The situation here is a story that is fascinating, compelling and important.
Yet, the media — the international media, at least — is scared of covering this situation, this conflict.
They are scared of offending one or more likely both sides, scared of being criticized, menaced … and intimidated.
Once a journalist is intimidated — and scared — it becomes impossible to do the job properly.
Nothing is being done to prevent this — despite all the talk about democracy and democratic freedoms of press and of expression, etc.
The harassment and humiliation of three female journalists (probably all of Arabic origin) going to interview the Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu last week is a case in point.
It is not the first time it happened.
That means that there was no policy decision to stop it.
The PM’s office was well aware it could/would happen. And, they were either standing right there, as they were the last time it happened, or they were very nearby.
And, it just happened again.
This time, and a previous time, it involved only female journalists, their anatomy, and their underwear (bras).
On earlier occasions, male journalists were asked to lower there trousers — a couple of them did, but a couple of them refused and walked away from a potential story.
Why did the female journalists comply? It is a question that deserves more reflection.
Meanwhile, lets focus simply on the intimidation aspect: what kind of interviews does anybody think will be done after security harassment, intimidation and humiliation of reporters, whether they stay behind a curtain and only their underwear and sanitary napkins are put outi on public display for a “security check”, or whether they are forced to strip in public, just before going in to do an interview.
It is clearly intimidation
It is more clear now than before — this is a calculated and deliberate strategy to put journalists off balance, and to intimidate them from asking probing questions or tough follow-ups.
It is not a funny bit of Israeli one-upsmanship against “foreigners” — like Deputy FM Ayalon’s deliberate public humiliation of the Turkish Ambassador just over a year ago, also in front of the media.
It is intimidation, pure and simple.
Here is a brief analysis of the interview with Netanyahu done last week by a team of journalists from Al-Arabiyya Television.
This very softball interview with PM Netanyahu was then transcribed and published by the Prime Minister’s Offoce [PMO] here.
The Al-Arabiyya journalists allowed this Netanyahu statement on Lebanon to go completely unchallenged: “We have no claims. We went out of Lebanon. We haven’t a claim on a single centimeter of Lebanese territory”…
Israel has still not pulled out of some areas claimed by Lebanon along the UN-marked “Blue Line” — nor have negotiations started either on the land dispute or on demarcation of each sides maritime claims [though the refusal is more attributable to Lebanon…]
The same Al-Arabiyya team allowed this rather inexact Netanyahu statement to pass without question, concerning Obama’s call to restart negotiations on the basis of 1967 borders with agreed swaps: “Well, he also said the border would be different from the one that existed on June 4, 1967. It has to take into account demographic changes and other needs and so on”…
Obama did not, in fact, say that.
Obama called for negotiations to restart “based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps”. He did not say that the border would be different, or that it had to take into account changes — he did not issue any proclamations about anything other than what he announced was the current American Administration’s position.
Netanyahu also told Al-Arabiyya that, over the past 19 years or so [actually, al-Arabiyya said 17 years, while Netanyahu himself stated that the Palestinians “negotiated for 18 years under Oslo without pre-conditions”], “six Israeli prime ministers, myself included, have been negotiating and we all agreed to a Palestinian state“.
And, Netanyahu explained, to the apparently suitably-intimidated Al-Arabiyya team, who asked why he doesn’t say, again, that he will “freeze” settlement construction in order to restart negotiations: “It’s an important issue, it has to be part of the final settlement negotiation, but you know, if I told your viewers right now a fact that will shock them: the entire area, built-up areas of the settlements, takes up 2 percent of the West Bank. It doesn’t gobble up the West Bank, it doesn’t preempt the map of a Palestinian state. It’s a side issue that has been turned into a great issue that stops us from getting into the issue”.
Like Donald Rumsfeld’s “known unknowns” …
Netanyahu here used at counter-purposes a fact announced by one of the Israeli NGOs working against the occupation [B’Tselem, I think], but without all the other relevant qualifiers: that “state land” appropriated by Israel, and “security zones” declared all around the 2 percent built-up settlement areas, as well as “military zones”, particularly in the Jordan Valley, takes up more than 40 percent of the West Bank land area…
[n.b. — Akiva Eldar gave greater clarification of some of the issues and practices involved in a report published in Haaretz after the Al-Arabiyya interview with Netanyahu. Eldar’s report, which is partly based on documents obtained by the Rabbis for Human Rights organization via a Freedom of Information request, is published Friday here.]
But, we do have to take into consideration the fact that some of this team of Al-Arabiyya journalists was in no condition to react adequately, as they had just been through an intimidating security check — and they were journalists who had been checked by security before being accredited, and who were known to the authorities.
This does not happen in the White House, or in European capitals. It didn’t even happen in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, despite the bizarre security precautions taken with journalists there at that time.
But it happens in Israel, and not just once, or twice — it happens over and over again.
See our most recent previous post here.
Usually, however, it happens to Arab journalists, and particularly but not exclusively to Palestinians. And this adds weight to the preponderance of evidence — it is no accident.
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