Putting Things in Perspective: Photographers, Children and Missiles

Sebastian Scheiner/AP

A few days ago, a picture appeared on the Internet showing some Israeli girls drawing/writing on artillery shells that were to be fired into Lebanon. It received immediate condemnation from all quarters - an example of how Israel is teaching their children to hate. (It was seeded here).

The problem is that the full story behind the pictures was not released. All people saw were images, and many people jumped to conclusions about what these images meant.

Now check out this post by Lisa Goldman, a journalist in Israel who did some investigative reporting into the circumstances behind this picture, what was motivating the children, what they were writing and towards whom was their animosity directed (and towards whom was it not). Please read the whole thing to get a better understanding of the circumstances.

I would like to quote the end of Lisa's words:

I've been thinking for the last two days about this photo and the storm of reaction it set off. I worry about the climate of hate that would lead people to look at it and automatically assume the absolute worst - and then use the photo to dehumanize and victimize. I wonder why so many people seem to take satisfaction in believing that little Israeli girls with felt markers in their hands - not weapons, but felt markers - are evil, or spawned by an evil society. I wonder how those people would feel if Israelis were to look at a photo of a Palestinian child wearing a mock suicide belt in a Hamas demonstration and conclude that all Palestinians - nay, all Arabs - are evil.

And I wonder why it is so difficult to think a little, to get it into our heads that television news and photojournalism manipulate our thoughts and emotions.

Links to anti-Israel websites with that photo placed prominently next to the image of a dead Lebanese child have been sent to me several times. Someone has been rushing around the Israeli blogosphere, leaving the link to one particularly abhorrent site in the comments boxes. And it makes me really sad that the emotional climate has deteriorated to this point.

The moderates of the Middle East are locked in a battle with the extremists. And look what they did to the moderates. Without blinking, without thinking, we fell victim to the classic "divide and conquer" technique. We work hard for months and years to build connections, develop our societies, educate ourselves, promote democracy and free speech... And they destroy it all, in less than a week. And we let them.

Aside from my disgust and wonderment regarding how this picture led so many people to assume such bad things about Jews and Israelis so quickly, the issue as a whole brings up some broader topics relating to how we digest the media that is put in front of us.

From all of the conflicts going on throughout the world (Israel, Iraq and beyond), we are fed a steady diet of news. On-the-scene reporting, editorials, and pictures. We all know that for the most part, most (if not all) of these items are formed with an agenda in mind - usually political, financial or both. (Even a newspaper claims not to be biased still publishes items that will sell more copies of their paper, in order not to go out of business - a financial agenda). We know this, yet still let ourselves become manipulated by the stories and images (especially the images) that we see.

Why is this? Is it that for every issue, we are either well-enough informed already to have pre-existing biases (to which we seek to conform all news items and pictures thrown our way), or if not, we are so ignorant of the reality of the situation that we easily succumb to the manipulations of the media (and bloggers and other sources of information)? On an issue like the one above, do people thirst so much to demonize Israel that they will automatically accept any claims made (check out the comments on this one as well for more example of this) regarding what the images represent and what they mean without questioning whether they are using them as fuel for their own biases?

As someone who also has posted images to newsvine, I direct these questions and thoughts at myself as much as at others. Images and words are powerful tools. Yet if we seek to engage in honest discussion regarding the world around us using these tools, it behooves us to use them honestly, in context and admitting what we know and do not know, rather than abusing the power that they contain in the hopes of dishonestly manipulating others.

Back To Top