Decorated Artillery Shells, Words, Images, and the Kids of Qana and Qiryat Shmonah

Children Signing Artillery Shells near Qiryat Shmona, Roughly Two Weeks Ago

I have been following with some interest a discussion here on the marginal world of Kishkushim comments generated by Uri’s article, posted last week. Uri's article analyzed the failure of IDF public relations and, in this context, referred briefly to the "release to the foreign media of photographs of Israeli children 'decorating' IDF artillery shells."

The debate began with a critical response by Seth Kimmel, our man in Damascus, to Uri’s piece and some of the feedback it received. Seth’s main point was that we should see the fact that Israeli children were writing messages on artillery shells as an ethical lapse rather than a public relations blunder. In other words, according to Seth, those who encouraged the kids to write the messages or the children themselves were guilty of some serious moral transgression. His implication was that people (like Uri) who cared only about the PR-aspects of this episode, i.e., who interpreted it as damaging for Israel in the war of images, were ethically callous. From there, he went on to make a larger claim that words and images are not mere instruments circulated through global media in public relations battles. Rather, Seth concluded, “they both represent and shape political/military agendas whose consequences are anything but symbolic.”

Seth reached the conclusion above through a tangent – the apparently meaning-laden phrase “new Middle East,” used by Condoleeza Rice. The only link that exists between the image (of the kids) and the Secretary’s phrase, however, is the demagogical one created by a Syrian daily, which printed Rice's words next to a photograph of the Israeli children. But the kids, many of whom had been living in bunkers for several days and seen homes and community centers in their towns destroyed, were writing messages aimed at Nasrallah and the Hizbullah, clearly legitimate targets for anger and ridicule. Neither they, nor their parents, were enacting or advancing Rice's vision (which, by the way, I find far more comforting than the Middle East of Hizbullah, Iran, and Syria).

Seth also managed to link this episode of kids writing on “American-made, rush-shipped” bombs to the tragic events in Qana, to which he turned next in his comments. After condemning Rice for refusing to demand an immediate cease-fire (condemnation which I find misplaced as such a step would prove disastrous for the security of Israeli citizens), he warns that the consequences of words and images “are anything but symbolic.” But the image (photograph) of the Israeli kids did not in any way represent or shape the political or military agendas that led to the deaths in Qana. This is the case in part because no agenda that includes the deaths of innocent civilians exists on the Israeli side. But more importantly, because such a link has no basis outside the demagoguery of Syrian newspapers. The reference to the provenance of the artillery shells (“American, rush-shipped”) is also a spurious connection, as the armaments in question were not the precision-guided bombs that the US is delivering to Israel.

Thus, I have to agree with John that Seth exaggerated the significance of this entire episode. I think the causes of this exaggeration, however, are not so much political as methodological. As a cultural historian, I, too, have become very invested in the importance that cultural artifacts play as not just as expressions but as determinants of developments in the political, military, and economic spheres. In my undergraduate days, I also attended a number of literature seminars where professors insisted on the importance of language as more than a mere vessel for ideas or positions. Today I wonder how sound these sacred premises are. It seems to me that people who have devoted their professional (and often personal) lives to the interpretation of jarring words and images sometimes have an interest in over-rating their importance.