Role of the Media

In 2003, South End Press published a book entitled Live From Palestine: International and Palestinian Direct Action Against the Israeli Occupation, edited by Nancy Stohlman and Laurieann Aladin, with introductions by Noam Chomsky and Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi, co-founder of Grassroots International Protection for the Palestinian People. The book contains contributions from two EI co-founders, Arjan El Fassed and Ali Abunimah, and reprinted several diary entries from The Electronic Intifada. The following article by Arjan El Fassed from the book introduces The Electronic Intifada’s diary project, Live From Palestine, after which the book was titled. Reprinted with permission.

The following text is from a seminar presentation, “An Overview of the Role of the International Media Regarding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict”, given by Siham Rashid, Director of the Public Relations Department, Palestinian Counseling Center (PCC) on 29 August 2003. Hosted by the Alternative Information Center (AIC), the seminar was titled “A Middle East Without Wars and Oppression is Possible: An International Seminar on the Palestinian Struggle and Globalization”.

Two Israeli Likud lawmakers who insist on going up to the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif because of their ‘devout Judaism’ were revealed to be know-nothings when it came to Jewish history, when an Israeli TV presenter gave the two parliamentarians a surprise pop quiz. The Electronic Intifada has translated this story and transcript from the Israeli news website Walla News.

Israel joined Zimbabwe last weekend as one of two countries boycotting the BBC. The move was taken in protest of the “biased and hostile coverage policy,” as Danny Seaman, the head of the Government Press Office in Jerusalem put it. Although Israel has not gone so far as to expel journalists, as did Zimbabwe, “A decision to expel all BBC correspondents has not been ruled out,” Seaman says. At this stage, Israel is making do with measures designed to make life more difficult for the BBC. Sharon Sadeh reports in Ha’aretz.

Israel declared over the weekend that it is cutting off ties with the BBC to protest a repeat broadcast of a documentary about non-conventional weapons said to be in Israel. Here is part two of the complete transcript of the program.

Israel declared over the weekend that it is cutting off ties with the BBC to protest a repeat broadcast of a documentary about non-conventional weapons said to be in Israel. The program was broadcast for the first time in March in Britain, and was rerun Saturday on a BBC channel that is aired all over the world. The boycott decision was made by Israel’s public relations forum, made up of representatives from the Prime Minister’s Office, the Foreign Ministry and the Government Press Office. It was decided that government offices won’t assist BBC producers and reporters, that Israeli officials will not give interviews to the British network, and that the Government Press Office will make it difficult for BBC employees to get press cards and work visas in Israel. Before the broadcast Saturday, Israeli officials tried to pressure the BBC to cancel the broadcast, saying that the program was biased and presented Israel as an evil dictatorship. Here is a complete transcript of the program.

It wasn’t a border dispute so much as a margin dispute. More to the point, it was the highly-flammable material between the margins that fueled last week’s clash over press freedoms and democracy between two of Israel’s most influential newspapers. Compared with the leading Israeli daily Yediot Aharanot (published only in Hebrew and with a weekday circulation of 350,000), the dailies Haaretz (50,000 per weekday) and The Jerusalem Post, (a mere 15,000 per weekday) are not the biggest players on the Israeli media market. But both Haaretz and The Post command an influence beyond their numbers in Israel. Must-reading among visiting diplomats and journalists, the weekly international edition of The Post, and the two papers’ English Web sites draw large numbers of American Jews, thereby informing the Middle East debate within the world’s largest, most powerful Jewish Diaspora community. So when Haaretz publisher Amos Schocken floated the charge that Israeli press freedoms where in jeopardy, word washed up on American shores.” Jacob Laksin writes in