MOUNTING OUTRAGE OVER ISRAEL’S TRENCHANT REFUSAL TO ALLOW FOREIGN MEDIA INTO GAZA
January 7th 2009 08:18
On January 6, Israel scrapped arrangements to allow the first foreign reporters into Gaza since it launched an all-out war against Palestinian militants, adding to mounting media frustration at being locked out of the war zone.
Israel says opening crossings to let journalists in would endanger the staff at the terminals, which have often been targeted by militants.
Israeli officials are unapologetic about the ban, saying many foreign reporters are biased against Israel and easily manipulated or intimidated by Hamas.
But the effect of the ban is to force many media outlets to rely on partisan reports from the Israeli military or Gaza's Hamas rulers and militants for information.
The army had been set to allow eight reporters in on Friday, in keeping with a compromise engineered by the Supreme Court, then postponed it to January 6, and then nixed the plan.
Meanwhile, Christopher Warren, the federal secretary of Australia’s Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance said the press must be allowed into Gaza.
He wrote, “It may be that the following line uttered by the director of the government’s press office Daniel Seaman (and reported by the Associated Press) might hold a clue as to the real attitude of Israel’s government towards journalists. Seaman said Hamas routinely manipulates coverage to make Israel look bad, adding: ‘And they get away with it because of the unprofessional cooperation of the foreign press, which takes questionable reports at face value without checking.’
“The sad irony of this is that because of the ban, the world is relying almost exclusively on reports by local journalists. It's rather difficult to check the facts when you are not allowed close to the events.
Meanwhile Irfan Yusuf wrote in Crikey.com that the Western-centric media ignores Al Jazeera.
He wrote, “When are allegedly authoritative Western newsagencies going to get off their high horses and acknowledge that the English-language service of Al Jazeera has beaten them to it? A large number of my friends have discovered that the satellite dish on their roof picks up Al Jazeera English, which boasts such non-Western journalists as Sir David Frost, Rageh Omaar (formerly of BBC World) and Riz Khan (formerly of BBC World and CNN). Quite a few Al Jazeera English reports hail from such third world journalistic backwaters as New Zealand and Australia.
“Israel clearly isn't happy with Al Jazeera. Then again, the newsagency has frequently fallen foul of the Iranian, Afghan, Egyptian and Saudi governments. One Al Jazeera photo-journalist, Sami El-Hajj, was captured by the US and spent years at the Guantanamo gulag.
“Al Jazeera has four reporters on the ground in Gaza, including from Gaza City's Shifa Hospital, carrying interviews from European volunteer doctors working for a variety of NGO’s. Al Jazeera’s Jacky Rowland reports from both sides of the Israel/Gaza border.
“Suffice it to say that their reports don’t exactly confirm claims by senior Israeli leaders like Tzvipi Livni that there isn’t a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Al Jazeera also hasn’t spared senior Hamas leaders like Osama Hamdan in Beirut from tough questioning about why they don’t just promise not to fire further rockets into southern Israel.”
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