Why Does Freedom House Attack Israel’s Free Press? - by Jonathan Tobin

...To openly support efforts to suppress a publication that has provided much-needed diversity to the Israeli press is a betrayal of Freedom House’s mandate. To attack Israel again in this manner demonstrates that, as with so many other groups that pose as defenders of liberty, freedom in the Jewish state or the right of its people to defend themselves is not something they care much about.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
26 April '16..

Defending liberty around the world, especially that of the press, is an important function of Freedom House. It has done admirable service promoting democracy and pointing out the failures and injustices in a world that is still is dominated by dictatorships. But like many human rights advocacy groups it has a blind spot when it comes to the state of Israel.

Though Israel has one of the most vibrant and free press cultures in the entire world, Freedom House has downgraded its ranking in the group’s annual report on freedom of the press that will be released tomorrow from “free” to “partly free.”

How is that possible? Has Israel’s government sought to suppress criticism? Has it shut down outlets that disagreed with Prime Minister Netanyahu? Are dissenting voices no longer heard on its television or radio stations?

No, none of those things have happened. Israel, which has far more active newspapers per capita than most democracies, remains a country where critics of the government and of the country, in general, have no trouble in being heard on radio and television or in finding space in general circulation publications. Indeed, it is often far more difficult to find those who back Israel’s government or its current prime minister than it is to encounter his opponents in the media. In that respect, the Israeli press tilts even further to the left than that in the United States.

Why possible reason then can there be for downgrading Israel’s ranking? The answer is simple. The group considers “the growing impact of Israel Hayom” to be a problem. According to Freedom House, that newspaper’s “owner-subsidized business model endangered the stability of other media outlets.”

What are they talking about?

A smear of Israel that boggles the mind

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary/Contentions..
01 May '13..

Freedom House released its annual report on press freedom throughout the world today at an event sponsored by the Newseum in Washington. But along with the usual and appropriate condemnations of dictatorships and totalitarian states, the group decided to slam the one democracy in the Middle East as well as one of the few states in the region where press freedom actually exists: Israel.

Karin Karleklar, the organization’s project direct for monitoring press freedom, told an audience at the Newseum streamed live over the Internet this morning that Israel’s status was being downgraded from “free” to “partly free.” This is astonishing by itself, but the bizarre nature of this judgment is only made clear when one hears the reasons. Two of the reasons stated by Karleklar—the indictment of a journalist for possessing stolen classified materials and the problems that one television station has had in getting its license renewed—are hardly violations of freedom but do speak to issues that could be misinterpreted as tyrannical if they were discussing a country where there wasn’t a vibrant free press. But the third is so absurd as to call into question not merely the judgment but the impartiality of the entire report.

The report claims that the appearance on the scene of Israel Hayom, a relatively new Israeli newspaper, is a threat to press freedom because it is a success that has hurt the business prospects of its competitors. No, you didn’t misread that sentence. Freedom House is taking the position that the fact that Israel Hayom has claimed an impressive share of the hyper-competitive newspaper market is undermining the freedom of the press. The justification for this ridiculous claim is that Sheldon Adelson, the casino mogul and well-known contributor to Republican candidates, has “subsidized” the paper and that its editorial line favors Prime Minister Netanyahu. The paper, which is distributed free of charge, is now the most-read paper in Israel, a state of affairs which Freedom House not unreasonably connects to the demise of Maariv, a longtime mainstay of the Hebrew daily press. But the question readers of this report have to ask is what in the name of Joseph Pulitzer does the ability of Adelson’s paper to succeed where many other print papers are failing have to do with freedom of the press?

Palestine and the Arab League – Fake Freedom Fighters

David Singer
J-Wire
25 January '11

http://www.jwire.com.au/featured-articles/palestine-and-the-arab-league-fake-freedom-fighters/14632#more-14632

The Palestinian Authority, Hamas and the Arab League member States continue to deny their populations basic political rights and civil liberties – according to a Report recently published by Freedom House. At the same time the Arab League is mounting an intensive campaign to delegitimize Israel – the only State in the Middle East where such freedoms exist.The Freedom House report is an annual survey of global political rights and civil liberties carried out in 194 countries and 14 territories around the World.

