A Lifeline to the Values We Hold Sacred

As we arrive at 50 years of Israel's occupation of Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, and as some of the most extreme right-wing, hate-filled voices take the helm at the highest levels of office in Israel, the United States, Europe, and beyond, we're all being called to ask: what propels us forward? As a Palestinian, Korean, American queer woman who has had her sundry identities questioned and sometimes disparaged, my motivation has always been clear: to uphold the inherent freedom, dignity, and equality of every human being. If we are to change the historical tide in Palestine and Israel, we must start by finding expressions of those values and amplifying them around the world.

Just Vision, the organization I lead, is charged with doing just that—putting up a media megaphone to the Palestinian and Israeli activists, journalists, and human rights defenders who put their bodies and lives on the line to demand change in the face of inequality and injustice. This work is vital because the extent of grassroots activism and the degree of exposure it receives simply doesn't match up, a result of the mainstream media's too frequent emphasis on sensationalist violence at the expense of movements for values-based change. Moreover, on the rare occasion that outlets do cover these stories, they are too often riddled with misrepresentations and render communities' concerns invisible.

Our responsibility is to create compelling, accurate media and build networks of support that amplify voices of dissent who are pushing beyond the margins and willing to think, act, and organize creatively in their pursuit of a just, free, and equal future. I know that our work—and that of the many organizations, teams, and individuals in this field—is having an effect. At Just Vision, we're starting to get hard evidence that it is doing what we hoped.

Our team created the feature-length documentary film Budrus with two explicit goals: putting Palestinian and Israeli resistance efforts at the center of local and international conversation about the conflict, and building the capacity of nonviolent activists in the field. The film tells the story of a Palestinian community organizer who succeeded in uniting Palestinians of all factions together with Israelis in a nonviolent movement to save his village of Budrus from destruction by Israel's Separation Barrier.

Two years after Budrus' release, StrategyOne, a daughter company of the public relations firm Edelman, conducted an independent media audit to assess the film's impact on the discourse about Palestinian-led nonviolent resistance in mainstream English-language press. The results showed that coverage prior to the release of the film characterized the protests in Budrus as riots and disturbances of the peace. After the launch of the film, most of the media coverage described the events in Budrus as a nonviolent struggle initiated by the residents to save their lands and olive trees. The findings showed that the film not only put Budrus on the map, but successfully shifted the media narrative around the protests from one of riots to one of a strategic nonviolent campaign. In fact, in the two years following the film's release, the key messages we set out to tell through the story of Budrus had a 91 percent message penetration rate across English-language coverage.

This is a small demonstration of the power of transformative media in the pursuit of freedom, equality, and dignity. In a context where structural inequality and systematic racism has shaped not only 50 years of military occupation, but nearly 70 years of dispossession and subjugation, paying attention to and supporting Israeli and Palestinian activists, journalists, and human rights defenders is part of our shared work across progressive movements in the world. Because the work of the grassroots is not only necessary—it is a lifeline to the values we hold sacred.