• by Mel Frykberg (ramallah)
• Wednesday, May 13, 2009
• Inter Press Service

Palestinian journalists in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip continue to be arrested and harassed by the respective security forces of the divided Palestinian leadership. And from Israel, a belated freedom has come to cover Gaza, but amidst other concerns.

Israeli authorities have eased the ban on foreign journalists entering the Gaza Strip after Israel's Foreign Press Association (FPA) took the Israeli Government Press Office (GPO) to court in an unprecedented move.

During Israel's January offensive on Gaza, the GPO enforced a blanket ban on the foreign media entering Gaza to report first-hand on unfolding events.

The Israeli authorities also declared a two-mile closed military zone from Gaza's border into Israeli territory, preventing hundreds of foreign journalists encamped on surrounding hills from effectively covering what was happening.

Instead, media coverage was left to Palestinian journalists and the few foreign correspondents who had managed to enter the coastal territory before the ban took effect.

However, even after the FPA's court victory a disagreement between the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) and the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) over negative coverage of the war further delayed the entrance of journalists.

A compromise thereafter allowed in a limited number of foreign journalists, approved by the IDF, several of whom were embedded with Israeli forces.

But, a media monitoring organisation said, this was too little too late.

The Israeli media is no longer free but only partly free, says an annual report from Freedom House, a non-profit, non-partisan organisation that promotes political and economic freedom worldwide.

Israel fell from position 31 last year (free) to position 71 this year (partly free), along with Benin in Africa, out of 195 countries surveyed. This was the first time in the U.S.- based Freedom House's ranking history that Israel had been excluded from the free category.

'Restrictions on journalists and official attempts to influence coverage during the Gaza conflict led to Israel's partly free status,' says the report.

Not everyone accepts the ranking. 'Freedom House's report is over the top,' Glenys Sugarman from the FPA told IPS. 'We eventually got what we wanted, which was access to Gaza.'

Ghassan Khatib, head of the Jerusalem Media Communication Centre (JMCC), says Israel's slip in ranking was justified.

'Even after the court ordered the Israeli authorities to open the Gaza border for journalists, they refused to do so for quite a while,' Khatib told IPS.

'Furthermore, the fact that the FPA had to take the Israeli government to court over the issue in the first place is problematic. This has never happened before.'

While Israel has always prided itself on media freedom, democracy and a free media are rare in the Arab world.

Media freedom in the Palestinian territories, ruled by the Islamic resistance organisation Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the Western-backed Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank, fared even worse in the Freedom House ratings, falling from position 86 to 184.

'The region (Africa and the Middle East) continues to have the world's lowest level of press freedom,' the report said.

'The Israeli-Occupied Territories/PA saw declines with both Hamas and Fatah (affiliated with the PA) intimidating journalists,' added the report.

Reporters Without Borders (RWB) in their 2008 report on media freedom said that Israel was capable of 'the worst and best when it comes to press freedom. Despite military censorship, the media continues to enjoy genuine freedom,' stated RWB.

But the organisation qualified this by expressing concern over the number of attacks on Palestinian journalists, apparently deliberately targeted by the IDF, citing 16 injured by live fire, rubber bullets or teargas grenades during the previous year.

Early last year, an Israeli tank, firing shells filled with flechettes, killed Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana and wounded his soundman Wafa Abu Mizyed. Eight bystanders were also killed.

The cameraman, whose vehicle bore the markings 'TV', while he was wearing a flak jacket marked 'Press', was in full view of Israeli soldiers, who were a few hundred feet away.

Writing in CPJ's magazine Dangerous Assignments, Reuters bureau chief Alastair Macdonald wrote, 'The troops failed to note 'TV' signs plastered over his jeep as it drove, twice, along the road they were monitoring through high-tech sights during the preceding half-hour.'

At least nine journalists have been killed in the West Bank and Gaza since 2001, eight of them in IDF attacks, according to CPJ research. 'And in the aftermath of these deaths, CPJ has found, Israeli military investigations are routinely marred by a lack of transparency and accountability.'

A number of foreign journalists have been injured covering demonstrations against Israel's separation barrier in the West Bank.

© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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