Palestinian
Propaganda
Prize For Israel
By Nicola Nasser
19 September, 2007
Countercurrents.org
The inter-Palestinian war of
words and the mutual violations of the freedom of press and expression
by the Hamas - led government of Ismael Haniyyeh in the Gaza Strip and
the Fatah – led government of Salam Fayyad in the West Bank have
presented Israel with its biggest propaganda prize that is overshadowing
the violations of human rights committed by the Israeli Occupation Forces
(IOF) in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT).
The Palestinian Center for Press Development and Freedom “Mada”
had this to say on Palestinian media during August this year: There
were “more violations of media freedom in the Palestinian territories
particularly by the Executive Force (of Hamas) in the Gaza Strip and
the (Fatah-led) Palestinian security agencies (of the Palestinian Authority)
in the West Bank, in addition to the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF).
Nothing changed in the status of the media that was closed by both sides,
or prevented from distribution, whether in the West Bank or in Gaza
Strip.”
On July 14 “Mada” described the violations of press freedom
during the preceding month of June as a “massacre of Palestinian
media” committed by Palestinians themselves, including Palestinian
armed groups; media institutions were attacked, burned, ransacked and
destroyed, printing and distributing of newspapers were banned, and
journalists were arrested, threatened and shot at. The violations led
to a “serious compromise of press freedom;” Palestinian
journalists had become too scared to cover the events and disseminate
information, which “reinforced self-censorship by journalists
and independent media.” Objective reporting was absent and “few
local media maintained impartiality.”
On September 10, the plight of Palestinian media caught international
attention when The New York Times reported that Fatah in the West Bank
has closed Hamas-affiliated media outlets and prevented Hamas-supported
newspapers from circulating or Hamas television from broadcasting; equipment
has been confiscated or destroyed, six Hamas journalists have been arrested
and 12 more beaten. In Gaza Hamas has done the same to Fatah and the
Palestinian Authority (PA)-controlled media. At least eight outlets
were closed, including three newspapers.
The next day a group of intellectuals in Gaza demanded in a statement
that the Palestinian media not be crushed between “the hammer
of Ramallah and the anvil of Gaza.” Some journalists, like Saifuddin
Shaeen, correspondent of Al-Arabia satellite TV station and Majdi Al-Arabeed,
the director and owner of the “Voice of Liberty” fled Gaza
while Mohammad Shteiwi, the director of al-Aqsa satellite TV station
in the West Bank, went into hiding. 700 employees of the Palestine Broadcasting
Corporation (PBC) are now staying home because they could not do their
work. Independent journalists and media outlets have resorted to self-censoring,
a practice they mastered long before Hamas came into power.
The Gaza-based Al Mezan Center for Human Rights called on the PA and
“the political powers in the OPT to take all the necessary measures
to guarantee that journalists are kept outside the political struggle.”
The Foreign Press Association, which represents the foreign media in
Israel and the Palestinian territories, condemned “this kind of
dangerous infringement of professional journalists.” On August
28 the Paris-based World Association of Newspapers (WAN) -- which represents
18,000 newspapers with a membership including 76 national newspaper
associations, newspaper companies and individual newspaper executives
in 102 countries, 12 news agencies and 10 regional and world-wide press
groups -- condemned the increasing harassment of journalists and the
deterioration of working conditions for Palestinian journalists in the
OPT.
Fayyad’s government found itself obliged recently to apologize
to Reuters for violations during a suppressed Hamas-led protest by university
students in the southern West Bank city of Hebron. Hanniyeh’s
government had to admit and apologize publicly for similar violations
in the Gaza Strip. One could review their mutual records on the violations
of the other side as well as the reports they selectively quote from
international organizations of human rights to condemn each other to
have an overall idea of their serious disregard of the recognized standards
of free press and expression.
Defunct Press Law Activated
Hamas, trying to contain the drive towards partisan propaganda away
from professional journalism, dug out of the PA archives what was in
practice a defunct Palestinian press law designed to silence dissident
journalists, ban the publication of information likely to “endanger
national unity, incite crimes or hatred, division and religious dissent”
and publication of “secret information” about the police
and security forces. This law was practically not in force because the
public official media network as well as the private sector media were
overwhelmingly controlled or owned by the ruling Fatah movement; their
self-censorship made up for enforcing the law.
