The Palestinian Authority has a thing about journalists. The independent Committee for the Protection of Journalists which monitors abuses against the press and promotes press freedom around the world reports: “In the nearly seven years since the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) assumed control over parts of the West Bank and Gaza, Chairman Yasser Arafat and his multi-layered security apparatus have muzzled local press critics via arbitrary arrests, threats, physical abuse, and the closure of media outlets. Over the years, the Arafat regime has managed to frighten most Palestinian journalists into self-censorship.”

There’s no reason to suspect that foreign correspondents, who were notoriously hounded in Beirut twenty years ago by the PNA’s forerunner, the PLO, are not exercising the same kind of self-censorship today, compromising fair and objective coverage of the current situation.

Still, the most effective clamp on the truth is the peer group; the homogenized ideology of the press corps where independent thinking continues to require courage and fortitude. In a region where the media has in many ways shaped the conflict, the combination of fear and lockstep thinking on the part of its protagonists does not bode well for a resolution.

Ramallah: Things Would Never be the Same:

The lynching of two Israeli reservists in Ramallah on 12 October 2000 proved to be a watershed in western coverage of the new intifada. Up until that point, most western journalists traveled wherever they wanted to.

Sky TV News reporter Chris Roberts says that at the outset of the violence, the PA welcomed reporters with open arms. “They wanted us to show 12 year olds being killed,” he explains. But after the lynch when PA operatives did their best to confiscate and destroy tape of the grisly event, and Israel Defense Forces used the images to target and arrest the perpetrators, Palestinians have sometimes vented their hostility to the U.S by harassing and intimidating western correspondents. “Post Ramallah where all goodwill was lost, I’m a lot more sensitive about going places,” Roberts admits.

Ahmed Budeiri, a bright, twenty-something Arab stringer for ABC TV, acknowledges that Ramallah was “really dangerous for foreian security forces, beaten and relieved of their film of the lynching. But most of the TV cameramen were Palestinians. Given PA intimidation of Palestinian journalists, it’s not surprising that almost all of them, except for one working for the Arabic news channel Al-Jazeera, and another shooter for the independent Italian station, RTI, meekly handed over their film.

Nasser Atta, a Palestinian producer with the ABC News network, was outside the Ramallah police station with a camera crew as the bloody scene unfolded. Appearing the next day on ABC’s “Nightline,” he told host Ted Koppel that crowd members had assaulted his team to stop them from filming the action. “I saw how the youth tried to prevented [sic]—prevented my crew from shooting this footage. My cameraman was beaten,” Atta said.

A British photographer, Mark Seager wrote in London’s Sunday Telegraph (October 22): “I was composing the picture when I was punched in the face by a Palestinian. Another Palestinian pointed right at me shouting ‘no picture, no pictures, ‘ while another guy hit me in the face and said ‘give me your film.’ One guy just pulled the camera from me and smashed it to the floor.”

Most reporters acknowledge that the PA openly confiscated TV footage and still photos of the lynch. But some, like CBC’s Neil Macdonald, asked PA Security chief Jibril Rajoub’s about the matter and were told that no tape was seized.

Others, like Bill Orme of the New York Times, came to their own conclusion that while the mob which attacked journalists did include some uniformed Palestinian police officers, “no one is suggesting that it was PA policy. It was not an official order.”

The film that did escape the clutches of the PA police made its way to TV screens around the world in an unorthodox way. According to Gideon Meir, deputy director general for public affairs at the Israeli Foreign Ministry, the Israeli Embassy in Rome was able to secure the video from the independent Italian RTI TV station and within six hours of the gruesome event, the images were received in Jerusalem. The Italians released it without charge, said Meir.

TV Newsweb, a web site for TV editors and coRrespondents reported the transmission of the footage a little differently. “Two tapes are spirited away and reappear in Jerusalem one hour later. Al-Jazeera’s tape is offered for sale at US$1,000 per minute, but it’s shot shakily from far away and lacks impact. The RTI tape is extremely graphic.

RTI’s Israeli tape editor, who was at the scene, gave her eyewitness account at a Jerusalem press conference organized by the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the Government Press Office. RTI eventually makes the tape available to the agencies in Italy and the gruesome pictures lead most evening newscasts.”

Meanwhile, veteran Italian TV reporter Riccardo Cristiano had just been released from the hospital were he spent more than a week recovering from injuries he received when he was beaten up in Jaffa while covering the riots started by Israeli Arabs. Cristiano’s nose was broken, his cheek gashed, and he almost lost the use of his right eye.