Freedom House defines itself as:

“ an independent watchdog organization that supports democratic change, monitors the status of freedom around the world, and advocates for democracy and human rights.”

In determining what constitutes “political rights” and “civil liberties” – Freedom House has drawn from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights the following components of freedom which include an individual’s ability to:

Participate freely in the political process;

Vote freely in legitimate elections;

Have representatives that are accountable to them;

Exercise freedoms of expression and belief;

Be able to freely assemble and associate;

Have access to an established and equitable system of rule of law;

Have social and economic freedoms, including equal access to economic opportunities and the right to hold private property.

Freedom House has determined that 18 of the 22 Arab League member States all rate very poorly and fall into the category of being “Not Free” which is defined as :

“…one where basic political rights are absent and basic civil liberties are widely and systematically denied.”

The remaining 4 Arab League members are categorized as being “Partly Free” being countries which are defined as :

“characterised by some restrictions on political rights and civil liberties – often in the context of corruption, weak rule of law, ethnic strife or civil law.”

Israel is the only State in the Middle East that is identified as being “Free “ meaning:

“a country where there is broad scope for open political political competition, a climate of respect for civil liberties, significant independent civic life and independent media”.

As Latin American States apparently fall over themselves to accord recognition to a non-existent Palestinian State in total contravention of international law as prescribed by the Montevideo Convention – it is time for them – and others who might be similarly minded – to ponder what kind of State they are promoting and the extent to which such State does not accord with the principles laid down in the Road Map – the basis on which all negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority have been conducted for the last seven years under the auspices of America, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations.

The Road Map articulated that any such Palestinian State must be “democratic” as was made clear by the following provisions:

“A two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will only be achieved through an end to violence and terrorism, when the Palestinian people have a leadership acting decisively against terror and willing and able to build a practicing democracy based on tolerance and liberty, and through Israel’s readiness to do what is necessary for a democratic Palestinian state to be established…
A settlement, negotiated between the parties, will result in the emergence of an independent, democratic, and viable Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with Israel and its other neighbors.”

The Freedom House Report notes that the Palestinian Authority controls up to 40% of the West Bank territory and 98% of the Palestinian population outside of East Jerusalem. Hamas controls 100% of Gaza as well as its entire population.

Any signs of a a leadership acting decisively to build a practicing democracy based on tolerance and liberty in either the West Bank or Gaza is totally absent according to the Freedom House Report.

The current push for recognition of “Palestine” as an independent State is becoming an exercise in creating yet another State whose citizens will continue to be denied the basic freedoms and civil liberties that are currently enjoyed by some of its current democratic proponents – Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay.

That was clearly not the objective of the Road Map – to which those Latin American States gave their support in 2003.

Since it still supposedly remains the only game in town prescribing the “two-state solution” – the Road Map is rapidly ending up as a document that is not worth the paper it is written on espouses a democratic state that will not be achieved and has been rejected as the basis of a two-state solution by some democratic countries who have now decided to assign the civilian populations of the West Bank and Gaza to the same fate as all the surrounding Arab populations in the Middle East Arab States.

The Arab League meantime fails to recognize Israel and pursues campaigns encouraging boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel – whilst at the same time its member states deny their populations the political rights and civil liberties that are enjoyed by Israel’s population – including the 20% of Israel’s population that is Arab.

The Freedom House report stands as a monument to the eternal shame of the Arab League and to those democratic countries who have been seduced into accepting the Arab League’s spurious hate campaign to eradicate the State of Israel.

Fareed Zakaria – the host of CNN’s flagship foreign affairs show, Editor-at-Large of TIME Magazine, a Washington Post columnist, and a New York Times bestselling author described by Esquire Magazine as “the most influential foreign policy adviser of his generation.” – says of the Freedom House Report:

“While there are many sources of economic data, good political data is hard to find. Freedom House’s survey is an exception. For anyone concerned with the state of freedom, or simply with the state of the world, Freedom in the World is an indispensible guide.”

Those democratic States ignoring the clear message contained in the Report and abandoning the signposting in the Road Map are not doing themselves – or the cause of liberating long suffering Arab populations denied their basic political rights and civil liberties – any favours.

David Singer is a Sydney Lawyer and Foundation Member of the International Analysts Network


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Why Has Israel's Press Freedom Ranking Taken a Crash Dive?

