'Palestinian' reporter forced into exile by the 'Palestinian Authority'
A young 'Palestinian' reporter says he's staying in Europe (he won't say where) out of fear that the 'Palestinian Authority' will arrest him and send him to jail on trumped up charges of '
spying for Israel' in a best case scenario.
Qaisi said that he has been targeted because of a video he published
with MEE last September which showed PA security forces beating
Palestinians in Bethlehem during a protest against Israeli settler
attacks on the Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem.
The video showed at least 10 security forces surrounding two teenage protesters who lay on the ground as officers kicked and beat them with batons.
The MEE footage was viewed over
60,000 times and it caused outrage as it spread across Arabic and
English media outlets in the region.
“It was the first time Palestinians could see on camera the PA beating their own people,” Qaisi said.
Public anger at the beatings led
to the PA forcing four senior officers into early retirement, including
Deputy Commander of the Bethlehem Area Issam Nabhan and Deputy Director
of Operations Shaher al-Qaisi.
Six lower ranking officers were sentenced to three months in prison and barred from promotion for one year.
PA
Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah said at the time that the security
forces’ misconduct did “not reflect the policy of the Palestinian
government or the Palestinian security forces”.
However, soon after, Qaisi said, the security forces approached him about the abuse he had captured on camera. Initially, they wanted him to work for the Palestinian intelligence agency, but Qaisi refused.
“After
10 days they started interrogating me,” he said. “They told me I had
three options: be killed in a car accident, be found with guns in my
home, or be accused of being an Israeli spy.”
They'll stop behaving like this if only they get a 'Palestinian state'.... Right....
Labels: freedom of the press, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian Authority corruption, Palestinian police
Freedom House puts politics ahead of human rights
It's embargoed until midnight tonight US time, but since I didn't get it directly from them, I'm not subject to the embargo. Freedom House has issued its annual report on freedom of the press, and has downgraded Israel because - wait for it -
Israel HaYom hands out newspapers for free!
Israel declined due to the growing impact of Yisrael Hayom, whose owner-subsidized business model endangered the stability of other media outlets, and
the unchecked expansion of paid content—some of it government funded—whose nature was not clearly identified to the public.
For the uninitiated, Israel HaYom is owned by that villain Sheldon Adelson, and is handed out for free on street corners and at traffic lights throughout the country. It lives on advertising, and has become the
number one circulating hard-copy newspaper in the country, much to the chagrin of Haaretz (which has almost no hard-copy presence and exists as a web site for foreigners) and Yediot Aharonot (previously the top-ranking tabloid). In fact, the Freedom House report reads like
Haaretz talking points.
Every newspaper in this country has 'paid government content' - legal notices and the like. There are many more here than in many other Western countries because every government tender and every public offering of securities (among other things) has to be published in two newspapers. But the people issuing the tender (local authorities) and the issuer of the securities (to stay with those two examples) have the right to choose in which newspapers they will publicize. Moreover, Freedom House gives no indication of how the 'paid content' in 2016 compares to past years, nor does it give any indication how much more (if any) 'content' goes to Yisrael HaYom than to any other newspaper.
The result is that while Israel is still the freest country in the Middle East and North Africa, Freedom House has downgraded our press from 'Free' to 'Partly Free' and our worldwide rank has declined to 65 (62 countries are rated 'Free') - behind countries like Chile and Uruguay and most of Europe (Norway is ranked #1, Belgium, Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands are tied for #2, the US is ranked #28 and the UK is ranked #41). Ghana was the only other country that declined from 'Free' to 'Partly Free' this year.
Israel's downgrading reeks of politics. Politics should play no role in this type of ranking. Shame on Freedom House!
Labels: Freedom House, freedom of the press, Haaretz, Sheldon Adelson, Yisrael HaYom
'Stay quiet and you'll be okay:' Mark Steyn on Pamela Geller
A must read from
Mark Steyn.
I'll have more to say about the elections in the days ahead, but for
now let me offer a whole-hearted good riddance to Ed Miliband, the now
departed Labour leader who, in a desperate last-minute pander, offered
to "outlaw Islamophobia".
That was the British political establishment's contribution to a rough
couple of weeks for free speech, culminating in the attempted mass
murder in Garland, Texas.
That's what it was, by the way - although you might have difficulty telling that from the news coverage. The Washington Post offered the celebrated headline "Event Organizer Offers No Apology After Thwarted Attack In Texas", while the Associated Press went with "Pamela Geller says she has no regrets about Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest that ended in 2 deaths".
The media "narrative" of the last week is that some Zionist temptress
was walking down the street in Garland in a too short skirt and hoisted
it to reveal her Mohammed thong - oops, my apologies, her Prophet
Mohammed thong (PBUH) - and thereby inflamed two otherwise law-abiding
ISIS supporters peacefully minding their own business.
It'll be a long time before you see "Washington Post Offers No
Apology for Attacking Target of Thwarted Attack" or "AP Says It Has No
Regrets After Blaming The Victim". The respectable class in the American
media share the same goal as the Islamic fanatics: They want to silence
Pam Geller. To be sure, they have a mild disagreement about the means
to that end - although even then you get the feeling, as with Garry
Trudeau and those dozens of PEN novelists' reaction to Charlie Hebdo,
that the "narrative" wouldn't change very much if the jihad boys had
got luckier and Pam, Geert Wilders, Robert Spencer and a dozen others
were all piled up in the Garland morgue.
If the American press were not so lazy and parochial, they would
understand that this was the third Islamic attack on free speech this
year - first, Charlie Hebdo in Paris; second, the Lars Vilks event in Copenhagen; and now Texas. The difference in the corpse count is easily explained by a look at the video of the Paris gunmen, or the bullet holes they put in the police car.
