Cliches

You probably have noticed of the pictorial clichés seen on the news and in the media of this part of the world. They are that repeated you never can believe that life can have other faces in those places. Iranians are always shown like this: a woman in black chador passing by a big billboard with a huge picture of Khomeini and a slogan against the States, mostly "Death to America!", Palestinians are always some men with covered faces having Kalashnikovs in hands. Egyptians are always men , sitting in a bench smoking glass pipes. Iraqis have joined to this group just newly after the invasion; they are usually men carrying corpses all covered with blood and women wearing Arabic black chadors- Abaya- mourning and screaming when their dead ones are buried in the cemetery.

Suicide bombings in Israel have a pictorial cliché either. You can always see the place right after the explosion. Sirens are heard in the background, polices wearing jackets having talkie walkies in hands are rushing and trying to help people, paramedics running hither and thither and a couple of stretchers with wounded people on them.

Tonight I saw a very strange scene on EuroNews. For the first time (may be it is the first time for me) they showed a Jewish cemetery in Israel where they were burying those killed in the recent suicide bombing. Women were screaming and one of them was just about to faint. Other women around spilled water on her face to keep her on her feet. It was shockingly like the scenes filmed in Palestine when in a morgue or cemetery the people gather around, cry their chest off and groan in anger and sadness.