This week we feature old friend, Jeff Halper, resident of Jerusalem, and co-founder of the Israeli committee against House Demolitions, who is now on his annual speaking tour of the US. This particular presentation is his conversation with Dr. Michael Spath, director of the Indiana Center For Middle East Peace.
But first, we begin today with an open letter published just a couple of weeks ago which was signed by 304 working Palestinian journalists who are under constant physical and psychological threats for doing their jobs. Their work is constantly monitored by the well-funded Zionist lobby that then pressure media sources to silence their reporting when it is critical of Israel. To give visibility to this constant subterranean censorship campaign, the journalists published the following open letter:
“On October 18, the Thomson Reuters foundation withdrew the Kurt Schork award from Palestinian journalist Shatha Hammad, who is based in the occupied West Bank, following an incitement campaign against her. Earlier this month, the New York Times dismissed two Palestinian photographers from the besieged Gaza Strip for similar reasons, and others before them in the BBC and Deutsche Welle.
"These developments come within a series of targeted attacks on Palestinian journalists working in international organizations, by Zionist lobby groups specialized in surveilling and persecuting Palestinians over what they write and publish. Such institutions, which operate similarly to Israeli intelligence agencies, aim to discredit Palestinians and prevent them from highlighting Israeli oppression in Palestine. Their strategies are clear: they dig deep into journalists’ social media accounts, chasing after any expressions, statements, or even jokes said in childhood, taking them out of context and weaponizing them. What matters to these institutions is to continue to suffocate what remains of the air not contaminated by their bullets.
"They incite against journalists, including for their use of everyday words that form an essential part of the Palestinian and Arab lexicon such as “martyr” and “resistance,” often directly targeting Palestinian national identity and history.
"It is known that such meticulous standards do not apply to Israeli journalists. Rather, such attacks are intended to further diminish the credibility of the underdogs in this fight. That is why international institutions like Reuters quickly bend to Zionist pressure, while turning a blind eye to Israeli journalists’ questionable or hateful statements, conflict of interest, and, most importantly, their past or present personal involvement in the material violence committed against Palestinians.
"We must end these targeted civil assassinations by standing together and refusing any kind of blackmail. The issue here is not to defend or contextualize specific sentences or expressions. We refuse to be trapped in these kinds of investigations that distract, through fallacies of debate, from the material violence of the Israeli regime.
"We stand against oppressive scrutiny, and against the institutions that bolster the silencing of Palestinian journalists. We stand with the journalist Shatha Hammad, who is known for her professionalism, and with our other colleagues."
As we said, 304 journalists signed the statement.
The US Government and its representatives have a long history of averting their eyes when it comes to facing irrefutable evidence of Israeli human rights violations. That is why constant exposure of their complicity is so important. We owe a debt of gratitude to these 304 journalists who are exposing attacks on their journalism and by continuing to confront our government with the realities of the colonization of Palestine and the brutality of Israel’s military occupation.
This Week In Palestine (a weekly part of Truth and Justice Radio) is an award-winning three-quarter-hour segment of news from Palestine and discussion of issues relevant to the Palestinians' struggle for freedom from Israel's brutal military occupation and colonization of their homeland. It speaks from the point of view of Palestinians and those who care about them. It's a regular part of Truth and Justice Radio, aired Sundays 6-10am ET on WZBC 90.3FM, Newton, MA, streaming live and archived for two weeks at wzbc.org; Truthandjusticeradio.org has a link to This Week In Palestine archives back thru 1-6-2008. (TJR airs occasional Palestine coverage IN ADDITION to that provided by This Week In Palestine.) We hope you'll write to us at tjradio@fastmail.com if you rebroadcast our work, or have questions or comments.
This Week in Palestine 11-6-2022
Mainstream media's blackball against honest Palestinian reporting; Jeff Halper's analysis of the so-called "conflict"
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