Prioritise victims of Israeli brutality

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Just over a month ago, former FHM model and entrepreneur Shashi Naidoo was called out for posting foolish and uninformed opinions about Palestine. Following the severe public shaming and loss of endorsements for calling Gaza “a sh*thole”, she turned full circle and metamorphosed into “Shashi-the-social-justice-warrior”. If we remember, Naidoo was serenaded by the BDS-SA campaign - which held an entire press conference about her - where she then promised to travel to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories to see the struggle “for herself”. Only the most patronising and privileged among us would jump on a flight to “see oppression” instead of first visiting Google and making it a point to research thoroughly. As she was about to leave, the Israeli embassy informed her she would not be allowed into the Holy Land. She decided to go ahead anyway, and after arriving in Israel and some hours with border officials, she was turned away. She described it as an “ordeal” and “mental warfare”. “I was in tears at the end of it,” she said at the time.

By banning her, Israel certainly illustrated it had something to hide. But it was almost inconceivable that Israel was going to allow her in.

In so doing, it prevented a spray of social media posts from Naidoo in which she would have shared superficial stories from Palestinian families, a masquerade at the apartheid or annexation wall that runs through the occupied West Bank, and perhaps a keffiyeh-clad selfie with recently released Palestinian teenager, Ahed Tamimi.

For the Israel administration, absorbing backlash for swatting Naidoo away before she instagrammed the hell out of the occupation was more convenient.

Why? Is Naidoo so important, so dangerous to Israeli security or public image that they could not let her in?

Of course not.

The decision to ban Naidoo is not about her, but rather the new company she keeps: BDS-SA.

The Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) campaign has grown into a considerable nuisance for Israel. So much so, that the state has worked tirelessly with its partners and fellow Zionists in universities in the US and the UK to ban its activities. Israel frames BDS as bringing harm to Israel.

In reality, BDS is only against Zionist policies of racism, occupation and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

In banning Naidoo from Israel for 10 years, Israel is not acknowledging her power to influence (she has little to none); it is merely framing her exclusion as part of its intolerance for BDS.

On one hand, it has made for a thunderous media spectacle; many South African journalists and editors have scampered over each other to take the story to its next logical point. But as a story initially borne out of imprudent remarks made about Palestinians living under fraught conditions of occupation and neglect, the importance given to Naidoo, her misperception-turned-dubious activism has left me feeling rather nauseated. I am left with questions that simply won’t dissipate.

What is it about the figure of the “celebrity” that it would have us lose our minds when it comes to social and political causes?

If it’s a matter of influence, this is understandable. But is substance and integrity of lesser importance?

Naidoo said she needed to go “see for herself”. But if she wasn’t allowed in to “see”, how can she say on her return that Palestinians “are living in purgatory”? I know this to be true, but how does Naidoo? This is fraud.

What is it about our media and news organisations that we cannot recognise a bogus story from the get-go, and that we are only willing to chase but refuse to lend some common sense to the scandal?

What of the reasons for her dramatic U-turn? Anyone bother to find out how much money was lost by Naidoo? Or which community she had offended and why it had proved so costly for her in contrast to other celebs who have and continue to say nasty and uneducated things about Palestine (and just about anything else)?

I wonder - is this not how we also mindlessly cover and consume political talk in this country? It seems we only chase stories if they can provide entertainment value.

And this desire for entertainment value is only eclipsed by stories of hardship if the subjects are “one of our own”. This is why we saw the obsession with Ahed Tamimi, the teenager who was arrested and held in prison for slapping an Israeli soldier.

Hundreds of Palestinian children remain in Israeli jails but both Israelis and most media organisations around the world zoomed in on her. Why?

Just this week, her mother said her daughter had received inordinate attention because of the way she looked. In other words, blue-eyed, blonde and not “typically” Palestinian.

What then, does it say, if even the stories of oppression need a white face to be seen as hurtful, credible and relatable? Is this why our social delivery protests are often described as a “disruption” and “inconvenience”?

Similarly, I can wager that Naidoo’s story has received 100 times more coverage than Israel’s new “Jewish nation state law”.

While the obsession with Naidoo in mid-July ensued, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government passed a law during that same period that effectively institutionalised apartheid in that country.

The law makes Jewish people the only community with a right to national self-determination.

“Israel is the historic homeland of the Jewish people and they have an exclusive right to national self-determination in it,” Netanyahu said.

The law also omits any mention of democracy or principle of equality and downgrades Arabic as an official language.

In other words, it puts to rest any doubt about different tiers of citizenship in Israel; the similarities between this law and discriminatory policies introduced by apartheid South Africa are striking. But still, some of our news organisations decided to describe the law using the amorphous term “controversial” as if we have no understanding of oppression and injustice.

Makes you wonder. At least, it has left me wondering what is it that we are doing; whose side are we on?

To the media: why does Naidoo’s refusal of entry to Israel solicit more attention and concern than an actual law that will affect millions of Palestinians? To activists: what did it serve to prop her up when hers was an obvious exercise in damage control?

And crucially, why is it so hard to see that even in our condemnation, we are unable to put the very people we purport to care about first.

Azad Essa is a journalist based in New York City and the author of several books which include No Country for the Poor.