Fatah’s 40-year old monopoly of power first within the Palestine
Liberation Organization (PLO) then later within the PA, which was created
as a limited self-rule authority after the Oslo Palestinian –
Israeli peace accords of 1993, has led to monopoly of media. In 1999,
Article 19, a human rights organization to defend and promote freedom
of expression and information worldwide, criticized in a memorandum
to the PA the Palestinian Press Law for including articles that contradict
with the international standards of Press freedom and freedom of free
flow of information.
The law institutes a number of restrictions on the content of what may
be published, many of which are unacceptable broad and/or vague. For
example, publications must not “contradict the principles of …
national responsibility” or publish material that is “inconsistent
with morals” or which may “shake belief in the national
currency.” (Ironically Palestinians have yet to have a national
currency). These restrictions are backed up with censorship powers as
publications must deposit copies with the government prior to distribution.
The law also provides for harsh sanctions for breach of its provisions,
in many cases extending to jail terms.
However, “We are all bound by this 1995 press law, and its articles
carry the force of the law,” said a statement from Hamas' “information
ministry” in Gaza. Referring to a newly-created governmental committee
to oversee media, the statement said this committee had the right to
conduct raids against media premises and bureaux and “to summon
their members over issues relating to their work. We will not deal with
organizations which do not have authorization or do not respect the
rules.” Hamas spokesman, Tahar al-Nunu, who heads the committee
said: “We cannot change this law, it is the only one we have.”
Moreover, Hamas for the first time ever cracked down on Internet Web
sites. The Open Net Initiative (ONI) has studied the status of Internet
censorship in 40 countries including the OPT. ONI’s researchers
found no filtering at all in Russia, Israel or the Palestinian territories
despite political conflicts there (2007). This finding tells that the
cyber freedom is aught to be absolute in the West Bank and Gaza contrary
to all Arab countries without exception. This has now to change.
Internet plays a vital role as a means of communication between the
more than 3.5 million Palestinians under the Israeli military occupation
since 1967 and the outside world; it also serves as a vital means of
communication among the Palestinians themselves, whether between those
besieged in the Gaza Strip and their compatriots in the West Bank as
there is no territorial linkage between the two areas, or between both
areas and the Palestinian Diaspora, or among the cantons of Palestinian
population in the West Bank, where more than 550 Israeli military roadblocks
and a longer than 700km Apartheid Wall (called a security fence or barrier
by the IOF) isolate the urban centers from each other as well as from
the countryside villages and towns which they serve.
However the journalists are not helping to ease their work. More than
14 years of Fatah’s monopoly of power have created a Fatah-led
media network with Fatah-affiliated journalists who in the current crisis
could not resist taking sides; neither could the new emerging Hamas-led
media journalists. Both are giving each of the two rival governments
reason to harass them on security grounds. Journalists in their majority
on both sides are compromising their professionalism with biased reporting,
giving priority to political loyalty.
Killer Language
The “language of force” has overtaken the media’s
supposed language of truth and propaganda has replaced professional
journalism in the mainstream coverage of events. Professional standards,
rule of laws governing journalism, the civil right “to know,”
media outlets and journalists themselves have fallen victim to the rule
of force. No wonder, when media becomes the major battle ground as well
as the main tool of the infighting where none is sacred anymore, even
the Muslim Friday prayers.
The still escalating war of words comprises mutual accusations of “collaboration”
with or “serving” the Israeli occupying power, staging “coup
d’etat,” “fascism,” “treachery and treason”
killings, “assassination in cold blood,” committing “organized
crimes” and “war crimes” by “mercenaries”
and “outlaws,” mutual calls for “national” trials,
etc. Readers may check out statements by the chief of the PA intelligence
Tawfiq al-Tirawi and the speaker of the Hamas parliamentary group Saeed
Siyam on September 17 for samples of the language used in this inter-Palestinian
media war.
It is a killer language. The mutual smearing of images is almost tantamount
to a political assassination of the foes that could justify later their
physical liquidation. What can the Israeli “enemy” say more
about both of them? Now Israel could quote both sides to justify her
extra-judicial liquidation of their leaders and anti-occupation activists.
Both sides of the internal conflict are using religion to serve their
war of words. In order to politically outmaneuver Hamas, which dominates
the mosques, the secular Fatah and her “leftist” and liberal
PLO coalition partners ironically called for Friday prayers in public
spaces, creating a religious controversy over whether this conforms
to Islamic law or not, with their secular spokesmen turning into experts
in religious law and quoting religious text to support their politically-motivated
call.