The French and Texan attackers supposedly had the same kind of weapons,
although one should always treat American media reports with a high
degree of skepticism when it comes to early identification of "assault
weapons" and "AK47s". Nonetheless, from this reconstruction,
it seems clear that the key distinction between the two attacks is that
in Paris they knew how to use their firepower and in Garland they
didn't. So a very cool 60-year-old local cop with nothing but his
service pistol advanced under fire and took down two guys whose heavier
firepower managed only to put a bullet in an unarmed security guard's
foot.
The Charlie Hebdo killers had received effective training
overseas - as thousands of ISIS recruits with western passports are
getting right now. What if the Garland gunmen had been as good as the
Paris gunmen? Surely that would be a more interesting question for the
somnolent American media than whether some lippy Jewess was asking for
it.
...
In Copenhagen, in Paris, in Garland, what's more important than the
cartoons and the attacks is the reaction of all the polite, respectable
people in society, which for a decade now has told those who do not
accept the messy, fractious liberties of free peoples that we don't
really believe in them, either, and we're happy to give them up -
quietly, furtively, incrementally, remorselessly - in hopes of a quiet
life. Because a small Danish newspaper found itself abandoned and alone,
Charlie Hebdo jumped in to support them. Because the Charlie Hebdo
artists and writers died abandoned and alone, Pamela Geller jumped in
to support them. By refusing to share the risk, we are increasing the
risk. It's not Pamela Geller who emboldens Islamic fanatics, it's all
the nice types - the ones Salman Rushdie calls the But Brigade. You've
heard them a zillion times this last week: "Of course, I'm personally,
passionately, absolutely committed to free speech. But..."
And the minute you hear the "but", none of the build-up to it
matters. A couple of days before Garland, Canadian Liberal MP (and
former Justice Minister) Irwin Cotler announced his plan to restore
Section 13 - the "hate speech" law under which Maclean's and I
were dragged before the Canadian "Human Rights" Commission and which, as
a result of my case, was repealed by the Parliament of Canada. At the
time Mr Cotler was fairly torn on the issue. We talked about it briefly
at a free-speech event in Ottawa at which he chanced to be present, and
he made vaguely supportive murmurings - as he did when we ran into each
other a couple of years later in Boston. Mr Cotler is Jewish and, even
as European "hate" laws prove utterly useless against the metastasizing
open Jew-hate on the Continent, he thinks we should give 'em one more
try. He's more sophisticated than your average But boy, so he uses a three-syllable word.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: freedom of speech, freedom of the press, Islamic terrorism, Islamophobia, Mark Steyn, Pamela Geller
OMG: Iranian reporter covering nuke talks defects, says US mainly speaking on Iran's behalf to other P 5+1 countries
Shavua tov, a good week to everyone.
An Iranian reporter covering the nuclear talks in Lausanne, Switzerland has defected, saying that there is no point to practicing his profession in Iran, because he can only write what he is told anyway. The same reporter had some
choice words to describe the United States' role in the talks.
He then appeared on an opposition television channel based in London to
say he no longer saw any “sense” in his profession as a journalist as
he could only write what he was told.
“There are a number of people attending on the Iranian side at the
negotiations who are said to be journalists reporting on the
negotiations,” he told Irane Farda television. “But they are not
journalists and their main job is to make sure that all the news fed
back to Iran goes through their channels.
“My conscience would not allow me to carry out my profession in this
manner any more.” Mr Mottaghi was a journalist and commentator who went
on to use social media successfully to promote Mr Rouhani to a youthful
audience that overwhelmingly elected him to power.
But he was also subject to the bitter internal arguments within the
Iranian regime. One news website claimed he had been forced in to report
to the ministry of intelligence weekly, and that he had been tipped off
that he might be subject to arrest had he returned to Tehran.
He is said to have been a friend of Jason Rezaian, the Iranian-American reporter for the Washington Post who has been detained in Tehran, and to have campaigned privately for his release.
...
In his television interview, Mr Mottaghi also gave succour to western critics of the proposed nuclear deal, which has seen the White House
pursue a more conciliatory line with Tehran than some of America’s
European allies in the negotiating team, comprising the five permanent
members of the UN security council and Germany.
“The US negotiating team are mainly there to speak on Iran’s behalf
with other members of the 5+1 countries and convince them of a deal,” he
said.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration continues its fight for
truth, justice and the American way Islam.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, freedom of the press, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, P 5+1, political asylum, Switzerland
Scared?
Mark Steyn on
this week's Charlie Hebdo cover.
The cover of this week's Charlie Hebdo (right) shows Mohammed
shedding a tear and holding up a "Je suis Charlie" sign under the
headline "Tout est pardonné" - all is forgiven. The illustration is
unclear: Is Mohammed forgiving the secular leftie blasphemers? Or are
the secular lefties forgiving Mohammed and his murderous believers? The Commentator devotes an editorial to the subject, and finds it "a strange cover" symbolic of "western confusion". On the other hand, Paul Berman in The Tablet thinks "uncertainty lends majesty".
When skilled persons who have never shied away from clarity produce a
work whose meaning is unclear, then it is reasonable to assume the
unclearness is itself the meaning. The surviving staff at Charlie Hebdo
have undergone a week of surreal hellishness, in which their senior
colleagues have been murdered for publishing images of Mohammed, and the
world is professing its solidarity and egging them on to prove that nothing has changed. In other words, they're expected to produce new images of Mohammed, which may well get them murdered, too.
...
So, for all the viral hashtags and Helen Mirren wearing a pencil
brooch to the Golden Globes and George Clooney declaring "Je suis
Charlie", what's left of the staff at Charlie Hebdo nevertheless
got the message: You're still on your own. We'll send you a supportive
Tweet, but that's it. Murderous-rage-wise, we'd rather you remained the
focus. Hey, but we're all really looking forward to next week's
controversial cover!
I prefer the fellows who just state upfront that Charlie Hebdo
was asking for it to Dame Helen and untold millions all waving pencils,
and none of 'em with any lead in 'em. Imagine being at the editorial
meeting with the empty chairs, and understanding, even as millions
around the world profess to be your new best friend, that you're still
the lonesomest guy in town.
