A collective voicing of disgust in solidarity for Israel’s killing of journalists in Palestine

A simple white cloth lays on a countertop near the back of the aisle at St George’s Cathedral in Cape Town. On it is embroidered, in red letters, the Lord’s Prayer.

Fixed to the top lefthand corner of the cloth by a paperclip is a label that transforms this otherwise everyday and humble object, albeit beautiful, into a thing of great power.

The label reads: “Gift from women in Palestine. 2 June, 2011.”

Are the hands of the people who made this precious artefact still attached to their arms? Are the arms part of bodies that are still alive? If those people are still alive, do they wonder for how much longer? 

The cloth is a tangible reminder that what is happening in Palestine did not start on 7 October, 2023. It also didn’t start on 2 June, 2011. It started in 1948, when the Allies’ guilt for not stopping the Nazis from murdering six-million Jews was itself made tangible by the imposition of the state of Israel on Palestine.

The people who have lived on that land have changed throughout history. It is impossible to disentangle Jews, Muslims and others from the history of that place. But the establishment of Israel tried to remove Palestinians from their land as well as from the history of that land. It tried to write them out of the truth of the place.

The cloth is evidence of the abject failure of that attempt.

Were the people who had the exquisite thought to make this gift, who stitched it with such obvious, aching love, who ensured its safe passage all the way to Cape Town, among the many who were thrown off their land in 1948 and have been subjugated ever since?

Standing near the back of the aisle in this storied place looking at the cloth early on a crisp, bright Wednesday afternoon this week, it was impossible not to feel tears rise alongside anger.

A few hundred people had spent most of the previous hour on the steps outside the cathedral. They are some of the most famous pieces of stone in South Africa (SA), a place where Desmond Tutu himself railed against the evil of apartheid. On Wednesday, the crowd gathered to rail against another evil.

Vigils in protest

For more than a year, vigils have been held on the cathedral steps every Wednesday at noon to protest about and call for an end to Israel’s war on Gaza. Often, they don’t draw more than a dozen or so people. This time was different. 

Israel’s killing of journalists in Palestine was the stated cause of the gathering. It was prompted by the Israel Defence Force’s (IDF) targeted assassination of four Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza City on Sunday.

Among them was 28-year-old correspondent Anas al-Sharif, who had bravely brought the story from the frontlines of the war into viewers’ homes.

Predictably, the IDF claimed Sharif was a Hamas terrorist. Predictably, they offered little evidence to back up that claim. Predictably, much of the Israeli media didn’t interrogate it.

“Israeli military kills Hamas terrorist doubling as Al Jazeera reporter near Shifa Hospital,” was the headline in the Jerusalem Post.

Those among us who are not journalists might roll their eyes. Now you care? Now that some of your own have been killed, you are suddenly and conveniently touched on your studio? Where the hell have you been since 8 October, 2023, when Israel’s brutal, lopsided and ongoing repression began? Come to think of it, where have you been since 1948?

The short answer? Reporting on all that.

Widespread outrage is being aimed at Israel precisely because people like Sharif have done their jobs properly. And paid a similar price. At last count, the Committee to Protect Journalists estimated that at least 186 media workers had been killed in Gaza since the start of the war. The United Nations says the number is closer to 242.

Yes, there are bad journalistic actors out there. See the Jerusalem Post’s headline above. But it has become too easy to take the lazy option and blame us for not telling the story as you would see fit.

To this end, a bit of coded language has sprung up and was deployed by the protest leaders on Wednesday. When you heard “the mainstream media” you knew the bad guys were being referenced. When you heard chants like, “Netanyahu, how many journalists did you kill today?” you knew a case was being made for the good guys.

Anas al-Sharif was, by all non-IDF accounts, a good journalist and a good guy. He was also firmly part of the mainstream media.

But Wednesday wasn’t so much about this discrepancy, awkward and uncomfortable as it is, as it was about the divergence in the crowd drawn by the occasion.

The great and the good were there, among them Gift of the Givers founder Imtiaz Sooliman, courageous writer Megan Choritz and Zapiro, the rock star of cartoonists.

Veteran activists such as Jimi Matthews and academics like Zohra Ebrahim and Andre Odendaal brought the gravitas. Younger activists brought the gees, of which there was plenty.

There were also, as you would expect, many journos – some covering the event, others taking part. That will doubtless lead to red herring questions around objectivity. Here’s the answer: should the media not have taken a stand against apartheid SA or Nazi Germany?

And then there were the others. They were people who might not have been great nor particularly good, who wouldn’t see themselves as activists, who weren’t pointy head academics. There were black people, brown people, white people. There were many, many keffiyeh scarves. There was at least one baby, wheeled in a pram, and one pug, on a lead.

One woman popped down from the steps to greet a man. “I studied with your wife years ago,” she said. “I’m not sure if you remember me …”

He smiled: “Ruby! Hello!”

It was a sombre assembly, but also not. As if those who were there saw famous and familiar faces and the faces of people they did not know, and realised that while they couldn’t stop Israel from killing people, they could at least voice their disgust in solidarity.

Unity is strength

Unity, as apartheid SA used to tell us, is strength. It’s also a source of deep joy. To know you are not alone in dark times is a light. Can there be anything more human?

We took that light into the cathedral, where closing remarks were made. While that was happening, a woman walked slowly down the aisle, the great nave above her like a giant, shielding hand.

She leaned a pole against her shoulder. Attached to the pole was a Palestinian flag, which draped down her back. Having gone almost all the way to the pulpit, she turned and made a slow, meaningful return.

I tried to photograph her, but the angle made that challenging. I took the picture anyway. This was an important moment, not that I knew how or why.

A man was at my elbow. “That’s my fiancé,” he whispered, gesturing towards the woman holding the flag and walking away from us. 

“She says that, after today, she wants us to get married here.” DM

Telford Vice – freelance freedom fighter, journalist.