Death of a Cameraman

Fadel Shana

Civilians killed and wounded along with Shana

In a rather bizzare incident on Wednesday April 16, 2008 three Israelis soldiers and four Palestinians died in a flare up during Israelis incursion into the Gaza strip. Then came the swift revengeful attack in which 20 Palestinians lost their lives, among them five children and the Reuters news agency cameraman Fadal Shana. A short while ago a freelance photographer Ashraf Abu Amra wanted a lift in his van Shana told him “No, I won't take you with me today. It's too dangerous." How true was his premonition! He had been filming an Israelis tank moving towards him when a fiery missile attack put an end to his coverage. His press car was clearly and prominently marked on the bonnet and sides with TV. His colleagues and others picked up the injured and were rushing them to hospital when within two minutes the Israelis helicopter fired another missile on the car and blew it up. This leaves no room for any doubt as to who was the target of killing. But the 19 others killed included children and civilians are what the Israelis and the Americans always call collateral damage. This disproportionate killing and use of power is always justified in the name of the security of the Jewish state.

All these gory events including the three Israelis soldiers killed came as a sequel to Israelis killing nine Palestinians of which six were civilians in a direct attack on houses and a mosque.

Riders in the Agence France-Presse armoured car watched the events of the targeted killing of Shana. The Israelis as is their wont refused to acknowledge the missile attack. As usual the US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice is rushing to the Middle East. Her sudden but forced visits after every flare up indicate that the next terrorist strike against the United States of America may not be precisely predictable in terms of place and timing. But its provenance is loud and clear. Choosing time and place is not the prerogative of the terrorists but the Israelis have shown that they have absolute confidence in that. Last war with Hezbolla had no immediate provocation from the side of the Palestinians. Their rocketing targets in Israel or their kidnapping of victims was going in the usual way. The Israelis chose the time and place to retaliate and thus to initiate the war in Southern Lebanon at will.

The unipolar world is as impotent as was the bipolar world of yore. A visiting professor from Israel remarked in Mumbai only last week that the American and Israeli missile air defence system is 100 percent foolproof. The Iranian nuclear programme is to make bombs that would target only Arab countries. This is the degree of cussedness that permeates into the mindset of the Americans and Israelis that they are there to do what they like and care a tuppence for the world opinion. Thus the desire of the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that there should be a conference on the present crisis in Moscow has no real basis except the reminiscence that the Russians used to support the Palestinians.

Why should a future terrorist attack originate in the Middle East? As the price of per square foot is the highest at the Nariman Point in Mumbai only the fabulously rich would buy there so is the concentration of human suffering in the narrow strip of Gaza. Only the God in heaven can buy this suffering. The highest number of people concentrated anywhere in the world but denied water, electricity, food, petrol see day in and day out their near relatives killed and wounded. The flagrant violation of their right to life and land of their birth is fully financed by the rich Jewish lobby in Washington and New York and American veto power in the UN. The week also saw the cutting off of petrol supply to Gaza. It multiplied misery manifold in a land surrounded by oil rich states.

Why target a journalist or cameraman? He it is who lets the world see what the Israeli military with American weapons is doing to the people and land they have occupied. The water they have a right to is pumped out of their land to make the kibbutz lawns green. Power and fuel is denied to them while more and more settlements are built up and they get the power and fuel uninterrupted. Nowhere is the media focus so much intense as in the Middle East. Foreign news agencies hire local photographers for graphic report of on the sport coverage. The irony of the western concern for free expression is such that a Daniel Pearl executed by terrorists produces more demonstration of solidarity than the pot shot at a Fadel Shana.