They did a Mohammed cover because they had to. But it certainly has
an uncharacteristic passivity. And it feels like one for the road.
Read the whole thing. Sadly, I think he's spot-on.
Labels: Charlie Hebdo, freedom of the press, Islamic terrorism, Islamophobia, Mark Steyn
A 'Palestinian' rips Hollande for inviting Abu Mazen
An anonymous 'Palestinian' has written a letter to French President Francois Hollande criticizing Hollande for inviting '
moderate' '
Palestinian' President
Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen to participate in this past Sunday's
Paris unity march.
Second, I want to apologize to Your Excellency for not revealing my
true identity. After you read my letter, you will realize why people
like me are afraid to reveal their real identity.
I decided to write to you this letter after hearing my president, Mahmoud Abbas, declare that you had invited him to attend the anti-terror rally in Paris earlier this week.
Like many Palestinians, I see President Abbas's participation
in a rally against terrorism and assaults on freedom of speech as an
act of hypocrisy -- a condition that is not alien to Palestinian
Authority leaders.
In fact, many Palestinians nearly fell off their chairs upon seeing
their president march in the front row of a rally in your capital, in
protest against terrorism and assaults on freedom of the media.
President Abbas's participation in the rally is an insult to the
victims of the terror attacks. It is also an insult to Western values,
including freedom of expression and democracy.
Your Excellency, myself and other journalists living under the rule
of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank were the first to be
offended by the invitation you extended to President Abbas to attend the
anti-terror rally.
Undoubtedly, you are unaware of the fact that Abbas is personally
responsible for punishing Palestinian journalists who dare to criticize
him or express their views in public. Of course, Your Excellency, we
cannot blame you for being unaware of this assault on public freedoms
because the mainstream media, including French newspapers and magazines,
deliberately turn a blind eye to these practices. Every day we see that
the Western media does not care about such violations unless they are
committed by Israel.
That is why, Your Excellency, you are probably unaware of the cases
of several Palestinian journalists who have been arrested and
intimidated by President Abbas's security forces over the past few
years. Yes, this is the same Abbas who came to Paris to express his
condolences over the brutal killing of the Charlie Hebdo journalists.
The most recent example of Abbas's crackdown on Palestinian
journalists occurred shortly before Your Excellency phoned President
Abbas to invite him to Paris. The case involves my female colleague, Majdolin Hassouneh, who was detained for "extending her tongue," or insulting, President Abbas.
Your Excellency, please allow me to tell you that you are completely
mistaken if you ever thought that President Abbas and his Palestinian
Authority are tolerant toward satire or any form of criticism. And of
course, you haven't heard of the Palestinian Authority's decision to cancel the only popular satirical show on Palestine TV, Watan ala Watar (Country on a String).
The show was forced off the air in 2011 because President Abbas
believed it had "crossed a line" by mocking his top officials in
Ramallah. This is the same Abbas who came to Paris to protest the
massacre at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
...
Undoubtedly, now Palestinians like me will now pay a heavier price
because President Abbas has been emboldened by his participation in the
Paris rally. President Abbas will now step up his assaults on public
freedoms because he knows that the international community will only see
photos of him marching together with Your Excellency and other world
leaders in defense of freedom of expression.
By extending the invitation to President Abbas, you have caused
damage to Palestinians like me who have been hoping that someone --
maybe even a leader like you -- would finally expose the dictatorship of
the Palestinian Authority for what it is. President Abbas's
participation in the Paris rally is a severe blow to people like me who
are genuinely opposed to terrorism and suppression of free speech.
Your Excellency, now that the damage has already been done, all that
is left for people like me is to beg you to take all what I have said
into account in your future dealings with President Abbas. Please do not
hesitate to raise these issues with President Abbas the next time he
requests your support for the creation of an independent Palestinian
state. Otherwise, France will be helping to establish another corrupt
and repressive Arab dictatorship -- one that glorifies and rewards
terrorists no different from those who carried out the Paris attacks.
Finally, Your Excellency, I hope that by now you understand the reason why I am too scared to reveal my identity.
Sincerely,
A Palestinian Journalist with No Name or Voice
Read the whole thing. If only the West would listen....
Labels: Abu Mazen, Charlie Hebdo, France, Francois Hollande, freedom of the press, human rights, Islamic terrorism, Palestinian Authority, Paris
NATO member, US ally, blocks all media
US President Hussein Obama's Best Friend Forever, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has ordered all
websites showing the new Charlie Hebdo cover blocked. He has also blocked all media from reporting on allegations that
Turkey armed Syrian Islamist rebels last year. This is from the first link.
A Turkish court on Wednesday ordered the telecommunications authority to
ban access to websites showing Charlie Hebdo's front cover with the
image of the Prophet Muhammad, a state-run news agency said.
The Anadolu Agency said the ban, which would block access to the
websites in Turkey, was ordered by a court in the southeastern city of
Diyarbakir, according to the Dogan news agency. The decision came from
the court, because a lawyer in Diyarbakir filed a petition saying the
websites were a danger to "public order."
And from the second link.
Turkey on Wednesday imposed an all-out media blackout, including on Facebook and Twitter, prohibiting publication of reports claiming Turkish intelligence services delivered arms to Syrian Islamist rebels last year.
The Supreme Board of Radio and Television (RTUK) delivered a court ruling to Turkish newspapers, television, websites and social media networks, banning them from reporting the arms allegations.
...
The earlier interdiction on reporting the arms allegations arose from events in January last year, when Turkish police stopped and seized seven trucks near the Syrian border that were suspected of smuggling weapons into Syria. The move came as the government in Ankara denied suspicions it was aiding rebel forces.
That ban was imposed after a Twitter account with handle @LazepeM leaked a series of documents indicating that the seized trucks were actually National Intelligence Agency (MIT) vehicles delivering weapons to Syrian Islamist rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad.
