Why is Palestinian Suffering Undocumented?
Response to Chicago Tribune's "Israeli Air Strike Kills 7 in Gaza" When I first read the headline, “Israeli air strike kills 7 in Gaza,” I expected the picture chosen to accompany the article was that of a Palestinian woman mourning the death of a relative (Oct. 28). Instead the caption read, “The granddaughter of an Israeli killed in Wednesday’s suicide bombing in Hadrea grieves as his funeral Thursday.” Is there a reason why the Chicago Tribune failed to include a picture of the death, destruction and mourning the Israeli missiles caused in Gaza?
In the October 27th article “Suicide bomber kills 5 in Israel,” the picture was of a woman lying on the ground after being wounded by the attack. It was not of Palestinians killed by an earlier Israeli raid into a refugee camp.
It is the practice of newspapers and media worldwide to choose an accompanying picture that deals with the subject of the article. So if the article is about a suicide bombing, an inappropriate picture would be of Palestinian homes being demolished by Israeli tanks. And if the article is about Israeli missiles against Palestinians territory, an inappropriate picture would be the exact one included by the Tribune’s editors.
A more relevant and appropriate picture would have been to show the “mangled hulk of the car” struck by the missile. Or perhaps a picture of the funeral of one of the at least 3 innocent civilians killed by the attack. This lack of documentation of Palestinian suffering on the part of the Chicago Tribune is shameful and calls into question the real motives of including the chosen picture.