Evidently Miss Iraq in Israel has really upset some Arabs - by Elder of Ziyon

...Please name one of "Palestine's own class of peace advocates." I'd love to know what the author considers to be peace.

Elder of Ziyon..
01 July '18..

From Middle East Monitor:

She seems to have touched a nerve.

Some gems from the article:

While in Israel she vocalised a personal declaration to seek peace, omitting, however, Israel’s routine sabotage of past peace initiatives.

Really? Like which ones? The ones where Israel doesn't get to exist anymore as a Jewish state?

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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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Surprise? Palestinian writer describes his people as "12 million intercontinental missiles" - Elder of Ziyon

...Of course, the idea that Palestinians must compromise and make peace with Israel so these millions would not have to be human weapons never occurs to Sabah - nor does it occur, as far as I can tell from over a decade of reading Arabic media, does it ever occur to a single Palestinian Arab published writer in Arabic.

Elder of Ziyon..
21 December '17..

Adnan al Sabah, who lives in Jenin, writes an article for the Arab Media Internet Network about what has worked for Palestinians and what hasn't, to figure out why they still haven't managed to make any progress.

He starts off his essay as if he might actually be saying something daring:

Why do we fight the largest military arsenal in the Middle East with worn or hand-made guns? In a century, we continue to offer victims after victims, and we are happy to present ourselves as champions and lovers of death. We speak with pride about victories here and there despite the enormity of the catastrophe and without shame either for ourselves or for the world around us.

So Sabah decides to look at the history of Palestinian "resistance" and see what lessons can be learned.

He starts with their first murderous rampage in 1920 and goes on from there, looking at the impotence of the murder sprees and terror attacks in 1921, 1929, 1936 and the more recent intifadas. Yet he despairs - why haven't these moves worked? And now, horror of horrors, Arab states no longer want to fight wars with Israel.

What to do?

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What a Jordanian hero and his admirers tell us about the likelihood of peace - by Arnold Roth

...If there's any news coverage of the feelings and responses of the families of those sweet girls he murdered, we haven't found it yet. The same goes for any Jordanian or other Arab voices expressing disgust at the after-the-fact bravado of a man with a big gun who took aim at unarmed girls and has come to fame only because of what happened to them when he pulled the trigger again and again and again.

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
12 March '17..

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan this morning released from prison a man called Ahmed Mousa Daqamseh.

Not such a well-known name in Western countries, he's something of a folk hero among the Palestinian Arabs who constitute the clear majority of Jordan's population.

This is because he recently won the Arab Idol television competition and his songs are heard everywhere.

No, we're not being serious. He doesn't write songs. He doesn't perform on TV. His fame comes from the fact that he developed a wildly-successful best-selling app for the Android smart-phone platform.

No, no, that's not true either. We don't actually think the high school dropout has any facility with technology after years behind bars. No, he's famous - truly - because he plays center-half in one of Europe's most-high profile soccer teams and is one of the team's stars.

No, not that either.

(Continue to Full Post)

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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Kuwaiti Columnist: Israel Has Outdone Us In Everything – We Must Learn From It

On February 1, 2016, Ahmad Al-Sarraf, wrote in his column in the Kuwaiti daily Al-Qabas about Israel's advantages over the Arabs in a wide variety of fields – democracy, military, science and technology, human rights and freedom of worship, and economics. He called on the Arabs to look at the reasons for Israel's success and superiority, instead of viewing it as a political-religious foe about which they know nothing at all.

Ahmad Al-Sarraf

MEMRI..
Special Dispatch No.6314..
18 February '16..

Following are excerpts from his article:[1]

"In theory, Arabs have [only] one enemy in the region – except that recently we have made additional enemies, such as Iran. Some went even further, stepping up their hatred of Iran, while at the same time becoming more accepting of Israel [than in the past], to the point where it has become more friend than foe…

"Usually, every conflict is rooted in one side's ignorance of the situation and nature of the other – though I tend to believe that Iran knows far more about the 22 Arab countries that those countries know about it. I attended Kuwaiti schools; in my day, their curricula were far more developed and were open to the other. Despite this, I do not remember reading a single line about [Iran] that was even remotely positive – neither about [its] geography or climate, nor about [its] strength, weakness, or history. So it was only natural for us to view it negatively, [even though we] had no [concrete] reason to do so.

"As for Israel, many [of us] view it as a political-religious foe, as opposed to a cultural danger, and this is a serious mistake. Even though our conflict with it has never ceased, we have remained ignorant regarding everything it represents, and for 70 years we have lacked, and continue to lack, all knowledge about it, and have learned nothing from it.

