welcome to moral politics on your host bill wolff or what is missing from u s news reports about palestinians human contacts according to my guest ramsey baroud is an internationally syndicated columnist and editor of aggressor and who is the victim but i also think that part of it is deliberate and has been taking place for a long long time the media is siding with israel for self serving reasons israel has been if it ing gaza and i was bewildered when i first came to america about seventeen eighteen years ago to find out that it's me and my people living in in moralists in concentration camps in the gaza strip are being seen as as aggressor we are the enemy and i just it took me a while to figure out how how did this come about and why is this a reason as a child growing up what was your view of the world particularly in the united states well of course we knew that there was this distant enemy and that was america and it was really difficult for us to understand exactly how is america positioned in this equation as a child my first experience with that america was in you know one of the descendants of the first generation of the next best survivors and in fact we always not simply grew up listening to these stories we defined ourselves based on these stories i was not from a percentage of palestine it was a very small percentage it was less than ten percent that owned approximately five percent of the land and that is until is very recent date prior to the palestinian catastrophe in forty eight however after forty eight there was this kind of sudden change of fortunes a few well where the minority owned most of the land and the majority was the united nations by on the red cross by the world bank that all indicate that in fact there is a humanitarian catastrophe and crises that are happening in palestine and gaza in a state sponsored policy you're taking people right to the long end of story it was it was an israeli official i think it was he was is was the political advisor of ariel sharon the former prime minister of israel who said that we are to starve palestinians but we are planning to send them on a diet what he actually meant by that we are going to starve them enough that they don't actually die but they are indeed physically suffer and all results have are showing that palestinians are in a interview with press t v he said that this is the ultimate goal of israel is they want to make the situation so very difficult for palestinians in gaza in particular so that they would actually drive them out and without the people you're not going to have resistance  once the land doesn't want the people this has been the case for the last sixty years and this continues to be the case until today so they want to drive the palestinians out and cover the full two hours and by the way there is an us to believe that nobody really cares nobody cares for palestinians at all that palestinians are so really gated and so discounted as a human beings but we are seeing the devaluation of the importance of palestine to the international community and i think what motivated you to write the book what were you trying to search what i was trying to say basically is that beyond the statistics beyond the numbers and the maps and the charts and the arguments and counter arguments they are human beings  people of equally precious lives whose stories are important and has to be told and without understanding and appreciating these people as they are not as the way we think that we are ought to be the way they are we can never truly understand and appreciate the nature of this conflict so i decided i'm going to go back to the basics i'm going to tell the story of my family that was ethnically cleansed from palestine in one thousand forty eight and what happened to that family one sit  in the gaza strip and it continues to be that the story was told through the character of my father who was a freedom fighter in the practical sense but but what i really meant by him being a freedom fighter is the same notion of freedom fighting throughout palestine the idea that no palestine have lived a virtuous life in the sense that they did have the their problems and their errors and their mistakes but at the end of the day they made a very clear choice that they are either they are either going to just  as most palestinians are concerned how messed up for ideals that were no longer championed by the current palestinian leadership and as a result the majority of palestinians voted for hamas if you really analogy we can draw between the resistance of palestinians like your father the current generation palestinian and the uprising in warsaw well of course of course i mean the fact that warsaw was a ghetto it was a concentration camp moralists and this is the situation and the reality in gaza people at the end of the day no matter what you do in order for you to the humanize them they deep down never really really lose sight of the fact that they are humans who are deserving of freedom and dignity in reality the situation in gaza is difficult but it's also because of the way that the media has portrayed palestine and the palestinians is very difficult to have americans or westerners who anyone in general really outside the in fact my father died and until now we never really understood what was the element because all the hospitals in gaza were turned into surgery wards so there was no place for an old man to go and to have a medical check up and he stayed at home at a neighbor's house for a few weeks until he passed away so there was a sad ending but the story doesn't end of course because the story is not my dad per se the story is the palestinian people as a whole and they are still th for inspiration that and the children in particular the they refused to be anything but children so when i went to gaza you had there were so many kids and the neighborhood they would come and perform their songs and and do their bits and she was one of them this this little girl who came and she sang sang this song and she said that she sang it in a very cheerful a way but it was very sad though that she was actually singing about heavens and and the martyrs and all of that and it just breaks your heart because you are thinking you shouldn't be singing this type of song but you have but you know that she has no other option because this is the reality that she deals