By Shazia Anwer Cheema
CNN is defending its inappropriate behavior towards humanity crimes in Palestine by being not anti-Semitic. This act of CNN has opened a debate whether Israeli’s crime against humanities could be ignored because one doesn’t want to be tagged as anti-Semitic?
Being anti-Semitic means having negative emotions and hatred toward Jews just on the base of being the Jews. It has a cumulative historical past but today’s points are whether the use of anti-Semitism as a byword for Israel is a correct approach? Are all Jews in favor of Israeli occupation or Judaism itself allow mass murdering?
Considered Israel a religious entity could be the best escape strategy but, Israel is a political alliance of powerful countries. In fact, two states conflict is a land dispute openly favored by the formulated political alliances. There is no grey area about the aligned members, but the question is who has the courage or moral decency to come forward and disclose allegiance for mass murdering conducted by Israel?
CNN host Bianna Golodryga while talking to Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi created a fake catchphrase out of context. The point where she embedded the eye-catching term anti-Semitic was when FM was explaining rather than indicating that western media is and always presenting a biased and tilted view of the Palestinian mass slaughtering.
Putting your words in someone’s mouth is not a new technique in journalism particularly while getting an interview with someone. However, putting your words in someone’s mouth needs a professional approach because it is just like art. However, anchor Bianna Golodryga lost her balance and attention to his professionalism that she started calling the Foreign Minister of Pakistan as “Mr. Ambassador”. Anger ruled her face because she is a Jew and she thought the foreign Minister of Pakistan had passed some personal remarks against her when he said “Israel led international media”. Israel has been made a byword for Judaism and anything you say against Israel is considered to be against Judaism although this is not true. Israel is a political and land monopoly while Judaism is a religion and millions of Jews are against barbarism Israel is showing towards humanity.
Bianna Golodryga out of her personal biasness while talking on the Israel-Palestine issue, shot another loaded question and asked Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi his opinion about Uyghurs Muslims of China. Her turbulent flight from Palestine to China again indicated that she was losing perspective. On one hand, she was talking about anti-Semitism, and on another point, she wanted to allege China for the abuse of religious rights of Muslims. If religion is not the debate, then why not Uyghurs were mentioned as Chinese instead of Muslims of China? As a cognitivist, I can trace her prejudices from her nurturing. One should remember that Golodryga was born in Jew family of Bessarabian Jews in Căușeni, Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (now independent Moldova). When she was 18 months old, her family left the Soviet Union as political refugees and settled in Houston, Texas. She is currently serving as a senior global affairs analyst at CNN.
I can’t believe I have to say this, but there should be zero point zero doubt that accusing Israel of “controlling the media” and having “deep pockets” is anti-Semitic.
This website can be both constructive and depressing. My Twitter feed is currently the latter.
— Bianna Golodryga (@biannagolodryga) May 21, 2021
She not only lacked professional credibility by conducting an interview with the Foreign Minister of Pakistan but also she undermined the validity of the media outlet she works for. Her emotional breakdown led her to a highly unprofessional act as an anchorperson by suggesting to her guest Mr. Qureshi that he should be careful to pass anti-semitic comments next time although he never passed such comments.
Remarks by FM @SMQureshiPTI during his CNN interview can’t be construed as anti-Semitic by any stretch of imagination. Any twist given to his remarks would unfortunately prove the very point he was making.The right to #freedomofexpression must be respected equally by everyone
— Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri (@Zhchaudhri) May 21, 2021
How could an anchor suggest to a guest what not to say and what to say? In an entire interview, it looked that she was conducting an interview with the Pakistani Foreign Minister as a Jew lady to a Muslim politician not as a journalist and an anchor.
Do we remember Rachel Aliene Corrie who was an American Jew activist?
Born on April 10, 1979, Rachel was crushed to death on March 16, 2003, by an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) armored bulldozer in a southern Gaza Strip combat zone. She was a member of the pro-Palestinian Group International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and went to Gaza as part of her senior-year college assignment to connect her hometown with Rafah in a sister cities project. She was crushed to death because she stood in front of Israeli tanks which were demolishing the homes of Palestinian people while children were inside homes. She was a Jew but she was a human being too and she again testified that Judaism does not allow the genocide of anybody and Judaism has nothing to do with the barbarism of Israel. She was against demolitions of homes which always being used by Israel as a mode of collective punishment against weaponless Palestinians.
Rachel said in her letter to her friends before she was killed that “Death smells like homemade apple sauce as it cooks on the stove. It is not the strangling sense of illness. It is not fear. It is freedom”
Apparently, there was nothing in favor or against Judaism during the interview of Mr. Qurashi, but the anchor took it personally, and instead of talking about the media role in the Palestinian crises crisis she twisted the talk toward a negative connotated expression which by no mean Shah Mahmood Qureshi’s point of view and he repeatedly instilled that all lives matter and humanity is beyond any religion, but western media always portray excreted picture which gives the impression that western media outlets are under influence of the oppressors, that influence could be in-kind and cash.
If you look at the media now all of the hosts of these other shows are interviewing themselves. The guests are a prop for the hosts on these cable networks. The guests for me are always paramount. – Larry King
Note: The writer Shazia Cheema is an analyst writing for national and international media outlets including the Nation, Pakistan Today, Pakistan Observer, Eurasia Diary, InSight, and Mina News Agency. She heads the DND Thought Center. She did her MA in Cognitive Semiotics from Aarhus University Denmark and is currently registered as a Ph.D. Scholar of Semiotics and Philosophy of Communication at Charles University Prague. She can be reached at her: Twitter @ShaziaAnwerCh Email: shaziaanwer@yahoo.com
Disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed in this article/Opinion/Comment are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the DND Thought Center and Dispatch News Desk (DND). Assumptions made within the analysis are not reflective of the position of the DND Thought Center and Dispatch News Desk News Agency.
