Hamas intimideert en deporteert journalisten

[Eliyahu]

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Hamas Admits Harassing, Deporting Journalists Who Filmed Rockets
In revealing TV interview, Hamas foreign relations chief outlines how the Islamist terror group made sure foreign journalists toed the line.
By Ari Soffer
First Publish: 8/15/2014, 4:14 PM

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/184083

In a remarkably candid interview on Lebanese TV, the head of foreign relations at Hamas's Information Ministry in Gaza explained how harassment, interrogations and deportations were used to ensure that journalists reporting from Gaza during Operation Protective Edge stuck to Hamas's official line and did not report "the Israeli narrative".

Speaking to Mayadeen TV, Isra al-Mudallal decried how some foreign reporters had reported on Hamas rocket fire against Israeli civilians, and claimed that their interest was due to the fact that "the journalists who entered Gaza were fixated on the notion of peace, and on the Israeli narrative."

The interview was translated by MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVjDiI1xm4U#t=12

Foreign journalists have regularly complained of being harassed by Hamas authorities in Gaza, directly leading to biased coverage in favor of Islamist terrorists and against Israel.

Allegations of intimidation, beatings, imprisonment and deportations of journalists who dared to question Hamas's official line culminated in a strong protest by the Foreign Press Association earlier this week.

[Eliyahu]

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Hamas provides new info on moves to squeeze foreign media

Spokeswoman says pressure meant to ensure ‘fair reporting,’ block information about rocket launch sites
By Elhanan Miller August 17, 2014, 8:04 pm


Hamas spokeswoman Isra Al-Mudallal, who admitted in an interview last week that her movement obstructed the work of foreign journalists covering Operation Protective Edge in Gaza, gave more information on Sunday about Hamas’s motives in curtailing foreign coverage of its military activities against Israel in Gaza.

“Any measure that is taken against any foreign journalist working in Gaza is based on the extent to which he or she upholds standards of professional journalism and fair reporting,” Mudallal wrote on her Facebook page Sunday morning. “We have seen serious breaches of these standards by a small number of journalists whose main task seemed to be locating the places where Palestinian resistance rockets were launched or reporting on the whereabouts of Palestinian resistance fighters while ignoring reporting on the sheer violence and destruction and bloodshed wreaked by the Israeli occupation army on the Gaza population.”

According to Mudallal, who is the head of foreign relations in Hamas’s Information Ministry, journalists wishing to report on Hamas rocket launches were “unfairly and unjustifiably siding with Israel and parroting Israel’s propaganda machine.” Their reporting, she added, “seems to be telling only half-truths or propagating lies and misinformation, offering sensitive information for free to the Israeli occupation.”

Last Thursday, in an interview with the Lebanese TV channel Al-Mayadeen, Mudallal inadvertently acknowledged that the group had strong-armed journalists in Gaza into a reporting style that suited its narrative, keeping many under surveillance and kicking out of the territory those who sought to film the launching of rockets at Israel.

In the television interview, relayed and translated Friday by the Middle East Media Research Institute, Mudallal complained that “the coverage by foreign journalists in the Gaza Strip was insignificant compared to their coverage within the Israeli occupation (Israel).”

“Moreover,” she said, “the journalists who entered Gaza were fixated on the notion of peace and on the Israeli narrative.” She asserted that the foreign press was focused “on filming the places from where missiles were launched. Thus, they were collaborating with the occupation.”

The Israeli army has said that 600 of the 3,300 rockets fired into Israel over recent weeks were launched from residential areas, including schools, mosques and homes.

“These journalists were deported from the Gaza Strip,” Mudallal said. “The security agencies would go and have a chat with these people. They would give them some time to change their message, one way or another.”

Earlier last week, the Foreign Press Association, an umbrella group representing foreign journalists working in Israel and the Palestinian Authority territories, issued a strongly worded condemnation of Hamas’s intimidation tactics and its interference with their reporting in Gaza.

“The FPA protests in the strongest terms the blatant, incessant, forceful and unorthodox methods employed by the Hamas authorities and their representatives against visiting international journalists in Gaza over the past month,” the statement said. “The international media are not advocacy organizations and cannot be prevented from reporting by means of threats or pressure, thereby denying their readers and viewers an objective picture from the ground.”

