Censorship? Only Israel can censor journalists: Lori Marcus on how the PA has been silencing journalists for decades, particularly those that report the truth–a.k.a. negative stories–about the PA. And how western journalists are going along with their requests.
Speaking of Khaled Abu Tomeh, he asks: Where are the Moderate Arabs and Palestinians?
When was the last time an Arab parliament or prominent politician or columnist called for peace and compromise with Israel?
Good question. I think it was on the Twelfth of Never.
Well, that’s a shock: Vanity Fair published a hit piece on Sara Netanyahu. Is anyone out there surprised? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
Learning the lessons of Lebanon: Tony Badran on how Bashar al-Assad is taking a page from his father’s book and working to turn Syria into an ethnic battleground like Lebanon. The Dorktator is not going to step down unless the U.S. Army is rolling into Damascus. And Reuters shows you how he’s doing it.
Stop ruining the narrative! Israelis can’t be helping Africans set up sustainable power and clean water. They are heartless bigots who hate people with dark skin that aren’t Jewish (and don’t care for the ones that are, either)!
They do a fawning puff piece on Assad’s wife–just before her husband’s government starts mowing down the citizenr–and now this on Netanyahu’s wife. It’s the progressive fascination with power and violence. They’ll cut as much slack as need be for a dictator’s wife but a democratically elected person’s wife…the back of their hand.
What I have found irksome is not that the reporters in the PA and Hamas controlled areas monitor and guide journalists, it’s that the journalists never say anything about it. I remember during the first Gulf war video from Iraq would have a caption like “under Iraqi censorship” or something to indicate that what the viewer is seeing should be taken with a grain of salt.
But a reporter cannot go into Palestinian-controlled areas on his own and his “guide” must be approved by the Palestinians. He cannot go where they don’t want him to go. In most cases the reporter doesn’t speak Arabic so his interview subjects are selected for him and he is told what they’re saying. Further, a reporter who files stories the Palestinians consider unfriendly can have his access halted. And remember after 9/11? Video of Palestinians celebrating was on tv for a couple of days, after which the Palis reminded various news organizations that if they continued to show this stuff the Palestinians “could not guarantee their safety.”
Israel, of course, is entirely open. They can go where they want, talk to whomever they please, and many Israelis speak English anyway.
But why journalists who supposedly favor an open society and a free press favor the Palestinians who don’t have those, to the Israelis, who do. But Israel has shown since 1967 that whatever motivates the left, it’s not what it claims motivates it.