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Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words
Jubilant Palestinians dancing and chanting in the streets…Palestinian
Authority policemen firing their assault rifles in the air…Children
being tossed candy in a gala celebration. These are the brazen images
the American people saw on their screens as they sat stunned in
the aftermath of the barbaric attacks on the United States on September
11. But this footage of Palestinian Arabs reveling in the massacre
of thousands of Americans and the destruction of the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon was only briefly aired. The many anti-American
rallies held in Ramallah, Jericho, Gaza, and other places in the
territories were not broadcast. Not newsworthy? The Palestinian
Authority decided it wouldn't be the best public-relations move
and suppressed further coverage.
Palestinian
Authority Tactics
In the West Bank city of Nablus, armed Palestinian security services
rounded up foreign journalists, detaining them in a hotel so that
they could not report on and photograph a celebratory rally. A freelance
cameraman with Associated Press Television News, who managed to
film the ghoulish Palestinian reaction to the carnage, was threatened
by Yasser Arafat's Tanzim, the military arm of his Fatah group.
Encouraging the Associated Press in Jerusalem not to air the footage,
Ahmed Abdel Rahman, Arafat's cabinet secretary, said that the Palestinian
Authority "cannot guarantee the life" of the cameraman
if his film was broadcast. Associated Press Bureau Chief Dan Perry,
protesting to the PA on Wednesday, September 12, about the treatment
of the cameraman, said, "I ask the assurances of the Palestinian
Authority that you will protect our journalists from threats and
attempts at intimidation and that no harm would come to our freelance
cameraman from distribution of the film." Taking the death
threat seriously, the cameraman asked that his footage not be aired,
a plea acceded to by the Associated Press Television News.
In another incident, foreign journalists covering a pro-terrorist
anti-U.S. demonstration in the Gaza Strip on Friday, September 14,
were questioned and arrested by Palestinian plainclothes policemen.
The PA officials confiscated equipment and film footage, and warned
photographers not to publish pictures of demonstrators carrying
posters of terrorist Osama bin Laden. About 1,500 Palestinians participated
in the rally which was led by supporters of Hamas, the Islamic terrorist
group that specializes in suicide bombings of Israelis.
Palestinian Authority officials admit to suppressing film footage
and photos. PA Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said, "These
measures were not against the freedom of the press but in order
to ensure our national security and our national interest."
But censorship is highly consistent with the regime of the PA, a
terrorist dictatorship that executes terrorist attacks against Israel,
incites hatred and violence, and praises terrorist murderers of
Americans. It controls all media, newspapers, television, radio,
which are conduits for government propaganda. Arafat's official
newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadidah serves as the voice of the
Islamic terrorist groups Fatah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad.
Yasser
Arafat and the PR War
Palestinian demonstrations that have broken out since September
11 have been photo-ops for Western journalists and videographers
but a public-relations nightmare for Yasser Arafat. Why not televise
these joyful events? No great mystery here. He fears that the United
States and other Western nations will associate him with international
terrorism, leading to a loss of support for his Palestinian cause
in the PR war. The linking of Hamas and Osama bin Laden, prime suspect
in the attacks on the United States, and the appearance that Arafat
endorses the latter's handiwork, could cost him dearly. Arafat seems
to have learned his lesson from the Persian Gulf War, in which he
aligned himself with Saddam Hussein, an association that made him
a pariah. Resuscitated by the Oslo Accords, he might not be so lucky
this time.
To counter what is apodictically an attack on freedom of the press,
Arafat has tried to distract journalists with photo-ops that show
Palestinian support for the U.S. victims of terrorism: Arafat donating
blood, Palestinian children expressing solidarity, candlelight vigils.
Can journalists really be fooled by these Kodak moments? It's difficult
to imagine. And yet, Arafat's condolences to the American people
were broadcast far and wide, with no mention that on that same day
the Palestinian Authority's newspaper praised suicide bombers as
"the noble successors of their noble predecessors…the
Lebanese suicide bombers who taught the US Marines a tough lesson
in Lebanon…the salt of the earth, the engines of history…the
most honorable people among us."
So
What's the Press to Do?
Western journalists who write from Israel ply their trade in a free
society with democratic institutions, including a free press that
guarantees the unfettered flow of information, and therefore run
no professional or personal risks. On the other hand, reporting
from Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority-controlled territories
can be dangerous business, as some journalists have found out. Intimidation
and death threats work. Journalists and news agencies capitulate
out of fear of losing access to sources of information, being detained
or arrested, harmed or killed. The Associated Press, Jerusalem
Post, and Agence France Press published reports on the latest
intimidation tactics used by the Palestinian Authority. This is
to their credit. But why have they not been joined by throngs of
journalists in covering this big story, arguably the biggest
story for the fourth estate?
The World Press Freedom
Committee has been doing battle to make news media free of government
interference around the globe. Two of the principles of its Charter
for a Free Press include: "Censorship, direct or indirect,
is unacceptable" and "Journalists, like all citizens,
must be secure in their persons and be given full protection of
law." (For those interested, WPFC information is available
in several languages, including Arabic.)
Journalists who may soon find themselves on nasty Middle Eastern
frontlines would do well to remember that appeasement is never a
good policy.
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