Question. How Free is the Israeli Arab Media? - by Pesach Benson

Shame on Miriam Berger and the Columbia Journalism Review for this unprofessional and unhelpful piece.

Pesach Benson..
Honest Reporting..
17 January '19..

If you were a writer spotlighting Israeli Arab media issues for a magazine like the Columbia Journalism Review, your reporting would include interviews with veteran Israeli Arab journalists, media personalities, news directors and other heavyweights who have since retired or moved on to other things.

Your context would note that the only free Arab media in the Mideast is in Israel.

You would certainly make a crystal clear distinction between Israeli Arab media (under the jurisdiction of Israel) and Palestinian media (in the West Bank under the jurisdiction of the Fatah-run Palestinian Authority, or in Hamas-ruled Gaza).

And you absolutely wouldn’t let yourself be played into promoting one of those news services.

Unfortunately, Jerusalem-based freelance journalist Miriam Berger managed to do all that and smear Israeli press freedom in a mere 1,426 words.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Welcome to Wafa: The Palestinian propaganda factory - by Elder of Ziyon

When real journalism is forbidden, something has to fill the vacuum - and that is the propaganda of the PA, paid for by your tax dollars. They don't only decide what stories to cover up by intimidating and jailing journalists, but they also decide what lies to propagate.

Elder of Ziyon..
25 October '18..

While the recent Human Rights Watch report about torture and human rights violations under the PA and Hamas touches on the topic of intimidation of journalists, as far as I can tell no one has really reported on the depth of the problem, and what it means for any desired "State of Palestine."

As in many autocratic nations, there is an official Palestinian news agency, Wafa. The writers are anonymous but are certainly on the PA payroll - paid by the governments of the world.

They regularly write what they are paid to write, much of which are anti-Israel screeds.. They talk about "the occupation" and "Jewish extremists" and "Jewish fanatics" who want to visit holy sites and the articles fawn over the wonderful leadership of Mahmoud Abbas and his cronies.

There are no bylines. There is no way to write a letter to the editor. There are no means to correct errors.

No one would consider this to be journalism - it is pure naked propaganda.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Writers In Arab Press Discuss Why Israel Is Superior To Arab Countries - MEMRI

In recent months, several Arab writers have published articles in the Arab press discussing why Israel is superior to the weaker Arab states. The reasons, they said, lie in Israel's strong and effective judicial system that tackles corruption in the country, even investigating and prosecuting leaders and senior officials who have transgressed, while corruption is rampant in the Arab countries and the regimes silence all those who call for integrity. Other reasons they gave are that Israel is a democracy and respects the will of its citizens and voters, and that over the years it has invested a great deal in education, science, health, and technology.

MEMRI.org..
Special Dispatch No.7446..
27 April '18..

The writers went on to call on their countries to learn from Israel – to develop their judicial systems and a democratic form of government, to stop repressing citizens, and to invest in education. If they do not do so, they added, the Arab countries will be left even farther behind.

The following are translated excerpts from some of these articles:

Former Egyptian Official: Israel Has Advanced Because Of Its Investment In Education, Science, And Industry – And The Arabs Are Left Behind

Reda Abd Al-Salam, former governor of Egypt's Al-Sharqiya province who is today a lecturer at Mansoura University in Egypt, wrote that Israel surpasses the Arab countries in many ways because over the years it has invested in education, health, science, and technology, and in building a democracy, while the Arabs have remained behind, mired in primitiveness and tyranny. He called on Egypt not to blame the gap between them on the U.S. support for Israel, and not to expect supplications to Allah during Friday prayers to defeat Israel, but to invest in education and universities in order to bring the country out of ignorance and darkness into the light of science and industry. He wrote:

"'Allah, punish the sons of apes and pigs, so they will not escape you; Allah, expel them, Allah, show me the wonders of Your might by [punishing them]... 'Our forefathers were born, and we were born and grew up and become old and grey, and we still reiterate this supplication to Allah in Friday sermons, with flowing tears... But what have we accomplished [with this]? Has Allah answered our millions of supplications? Have we seen the wonders of Allah's capabilities in carrying out judgment against the sons of Zion and the sons of apes and pigs, as we plead again and again in our prayers? No, not at all – the result has been great disappointment and shame for the Arab leaders, since the opposite happened! Allah has done the complete opposite: It is the Arabs and Muslims who have been torn to shreds and expelled, and through whom Allah has revealed his signs.