The Italian government TV channel reporter went back to work the day before the lynch. According to CBC’s Macdonald, Cristiano, “a very pacifist guy” was traumatized by the Jaffa attack. When he received death threats the day after the Ramallah events, presumably from Palestinians who mistakenly associated his TV channel with the damning lynch footage, Macdonald says Cristiano penned a letter in English to a Palestinian journalist friend at Al Hayat Al Jedida newspaper assuring the colleague that his station had nothing to do with the filming nor would he ever violate journalistic ethics by transmitting film to an embassy or government office.

On Monday, October 16, 2000 a version of the letter appeared in Arabic on the front page of the paper. Cristiano lost his Israeli press credentials and was recalled to Rome. The RTI correspondent was spirited out of the country for her own safety after the IDF used freeze frames of her film to nab six of the perpetrators in undercover raids.

I traveled to Rome to meet Riccardo Cristiano last December. The tall, gray haired, mustachioed, soft-spoken Cristiano acknowledges that he’s a leftist, but in his quest for justice for those whom he perceives as oppressed, he feels he’s following in the footsteps of his father, renowned Italian artist Paolo Cristiano.

The senior Cristiano was a member of the Italian resistance who spent three years in a series of Nazi camps. He weighed 60 lbs when he returned home. Riccardo says his father is mortified by those who accuse his son of being anti-Semitic. “The only thing he wanted to do when he came to visit me in Israel was visit Yad Vashem,” Riccardo says quietly. Recently, Cristiano met with the head of the Jewish council in Venice to explain his actions and gain his support.

The Al Hayat letter became a significant political issue in Italy because Cristiano worked for the government station and his letter was perceived to have endangered the life of a reporter from the independent channel operated by former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy’s center-right opposition. Berlusconi’s party is critical of support for the Palestinians on the part of Italy’s government-sponsored media.

Over the course of several interviews, Cristiano is careful to talk only about what has happened to his life in the intervening months, not the details of his controversial letter. Even though he does not have a job, he is technically still employed by RAI while he awaits a disciplinary hearing which will determine his future as a journalist. His October letter was unauthorized, and he can’t afford to be accused of another unauthorized action such as an interview explaining his actions.

Interestingly, Bill Orme, as an FPA (Foreign Press Association) board member, recalls that in a telephone conversation with Cristiano the day the letter appeared in Al Hayat, the Italian reporter verified and even defended its contents, telling the FPA that he was concerned for the safety of his staff.

Cristiano’s plight does provide a certain insight into the journalistic fraternity of those covering the Middle East. Like other reporters who were beaten up by Palestinians over the past few months, Cristiano felt no rage against their violence. Neither does he expect much from the PA. He relates how his crew was filming a bodyguard of PA Jerusalem Affairs minister Faisal Husseini who slapped someone at a garden party at Orient House, the PA Jerusalem headquarters. Another guard came over and destroyed the film. Cristiano, the deputy bureau chief, complained. The next day Husseini sent an apology and all was forgiven.

While Cristiano has obvious sympathy for the Palestinian cause he Is not “anti-Israel”. He speaks of his special interest in the Armenians, and views both Israel and the Palestinians as “nations under trauma.”

But until his name is cleared, Cristiano continues to be a fallen man. “My friends think I’m in this mood because I lost my job in Jerusalem,” he says sadly, “but the reality is that I lost my honor and credibility from myself and my heritage.”

Extensive interviews in Jerusalem with correspondents based here as well as those who were flown in for the crisis indicate a highly complex journalistic reality. Within the Jerusalem based press corps of several hundred reporters, there are varying degrees of knowledge and understanding of the situation. After the first week of the violence, many media outlets reassigned journalists from other posts to assist their colleagues in Jerusalem. In some cases these people did have previous experience covering the Middle East, but in most instances the journalists landed in their bureaus at Jerusalem Capital Studios with little background on the history, geography or political landscape of the area.

Whom do they turn to for a crash course on the Israel-Arab conflict? By and large it’s other journalists who provide them with an overview of the lay of the land. Georges Malbrunot, correspondent for France’s Le Matin daily paper, for example, calls the BBC his “living Bible.” Thus, as Fiamma Nirenstein, the Israel correspondent for Italy’s La Stampa newspaper points out, “… the extraordinary informal power of the media — iconoclastic, sporty, ironic, virtually all of one mind” (Commentary, January 2001) comes into play.

In fact, the best factual reporting from the new intifada has come from the few correspondents with background in the area who jetted in for a few weeks and left before they became tainted with the political correctness required of the resident media set.