with her uncle was assassinated by her family's home was at one point she could be a victim herself or her children could be a victim at the end of the day they will be classified in american mainstream media as militants or as just another number to be added to the very large number of palestinians who have been killed that is opposed to the way that the israeli story is being told that israeli soldier even if he is a soldier there on a murderous mission in the gaza strip when he is killed we tend to learn about his family about his mom a hopes and dreams and we meet his girlfriend or his fiancee and so forth and so on which is a tragedy because this is a man with a gun in someone else's land and is there on a murderous mission while the palestinian who is the victim is the one classified as a today we are updated on a daily basis and we are the outcome of the work and coordination of numerous people authors scholars journalists from all over the world many from the of them come from the united states but others in europe  and throughout the middle east what we tried to do is to convey different since and that different narrative to what is happening in the middle east that you do not see on c n n or you do not watch on fox news this is the only true told story about the palestinians europe basically trying to tell the world about human character of the palestinian how would you contrast europe and the united states and its view of the middle east it's really starts and  the media the media and europe despite the fact that it can at times be very problematic unlike american media mainstream media i'm talking about corporate media and particularly here it tends to present a different side of the story could in fact watch the b b c and decide that you see eye to eye with palestinian aspirations and demands it's very difficult to actually get the gist of that conclusion watching fox or c n n b b c for example as a result you have a thriving and strong civil society in europe that is pro palestine and it's very actively involved we're not talking about people picketing around street corners we're talking about people who are lobbying their governments to bring real and effective change and the the factor that differentiates europe from america lack of corporate control i think so because because americans you know i've been in this country for seventeen years and i always come back to this country and it's my home away from home and i've met americans and i've talked to americans and i have numerous american friends and what i see is that these are not ill intended people they are not out of there to get a specialist in is they are just misinformed and where do we get our information we get it from the media so this is the problem it's not with the american person that is not the problem the problem is with the media and that's why we are actively trying to influence and change and shift the way the palestinians are portrayed in the american media we see it's  people and broadcast to to millions around the world if he is going to be a actively involved in getting his ideas and his political views and commentaries well at the end of the day i'm going to influence all these millions with what ramsey who thinks is right and wrong so ownership is of tremendous influence on the way that people think in this country so it's corporate but it's also skilled words ideologically school i mean that if you look at rupert murdoch for example and his ownership not just of fox of other numerous other media outlets and the fact that he is very much pro israel he speaks of there and he what conferences the lobby apac he's a good friend of various israeli politicians and he tells us as it is he says israel is my foremost cause so how can we argue that fox news is not pro israel considering the ownership of fox news and considering the ownership of the controlling influences of other major media that we are aware of what is going on and we are not happy with the way that the news is being reported arab spring we've seen a lot of uprising shaking off  possibly coming to saudi arabia what would you comment on arab spring arabs want to be free they want to be sovereign they want to have truly democratic societies that you present who they are as people on equal footing and so think neither the mossad nor any other intelligence from the region or outside the region could possibly affect the outcome of that revolution in any way that could negate the will of the egyptian people you could israel have peace of course peace is readily available for anyone who is genuinely seeking it the question is israel is not seeking peace because israel and israeli leaders are under the impression that they can in fact they have power they have american support unconditional one hundred percent support coming from washington therefore they need nobody they can actually do anything in any way they please but the fact is time is running out for israel the global community is waking up to the fact that this reality cannot continue for long simone peres the israeli president just said a few days ago that that israel is risking losing out to not just its democracy but its very existence because of the stubborn are not people who are seeking salvation or jobs or better better finances they are there for ideological reasons and these are the very ones with the machine guns and the o z z around the west bank chasing after children in hebrew and  israeli policy to ethnically cleanse jerusalem from its original arab inhabitants and they have done so with a great deal of success now the sad thing is must much of that ethnic cleansing is happening with american financing which goes against international law is essential without it would have no of course not because because they need billions and billions of dollars in order for them to achieve such an awesome feat and the money are really permeates and defines palestine and the palestinian people this is the very culture that spawn my dad and his generation and my generation and the new generation coming out in palestine as well we resist because we have no other option but to we found ourself in concentration camps and refugee camps and in exile all over the world and we need to challenge that because if you don't challenge this raises concept how can you possibly bring equality and justice back to the palestinians