"Israel has outdone us in all fields – military, scientific, and cultural – but despite this we have refused to consider the reason for its obvious superiority to us, and have never stopped calling it 'the monstrous entity'...

"Since its founding, Israel has been committed to democracy, while we refuse to even speak of it [i.e. democracy], let alone adopt it...

"Israel has given its minorities rights that most citizens in most Arab countries do not even dream of. Furthermore, the freedom of worship there exceeds that in any Arab or Islamic country.

"Israel has focused its attention on science, spending large sums on research, while we are still focused on whether drinking camel urine or using it medicinally is actually helpful.

Death of a knife attacker and the lethally selective way it's reported

...The selective reporting of the manner of her death and what brought her to carry out the attack are critical components of the incitement and brain-washing that make this possible. It's part of a process that deserves to be called what it is: lethal journalism.

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
09 November '15..

Here's the opening line of a major news report appearing at this moment on an English-language Palestinian Arab news site:

A Palestinian woman was shot-dead by Israeli soldiers this morning under the pretext that she tried to stab a border guard, at the Eliyahu military checkpoint in Qalqilya, northern West Bank. ["22-year-old woman shot-dead by soldiers at Eliyahu checkpoint, Qalqilya", Palestine News Network, November 8, 2015].

Under the pretext, they write.

Here's how the French news agency AFP reports the same event today:

A Palestinian woman attempted to attack Israeli security guards with a knife at a checkpoint in the north of the occupied West Bank on Monday before being shot dead, officials said. Two letters found in her bag indicated plans for a suicide attack, according to the ministry. Palestinian police identified her as Rasha Uweisseh, 23 and from Qalqilya... ["Palestinian woman attempts stabbing, shot dead: officials", AFP, November 8, 2015]

That matter of letters in her bag indicating what AFP calls a "suicide attack" seems significant to us. The Jerusalem Post says the woman called Rasha set out to kill people in order "to defend the homeland and the youth". (Non-Hebrew speakers might be interested to know that the stabber's first name, "Rasha", is the Hebrew word for "evil person".)

Her letters are all over the Arabic-language social media today (Twitter tweets here, for example).

Knowing about the letters, more accurate terms to describe the events at the crossing this morning might be lethal attack, murderous attack, knifing attack, stabbing attack, or even just attack. Because one thing is perfectly clear in this case as in so many others: Miss Uweisseh of Qalqilya came to the checkpoint in order to kill someone. That she was indifferent to what might happen to her is probably true but not the point. This attack was about killing Jews, Israelis. The connection to suicide is incidental, secondary and misleading.

So on what basis does PNN claim the killing of the young woman was done on a "pretext"? Probably on the same basis that brings certain other parts of the media to frame the attempted murder of Israelis via a focus on the attacker's failure and death.

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Terming a Palestinian Arab news source 'independent' might require some flexibility of definition

...The report concludes by pointing out that the Ma'an Network has close links to highly politicised non-governmental organizations that "promote conflict rather than internal development or peace-building" with the result that what it actually does "contradicts the funding aims of its donors.and contradicts the funding aims of its donors." Could it be the donors don't know this? Perhaps they ought to be advised to get their news and analysis from better sources.

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
22 February '15..

The indispensable Elder of Ziyon posts a blog under the title "One day after Gazans killed in tunnels, Hamas claims there are no tunnels" today, in which he lets three separate news reports from a notable Arab source pretty much speak for themselves. They tell a story that mainstream news editors and reporters know but rarely convey to their readers: that Ma'an, the Palestinian news agency usually described as 'independent' pretty much is not.

Story Number 3 reported by Ma'an New Agency on Saturday (yesterday) afternoon ["Hamas accuses Egyptian media of spreading anti-Palestinian lies"] quotes the notably unlovely Hamas "spokesman" and sometime mule [background here], Sami Abu Zuhri, slamming (their word) what he calls a

a "Zionist-like" network that had spread the rumors and sought to sow discord between Egypt and Palestine.