Hurriyet newspaper reported that a Turkish court ordered the closure of all websites, including social media networks Facebook and Twitter, that don't remove information or allegations linked to the documents.
"There are several court decisions against the websites that published the signed documents," a Turkish official was quoted as saying by Hurriyet.
Twitter, which was previously blocked by the Turkish government, immediately removed the documents and suspended the account that published them.
But by that time the information had already begun circulating on many other websites, as well as some Facebook accounts.
The contents of the vehicles have never been revealed to the public, but MIT claimed they were carrying humanitarian aid to war-stricken Syrians.
The security officials who stopped the vehicles are now standing trial for 'spying.' And you thought that if you voted for Mitt Romney you'd see the United States allied with fascist countries... and you were right.
Labels: freedom of the press, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey, Turkish repression
Eyewitness account from Charlie Hebdo
Claire Berlinski, whom I have long followed on Twitter, was in Paris yesterday on Boulevard Richard Lenoir when the terror attack at Charlie Hebdo's offices took place. Here's her
eyewitness account (Hat Tip:
Sunlight).
President François Hollande said the trivial: “No barbaric act will
ever extinguish the freedom of the press.” That the statement is
self-falsifying seemed to bother him little: That barbaric act literally
extinguished the press. Literally. They are dead. Their freedom is thus
of little relevance.
That I’m shaken is of concern to no one; my emotions are not the
point. The entire city is shaken. So much that even my cab driver — I
had to catch one to get home; the streets were otherwise blocked off —
didn’t even ask me to pay the fare. When I said I was a journalist, and
in a rush to say what little I knew, his response was, “Forget about the
money. Just hurry.”
The assailants are as yet at liberty. I hope they’ll be dead by the
time you read this. But if not: You want me too? Come get me. Because
nothing short of killing me — and many more of my kind — will ever shut us up.
And if you don’t believe that now, you’ll believe it very soon.
Because there are more of us willing to die for that freedom than those
of you eager to take it from us. And soon you will find out that those
of us willing to die for that freedom are also much better at killing
than you.
So come and get me. Je suis Charlie.
And have a good long look at the cartoon below. Because you may have
been able to kill its authors, but you sure didn’t kill what they
created. And nor will we ever let you.
There are things I’m not allowed to say on Ricochet. But if I were
allowed to say them, this is what I’d say–though I’d add a few other
words.
Go ahead. Make my day. Because you’ve got no idea what we’re capable of when we are pushed too far. And you are more than pushing your luck.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Charlie Hebdo, Claire Berlinski, feckless French, freedom of the press, Islamic terrorism, Paris
Flashback: When the New York Times admitted that Hamas harasses journalists
You will recall that just this past week, New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief Jodi Rudoren termed '
nonsense' an accusation by the Foreign Press Association (FPA) that Hamas harasses journalists, despite the fact that
her own deputy was signed on the FPA complaint. A little bit of digging in the Times' archives by a friend came up with this Steve Erlanager piece complaining about
Hamas harassment of journalists. Of course, that happened before Hamas was really ensconced in power.
The next night, at about 10 p.m., Hamas police officers entered
Sakher Abu El Oun’s courtyard, preparing to arrest him. Mr. Abu El Oun, a
reporter for Agence France-Presse and head of the union here,
telephoned a colleague.
“I called one journalist who sent out an
SMS,” he said, referring to a text message, “and within minutes, about
70 journalists and some human rights activists came to my house and
prevented them from taking me away. My kids were crying. It was a very
ugly picture.”
The police told him, he said, “that they had
instructions to arrest me, I had refused, and I would be responsible”
for any consequences.
Hamas seems confused about how to quash
Fatah protests and simultaneously deal with the news media. Trying to
nurture a reputation for honesty and legal behavior since they conquered
Gaza in bloody fighting in June, Hamas’s leaders promise journalists
freedom of action while the police intimidate them.
One result
is a kind of self-censorship, local journalists say, that goes beyond
what they traditionally practiced under Fatah, which also tried to
pressure, manipulate or own the Palestinian press.
Mr. Abu El Oun,
42, is a good case in point. The immediate crisis for him ended when a
Hamas government spokesman, Taher el-Nounou, a former journalist,
arrived at his house with a message from the former Hamas prime
minister, Ismail Haniya, telling the police to leave.
Later,
speaking for the union, Mr. Abu El Oun talked about the broader problems
journalists were facing. “We are asking for the freedom to cover the
protests,” he said. “They can prevent the demonstrations, but not the
right of journalists to cover them. We are under self-censorship because
we don’t know what is allowed, what isn’t. There is no clear policy.
All the journalists are worried, scared.”
He has since been asked by his employer not to speak to journalists.
And one more thing:
Similarly, Hamas at first said the prayer protests were fine if
peaceful, but then decided to ban them, causing further clashes. As some
protesters were beaten, some more journalists were beaten and arrested,
too, before being released. One policeman told reporters, according to
The Associated Press, “If a single shot is on TV, you know what will
happen,” then drew a finger across his throat.
Read the whole thing. Sounds a lot like today, doesn't it? In fact, if anything it's worse - I doubt 70 journalists would respond to such an SMS today. So why does Jodi think otherwise?
Labels: freedom of the press, Gaza, Hamas, Jodi Rudoren, New York Times
'We deport foreign journalists'
After all the years that MEMRI and Palestinian Media Watch have been translating Arab language broadcasts into English, you would think that the terrorists would have at least learned that whatever they say in Arabic will come out. Well, they haven't. Here's a Hamas foreign ministry spokeswoman making a statement that could come back to haunt her organization. She admits that Hamas deported foreign journalists for filming rocket launches. (Whether that's true or not is a separate issue - we'll be happy to accept it as true).
Let's go to the videotape.
Labels: freedom of the press, Gaza, Hamas, journalists, missile launch
Breaking: Speaking of danger to foreign reporters.... UPDATED
Five people, including a foreign journalist, have been killed in Gaza after Hamas had a work accident while
trying to dismantle an Israeli missile dud.
