A small demonstration was held in Ramallah’s central Manara Square on Monday — not against the Palestinian negotiators, but against Al-Jazeera, which is going big, big, big with a special multi-part broadcast that started Sunday night and will continue over a couple of days about documents concerning Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in recent years.
Journalists who were there said there were only some tens of demonstrators in Manara Square – and they were carrying signs denouncing Al-Jazeera (“Al-Jazeera = Zionism” and “Al-Jazeera is collaborating with Shabak”).
This small group of demonstrators then tried to enter the office building where Al-Jazeera has its studios on the rooftop, but “Palestinian police calmed them down”, one journalist reported.
He added that the local Al-Jazeera staff is afraid of the reaction. “They were expecting it, and though they were afraid of an even harsher reaction. They are even afraid for their lives”.
Local Al-Jazeera staff were reportedly distancing themselves, in conversations with their journalist colleagues, from this big Al-Jazeera story, and said it came from headquarters in Doha, Qatar, and not from their offices here.
Al-Jazeera has been working on this for several months – one report suggested three months.
It has been clear that although the Palestinian negotiators had agreed to keep silent about the content of discussions, they were also anxious to put out their side of the story once leaks began to flow from the Israeli side, blaming the Palestinians.
A team of producers and reporters and correspondents has been in the Jerusalem-Ramallah area for the past couple of days. A group of Al-Jazeera staff discussing the program on Saturday over supper in the American Colony hotel were overheard saying that only a restricted small circle of staff knew about this program ahead of time.
They thought, correctly, that this was going to be big — and the satellite channel gave the resources to support it.
They also thought that other documents (perhaps from the Israelis) might also be revealed live, on air, as the program continues for several days this week.
Many outside experts and commentators clearly had been given advance copies of some of the revealed material, Wikileaks style (and sworn to secrecy too), and their critiques and commentaries were ready immediately after the first part of the Al-Jazeera special program aired Sunday night.
The Al-Jazeera International staff were, however, apparently not prepared for the angry Palestinian denunciation.
Al-Jazeera’s bureau and staff have regularly had problems with, and been threatened with sanctions from both Israeli and Palestinian governments here on the ground. But this is the first time they have actually spoken about fearing death threats.