One on One: Framing the debate by Ruthie Blum Leibowitz

One on One Framing the debate by Ruthie Blum Leibowitz

Posted January 6, 2009

One on One: Framing the debate

Mar. 26, 2008 Ruthie Blum Leibowitz, THE JERUSALEM POST

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Richard Landes calls up a film clip onto the screen of his laptop to give an example of "Pallywood" - a term he invented as a take-off on "Bollywood." The difference between the two, however, couldn't be greater. Whereas the latter is the name now used for the Indian movie industry, the former refers to what Landes asserts are pernicious productions staged by the Palestinians, in front of (and often with cooperation from) Western camera crews, for the purpose of promoting anti-Israel propaganda by disguising it as news.

It's a pretty harsh claim, and one that has earned the associate professor at Boston University - and co-founder and director of the Center for Millennial Studies - the reputation in certain circles as a right-wing conspiracy theorist. This perception of the French-born American, who divides his time between the United States and Israel, completely contradicts how he describes himself.

"I consider myself on the Left," says Landes, during an hour-long interview earlier this month in Jerusalem. "I've always been a liberal. I've always been in favor of progressive projects."

But, according to Landes, in the current global climate, a dangerous meeting of forces is taking place that must be fought: the blood-libels of pre-modernism and the post-modernist constructs of reality that allow for them. "It's like a wedding of pre-modern sadists to post-modern masochists," insists Landes. "It's a match made in hell."

Discussing breakthroughs in mass communications - comparing the advent of the printing press to that of cyberspace - Landes believes that there is an opportunity to combat misinformation on a large scale through the Internet. Indeed, Landes himself maintains two Web sites, Second Draft and Augean Stables.

Scientific discourse, he is convinced, is no longer exclusive to the universities. On the contrary, he says, "Academia is stuck." It is the blogosphere, he concludes, where the real war of ideas can be won.

Define "Pallywood."
Pallywood is a term I coined - when I was looking into the Muhammad al-Dura case in October 2003 [the famous case of a 12-year-old Palestinian boy shot in the crossfire at the beginning of the second intifada in 2000, broadcast by France 2 TV] - to describe staged material disguised as news. The Palestinians regularly fabricate scenes for TV cameras, which, when sent to Western media outlets, are cut down to the believable three-second sight bite. And what makes it to the evening news is a stringing together of these staged scenes.

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