Hamas emergency services spokesperson Ashraf al-Qudra stated that in
addition to the five dead, there are several more who are seriously
wounded.
"A number of explosives experts were killed while dismantling a missile in Beit Lahiya. Among them was a foreign journalist," Hamas Interior Ministry spokesperson Iyad al-Buzam told AFP.
A foreign journalist was an explosives expert? Was he a member of Hamas too?
Muayin al-Masri, a spokesperson for Kamal Adwan hospital,
confirmed that the five dead included four Gaza residents and a foreign
national. He added that five others were wounded, three of them in
critical condition.
The journalist, whose identity remains unspecified, was reporting on
the dismantling from the scene; his fixer was likewise killed, and another local journalist working with him was badly wounded in the blast, according to an AFP correspondent in Gaza.
The IDF has not struck the Hamas terror enclave of Gaza since
the current 72-hour ceasefire went into effect on Sunday at midnight,
meaning the missile would have been sitting in Gaza at least two days.
In any event, the reports hint at a wanton disregard for human
life by the terrorist organization, given that in dismantling the
missile casualties among those not involved in the actual dismantling,
such as journalists, could have been avoided by distancing the public
from the missile.
Something tells me we're going to find out that the journalist was from AFP....
UPDATED 2:49 PM
I was wrong. The dead journalist was an Italian working for AP.
Labels: freedom of the press, Gaza, Hamas, IDF, work accident
Rudoren's deputy signed Hamas harassment protest
In an earlier post, I discussed New York Times bureau chief Jodi Rudoren's tweet claiming that
journalists were not harassed by Hamas in Gaza during Operation Protective Edge. Haaretz reports that the tweet led to a lot of back and forth between Rudoren (who was not in Gaza until after most of the fighting ended) and the Foreign Press Association (FPA). It also turns out that Rudoren's deputy, Isabel Kirshner, is a board member of the FPA and
voted in favor of issuing the protest.
Rudoren’s Tweet was followed by a furious email exchange with the FPA, in which Rudoren denounced the statement as “dangerous.”
Crispian
Balmer, last year’s FPA chairman and former Jerusalem bureau chief for
Reuters, told Haaretz the FPA was not in the habit of issuing such
protests without very good reason.
“When I was on the FPA board,
we took our statements very seriously,” said Crispian Balmer. “They were
never written on a whim and were only issued after broad consultation –
either face-to-face at a board meeting or via a stream of email
exchanges. Our prime concern was always the well-being of the foreign
press pack and we would not pull our punches if we thought our members
needed vocal support. We would certainly never issue broad statements
condemning the behavior of one side or the other if we did not feel that
a good number of our members had been impacted.”
Even more
intriguing, Rudoren’s deputy at the NYT, Isabel Kershner, was one of the
FPA board members who approved the statement. How could two colleagues
from the same newspaper observing the same sequence of events come to
such different conclusions?
“I was not in Gaza during the height
of the hostilities, I have only been here a week,” Rudoren told me. “But
in conversations with many colleagues, those who were here from NYT and
other major news organizations who I trust, I have not heard about
harassment, intimidation, censorship or threats. There have been a few
anecdotes re Hamas people shooing photographers away from fighters'
faces at the hospitals, asking people not to shoot this or that, and
yes, names and phone numbers were taken down in a spiral notebook of who
was here, but nothing that these veteran war correspondents consider
unusual.”
“I am confident the FPA based its statement on detailed
reports from members regarding their experiences on the ground, and only
had the best intention of protecting journalists and journalism, as it
always does. But I found the wording of the statement overly broad, and,
especially given the narrative playing out in some social media circles
regarding foreign correspondents being taken in by the Hamas narrative
and not reporting on the war fully or fairly, I was concerned that it
undermined what I consider to have been brave and excellent work by very
talented people,” she said.
Rudoren wasn’t actually there. Her
conclusions are based on talking to colleagues. But several other
reporters who spoke to Haaretz agreed with her. British freelancer Harry
Fear was reporting for Russia Today TV when he was asked to leave Gaza
by three plainclothes Hamas officials at Al-Shifa Hospital, apparently
for referring to rocket launches near his hotel. But Fear said he did
not feel he had been subjected to intimidation or interference for the
four weeks he reported from Gaza, where he has worked intermittently
since 2012.
“It’s a totally free playing field,” said Fear. “I
feel somewhat aggrieved that there were no guidelines that I broke,
because there are no guidelines. If they had asked me not to do it
again, which is what’s happened to dozens of other visiting journalists
over the last several years with respect to rocket locations, I would
have respected that, because professionally you have to respect such
things.”
Fear and other reporters who spoke to Haaretz on
condition of anonymity insist that they did not experience or hear of
the kind of Hamas actions described in the FPA statement. Anecdotal
evidence suggests they may well be in the majority.
But other
reporters did experience threats and intimidation from Hamas – enough to
convince the FPA that they were not isolated incidents. Unfortunately
for Hamas, they included prominent FPA members. So many of them
complained that when the board met in Jerusalem on Monday and looked at
confirmed information about a series of troubling incidents there wasn’t
a single dissenting voice – only a discussion about just how fierce the
protest should be.
...
The
FPA worked tirelessly through the conflict to get journalists in and
out of Gaza on a specially-chartered bus via a safe passage. Haaretz has
learned that Hamas repeatedly demanded a list of the names of
correspondents using the FPA bus in order to draw up a blacklist of
individuals and networks.
“We do not take or give out lists to
anyone and certainly not for the purpose of blacklisting people going
into or out of Gaza,” said Glenys Sugarman, the FPA executive secretary.
Some
reporters received death threats. Sometimes, cameras were smashed.
Reporters were prevented from filming anti-Hamas demonstrations where
more than 20 Palestinians were shot dead by Hamas gunmen.
In
perhaps the most serious incidents considered by the FPA, Hamas began
firing mortars right next to the location of foreign reporters, in what
may have been an effort to draw Israeli retaliatory fire.
