On Jan. 16 The Tribune featured the New York Times article, “They thought they knew death, but that didn’t prepare them for Oct. 7.”
The article focused on the ZAKA organization, a group of primarily orthodox Jewish volunteers, who had gathered the remains of Israeli victims of the brutal Hamas attack of Oct. 7 so they could receive a proper burial.
The article highlighted the emotional and psychological impacts of performing a humane and worthy task. Remembering the sights and smells of finding bloody or burned bodies created real trauma for these volunteers. By focusing on the experiences of these individually named volunteers, the article humanized them, thus further creating sympathy for their personal traumas.
Pointing out the horrific consequences of war to specific individuals is a worthwhile function of journalism. Unfortunately, pointing out such consequences seems increasingly restricted to those people Professor Noam Chomsky refers to as “worthy victims.”
One of the ZAKA volunteers understandably and rightly lamented the deaths of dozens of Israeli children who were killed on Oct. 7. One would hope then that an article might appear in The Tribune that focused upon the trauma of some of the Palestinians in Gaza where over 10,000 children have been killed in Israel’s massive bombing campaign.
Perhaps an article highlighting the trauma of a doctor or a parent who had to witness his patient or child having one or more limbs amputated without even the benefit of anesthesia would be worth publishing. Or maybe an interview with an expectant Palestinian mother frantically worrying about how she will find food and clean water for herself and her soon to be born child could be featured.
I have been hopeful that The Tribune might publish an article that emphasized the trauma of Palestinians and that personalized and humanized them in the same way the ZAKA volunteers were. The absence of any such article in the following weeks since the ZAKA article appeared only reinforces Chomsky’s point. Some victims are “worthy” of our compassion and concern. Other people’s victimization doesn’t matter at all.
Jim Astin, Salt Lake City
