And, will Fayyad retract the statement issued by his "office"?

Will Salam Fayyad correct the wrong-headed efforts of his “office” to save him from Fatah’s wrath in Ramallah by making the patently false denial that he’s given any statements or interviews to the media since his resignation on 13 April?

Will he stand up and do the right thing, here?

Will he admit that he did give an interview to New York Times columnist Roger Cohen? [And, for that matter, also to Daoud Kuttab…}

Salam Fayyad participates in Greek Orthodox + Eastern Easter celebrations in Ramallah - 5 May 2013
Salam Fayyad participated with Church officials in Greek Orthodox + Eastern Easter celebrations in Ramallah - 5 May 2013

Salam Fayyad is not perfect, but he is better than this — no matter what pressure he’s under, he’s not a person I would have thought would attack a journalist, or deny that he did what he did, or said what he said.

Nobody I’ve spoken to believes the denials, anyway…

The Palestinian Authority people in Ramallah can’t take criticism, though they should try to learn …

In what was billed as his last weekly radio address, Fayyad said “I feel a deep sense of gratitude to all those who supported us and stood by us. I am also deeply grateful for each opinion or position that criticized the path of our work and tried to correct it for the benefit of our people and their national cause”.

That is good.

Then, he went on to say: “As for those who maintained preconceived positions throughout our journey or made it their business to launch attacks and spread prejudices, I tell them: may God forgive you”…

Maybe Fayyad, like others here, have a hard time telling the difference, and see all criticism as attacks and spreading of prejudices.

Fayyad should rise up and retract the statement issued by his “office”…

Meanwhile, Roger Cohen wrote in a Tweet today [probably overly defensive, as he was addressing someone known to be a critic of Fayyad] that “#Fayyad is serious, tough and consequential”…

If so, Fayyad should retract the nonsense statement issued by his “office”.

Gideon Levy: self-censorship is worse than censorship

Haaretz author Gideon Levy was interviewed by Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa on free expression for journalists in Israel. The interview is published in Haaretz,

In it, Levy tells Vargas Llosa that “The media in Israel, most of them, are the biggest collaborators to the occupation”.

Here are some excerpts:

Question (Mario Vargas Llosa): Would you say then that in Israel there is total freedom of expression and that the media reflect daily exactly what is going on, without any kind of censorship?

Answer (Gideon Levy of Haaretz): “Absolutely not.  The media are the biggest collaborators.  The media in Israel, most of them, are the biggest collaborators to the occupation.  There is no censorship in Israel, almost none.  There is something that is much worse than censorship —  self-censorship, because in self-censorship there is never resistance…

Continue reading Gideon Levy: self-censorship is worse than censorship

Investors: Newspaper industry future is dismal. Watchdog: press freedom is slipping. Are these phenomena related?

Investor Warren Buffett said at a meeting of shareholders of a big American company (Berkshire Hathaway Inc.) over the weekend, according to a report on Yahoo Finance that “the future of the newspaper industry is dismal:’For most newspapers in the United States, we would not buy them at any price … They have the possibility of going to just unending losses’. As long as newspapers were essential to readers, they were essential to advertisers, he said. But news is now available in many other venues, he said. Berkshire has a substantial investment in Washington Post Co. Buffett said the company has a solid cable business, a good reason to hold on to it, but its newspaper business is in trouble”. This report can be read in full here.

Continue reading Investors: Newspaper industry future is dismal. Watchdog: press freedom is slipping. Are these phenomena related?