As well as targeting journalists in Gaza, the press organization said it was aware that Hamas had been taking steps to vet those media personnel of whom it did not approve and to prevent them from reporting in Gaza.

“Such a procedure is vehemently opposed by the FPA,” the statement said.

The FPA asserted that “in several cases, foreign reporters working in Gaza have been harassed, threatened or questioned over stories or information they have reported through their news media or by means of social media.”

A numbers of reporters working in Gaza reported on Hamas’s use of civilian infrastructure for military means, but said they were only able to do so once out of the Strip, for fear of Hamas reprisals.

A report by India-based NDTV last week on Hamas assembling and firing a rocket next to a hotel used by journalists was filed hours after the reporter left Gaza, because “Hamas has not taken very kindly to any reporting of its rockets being fired,” NDTV’s Sreenivasan Jain wrote.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.

[Johan Bollen]

Deel van een strategie:

Uphill task for Israel's apologists

The level of brutality seen in Israel's latest offensive on Gaza leaves the spin doctors typically deployed to absolve the country of blame with a harder task than in past years. Instead of throwing the focus on any of Hamas's crimes, the civilian casualty level puts a spotlight on the creeping militarization of Israeli society.

[Eliyahu]

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Forty questions for the international media in Gaza

By David Bernstein July 31

Reprinted with the permission of the author from the (excellent) British “Harry’s place” blog.

1. Have you or any of your colleagues been intimidated by Hamas?

2. Do you feel restricted in your ability to ‘say what you see’ in Gaza?

3. How do you feel about the Spanish journalist who said Hamas would kill any journalist if they filmed rocket fire?

4. Has Hamas pressured you to delete anything you have published?

5. Has Hamas ever threatened to take your phone, laptop or camera?

6. Has Hamas ever taken the phone, laptop or camera of a colleague in Gaza?

7. Have you seen Hamas fighters in Gaza?

8. If yes, why have you not directly reported Hamas fighting activity when you are eye-witnesses in Gaza, but rather indirectly reported about what the IDF says they Hamas has done?

9. Are you scared to publish photos of Hamas operatives on your Twitter page, or broadcast images of Hamas fighting and aggression on your news channel?

10. Have you published any photos of terrorists launching rockets in Gaza? If so, are these images being turned down by your newspaper or broadcaster?

11. Have you thought of interviewing the traumatised residents of southern Israel?

12. When Israeli authorities say that most of the dead in Gaza are terrorists, and Hamas says most of the dead in Gaza are civilians, how do you differentiate?

13. When Hamas Health Ministry statistics contradict Hamas’ own propaganda and reveal that mostly men of fighting age have died so far in Gaza, does it give you pause for thought?

14. Is an underage armed terrorist still counted as a terrorist or a child when killed? Or both? Do you explain to your readers how this is possible?

15. Have you put to Hamas spokespersons that firing rockets from civilian areas in a war situation will draw return fire and lead to the death of civilians?

16. Nick Casey of the Wall Street Journal tweeted: “you have to wonder with the shelling, how patients at Shifa hospital feel as Hamas uses it as a safe place to see media.” Never mind wondering; did you ask any patients how they feel?

17. And how do you feel about the fact that Casey subsequently deleted his tweet?

18. Russia Today journalist Harry Fear mentioned rocket-launching sites near his hotel. Have you noticed any terrorists or terror bases near your hotel?

19. How do you feel about Fear’s expulsion from Gaza, for tweeting about the rocket launches from civilian areas? Are you worried that you might also be expelled from Gaza?

20. Did you see any Hamas terror personnel inside Al-Shifa hospital?

21. Have you interviewed a Hamas spokesperson inside Al-Shifa?

22. Have you seen any rocket-launching sites in or around the vicinity of a hospital?

23. Have you interviewed hospital staff or patients as to how they feel about their buildings being used for terror activity?

24. Hamas’ command and control bunker is underneath Al Shifa hospital. Is this worth reporting? Have you asked to gain access to it, so you can interview Hamas commanders?