Several
foreign correspondents said the FPA had been right to issue the
statement. One European reporter told Haaretz how Hamas officials
prevented photographs being taken of any wounded or dead fighters at
Al-Shifa hospital, even though their presence there was common
knowledge. Only images of wounded or dead civilians were permitted. The
journalist said Hamas repeatedly issued warnings to local translators
that blatantly interfered with reporting. Other correspondents had
similar experiences.
As we say in Hebrew, Fear is כשמו כן הוא like his name. I find it incredible that a journalist who was expelled from Gaza for his work would then claim he was not harassed (probably because he wants to be able to work there again) and that his only gripe was that the rules were not told to him in advance. Does he expect Hamas to hand out a press guide (that would then be broadcast all over the world if the IDF ever found it) saying what reporters can and cannot do?
I'm also still waiting to hear from Reporters without Borders about this. Ah, I hear them now....
UPDATE 2:29 PM
You will note that Rudoren denounced the FPA statement as 'dangerous.' This is what I think she meant by that. I think she implied what she meant by 'dangerous' here:
“I am confident the FPA based its statement on detailed
reports from members regarding their experiences on the ground, and only
had the best intention of protecting journalists and journalism, as it
always does. But I found the wording of the statement overly broad, and,
especially given the narrative playing out in some social media circles
regarding foreign correspondents being taken in by the Hamas narrative
and not reporting on the war fully or fairly, I was concerned that it
undermined what I consider to have been brave and excellent work by very
talented people,” she said.
In other words, there's a danger that someone might decide that pro-Hamas reporting like that of the Times was a result of duress.
Labels: crickets, Foreign Press Association, freedom of the press, Gaza, Hamas, IDF, Jodi Rudoren, New York Times, Operation Protective Edge, Reporters without Borders
Times' Rudoren: Hamas didn't harass anyone
The New York Times' Jodi Rudoren claims that the Foreign Press Association narrative about reporters being harassed by Hamas is 'nonsense.'
Rudoren goes on to claim that the reports that the FPA got were 'anomalous.'
But what Rudoren says us 'anomalous' seems to be Hamas policy.
Maybe Rudoren only knows 'Palestinian' reporters?
Labels: Foreign Press Association, freedom of the press, Government Press Office, Jodi Rudoren, New York Times, Reporters without Borders
Oh my... Foreign Press Association slams Hamas
The Foreign Press Association, the group representing journalists working in Israel and the 'Palestinian territories,' has
slammed Hamas for its treatment of journalists during Operation Protective Edge.
The association for journalists working in Israel and the Palestinian
territories said Hamas authorities and their representatives employed
"blatant, incessant, forceful and unorthodox methods" against visiting
international journalists covering the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza.
The FPA, in a statement, protested "in the strongest terms".
"The international media are not advocacy organizations and cannot be
prevented from reporting by means of threats or pressure, thereby
denying their readers and viewers an objective picture from the ground,"
it said.
"In several cases, foreign reporters working in Gaza have been
harassed, threatened or questioned over stories or information they have
reported through their news media or by means of social media."
Hundreds of foreign journalists travelled to Gaza during more than a
month of fighting between Israel and the Hamas, with perhaps 10 percent
reporting difficulties from the authorities, FPA said.
Those who experienced threats were reluctant to speak publicly for fear of repercussions.
It said one photographer spoke of being beaten up and having a camera
smashed; a news photographer had a camera confiscated for three days
and Hamas also asked people to remove tweets and YouTube videos.
A European company was also threatened in the middle of the street when filming an anti-Hamas demonstration.
The FPA said Hamas was also trying to put in place a "vetting"
procedure that would, in effect, allow for the blacklisting of specific
journalists.
"Such a procedure is vehemently opposed by the FPA," it said.
Several news organizations reported receiving a request Monday from
Hamas for the name of journalists, their company, where they are based,
their contact details and the name of their translator to "facilitate
and organize" their work.
I would bet that in addition to the 10% who reported harassment, there were many more who were harassed but didn't report it, and many more than that who were not harassed because they only reported what Hamas wanted them to report. But to whom are they protesting? To Hamas? That's an exercise in futility. To Israel? What do they expect us to do?
The only leverage the media has over Hamas is the fact that Hamas
needs the media. If the media were not to show up - or to show up and not report - Hamas would be missing out. The problem with that is that there will always be some media who will show up and will give fawning reports (you all know who they are). So what do you do?
I would hope that as many reporters as possible will at least speak out now about what happened. It would be nice if some of them would testify before the inevitable 'commissions of inquiry' and the 'human rights council,' but that's probably expecting too much.
By the way, where is Reporters Without Borders on this? Don't they have something to say?
Labels: civilian casualties, foreign reporters, freedom of the press, Gaza, Government Press Office, Hamas, human shields, Operation Protective Edge, Reporters without Borders
Why you don't get the truth from Gaza
An important story by veteran journalist Mark Lavie about
what's different about covering Gaza than other war zones.
It’s nothing new. I’ve experienced it for decades. Autocratic regimes
threaten, attack and jail reporters who write anything critical of
those in power. Other reporters get the message and just don’t do it.
Bringing this element of the Gaza situation to light entails some
real dangers. It’s a saga that can’t be told directly in detail. If it
is, and if specific reporters can be identified here, people will be
harmed. Not just the reporters, but their families, too. But if this
isn’t told, you’ll be harmed. You won’t know why you don’t get the whole
story.
...
Here’s the serious part. A typical news report from Gaza a few days
ago described the destruction, interviewed Gaza civilians who related in
heartbreaking detail the deaths of their relatives and loss of their
belongings, and listed the hardships and travail the people are facing
because of the Israeli military operation. Halfway through the long
story was a single paragraph that said that Israel claims Hamas fires
rockets from civilian areas. This is how journalists protect themselves
from charges that they didn’t tell “the other side.”