"Yes, Israel is growing stronger, and it is becoming more and more advanced and cohesive, and wins more and more land every day – while it is surrounded by decrepit Bedouin who fight each other and feverishly race to the bottom and atrophy in every area; and [while it is surrounded by] peoples and regimes mired deeply in primitiveness, disease, and dictatorship...

"Why has Israel advanced and the Arabs and Muslims fallen behind? How long will we keep our heads in the sand or stop up our ears and listen only to sorcerers, to idiots in power, and to the mouthpieces [of the regimes] of hypocrisy [as we have been doing] for decades? How long?! To put it bluntly, let the numbers speak for themselves: since they are the best expression of progress and backwardness, and with them we will understand why Allah has not answered our supplications of millions of Arabs and Muslims for 60 years, but has instead done the complete opposite [of what we ask] – the Zionists have advanced and the Arabs and Muslims have been left behind...

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Sorry, But ‘Resistance Journalism’ Still Doesn’t Deserve Press Credentials - by Pesach Benson

...He’s not directly employed by terror groups or their direct media affiliates. (That would open a separate discussion on the blurred lines between terror propaganda and legitimate journalism). What Karram’s really saying is that he doesn’t have to bloody his own hands because he can do more from his position as Tinderbox City’s bureau chief cheering on the violence and spinning it according to the needs of the “resistance.”

Pesach Benson..
Honest Reporting..
22 August '17..

The Government Press Office held a hearing for Al Jazeera’s Israeli-Arab reporter Elias Karram.

The GPO revoked Karram’s press credentials last week after an interview surfaced in which the Al Jazeera Jerusalem bureau chief said that journalists like himself sided with the Palestinians as part of their “resistance” to Israel. The hearing was essentially about whether to reinstate his accreditation.

Karam said in an interview to the Muslim Brotherhood television channel Dar Al-Iman in May 2016 that “as a Palestinian journalist who is in an occupied area or a conflict area, journalistic work is an integral part of the resistance and of political and educational action.

“A journalist fulfills his role in the resistance through his pen, voice or camera, because he is part of this nation and is resisting in his unique way,” he added.

At Monday’s hearing, Karram told the GPO that “the resistance he spoke about was not a violent one, adding that he denounces the use of violence.”

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Only Palestinians are 'martyrs' - by Abdullah al-Hadlaq

...Why, when Palestinian terrorists and murderers holding knives and rocks are killed by Israeli soldiers, who are forced to open fire in cases of legitimate self-defense, do these debased Arab media outlets twist the truth and call the Palestinian terrorists "shahids"? By what right did they earn that exalted rank, while being murderous terrorists and criminals? The accursed Arab media outlets that warp and make things up, glorify the murderers and terrorists as well as Palestinian crimes, and give them, exclusively, the title "shahid."

Abdullah al-Hadlaq..
Israel Hayom..
29 December '15..

I will open with greetings for the State of Israel and the Jewish people, whom I view as true friends. As a writer and journalist from Kuwait, who is following the current wave of Palestinian knife and rock terrorism and Palestinian crimes against IDF soldiers and innocent Israelis, I can only express my support for every civilian and military action the free and independent State of Israel takes for the legitimate defense of the lives of its citizens and its land.

I am baffled by the international community's silence in the face of the crimes committed by Palestinian terrorists against the Israeli people. I am equally baffled by the international community's outcry against Israel's legal right to defend itself and its soldiers and against Israel's legitimate right to live and stand strong.

