Israel Matzav

All the news that's fit to print?

CAMERA takes the New York Times and the BBC to task for ignoring the 'Palestinian' corruption scandal exposed by whistleblower Fahmi Shebaneh (pictured).

Unfortunately, the Arab media is not free to publish what they would like, but the same excuse does not apply to Western journalists. The Jerusalem Post report continues,

Shabaneh said that even some foreign journalists based in the country had refused to publish his statements, citing various pretexts, including fear of retribution by the PA.

"Some of the foreign journalists don’t want to hear negative things about Fatah and Abbas," he said. "That’s why they didn’t want to cooperate with me and why I decided to go to the Post."

Even after the story broke on Jan. 29, 2010, there was nearly total silence about Shabaneh’s accusations. A search of major publications indicates the National Post of Canada was the only western print media to cover the story for nearly two weeks after the Jerusalem Post published the revelations.

The Associated Press published a brief piece. The headline of the story on Feb. 10 read: "Israeli TV alleges Palestinian corruption" — rather than citing the Palestinian official Shabaneh who is actually the party alleging corruption. The article does discuss Shabaneh's accusations briefly but also allots as much space to denials by Palestinian government officials. The New York Times and the BBC, both of whom typically devote extensive coverage to claims of Israeli malfeasance, ignored the story.

After Israeli TV aired an undercover video provided by Shabaneh of Rafik Husseini, a senior aid to Palestinian President Abbas, extorting sex from a young woman who had sought his assistance the story gained wider exposure. Only then did the New York Times report on the story, although it made the sexual escapade the main focus of the story rather than the more serious issue of financial corruption.

The BBC, which routinely puts Israel under the microscope and rushes to play up any alleged wrongdoing by Israelis, has yet to cover the financial corruption exposed by Shabaneh at all on its Web site. Only on Feb. 14 did its web site carry a brief article describing the undercover video of Husseini, without even naming Shabaneh or identifying him as the head of a Palestinian Authority anti-corruption investigation.

Sounds like a clear double standard to me, since we know that if this sort of thing happened in Israel, it would be covered all over the world media. Are the New York Times and the BBC anti-Semitic? How shocking.

/sarc

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:58 PM