25. French newspaper Liberation reported that Hamas’ Al Qassam offices are next to the emergency room at Shifa hospital, before deleting the article. Was the reporter right to delete the article, and will the information appear in the media at some point still?

26. When the missile hit Al-Shati hospital where children were killed, did you see Hamas operatives collecting the debris of the fallen Palestinian rocket, as Gabriel Barbati reported? Did Barbati pick up on something you missed?

27. Barbati prefaced his tweet by writing “Out of Gaza, far from Hamas retaliation.” Will you also report differently about Gaza when you are out of Gaza, far from Hamas retaliation?

28. Can live journalism by reporters who are scared of retaliation from the authorities they are reporting about really count as pure journalism, or is journalism in that context fundamentally compromised?

29. Have you seen or heard evidence of Hamas using civilians as human shields, by forcing or “encouraging” them to stay inside or enter into a building that has received a knock on the roof?

30. Have you seen or heard evidence of Hamas storing weapons inside schools, houses, flats, mosques or hospitals?

31. Have you interviewed Gazan residents to find out if they have – or know someone who has – a tunnel dug underneath their house? How do they feel about this?

32. Have you tried to interview any of the parents of the 160 Palestinian children who died building the terror tunnels?

33. Have you asked Hamas spokespersons why they are setting out to murder children by firing rockets towards civilian populations?

34. Have you interviewed any UNRWA officials about why Hamas are storing weapons in their schools, and how the weapons got there?

35. Are you currently investigating how Hamas rockets ended up in UNRWA schools?

36. Are you currently investigating why UNRWA returned rockets to Hamas and their police force?

37. When Hamas breaks a ceasefire with Israel – as it has done 6 times – how easy is it to report on this from Gaza?

38. Is there any anti-Hamas sentiment in Gaza, and how is it expressed?

39. Were you aware that Hamas chose to execute dozens of anti-war protesters in Gaza, and did you not consider this to be worth
reporting?

40. Is international media reporting from Gaza free from pressure and intimidation, or is there a real problem – and if so, how will you address it?
David Bernstein is the George Mason University Foundation Professor at the George Mason University School of Law in Arlington, VA.

[Eliyahu]

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Hans Jansen - Zelfredzaamheid

Actie wekt reactie. Waar de islam een rol speelt, rapporteren de Nederlandse media niet, of halfslachtig, over de actie. De reactie daarentegen wordt breed uitgemeten. Wanneer Gaza door Israel gebombardeerd wordt, krijgen we wel te horen over dode kinderen in Gaza, maar er wordt weinig of geen aandacht besteed aan de acties waardoor de Israëlische reactie is opgeroepen, te weten de ‘primitieve’ raketaanvallen door Hamas, en de gevolgen van die raketaanvallen voor Israëlische bevolking. Want Gaza is zielig, en Israel is gemeen. Ander voorbeeld: Wanneer honderden moslims op de Hoefkade gewelddadig actie voeren tegen een door de gemeente Den Haag toegestane demonstratie, maken de media bij herhaling schamper melding van ‘rechts-extremistische’ demonstranten. Zijn het dat wel? Maar zelfs dan, het democratische recht op demonstreren is hen ontnomen door het gebruik van geweld door een paar honderd dubbelepaspoorthouders. Over die stenengooiende activisten, schaamteloze sympathisanten van de moordenaars en verkrachters van de ‘Islamitische Staat’ in Syrië en Irak, zijn de media ‘terughoudend’. Die ‘Islamitische Staat’ begaat gruwelen en zet die zelfs op YouTube, maar vindt desondanks sympathisanten in heel Europa, tot in Den Haag toe. Dat kan niet goed gaan.

De media stellen het voor alsof wie zich hierover zorgen maakt, niet snik is: als we de media geloven, zijn het uitsluitend de tokkies die tegen dit alles willen demonstreren. Waarom pakken de media dat zo aan?

Waarom doen de media zo zuinigjes over die twee onmiskenbare oorlogsmisdaden van Hamas, te weten het beschieten van de burgerbevolking van Israel en het gebruiken van de eigen burgerbevolking als menselijk schild?