Benjamin Joffe-Walt
The Media Line
18 January '10

(Not a surprise but still bizzare. Y.)

Israel has lost its top spot in the Middle East for first time in decades. Analysts discuss why.

For decades it has been a source of honor and dignity for Israel's defenders: the nascent democracy has consistently been ranked well above all other Middle Eastern nations in its level of press freedom.

Israel's free press status, confirmed each year by a number of international organizations from the US-based Freedom House to Reporters Without Borders, has withstood a number of wars, political revolts and Palestinian Intifadas.

The Gaza War changed all that, as Israel received extensive criticism for severely limiting journalists' access to the Gaza Strip during the heightened military conflict in the coastal strip in December 2008 and January 2009.

In a dramatic realignment in the annual rankings, Reporters Without Borders not only demoted Israel from its long-held spot as the top dog of Middle Eastern media freedom, but relegated the Jewish state to the 93rd most free media environment on earth, 47 spots below its 2008 ranking and well behind Kuwait, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates. The Reporters Without Borders annual index is based on questionnaires sent to hundreds of journalists around the world.

The US-based Freedom House, however, retained Israel's rank as the kingpin of MidEast press freedom in its annual report, well over 20 spots above all other Middle Eastern and North African nations.

(Read full article)
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How did the democracies and the dictatorships vote in UN Human Rights Council resolution against Israel?

Robin Shepherd
Think Tank Blog
17 October 09

I’m not going to waste everyone’s time with a detailed breakdown of Friday’s farce at the United Nations in which the laughably named “Human Rights Council” passed a resolution against Israel and affirmed the notoriously skewed and distorted Goldstone Report on Gaza. Israel bashing is what it is. We’ve seen it all before and we’ll see it again.

What interests me today is less the “what”? and the “why”? than the “who”? For we know that sickness and depravity over Israel is par for the course these days at the United Nations. What matters more is who participates in it, who turns a blind eye and who has the courage to stand up and confront it.

So let’s see how countries supporting the resolution, opposing it, abstaining from it or not voting stand up on a group by group basis when compared to their freedom rankings by Freedom House. The countries which voted in favour of the resolution were as follows.

Argentina, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, China, Cuba, Djibouti, Egypt, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Mauritius, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Africa, Zambia.

The countries which voted against are as follows:


Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Slovakia, Ukraine, United States of America.

The countries which abstained are as follows:

Belgium, Bosnia Herzegovina, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Gabon, Japan, Mexico, Norway, Republic of Korea, Slovenia, Uruguay.

The countries which did not vote are as follows:

Angola, France, Kyrgyzstan, Madagascar and Britain

Among the supporters of the resolution, the presence of so many despotisms as well as many others that are ranked by Freedom House as only “partly free” speaks for itself. Countries ranked as “not free” by Freedom House in the group are: China, Cuba, Egypt, Qatar, Russia and Saudi Arabia. Partly free countries in the group are: Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Djibouti, Jordan, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Senegal, Zambia. Of the 25 countries who voted against Israel 17 (68 %) are either outright despotisms or are seedy and corrupt pseudo-democracies.

Among those which opposed the resolution it is noteworthy that for all the criticism visited against the Obama administration the outstanding name in the group is the United States of America. It is also worth noting that all states in the group are democracies and all (100%) are ranked in the top category for freedom by Freedom House.

Among the abstainers it’s a bit of a mixed bag: Bosnia-Herzogovina, Burkina Faso, Gabon (partly free); Cameroon (not free); the rest (free). So of the 11 abstainers 36% are not free.

Among those who didn’t vote it is, once again, a mixed bag: Angola, (not free); Krgyzstan, Madagascar (partly free); Britain and France (free). In other words, 60% of this group do not meet the standard of being a free country according to the Freedom House framework.

For the record, Israel resides in Freedom House’s top category as a fully free country.

Now, one can play with statistics endlessly and there are many other ways of breaking down voting patterns in the UN Human Rights Council.

I just have one question at this stage: what were Britain and France doing in the bathroom with Angola, Kyrgyzstan and Madagascar while some of the worst dictatorships in the world were passing a resolution against Israel’s human rights record?