But in fact, they didn’t. They didn’t report from Gaza about where
the Hamas rocket launchers were, where the ammunition is stored, where
the openings of the tunnels are—if they mention the tunnels at all,
which in this case, they didn’t.
A reporter for a European news outlet told a friend that he saw Hamas
gunmen firing rockets from outside his hotel, but he didn’t take
pictures, certain that if he had, they would have killed him. He told
the tale only after he was safely out of Gaza. Apparently his news
outlet did not have a permanent local stringer there, or he would not
have been able to speak even from the relative safety of Tel Aviv
without endangering his stringer.
News agencies, newspapers and TV networks use their local Palestinian
stringers to do most of the work on the ground. In this era of cutbacks
in my industry, there aren’t enough reporters, and those they send in
are not fluent in Arabic and don’t know their way around.
Besides the budgetary limitations, news organizations often hesitate
to send reporters into Gaza at all because of the constant danger, and
not from Israeli airstrikes. In 2007, BBC reporter Alan Johnston was
kidnapped by Palestinian militants and held for more than three months.
Many other foreign journalists were kidnapped there and held for a day
or two around that time. There have been no kidnappings recently, but
the message was clear—foreigners are fair game. The message was heard
and understood. For lack of an alternative, news organizations began to
rely more and more on local stringers, giving the regime considerable
leverage through intimidation. It’s expected that news organizations
will deny all this—it’s part of the dance.
On many occasions, frightened stringers have pleaded to have their
bylines taken off stories.
Some have been “evacuated” from Gaza for a
time for their own safety, after an article critical of the regime was
published or broadcast. Families have been spirited out for a while.
So when the stringer returns home and gets back to work, it’s pretty
clear how he’ll behave. Everyone in the home office knows that and
accepts it.
The West Bank, run by the relatively moderate Fatah, is no better than Gaza’s Hamas in this regard.
...
Even the best are turned. A Palestinian reporter duly
relayed an official Palestinian story from an Israeli army roadblock
near Ramallah in the West Bank, where a pregnant woman had died after
heartless Israeli soldiers refused to let her go through to the
hospital. The reporter went to the hospital, where a doctor confirmed
the report. Uneasy, the reporter climbed on foot to the primitive
encampment where the woman lived, and there, her husband refuted the
whole story. The delay, he said, was getting her to the main road and
finding a taxi. Once they got to the roadblock, he said, the soldiers
cleared everyone else out of the way and sped them through to the
hospital—but it was too late. The reporter then confronted the doctor,
who admitted that he lied “for the cause.”
A decade or so later, this same reporter, like others, refused to
touch a story of a Palestinian whistleblower, appointed by President
Mahmoud Abbas himself to find evidence of corruption in the PA. He did
his job too well, it seems—he was fired, but not before he said he took
with him 40 boxes of incriminating documents, possibly answering the
question of where those billions of dollars and euros of aid to the
Palestinians has gone. The whistleblower approached several reporters,
but no story was done until a local Israeli TV channel broadcast a
report, and to the best of my knowledge, no serious examination of the
documents has been undertaken.
...
Clearly the abuse of reporters and perversion of journalism is not
unique to Gaza or the West Bank. This is the situation all over the
region save Israel. During my two years in Egypt, I saw some of my
colleagues beaten, harassed and arrested. The military-backed Egyptian
regime jailed reporters for Al-Jazeera last December, charging them with
belonging to or assisting a terrorist organization. Three, including
Australian Peter Greste and bureau chief Mohamed Fahmy, a
Canadian-Egyptian, have been sentenced to seven to ten years in prison.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: anti-Israel media bias, Fatah, freedom of the press, Gaza, Hamas, Palestinian Authority
Hope for free expression in Israel?
In an earlier post, I reported that police were attempting to
place two Jewish teenagers under arrest for putting up posters protesting the upcoming visit of Pope Francis I. Early this afternoon, a Jerusalem judge threw out the arrests.
Jerusalem Magistrates' Court Judge Shmuel Herbst rejected early
Friday afternoon a request by police to place two youths under house
arrest for seven days, distance them from Jerusalem and slap them with a
security deposit after they were caught putting up posters hostile to
Pope Francis.
The posters said, among other things, that Christianity is an
“accursed” religion that is complicit in the murder of millions of Jews,
and that its leaders dream of “annihilating the Jewish state.” It
called on the “impure” pope to “get out of our holy land” and “return
the stolen vessels of the Temple.”
Police claimed this was incitement to racism but the judge rejected
this, determining that “theological arguments and disputes between
religions have existed from time immemorial and these arguments do not
constitute a danger to the public.”
The judge added that there is a “very weak” case to be made against
the sentence that says Christians dream of annihilating the Jewish
state, but that it does not constitute racism in any case.
He ruled that the youths are allowed to protest against the pope, but
determined that they may not come within 150 meters of him.
Meanwhile, the police continue to announce administrative detention orders against known activists whom they'd like to keep out of sight while the Pope is here.
Police on Friday announced ten more nationalist activists would have
restraining orders issued against them, bringing the total to 15 ahead
of Pope Francis's visit next Sunday and Monday.
"Yesterday the head of the Jerusalem district mentioned that there
would be a further 10," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP without giving details.
The detentions began Wednesday, when several Jewish youths were put under house arrest in a move justified by concerns they might carry out "provocative acts" during the pope's visit.
This is the Middle East's only 'democracy.' Obama could take lessons from us.
Labels: administrative detention, Barack Hussein Obama, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, incitement, Israel police, Jerusalem, Pope Francis I
Food for thought
"No society, not even one that cossets the young as much as ours does,
can treat you as children forever. A central teaching of Genesis is that
knowledge is purchased at the expense of innocence. A core teaching of
the ancients is that personal dignity is obtained through habituation to
virtue. And at least one basic teaching of true liberalism is that the
essential right of free people is the right to offend, and an essential
responsibility of free people is to learn how to cope with being
offended."