The high tension led for example a veteran media expert like Yasser
Abed Rabbo, Secretary General of the PLO Executive Committee who was
once responsible for PLO’s media and former cabinet minister of
information and culture, to loose temper with a BBC interviewer, Mahmoud
Murad, last month when he asked whom exactly the PA consider as their
enemy, Israel or Hamas. Abed Rabbo hit back live on the air with, “you
are impolite, rude …” Murad threatened to sue.
When Confucius was asked: “What is the first thing you would do
if elected as the country's leader?” he answered: “To correct
the use of language, of course. We have to use words right. If not,
speech will not be in order, and if speech is not in order, then nothing
can be accomplished. If nothing is accomplished, morals and art decline.
If morals and art decline, justice has no direction. If justice has
no direction, people will stay confused and helpless. So you have to
be very careful what you say.” (Quoted by Sirikit Syah in the
Brunei Times on Sept. 10, 2007)
Two codes of honor to protect the Palestinian freedom of press have
become indispensable to neutralize the besieged media in the raging
war of words, one between the rival governments in Gaza and Ramallah,
led by Hamas and Fatah respectively, and another code among journalists
themselves to adopt professional standards in their coverage irrespective
of political affiliation and sympathies.
Intervention by international and local human rights organizations is
also indispensable to bring both the authorities and the media community
to respect impartial, neutral and independent reporting because the
heat of the conflict in the OPT is unlikely to convince either side
of the crisis to voluntarily abstain from harassing both the few remaining
independent media outlets and the media channels of the rival political
foe.
‘Official’ War of Words
Media has become the most important vehicle for the PA in confronting
Hamas, PA Information Minister Riyad al-Malki told a group of Israeli
and Palestinian journalists in Ramallah on August 14 that “80
percent of the battle is focused on media information.” Ironically
al-Malki suggested that Israelis could think of ways to help the PA
Information Ministry achieve its goals. “At the end of the day,
this government wants to reach peace with Israel,” he said.
Prior to the meeting with al-Malki, Basem Abu Sumaya, chairman of the
PBC, which was bombed by the Israelis in 2002, led the journalists in
a tour of his premises. During the meeting nothing was said about an
Israeli ban on deliveries of paper to Gaza, where print press could
hardly manage with the shortage of paper, power and fuel due to Israel’s
tight siege. Moreover and even days before Hamas’ control of Gaza,
Israel prevented the three West Bank dailies from entering Gaza until
June 29.
The inter-Palestinian war of words has given the Israeli occupying power
a propaganda prize to push into oblivion her own fatal violations of
Palestinian press freedom. For example, who remembers now the shooting
twice by the Israeli soldiers of Palestinian news cameraman, Imad Ghanem,
21, on 5 July, which a Reuters video showed bullets hitting his body
as he lay injured on the ground, a crime that was condemned by The International
Federation of Journalists as “a vicious and brutal example of
deliberate targeting of a journalist”?! Ghanem was one of the
leaders of the demonstrations to demand the release of the British journalist
Alan Johnston during his kidnap ordeal in Gaza months ago.
Or, seven years on, who remembers now the Palestinian media breakthrough
of the 27-minute video film which was aired on TV screens all over the
world showing live the Palestinian child Mohammad al-Durrah as he was
shot dead by the IOF soldiers while trying to seek the protection of
his father’s embrace?
A BBC Ad. recruiting a “Project Director, Palestinian Territories”
to advise Palestinian journalists sounded timely enough: “The
Project Director will be responsible for managing and coordinating delivery
of the Trust’s EIDHR-Dutch co-funded project in Palestine titled:
‘Support for the Palestinian Media Sector with Focus on Building
Sustainable Mechanisms for Professional Development of Journalists and
Media Professionals’. The project aims to increase the level of
networking and dialogue between media professionals in the West Bank
and Gaza Strip.”
Outside Israeli, U.S. and European intervention has created and sustaining
the current inter-Palestinian political crisis, leading to the raging
war of words. Should outside intervention and anti-Hamas incitement
stop the crisis would relieve the pressure on media to allow for national
reconciliation, which in turn would give space for the war of words
to subside, leaving behind bitter national memories.
Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab journalist in Kuwait,
Jordan, UAE and Palestine; he is based in Bir Zeit, West Bank of the
Israeli-occupied territories.
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