Jack Kelley of USA Today, for example, filed a couple of stories during his limited days in Jerusalem. In one piece he described his experience riding along in an IDF jeep patrolling the volatile Ayosh Junction outside Ramallah. Eyewitness accounts of the violent provocation by Arab youth and the decision making of the equally youthful IDF troops provided an accurate insight into the challenging situation.

But for most of the American Colony Hotel based western correspondents there are certain “given” assumptions which provide the backdrop for all their coverage. Topping the list is the notion that Palestinians are engaged in a struggle for independence and Israeli oppressors are using their might to stand in their way.

Journalists arrive at this view based both on experiences in their own native lands as standard bearers for minority rights and other liberal causes, but also as a result of their reliance on local assistance here in Israel. Since very few of the foreign correspondents in Israel are fluent in Hebrew or Arabic, they rely on a network of local sources as well as the service of “fixers,” locals who can “fix” situations for them. Some 400 PA residents are currently in possession of Israel Government Press Office credentials. Most of these Palestinian “fixers” also know Hebrew, and their GPO credentials generally enable them to navigate quite well throughout Israel without security intimidation.

Much of the current conflict is raging in Area A (under full Palestinian Authority (PA) control) so it is not surprising that the “fixers” are generally young, western-educated Palestinians who know how to operate in PA territory and who introduce the journalists to their circle of acquaintances.

In contrast to this informal networking on the Palestinian side, correspondents generally get the Israeli point of view from official sources. The Government Press Office (currently a one man operation) is charged with informing journalists of briefings with government officials and coordinating coverage of the comings and goings of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet. The Foreign Ministry and the IDF Spokesman’s office provide access to IDF commanders and other top officials. “We suffer from a deluge of information,” notes Washington Post bureau chief Lee Hockstader. Others like Phil Reeves of London’s Independent newspaper acknowledge that Israel provides excellent entree to senior officials in contrast to more limited and guarded access to PA higher ups. Chris Roberts of the UK based Sky TV News service calls the Israeli official PR effort “a well oiled machine.” But there is little Israeli effort to establish personal relationships with journalists to provide them with a non-propagandistic, man-on-the-street view of events.

The effects of this vacuum are easy to discern. When Ted Koppel taped a Nightline show at the East Jerusalem YMCA in the early days of this intifada, several smartly dressed, attractive, young English speaking Arabs made sure they saved a chair for New York Times bureau chief Deborah Sontag. When Sontag arrived she was greeted with kisses by one of the young women in the group.

The influence of Arab crew members is obvious even in the offices of some news outlets. At the ABC TV studio for instance, the only map hanging in the office is dated March 2000 and displays the title “Palestine.”

A reporter for a Canadian paper explains how knowledge of Arabic can be a very useful thing. In Beit Jalla last December, the IDF sent a missile into the Church of St. Nicholas causing little damage. The PA called a news conference there. In English the local clergy said “Oh, this is so terrible, see what the Israelis are doing.” In Arabic they were overheard saying to each other: “That m ____ f____ Arafat. Why can’t he keep his guns away. He’ll get us all killed.”

But most journalists speak very little Arabic, so they use Palestinian crews which creates another problem. The harassment of Palestinian journalists critical of Yasser Arafat is well documented by Israeli and Palestinian human rights organizations. The Committee for the Protection of Journalists wrote in an October 20, 2000 report:

“Major newspapers routinely avoid coverage of issues such as high-level PA corruption and mismanagement, human rights abuses by security forces, and any reporting that might cast Arafat in a negative light. Moreover, the major Palestinian dailies all enjoy cozy relations with the PA, further blunting their editorial edge.”

Coercion, abduction and violence by PA security chief Jibril Rijoub’s forces is a fact of life for East Jerusalem Arabs, as Nadav Shragai documented in the Israeli newspaper HaAretz in June, 2000.

Who knows under what pressure Palestinians working for western news organizations operate, or to whom they report. In effect, little seems to have changed since Zev Chafets wrote in his book ‘Double Vision’ (Willam Morrow, 1984) about Western journalists coverage of the Lebanese war of the early 1980s. (Just substitute American Colony for Commodore, and Jerusalem for Beirut.)

“In conformity with the PLO-dependent security system, Western reporters ghettoized themse

Summary and Analysis

In its Sunday morning broadcasts, the VOP news coverage was fairly evenly divided between three subjects:

• Continuing talks on final status issues, despite Palestinian views that nothing substantive is being accomplished;
• Continuing coverage of and protest about Israel’s “aggression against the Palestinian people,” particularly Israel’s “assassination policy” and its refusal to remove all military and economic obstacles;
• Detailed coverage and defense of yesterday’s two executions of Palestinian “traitors” and the planned executions today of two more men convicted of “cooperating with Israel.”