These rumors concern tunnels running between Egypt and Hamas-controlled Gaza. Abu Zuhri says they don't exist any more, and that's exactly what Ma'an reports:

All of the tunnels under the border area, he said, have been destroyed and both Egyptian and Palestinian security forces have been guarding both sides of the borders. [Ma'an, Saturday]

Story Number 2, also from Ma'an News Agency, appeared two days earlier, Thursday, under the give-away title "Hamas fighter, civilian killed in Gaza tunnels near Rafah":

Two Palestinians died in separate incidents in underground tunnels beneath the besieged Gaza Strip and Egypt on Thursday. The al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Hamas movement, said that a fighter in the group was killed during a military mission in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. The brigades said in a statement that "Muhammad Talal Abu Matar, 25, from western Rafah was killed in a jihadi mission," without providing further details. However, a spokesperson for the Gaza Ministry of Health said that Abu Matar was killed in an accident in one of the tunnels. Also Thursday, a young Palestinian man died after being accidentally electrocuted inside a smuggling tunnel connecting Rafah to Egypt... [Ma'an, last Thursday]

Two deaths in non-existent tunnels? And a few days before that, on Monday February 16, there's this ["Egypt finds 2.5 km smuggling tunnel under Gaza border"], also via Ma'an:

(Continue) 

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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Searching for Arabic-language outrage at the men with the meat-cleavers and knives

And among the morally-addled ranks of certain English-language commentators, there's criticism of the Israeli side who, as usual, cannot be forgiven for Arab acts of bestiality

Body of a victim of the Har Nof savagery is taken
from the scene, November 18, 2014 [Image Source]

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
26 December '14..

In the long and bitter history of Arab, and in particular Arab Islamist, murderous hatred of their Jewish neighbours, the cold-blooded killings on the morning of November 18, 2014 of four Jewish men at prayer in the Kehilat Bnei Torah synagogue in Jerusalem, along with a non-Jewish security officer who died trying to subdue the frenzied attackers, stand out.

This is not because the Har Nof Synagogue attack exacted an unusually large number of innocent victims: tragically, there have been many Arab terrorist attacks that killed and injured more people at a single time.

For many, the idea of an attack by men brandishing butcher knives, axes and a gun on unarmed individuals wrapped in prayer shawls, quietly swaying in their daily worship, will make concrete a horror that seems incomprehensible. That horror is magnified by the evident clarity that accompanies the published Palestinian Arab reactions. If there is some process of moral doubt and profound soul-searching in their ranks, it's hard to find.

This past Wednesday evening, the bodies of the perpetrators, two cousins from an Arab clan called Abu Jamal, were buried on the fringes of Jerusalem. [Some photos here.] An English-language report from the Palestinian Arab (and European-funded) news agency Ma'an says

(Continue)

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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Woops! Israel appeared on the map as a result of a "technical error."

...When this season's show began in mid-September, the TV station introduced a map with the names of the contestants' countries. This year, of course, the map showed Israel as one of the countries taking part in the show. The Saudi station and directors of the Arab Idol show quickly learned, however, that they had committed a big and unforgivable crime. Within minutes, they were flooded with requests to remove Israel from the map and apologize to all Arabs for this "serious offence."

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
09 October '14..

The Saudi MBC TV network was recently forced to apologize to its hundreds of millions of viewers for using the name Israel instead of Palestine.

The apology came after viewers strongly condemned the network and threatened to boycott its programs over the use of a map with Israel's name on it.

The reason Israel appeared on the MBC's map was because of the participation of two Arab citizens of Israel in its popular Arab Idol contest. The show, based on the popular British show Pop Idol, is the most widely viewed in the Arab world.

The two Arab Israelis, Manal Moussa, 25 and Haitham Khalailah, 24, are from villages in northern Israel. They are among many contestants from all over the Arab world who are performing songs on stage in front of four judges and the public.

This is the first time that Arab Israelis have participated in the popular show.

When this season's show began in mid-September, the TV station introduced a map with the names of the contestants' countries. This year, of course, the map showed Israel as one of the countries taking part in the show.

The Saudi station and directors of the Arab Idol show quickly learned, however, that they had committed a big and unforgivable crime. Within minutes, they were flooded with requests to remove Israel from the map and apologize to all Arabs for this "serious offence."

Gets caught being drunk, so Palestinian Muslim blames the IDF

Elder of Ziyon..
13 June '13..

(Every now and then a story comes along that just brings a smile and reminds us about what a nutty collection we're dealing with. Welcome to our little portion of Israel and TY to EOZ for posting this. Y.)


Ma'an has the latest shocking story of IDF cruelty:

Israeli intelligence officers forced a Palestinian man from Beit Ummar to drink wine at gunpoint on Tuesday evening, a local committee spokesman said.

An Israeli military patrol stopped Muhammad Khalil Abu Dayyah, 24, from the Safa neighborhood near Beit Ummar and forced him into a military tower at the entrance to Beit Ummar, said Muhammad Ayyad Awad, spokesman of Beit Ummar's committee against Israel's separation wall and settlements.