The Arab media has become afflicted with stupidity and delusion and has lost its ability make true distinctions. The words "wisdom" and "reason" are no longer part of its lexicon. It has become debased and mentally challenged. It considers the victims of battles in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, etc. "casualties," whereas the Palestinian terrorists killed in the Gaza Strip or in the West Bank are dubbed "shahids" (martyrs). This same media, which is biased in favor of a group of people called "Palestinians," neglects every human, Arab, or Muslim issue and associates shahada (a martyr's death in the name of belief) with them only.

They're incubating terror-minded journalists in Jordan but they have an answer to all the criticisms

As for the political leaders of the countries listed above (as well as the executive managements of the corporates and the NGOs) who have not yet condemned what the Jordanian Media Institute has done, is doing and has attempted to conceal: you know who you are and you know what civilized people ought to be doing now.

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
16 January '15..

We wrote here over the past five weeks about some outrageous developments at a graduate school for aspiring journalists in Jordan founded by a former CNN on-camera reporter with the very considerable help of a number of Western governments, NGOs and corporate donors.

10-Dec-14: In the Arab world's most promising new journalism school, a passion for murder and hatred
11-Dec-14: Is it newsworthy when journalists make a terror-addicted murdering colleague their role-model?11-Jan-15: Does the king need to fly to Paris to stand with terror victims? He can do it better back in Jordan

Without retelling the story in detail, it's about an attempt to graft Western journalistic values onto a cadre of Arab journalists most of whom live and work in a country that the respected human rights watchdog organization Freedom House (in its 2014 update) calls “Not Free” with a score of 6 on a scale of 7 for freedom of the press. (7 is the worst score.)

And Jordan is not on the road to getting better just yet: Reporters Without Frontiers, which also tracks press freedom, says Jordan’s authorities further tightened their existing grip on its media in the past year. Not a happy place in which to live or work.

So all things considered, the students fortunate enough to be accepted into the Jordan Media Institute are the beneficiaries of considerable foreign largesse, goodwill, sponsorship, guidance and opportunity. This is sure to turn them into reporters that any great metropolitan newspaper would be proud of, right?

Not so right. As we wrote here last month:

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work as well as a big vote to follow our good friend Kay Wilson on Twitter, 
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When a most promising new journalism school has a passion for murder and hatred

...Princess Rym, interviewed before JMI opened its doors, said “Everybody talks about the media explosion in the Middle East“. She probably was not thinking of Tamimi, the budding young media student in the final year of journalism studies at Birzeit University who moonlighted as a news-reader at a West Bank television station. When Tamimi joined Hamas in 2001 as its first female jihadist, an explosion was what Tamimi had in mind. And on August 9, 2001, she made it happen.

Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
11 December '14..

How did a promising initiative, funded and supported by Western governments and NGOs and designed to produce world-class journalism in the Arabic world, end up creating a pedestal for one of Hamas' ugliest achievements, the 2001 massacre at Jerusalem's Sbarro pizzeria?

A major Arab media conference took place this past weekend in the Jordanian capital, Amman. A published opinion piece authored by a senior member of the organizing team opens with these words:

"The lights of free speech are being steadily extinguished across the Arab world, heralding a new era of ignorance, intolerance and repression..."

As bad as this is, aspects of the news reporting industry in the Arab world are even more profoundly disturbing than she and her professional colleagues seem to realize. Allow us to explain.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work as well as a big vote to follow our good friend Kay Wilson on Twitter, 
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Boom! What they don't tell you, Chapter 94

...We're wondering about something else. Consistent with their recent call for the Christian faithful to respect the 'dignity' of convicted and unrepentant Palestinian Arab murderers of children and of other innocents, will the World Council of Churches' Geneva-based leadership be eulogizing this young man who failed to reach the ranks of prisoners, though not for lack of trying?

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
27 May '14..




The way the news media can and do manipulate events in this highly charged neighbourhood is illustrated in this tiny vignette.

