourse: that moment on January 16th on Channel 10 news, when the reporter Shlomi Eldar interrupted the live broadcast to answer a phone call from Gaza. For almost 4 min Eldar held his cellular phone next to his tieclip microphone as Abuelaish wailed in pain and grief.…”

Section: The Unusual Circulation Of a Palestinian Testimonymentioning

confidence: 91%

“…Mainstream Jewish-Israelis construe Palestinians as ''epistemic others'' (Bishara 2013), biased by their very existence, and as a result, severely limited in their ability to forward truth-claims. Their grievances rarely become audible in Israeli publics (Azoulay 2008;Stein 2012).…”

Section: Concluding Notesmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Abuelaish is an Arab, and therefore, his name was assumed to be Ahmad or Muhammad; the fact that this was a recorded interview and that the anchorman and graphic editor were not coordinated exposes the perceived need to have a ''token Arab'' on air. However, in light of the criticism, the Israeli media suffered after the 2006 Lebanon war for not ''backing up'' the war effort (Stein 2012), this token Arab in 2008 was presented as a ''voice of sanity.'' Here, Abuelaish's doctor-ness becomes central and unlike other Palestinians, whose sanity is always in question.…”

Section: The Unusual Circulation Of a Palestinian Testimonymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Abuelaish family was sadly only one case in a surge of Palestinian suffering. However, limitations on media access to combat zones, military censorship, and the self-conscription of media producers and editors rendered Palestinian casualties and losses practically invisible in Israeli media coverage (Stein 2012). Despite being an extreme case, the control over reporting the Gaza War was by no means exceptional and the same mechanisms are in place on different levels, during less eventful times as well (Azoulay 2008).…”

mentioning

confidence: 98%

See 3 more Smart Citations

A Doctor’s Testimony: Medical Neutrality and the Visibility of Palestinian Grievances in Jewish-Israeli Publics

Shalev

2015

Cult Med Psychiatry

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper follows the testimony of Izzeldin Abuelaish, a Palestinian physician who bears witness to his experiences working, living, and suffering under Israeli rule. He presents his story as a doctor's story, drawing on his identity as a medical professional to gain credibility and visibility and to challenge the limited legitimacy of Palestinian grievances. In this paper, I explore his testimony as a medical voice that at once recounts the suffering and loss endured by the Palestinian people and also struggles to negotiate the values associated with being a "reliable" witness. Consequently, I ethnographically examine the social life and reception of his story in Jewish-Israeli publics. In comparison with most Palestinian narratives, Abuelaish's testimony achieved an extremely rare degree of visibility and sympathy, a phenomenon that calls out for analysis. I identify the boundaries that typically render Palestinian grievances invisible to Israeli publics and suggest how medicine's self-proclaimed ethos of neutrality served as a channel for crossing them. Finally, I reflect on the political possibilities and limitations of medical witnessing to render suffering visible and arouse compassion toward those construed as a dangerous/enemy Other.

show abstract

Section: The Unusual Circulation Of a Palestinian Testimonymentioning

confidence: 91%

Section: Concluding Notesmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: The Unusual Circulation Of a Palestinian Testimonymentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 98%

See 2 more Smart Citations

A Doctor’s Testimony: Medical Neutrality and the Visibility of Palestinian Grievances in Jewish-Israeli Publics

Shalev

2015

Cult Med Psychiatry

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…cnn relied heavily on its iReport site, which invites amateurs to submit videos of breaking news; the network aired 180 of the roughly 5,200 Iran-related videos they received. 1 …”

Section: Ethan Zuckermanmentioning

confidence: 99%

International reporting in the age of participatory media

Zuckerman

2010

Daedalus

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“Giving a Face to the Silenced Victims: Recent Documentaries on Gaza”

Nashef¹

2020

Quarterly Review of Film and Video

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Giving a Face to the Silenced Victims: recent documentaries on Gaza' Often described as an open-air prison, the citizens of the Gaza Strip have long resisted a subaltern existence.Conditions in Gaza, and specifically since the Second Intifada of 2000, have increasingly worsened. With the advent of Hamas in 2006-2007, a complete blockade was imposed on the Strip. A deafening silence by the world has resulted in a marked increase in documentaries from within and has also attracted international filmmakers who want to tell the Gazan story. In these productions, Gazans convey their stories to the outside world and demand that their humanity is acknowledged. My analysis of a number of recent documentaries demonstrates how Gazans emphatically reject the role of victim but rather want to tell their stories and to be heard directly. They want to be tellers of their stories. Despite their misfortunes, Gazans remain resilient, aspiring for life. This need has become more urgent since the 2014 war. The

show abstract

Impossible Witness: Israeli Visuality, Palestinian Testimony and the Gaza War

Cited by 25 publications

References 12 publications

A Doctor’s Testimony: Medical Neutrality and the Visibility of Palestinian Grievances in Jewish-Israeli Publics

A Doctor’s Testimony: Medical Neutrality and the Visibility of Palestinian Grievances in Jewish-Israeli Publics

International reporting in the age of participatory media

“Giving a Face to the Silenced Victims: Recent Documentaries on Gaza”

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About