Wall Street Journal (and former Jerusalem Post) editor Brett Stephens at
Haverford College Commencement. (Hat Tip:
Gary P - a college classmate of mine).
More
here.
Labels: American college campuses, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press
Knesset bill would put Israel Hayom newspaper out of business
In what is clearly an effort to put the wildly successful Israel Hayom newspaper out of business, a group of six MK's has introduced a bill in the Knesset that would
limit the free distribution of newspapers.
The bill, which was proposed by MKs Eitan Cabel (Labor), Robert
Ilatov (Yisrael Beytenu), Ayelet Shaked (Jewish Home), Elazar Stern
(Hatnua), Ariel Atias (Shas) and Yoel Razvozov (Yesh Atid), seeks to
ensure "true and fair competition between newspapers."
Analysts predict the law is likely to cause a brouhaha in the
government, and that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will act to
prevent it from passing. The law's opponents argue that the bill, if
passed, could drastically change the balance of representative power in
the Israeli press.
Under the bill, every newspaper which is defined as one of the four
daily newspapers most widely circulated in Israel will be sold at a
"nominal value" - about 70% of the price of the cheapest and most
popular newspaper.
In addition, the bill would ban distributing free newspapers for more
than a six-month period - and require the price of each paper to be
printed prominently on the front page.
Media experts are expected to slam the bill for contributing to the
ongoing decline in the newspaper industry, which has made headlines over
the past several years as popular publications begin to disappear.
A report by the International Business Times in 2012 noted
that the newspaper industry has shrunk by 40% worldwide since 2002, and
that it continues to decline at a rate of 6.4% per year. Many attribute
the decline to the ubiquitousness and ease of internet news sources.
Israel Hayom is distributed free at traffic intersections, and makes its money off advertising. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in Israel, displacing Yedioth Aharonoth within a couple of years of its founding. It is owned by Sheldon Adelson, and American Jew with a huge interest in Israel, who also owns casinos in the US. Adelson is also a big supporter of... Binyamin Netanyahu.
Pass the popcorn....
Labels: Ariel Atias, Ayelet Shaked, Binyamin Netanyahu, Eitan Cabel, Elazar Stern, freedom of the press, Sheldon Adelson, Yisrael HaYom
Can President Hussein Obama stand up to this man?
It hasn't been so long since the picture above happened. Now, a bipartisan group of 80 legislators and foreign policy wonks is urging President Hussein Obama to confront Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan about the
lack of democracy in his country. Can Obama do it?
“Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is increasingly undermining a
central pillar of the decades-long, strategic U.S.-Turkish partnership:
Turkey’s growing democracy,” reads the letter,
organized by the right-leaning Foreign Policy Initiative, the
left-leaning Center for American Progress, the Bipartisan Policy Center,
and Freedom House. “We are writing because of our deep dismay at this
development and to urge you to make clear to the Turkish public
America’s concern about Turkey’s current path. Silence will only
encourage Prime Minister Erdoğan to diminish the rule of law in the
country even further.”
The letter was signed by several former Obama administration
officials including White House senior director Dennis Ross, State
Department policy planning director Anne-Marie Slaughter, and Julianne Smith, an advisor to the Vice President. Republican signatories include Ambassador John Bolton, Sen. Norm Coleman, Gov. Tim Pawlenty, and Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol.
According to the experts and former officials, Obama has been turning
a blind eye to Erdogan’s descent into autocracy. In their opinion,
this alarming trend in Turkey has accelerated since last summer, when
Turkish authorities used a heavy hand to disperse street protests and
Erdogan denounced the protestors as “looters” while blaming foreign
conspirators for the unrest.
Erdogan is also actively trying to
cover up a huge corruption scandal which has engulfed his government
since December, according to the letter. The Turkish Prime Minister has
dismissed or reassigned thousands of prosecutors and police officers
involved in the scandal, which ties Turkish government officials and
even Erdogan’s son through shady business deals with Iran and al Qaeda.
The Erdogan govenrment has also imposed restrictions on internet
freedom and freedom of the press. A new law would allow the government
to block any website that has “insulting” content and Turkey still holds more journalists in prison than any other nation in the world.
“These
developments have already roiled Turkey’s economy, polarized its
society, and endangered its political stability,” the letter
reads. “Some might argue that because the United States has many
interests with Turkey—not least of which is ending the violence in Syria
and easing the suffering of its people—it should not risk alienating
its ally. Should Turkey succumb to the authoritarian impulses currently
on display, however, it would have profound implications for our ability
to work together and, therefore, for our deepest interests.”
But Obama has no intention of confronting Erdogan. He's too busy trying to browbeat Netanyahu into further endangering Israel's security through the creation of a 'Palestinian' reichlet.
What could go wrong?
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, freedom of the press, Obama's obsession with Israel, Obama's obsession with Palestinians, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey
Makor Rishon forced to pay NIS 50K to gay group whose ad it refused
The Tel Aviv district court has ordered Makor Rishon (First Source), a religious Zionist daily newspaper in Hebrew, to
pay NIS 50,000 plus NIS 10,000 in court costs to a gay group whose advertisement it refused to run (link in Hebrew).
In accepting the gay group's appeal from a magistrate's court ruling, the district court found that Makor Rishon reneged on an agreement to run the ad, and did not make clear that the ad's running was conditioned upon the editor's approving the final copy. So far, so good - if that had been the entire ruling, I wouldn't be writing this post.
The problem is that the court also found that a privately run newspaper is a public service, and therefore refusing an ad is a violation of the Law Against Discrimination in Products, Services, and Entrance to Places of Entertainment and to Public Places. Huh?
I can see every Haredi newspaper in the country being shut down if this ruling is enforced, because if they are forced to run ads for groups like this one - with the name Individual Privacy Protection Association (Gay Community) - they will shut down rather than run those ads.
Will Makor Rishon appeal to the Supreme Court? Maybe we need a constitution with a commerce clause?
Labels: constitution, freedom of the press