A report currently appearing on the website of the Bethlehem-based widely-read and influential Maan News Agency, reads in its entirety:

Man killed in Gaza explosionPublished yesterday (updated) 26/05/2014 10:44GAZA CITY (Ma'an) - A Palestinian man was killed Monday in an explosion in the northern Gaza Strip, Gaza health officials said. Nizar Said Issa, 25, was killed by a blast in Jabaliya refugee camp in the northern camp, Ashraf al-Qidra said, without providing further details. The incident is being investigated by police.

"Man killed". Can't argue with that. Sad story, another victim of the occupation etc. But who was he? Why was he killed? Who killed him?

There's some relevant background at Times of Israel:

An Islamic Jihad operative died Monday morning apparently while handling explosives at the Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. Nizar Said Issa, 25, was active in the terrorist organization’s military wing and was working with explosives at the time of the accident, according to [Israel's] Channel 2. He was evacuated to Kamal Hospital in Beit Lehia, where he died of his wounds.

This was not the first PIJ work accident of the week:

On Saturday two Islamic Jihad members were killed, and at least two more injured, during a training accident in the southern Gaza Strip. [Times of Israel]

In fact, the coyness of the editors at Maan News Agency notwithstanding, Nizar Said Issa, his short career and his dedication to terrorism are all over the Arabic language news media today. His funeral was a major event:

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Palestinian-Arab Photojournalism - Groundhog Day Version 1.1

LOTL..
09 July '13..

Sometimes you've just got to wonder, but then you remember who you're dealing with and decide to share with the wider world. This has a bit of the "Groundhog Day" quality to it, where he finds himself in a time loop, repeating the same day again and again, except in this case, the same photograph, again and again.

From today's Al-Qassam website:

Two hundred Israeli settlers storm al-Aqsa mosque

09-07-2013,08:38

Al Qassam website - Nearly 200 Israeli settlers stormed Monday morning al-Aqsa mosque under Israeli police protection in flagrant provocation to the Palestinian worshipers and students who started shouting 'Takbir', al-Aqsa Foundation For Endowment and Heritage said.

Since the early morning hours, 5 settler groups stormed al-Aqsa mosque from Mughrabi gate, including youths, children, mentors and soldiers in their military uniforms, the Foundation added. The settlers were shouting and laughing out loud and showed no respect for the place.

Israeli settlers escalated their break-ins into al-Aqsa mosque recently as part of the Israeli plan to divide the mosque and to impose a fait accompli in the holy city.

Pretty fierce looking, although the background doesn't look much like the Temple Mount/al-Aqsa mosque area. Also the M-16 assault rifle, men wearing tefilin and talit, very questionable.

But then again on the al-Qassam website 19 March '13:

Jewish settlers damage Palestinian tractors in Nablus village

19-03-2013,08:19

Al Qassam website - Jewish settlers raided the outskirts of Burin village, near Nablus, on Monday morning and damaged a number of tractors used by Palestinian farmers in tending to their land.

Eyewitnesses said that the settlers, coming from Bracha settlement, also chased a number of Palestinian shepherds and tried to assault them.

They said that Israeli occupation forces arrived to the village to protect the settles and to convince them to withdraw out of fear that inhabitants might retaliate against what they have done to their property.

Arab Media - Disseminator Of Fabrications, Conspiracy Theories

MEMRI..
Special Dispatch No.5076..
04 December '12..

In an article titled "Why Do The Arabs Prefer Lies Over Truth?," Arab-Israeli writer Dr. Salman Masalha slammed the Arab media for spreading ridiculous fabrications and conspiracy theories instead of presenting its readers with true facts.


The following are excerpts from the article, which was posted November 26, 2012 on the website Elaph.com.[1]

"Everybody doubtless remembers how, a few years ago, some Arab media spread stories about a bizarre Israeli plot, namely that the Mossad had sent trained sharks to attack tourists on the beaches of Sinai. Here is what the papers said: 'After repeated [shark] attacks, the local authorities in southern Sinai broke their silence, and the governor announced that the sharks were attacking the tourists under orders from the Israeli Mossad.' Some high officials from the tourism authorities in Cairo likewise announced that the [shark attacks] were part of an Israeli plot aimed at harming tourism in Egypt.