VOP featured Sheikh Ikrema al-Sabry saying that Islam mandated the execution of traitors, and VOP narrators actually poked fun at “those who call themselves human rights activists,” such as Bassam Eid, for criticizing the death sentences.

Col. Tawfik Tirawi described the intelligence activities of those condemned to death: turning information over to Israel about key Fatah and Hamas activists later killed by Israeli forces. Tirawi (who has himself been accused by Israeli officers of planning terrorist acts) defended the trials and death sentences, saying, “Everything, the trial is over in a legal manner. There were judges. There were defense lawyers. Everything was according to the complete processes of law.”

In a morning interview, Yasser Abd-Rabbo said Israel was trying to insert the American initiative as a replacement text for UN resolutions-something that was unacceptable to the Palestinians. Similar sentiments were aired in an interview with nabil Abu-Irdeineh, Arafat’s spokesman and advisor.

Quotes of the Day

1.”The head of general intelligence in the West Bank, Col. Tawfik Tirawi, calls on all those who have deviated to the Devil’s path (Arabic: tariq al-Shaitan) to return to goodness and to turn themselves in to the security forces and to describe in details their crimes before it’s too late.” (Sunday morning news round-up headlines, 7:03 am, January 14)

2.”Pursuant to criminal law 113/111, sub paragraph 16 we decide the following: one, death for the criminal Muhammad al-Khatib [ten seconds of loud applause in background and cries of joy from crowd, described as being about 250 people in Bethlehem Court], death for the criminal Hussam al-Din Musa [five seconds of loud applause including shots of Allahu Akbar-God is Great].” (Judge Fathi Abu-Shuri, head of State Security Court, in report by Sayyid Ayyad, Bethlehem, morning report, 7:30 am)

3. “I think this is a victory for the Palestinian people, and a strenthening of the steadfastness and the protection for those who are struggling as fighters for the Palestinians….Really this is a blow for the supreme Palestinian interest and for stability of the homeland and the stable security of the Palestinian state… Their only chance to save themselves is to turn themselves in. There will be no mercy for any spy or any agent who spills Palestinian blood (who gets caught without turning himself in) (Kamil Hmeid, Fatah secretary in Bethlehem, interviewed about death sentences in Bethlehem court, 7:50 am)

4. “I say to those who have sold themselves to Israel, or to the Devil, they will not find anyone who will pray for them just as those who were who were rightly sentenced to death, and they will not find any place to be buried, because even their families refused to pray for them….Therefore they should step forward and turn themselves in to the security services.” (Col Tawfik Tirawi, head of General Intellegence for the West Bank in the Palestinian Authority, 7:58 am)

Sunday Morning Headlines 7 a.m.

• “The Palestinian-Israeli meeting with the participation of his excellency President Yasser Arafat and Israeli Regional Development Minister Shimon Peres ends without any concrete results;
• A continuation of meetings in coming days;
• The Palestinian side asserts that the American ideas form a new basis (or source authority) for the peace process, and the Palestinian side clings to the basis of international legitimacy (i.e. UN resolutions) on whose authority the peace process was launched;
• The Palestinian side declares at the talks that began yesterday THE COMPLETE PALESTINIAN REFUSAL for a new basis…demanding assurances for execution (of the agreement) on the ground;
• The arbitrary (also tyrannical) Israeli measures, aggression and siege and the evil assassinations lingered in the (discussion) meeting as President Arafat demanded their immediate cessation and an investigation of the crimes;
• The state security court hands down death sentences for two agents in Bethlehem and lie imprisonment for another two, and (other) death sentences are carried out yesterday in Nablus and Gaza;
• Sheikh Ikrema al-Sabry, the Jerusalem Mufti and the Palestinian sage, says that he who does not firmly against traitors undermines the legitimacy of God’s law;
• The head of general intelligence in the West Bank, Gen. Tawfik Tirawi, calls on all those who have deviated to the Devil’s path (Arabic: tariq al-Shaitan) to return to goodness and to turn themselves in to the security forces and to describe in details their crimes before it’s too late;
• Finance Minister Muhamad Zu’di Nashashibi describes the difficulties resulting from the failure of the Arab countries to fulfill their obligations quickly to turn financial sums over to the Palestinian National Authority in the face of tyrannical Israeli measures.”