De aanwezigheid van kansloze immigranten in de oude stadswijken, kansloze Palestijnen in Gaza, en de ‘Islamitische Staat’ in Irak en Syrië (en God weet waar nog meer) hebben met elkaar te maken. Ze zijn alle drie het resultaat van beleid waar geen gewoon goed Nederlands beschrijvend woord voor bestaat. Alle beschikbare termen zijn er net naast.

‘Links’ of ‘socialistisch’ klinkt voor het Nederlands te arbeideristisch, vanwege de associatie met de emancipatie van de arbeidersklasse. Het Amerikaanse liberal klinkt te deftig vanwege de manier waarop ‘liberaal’ in het Nederlands gebruikt wordt. ‘Progressief’ klinkt niet goed, omdat vooruitgang vaak heilzaam is.

‘Establishment’ ruikt te veel naar graaiers met een aflossingsvrije hypotheek op een welgelegen landgoed. ‘Internationalistisch’ roept de geestdodende vaagheid op waarvan EU-bestuurders zich bedienen. ‘OSM’, ‘ons soort mensen’, klinkt alsof het uitsluitend om een vriendenclubje gaat zonder ideologische lading. ‘Derdewereldisme’ is een mooi woord, maar impliceert de voormalige tweedeling uit de Koude Oorlog.

Gaza, de Schilderswijk en de Islamitische Staat zijn het resultaat van beleid dat we voor het gemak maar even kortweg ‘links’ noemen – ook al is dat woord er net naast, zie boven.

De problemen als die in de Schilderswijk zijn ontstaan uit weerzin tegen redelijke reflectie over massa-immigratie en de sociaal-economische gevolgen daarvan. Die weerzin heeft geleid tot de ongecontroleerde instroom van niet-zelfredzame migranten.

Jaloezie op de zelfredzaamheid van de Zionisten, en onbekendheid met het Nabije Oosten, hebben geleid tot het niet oplossen van het probleem met de Arabieren die in en rond Israel wonen. Na de wereldoorlogen zijn vanwege grenswijzigingen miljoenen vluchtelingen geherhuisvest. Waarom is er een uitzondering gemaakt voor de ‘slachtoffers’ van de stichting van Israel? Israel is niet meer dan één van de vele nieuwe staten die zijn ontstaan uit de ontbinding van het Ottomaanse wereldrijk.

De ‘Islamitische Staat’ in Irak en Syrië kon zich vormen doordat Obama, om wat voor redenen ook, in het Nabije Oosten een machtsvacuüm heeft laten ontstaan. Dat machtsvacuüm wordt opgevuld door lokale krachten. Obama haat de Amerikaanse zelfredzaamheid (oriënteer u over Obamacare!), en belet de Amerikaanse legers het Nabije Oosten een Pax Americana op te leggen, waaronder gewone mensen daar, in zelfredzaamheid, normale levens kunnen gaan leiden. De IS doet verder niets anders dan gebruik maken van de geboden gelegenheid en past de sharia toe. Ja, dat is even schrikken als je aan de universiteit geleerd hebt dat de sharia net zoiets onschuldigs is als Nederlands recht.

Veel noodlottig westers beleid is te verklaren uit een soort derdewereldisme, gekoppeld aan een misdadige dan wel ziekelijke afkeer van zelfredzaamheid: Die zelfredzaamheid van Israel is een schande! Migranten en ‘armen’ horen niet de gelegenheid te krijgen zelfredzaam te worden! Hou ze kort. Bind ze vast met uitkeringen. Zorg dat het Amerikaanse leger in Irak geen vrede afdwingt! Leg geen wapenstilstanden op maar verleen humanitaire hulp! Onvermijdelijk resultaat: een catastrofe tot in alle uithoeken.

De media rapporteren halfslachtig over problemen als die met Gaza, de IS en de Schilderswijk – niet uit dommigheid of onkunde, maar omdat de media zelf deel uitmaken van de beschaafde internationale vriendenkring die deze problemen schept. Zelfredzaamheid? Uiteraerd amice, maar liever niet zo maar voor iedereen.