"Earlier, Egyptian media had published exciting news of a different sort, but also pertaining to a conspiracy by the Mossad. They claimed that the Mossad had inserted into the Egyptian markets large quantities of drugs that stimulate sexual desire in women, in order to undermine the foundations of the Egyptian society and family. In this context, it should be mentioned that periodic reports on Internet statistics indicate that Arabs take first place in the world in searching for the term 'sex' and its derivatives on the Internet. These statistics are the best reflection of the Arabic obsession with anything related to sex.

"This Arab condition merits research by specialists in the fields of sociology and psychology, and I admit that I do not have the professional tools to address the subject in a scientific way. All I can do is point to this chronic disease that is eating away at the bones of Arab societies. Suffice us to mention some fatwas that reflect this chronic disease, such as a recently published fatwa permitting sex with a corpse. These fatwas are known to Arabs and non-Arabs, in the East and the West, so we do not need to say any more on this necrophilia.

Blaming Israel for Summer, Shark Attacks and Other Libels

Susana Scheiner..
The Algemeiner..
16 August '12..



You thought it couldn’t get more ridiculous than Egypt blaming Israel for shark attacks at an Egyptian beach.

And yet it has.

This July, Palestinian journalist Abdul-Hakim Salah found a way to argue that summer itself is part of the Palestinian tragedy.

In an article published by Maan News Agency, Salah bitterly gripes,

In Israel… [residents] might even fail to notice the burning heat as they move from air-conditioned homes, to cars, to workplaces. But…in Palestine -

presumably a reference to Judea and Samaria, aka the West Bank,

an overwhelming majority do not have air conditioning at home or at work, not to mention that many do not even own a car, but rely on a tired public transport system.

Meanwhile, a large portion of people who do have air conditioning would think ten times before turning it on, fearing they will fail to pay the electricity bill.

As though Israelis – and people all over the world, for that matter – don’t use public transportation, don’t ration their air conditioner usage, and aren’t concerned about electric bills!

Salah goes further,

Marcus - The Silencing of the Middle East

Lori Lowenthal Marcus..
Z Street..
07 June '12..

The Middle East is becoming quieter. No, the swords are not turning into ploughshares, it’s not that kind of quiet. Instead, it is the sound of truth that’s slowly being silenced. And it’s happening not only because the PA grows stronger, but also because the west grows weaker.

Thirty years ago the young Arab journalist Khaled Abu Toameh quit working for PLO media outlets. They did not allow reporting on what Abu Toameh saw as the news people needed to know. Instead, he was told to take the words dictated by the Arab leadership, and cut and paste them into the stories they then published, but under his byline. They weren’t his words and it wasn’t the news, so he turned to western media for outlets that allowed him to write and speak about what people needed to know.

In those thirty years the PA media has not become more open. Instead, the PA leadership has become more emboldened and the western media - either because of physical or moral exhaustion - is allowing the PA’s censorship to seep into and rot away at core freedoms, both of speech and of the press.

Keyes - Where’s the outcry over Palestinian censorship?

David Keyes..
Washington Post..
05 April '12..

A university lecturer and single mother of two, Ismat Abdul-Khaleq, was arrested in the West Bank last week for criticizing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Facebook. Perhaps this is what Abbas meant when he said during a recent interview with al-Jazeera that his party, Fatah, was a political and ideological copy of the terrorist group Hamas. His words: “In all honesty, there are no disagreements between us.”

In recent months, Hamas has cracked down on dissidents, women and online activists. It has arrested journalists, banned a social media conference and jailed several bloggers. One university student in Gaza, who asked not to be named, expressed the fears of many when we spoke earlier this year. “Hamas has many modern apparatuses to censor the Internet and telephone systems,” she said. “But even without this, they have infiltrated our society deeply.”