8 a.m. Sunday Morning Headlines

• ” His Excellency President Yasser Arafat receives Regional Development Minister Shimon Peres in Gaza last night along with the Israeli delegation headed by Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami;
• Nabil Abu-Irdeineh says the meeting dealt with final status issues and the need to reach agreement on these issues;
• State Security court hands down yesterday death sentences by firing squad to the two agents Muhammad al-Khatib and Hussam al-Din Musa for high treason. In addition it sentenced Hanna Mansour Hanna Salameh and Muhammad Awadallah to life imprisonment for treason and assaults against the Fatah Movement. And Mr. Freih Abu-Medein, the Justice Minister, called on all agents to turn themselves in security officials;
• Dr. Nabil Sha’ath, Minister of Economic Development, reviews with the Norwegian foreign minister the most recent developments taking place in Palestinian lands;
• Advisor on National Security to the American President, Sandy Berger, says much work is needed to achieve agreement before President Clinton leaves office on the 20th of this month;
• One youth wounded by occupation forces at southern approaches to Qalqilya;
• Israeli occupation forces arrest Engineer Jamil Nurawri, head of engineering for Palestinian Broadcasting
• His Holiness Pope John Paul II calls for executing the principles of international legitimacy in the Palestinian lands….”

10 a.m. Sunday Morning Headlines
(repetition of top headlines from 7/8 am) and…

• “Minister of Information Yasser Abd-Rabbo says the Palestinian side will NOT accept another declaration of principles…demands a full and complete settlement based on international legitimacy.”

Quotes from Interview with PA Information Minister, Yasser Abd Rabbo

“We will not accept that these new (American) thoughts or initaitives become the new basis for the peace process. The source authority for the process remain what it was. We accept clear differences, but there was no progress achieved.

The discussion was a serious one, perhaps, but there was nothing that was executed or carried out in terms of progress at the meeting. It was agreed that discussions would continue in the coming days to continue discussions on these subjects.” (Abd Rabbo was asked about Israeli attempts to take the talks from the basis of UN resolutions to a basis of the American ideas, and he said…)

“There’s no doubt from what was said that that’s the new intention.hey said they wanted to reach an agreement. We said we wanted to reach an agreement, but such an agreement cannot be a declaration of general principles because such a declaration would not help the peace process at all. It would just a collection of headlines and slogans. What’s needed is a comprehensive and detailed agreement which deals with all matters, which deals with the costs of implementations and international guarantees on the obligations for implementation so that there will not be any evasion for implementation…as there was in the past. That’s the basic thing, and we believe that the Israeli side understood that a declaration of principles or general remarks…is not something that can be realized, and the Palestinian side cannot accept it. What is needed is a serious agreement, really an agreement whose implementation can begin the following day and not an agreement whose negotiation or the negotiation of whose central points begins the following day.”

“I want to say there’s no escaping (our need) to express our readiness to continue with the peace process, unless we’re convinced that there’s progress or not (because), it is impossible to close the door to negotiations and the peace process because of the comprehension of the world, of public opinion, of public opinion in Israel for our positions. (We have no choice but) We have to continue on our part, in our policy, and there is nothing that has been found that can prevent us from attempting negotiations until there are no results.”

Asked about security considerations, Abd-Rabbo said

“I don’t like talk about implementing security. We have just and clear demands such as lifting the encirclement and the closure and the violations being practiced against the Palestinian people on a daily basis. We have indicated that, and the evil actions such as the evil transfer of (the body) and the mutilation of exalted martyr in Hebron in front of world television cameras. All these actions show that these sort of actions must stop…for the sake of the peace process, if we really want a peace process.”

Quotes from report by Nizar al-Ghul, concerning executions:

“In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful…(reads verse from Quran regarding treatment of those who have evil spirits, then continues)…Indeed these agents cast evil on themselves and on those around them, and this week was a week characterized by settling accounts with those who made blood cheap, as witness what happened to the agent Bani-Odeh before the sentence of God and the people was carried out, who stood head bowed, falling quickly and quietly in the street as the bullets of holiness and justice brought him to the ground.”

(Report went on the describe trial verdict of Bethlehem court where two more death sentences were handed down-as per report by Sayyid Ayyad. Note: lead-in to Al-Ghul’s report was anchorman again reading parts of yesterday’s interview with Freih Abu-Medein, Justice Minister, calling for all enemy agents to turn themselves in]

Islamic Defense of Death Penalty

“When someone sinks to treason and serving as an agent, then Islamic law permits him to be condemned to death. We are in favor of executing anyone who sinks to serving as an agent against the Muslim collective.” (Sheikh Ikrema al-Sabry, Jerusalem Mufti, 7:53 am)