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by Khaled Abu Toameh
• February 5, 2015 at 5:00 am
This
is no longer a "local" issue or internal Palestinian affair.
Those who are seeking to silence the Palestinian journalists are also
trying to prevent the international media from finding out what is really
happening in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Now
that Islamic State has come into the picture with its own threats, one
should only expect the coverage from the West Bank and Gaza Strip --
largely dependent on information provided by local Palestinian
journalists -- to become even more hostile toward Israel and the West.
A
recent study by the Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms
found that 80% of Palestinian journalists practice self-censorship in
their writing. A Palestinian journalist is not going to report truthfully
when he is daily facing threats from so many parties. What is more
disturbing is that many of the international journalists are willing to
turn a blind eye to the dangers facing their employees and colleagues.
Freedom
of the media exists only when journalists direct their criticism against
Israel. Reporting about political or financial corruption in the
Palestinian Authority is seen as an act of "treason."
The
international media outlets are willing to take almost any story offered
to them by Palestinian reporters, especially if it consists of
anti-Israel statements. The Palestinian journalists know that at the end
of the day, they need to go back to their family in the West Bank and
Gaza without having to worry about masked men knocking on their doors at
night.
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Members of Islamic State, in Gaza. (Image source:
Islamic State YouTube video)
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The Islamic State terror group appears to have joined the
Palestinian Authority [PA] and Hamas in their campaign to silence
Palestinian journalists.
Over the past few days, several Palestinian journalists have
received death threats from the "Gaza branch" of Islamic State.
The group accused the journalists of publishing "lies" about
Islamic State in particular, and Islam in general.
The threats were sent to the journalists through social media and
messages to their mobile phones.
"Islamic State warns the journalist and media people against
their continued and constant attacks on us," read one of the
messages sent to the journalists. "We in Islamic State affirm that
we will execute the rule of the sharia [Islamic religious law] against
these apostates, who are sowing discord among Muslims."
The last threats have created panic among many Palestinian
journalists, who are already being targeted by Hamas in the Gaza Strip
and the PA in the West Bank.
by Burak Bekdil
• February 5, 2015 at 4:00 am
Erdogan
is raising the stakes, not just to hit Gulen. The way he fights Gulen has
a message to present and potential enemies: if you dare to gain my
enmity, this is what you, too, will face.
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Customers of a Bank Asya branch in Izmir, Turkey,
demonstrate their support for the bank, Feb. 4, 2014. (Image source:
Cihan video screenshot)
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"Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names," John
F. Kennedy apparently once said. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
follows a different practice: He neither forgives them, nor forgets their
names -- not even those of his enemies' friends.
Until they openly declared war on each other at the end of 2013,
Erdogan and Fethullah Gulen, an influential Muslim preacher who lives in
self-exile in Pennsylvania, were best political allies. Everyone thought
this was a "marriage made in heaven" between an ambitious
Islamist politician and a preacher who, together with his millions of
followers, ran a worldwide empire of schools, charity organizations,
banks, media companies and businesses.
Surprisingly, the ideal partnership broke up over ideological
differences and a struggle over sharing power.
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