Under Abbas, the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank has replicated Hamas’s brutality. Slander of high-ranking officials, including the president, is illegal and punishable by up to two years in prison. The public prosecutor, Ahmad al-Mughani, said of Abdul-Khaleq’s Facebook criticism, “These expressions go beyond freedom of expression.” A spokesman for Palestinian Authority security forces told journalists that Abdul-Khaleq, who is being held in solitary confinement, was jailed for “extending her tongue” against the president. In fact, she advocated dismantling the Palestinian Authority and called Abbas a “fascist.”

Dweik - Salam Fayyad's Hypocrisy

Awarding journalists and Arresting Them

Mahmoud Dweik..
Gatestone Institute..
30 March '12..

The Palestinian Authority government of Salam Fayyad, announcing this week the launching of the 2012 Award for Press Freedom, invited Palestinian journalists to submit their candidacy for the prestigious award, the first if its kind in the Palestinian territories.

The award is intended to encourage freedom of media and speech in the Palestinian territories, where local journalists have long been facing a campaign of intimidation and harassment by the two Palestinian governments in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Ironically, the news about the launching of the new award coincided with the arrest of Youssef Shayeb, a Palestinian journalist from Ramallah, on charges of "slander and defamation."

Fayyad's security forces in the West Bank arrested Shayeb after he published a report in a Jordanian newspaper exposing corruption in the Palestinian diplomatic mission in France.He was first detained for 48 hours, after which a Palestinian court extended his detention for an additional two weeks.

Media Cover Up: The Gaza Savagery That Does Not Meet Our Gaze

Beaten and tortured by Hamas:
Asma Al-Ghoul

Daphne Anson
02 April '11

http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2011/04/media-cover-up-gaza-savagery-that-does.html

Remember how days elapsed before the violent sexual assault on Lara Logan, reporting for an American television station from Tahrir Square, was brought (and then only reluctantly) to public attention by Al Beeb and the rest of the we-love-to-pick-on-Israel gang? Well, it seems that despicable acts of savagery by Hamas towards female Palestinian journalists in Gaza have gone largely unreported in the mainstream media.

You'd think that some of those outlets, being so politically correct in general, would be chomping at the bit to report abuses against women. But there are two very good reasons for the veil of silence - an exclusivist fixation with demonising Israel and a paralysing fear of Hamas reprisal.

Professor Phyllis Chesler notes that in recent weeks

"at least eight Muslim Palestinian female journalists were physically beaten with clubs, iron chairs, and fists, stabbed and tortured with electric shocks by male Hamas security forces in the Gaza Strip. Their cell phones, laptops, documents and cameras were confiscated. They were also arrested. Some were forced to sign a document "pledging not to cover such events [the Facebook-arranged pro-unity rallies demanding an end to factional in-fighting between Hamas and Fatah] again"'.

Although this does not bode well for women's rights in what Professor Chesler terms "the increasingly well-organized Islamist Middle East" her main point in drawing attention to this "male-on-female atrocity in Gaza" is that only a few journalists, who happen to include two Israelis, reported it.

'The mainstream media does not really care about what happens to Arabs, Muslims, or Palestinians," she continues,

'not even when they are fellow or sister journalists, women, and feminists. The media only cares when and if Israelis are allegedly the perpetrators, the murderers, the checkpoint "humiliators." Even when Israelis kill an armed Iranian-backed Palestinian member of Hamas in self-defense, even when the Israelis accidentally, with no malice aforethought, kill a British journalist or an American "activist," the Israelis are not only blamed - films, plays, and documentaries are made about the "martyred" American Rachel Corrie or the "martyred" British filmmaker James Miller or British "anti-war" activist Tom Hurndall. Countless demonstrations have been held. In Miller's case the British government insisted on an investigation, and his family brought a civil lawsuit against an Israeli soldier.


The media was all over this even though an investigation strongly suggested that James Miller was killed by Palestinians "from the direction of the populated Rafah." Although people know that Palestinians routinely hide behind civilian hostages, deliberately target Israeli civilians, especially children, create their own "martyrs" (the Muhammad al-Dura case as well as the Rachel Corrie case immediately come to mind) - nevertheless, the media refuses to hold Palestinians accountable and refuses to believe that Israelis are innocent. The media knows full well that they will be killed or not allowed to "report" in Palestinian areas if they publish anything negative, anything true. By now, this habit is ingrained.'