Abu Dayyah was being asked to give names of young men who participate in clashes against Israeli forces in the Hebron-district town, Awad said.

When Abu Dayyah refused to cooperate with the soldiers, they brought an intelligence officer who took out a list of names of young locals and asked him to identify them.

Abu Dayyah refused to give any information, and the intelligence officer pointed a rifle at the back of his head and ordered him to drink a bottle of wine.

Awad said that after Abu Dayyah drank the bottle, he passed out for an hour. He was awoken by Israeli soldiers who then threw him out of the military installation, he added.

Locals who witnessed Abu Dayyah being taken away by Israeli forces took him home after the incident, confirming that he appeared under the influence and smelling of alcohol.

The consumption of alcohol is prohibited in Islam.

This story is all over the Arabic media. FARS News of Iran published it as well, along with a host of anti-Israel webpages.

Yes, the IDF's secret weapon is apparently a bottle of Man-O-Manischewitz!



(Continue)

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The US and Qatar have agreed to allow Israel to expand...from the Nile to the Euphrates.

Elder of Ziyon..
05 May '13..

Iraqi media is reporting that Israel, the US and Qatar have agreed to allow Israel to expand to take over all Arab lands from the Nile to the Euphrates.

Qatar has been under much criticism in the Arab world for trying to position itself as a player in negotiations between Israel and Palestinian Arabs. It has also been criticized for helping send fuel and construction material to Gaza, which has been making Egyptians nervous and jealous.

The PA has also been critical of Qatar; at one point master liar Saeb Erekat promised to reveal documents proving that Qatar invested in Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria! (Of course, he never followed through.)

An Egyptian "human rights" official this week described Qatari as the "Jews of the Gulf," apparently because of the interest it is charging Egypt for a loan.

There is only one logical explanation:

The Qatari leaders really are Jews.

(Continue)

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Hani Abbas - Why Should Reporters Without Borders Care If There is No Free Media ...

...In The West Bank Or Gaza So Long As They Can Find An Anti-Israeli Angle To Their Work?

Hani Abbas..
Stonegate Institute..
05 March '12..

The Paris-based group Reporters Without Borders says it is "deeply shocked" by the Israeli army's recent closure of two Palestinian TV stations in Ramallah.

Israeli soldiers and inspectors from the Israeli Ministry of Communications raided the two TV stations, Watan and Al-Quds Educational, and confiscated their transmitters because their broadcasts had been disrupting communications at Ben Gurion Airport.

Israel did not conduct the raid on the TV stations because it wants to silence the Palestinian media, as some Palestinians have claimed.

The raid was aimed at preventing a disaster as a result of the disruption of communications between aircraft and Ben Gurion Airport.

But that has not stopped groups such as Reporters Without Borders from calling on the Israeli government to "return the confiscated equipment and allow the two stations to resume broadcasting."

The group has, in fact, blindly endorsed the Palestinian version -- basically that the raid was part of an Israeli crackdown on freedom of media and expression in the Palestinian territories.

So what if a civilian aircraft crashes over Tel Aviv because of the unlicensed stations broadcasting from Ramallah? Does France allow unlicensed TV or radio stations to endanger the lives of thousands of passengers at one of its airports? Does France even have TV or radio stations that are not government-controlled?

Elder - UN report proves Gazans lie to media

Elder of Ziyon
23 August '11

In my last post, I wrote that Ma'an credulously quoted a Gaza doctor who said that Israel was using new, advanced weapons that incinerated Gaza victims in a much more horrific fashion than in previous raids. As "proof," the doctor said "Israeli weapons made no distinction between women, children and the elderly, pointing out that a two-year-old toddler and a 13-year-old boy were among those killed in the latest escalation."

A UN report from OCHA shows that this 13 year old boy was killed by a Grad terror rocket that fell short, not Israeli fire:

Between Friday, 19 August and Sunday, 21 August, initial reports indicate that the Israeli Air Force carried out approximately 30 air strikes on the Gaza Strip, resulting in the killing of seven Palestinians, and the injury of approximately 30 additional Palestinians. Tank fire from Israel forces stationed along the border and at sea was also reported, without casualty or damage. During the same period, tens of rockets and mortars fired by Palestinian armed groups towards cities in southern Israel resulted in the death of one Israeli civilian and the injury of six, including a baby and a nine-yearold child. One Palestinian child, 13-years-old, was also killed, and six others injured, when a GRAD rocket fired by Palestinian armed groups fell short.