To read more:
http://www.newsrealblog.com/2011/04/01/arab-spring-male-on-female-atrocity-in-gaza-disappeared-by-the-western-media/

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Facebook slight of Mahmoud Abbas lands journalist in jail

Khaled Abu Toameh
Jerusalem Post
01/20/2011 18:24

http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=204536

Two Bethlehem journalists are arrested in recent weeks for violating Jordanian law by having the "audacity to insult His Majesty the King."


The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank has used an antiquated Jordanian law to arrest two Palestinian journalists who criticized PA President Mahmoud Abbas – one of whom is accused of doing so using his Facebook page.

In the past few weeks, the two Bethlehem men were incarcerated by PA security forces for violating the law, which dates to 1960.

Both men have since been released from prison, following strong protests by human rights activists and other journalists. One of the men had been held since last November.

Article 195 of the Jordanian Penal Code stipulates that “anyone whose audacity to insult His Majesty the King has been proven, will be punished with prison between one and three years.”

The law bans anyone from “extending his or her tongue at the king,” whether by a written, oral or electronic letter or by a photograph or caricature.

Similar laws exist in most Arab countries.

One of the journalists, Mamdouh Hamamreh – a correspondent for the local Al-Quds TV station – was taken into custody after posting a photo of the PA president on his Facebook page next to a picture of a Syrian actor who portrayed a spy in a popular Arab television series, Bab al-Hara.

The program takes place in the 1930s, when Syria was under French control and Palestine was occupied by Britain.

Hamamreh was charged in a PA court in Bethlehem with libel and slander against Abbas, in violation of the Jordanian law. Hamamreh denied that he posted the picture of the actor on his Facebook page, telling interrogators that someone else was responsible.

The Palestinians: The Real Traitors

Khaled Abu Toameh
Hudson New York
25 May '10

The former PLO "ambassador" to Australia, Ali Kazak, believes that an Arab journalist who writes about financial corruption and theft in the Palestinian Authority is a "traitor" who should be murdered the same way as collaborators were killed by the French Resistance.

Related article:Former PLO Ambassador Calls Arab Journalist 'Traitor'

Kazak told the newspaper, The Australian: "Khaled Abu Toameh is a traitor. Traitors were also murdered by the French Resistance, in Europe; this happens everywhere." Asked why he calls the journalist a traitor, the former PLO representative, who lives in Australia, explained: "Palestinians are the victims. He shouldn't write about them, he should write about the crimes of the Israelis."

Kazak's threat does not come as a surprise to those who are familiar with the methods used by Arab dictatorships to silence anyone who dares to demand reforms and transparency. The threat reminds journalists like me how lucky we are that we live in Israel and not under the jurisdiction of the PLO or Hamas.

We are also fortunate that Kazak and his radical supporters are sitting far away in Australia and not in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, where they would be lining up journalists and critics against the wall and shooting them like the "traitors who were murdered by the French Resistance."

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Former PLO Ambassador Calls Arab Journalist 'Traitor'

Abu Toameh: Accused of being a 'traitor' for

reporting on Palestinian corruption and violence

Tamar Sternthal
CAMERA/Snapshot
17 May '10

The Australian reports that Ali Kazak, a former PLO Ambassador to Australia, has labeled Israeli Arab journalist Khaled Abu Toameh a "traitor" for reporting on Palestinian corruption and violence::

Ali Kazak, a former ambassador for the Palestine Liberation Organisation, circulated an email this week accusing Abu Toameh of being an "Israeli propagandist" on the "Israeli payroll" and warning people not to be misled by him.

Kazak told The Australian: "Khaled Abu Toameh is a traitor." These are dangerous words in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and Kazak admits that many Palestinians are murdered in the West Bank and Gaza for being traitors.

He says he doesn't agree with it but: "Traitors were also murdered by the French Resistance, in Europe; this happens everywhere." . . .

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