We've seen in the past that Palestinian Arab "eyewitnesses" will knowingly lie to the media, and this is yet another example. The question is why the media continues to report their lies with no skepticism at all.

(Read full "UN report proves Gazans lie to media")

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Al Jazeera's Bra

Khaled Abu Toameh
Hudson New York
14 January '11
Posted before Shabbat

Over the past decade, several Al-Jazeera journalists working in the Arab world have been arrested or threatened or expelled.

Earlier this month, Hamas issued threats against Jivara Budairi, a female correspondent for Al-Jazeera. Her crime was that she reported a hunger strike declared by detainees in Hamas-run prisons in the Gaza Strip.

Fortunately for Budairi, she lives in the West Bank and not in the Gaza Strip, where Hamas would most likely have arrested her her immediately after her report was aired on the popular Arab TV network.

Hamas's public condemnation of Budairi is seen as a direct threat not only against her, but also against other journalists who dare to report anything that could reflect negatively on the Islamist movement in the Gaza Strip. The Western-funded Palestinian government in the West Bank is not any better when it comes to protecting freedom of expression and journalists' rights.

What did Al-Jazeera do in response to Hamas's denunciation of their female reporter? The station did not complain to human rights organizations or groups that monitor violations of freedom of expression around the world.

This week, however, these organizations and many Western correspondents did hear from Al-Jazeera -- but regarding a different case.

(Read full "Al Jazeera's Bra")

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Rewriting history: Palestinian history fabricated

Palestinian Media Watch (PMW)
(This topic will be expanded
and updated regularly)

Rewriting the history of the Land of Israel in order to deny Israel's right to exist is central to Palestinian Authority (PA) policy. Long before it started the Terror War in 2000, the PA was fighting a history war – erasing Jewish history and replacing it with a fabricated Palestinian history. This rewriting has two central goals:

1- Erase the Jewish nation's 3,000 year history in the Land of Israel;
2- Invent ancient Palestinian, Muslim and Arab histories in the land.

The goal of this historical revision as a political strategy was first expressed publicly at a conference of Palestinian historians in 1998, when rewriting history was linked to the political goal of denying Israel's right to exist:
"Dr. Yussuf Alzamili [Chairman History Department, Khan Yunis Educational College] called on all universities and colleges to write the history of Palestine and to guard it, and not to enable the [foreign] implants and enemies to distort it or to legitimize the existence of Jews on this land... [History lecturer Abu Amar] clarified that there is no connection between the ancient generation of Jews and the new generation." [Al-Ayyam, Dec. 4, 1998].



Erasing Jewish history in the land of Israel is followed by the PA’s invention of ancient and modern histories that support its political ideology and claim to the land of Israel. The Holocaust and other aspects of Jewish history are alternately denied, downplayed or distorted. Another distortion is to hide from Palestinians that Jesus was a Jew who lived in the Land of Judea/Israel. PA leaders repeatedly define Jesus as a Palestinian who preached Islam, thus denying not only Jewish history, but also the history and legitimacy of Christianity.

Citing numerous examples, this section will document that these and other historical revisions are an integral part of Palestinian policy and are used to create political ideology.

(Read full "Rewriting history")

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What Drives Arabs to Hamas and Al-Qaeda?

The current state of Arab journalists

Khaled Abu Toameh
Hudson New York
19 January '10

Arab journalists are under growing pressure from the Palestinian governments in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to avoid “hanging the dirty laundry in the open.”

Arab journalists are often taught that they should place the interests of their leaders, governments and homelands before above anything else, including the facts and the truth.

Americans and Europeans who are pouring billions of dollars on Abbas and Fayyad need to be aware of the absence of an independent media in the West Bank. One can understand why the Iranian-funded Hamas is repressing journalists, but there is no reason why American and European taxpayers should be funding a regime that has no respect for independent reporters.

If the West nevertheless insists on dealing with corrupt secular regimes to keep radical Muslims away, then Washington and its Western allies should demand good government and free media. Western donors have every right to demand something positive in return for their money. The financial corruption and lack of democracy and freedom of expression is, meanwhile, driving many Arabs into the open arms of Hamas and al-Qaeda.

Journalists are forced to go and work in the international or even Israeli media to be able to practice some form of real journalism.

The absence of a free and independent media in the Palestinian territories has driven a majority of Palestinians to rely on foreign media outlets as a reliable source of information. Public opinion polls have even shown that most Palestinians prefer Al-Jazeera to the Hamas and Fatah media.

(Read full article)
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