Israel has been sharply criticized over press freedom in a report published this week by the Committee to Protect Journalists, timed to coincide with the year anniversary of the death of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was fatally shot while covering an anti-terror raid in Jenin.
Accusing the Israeli military of acting with “impunity” and severely undermining freedom of the press, the CPJ alleges in the report that it has “documented at least 20 journalist killings by members of the Israel Defense Forces” over the last 22 years.
While Israel should be held to account like every other country, the motivation behind the CPJ’s decision to produce a dedicated 32-page report is certainly questionable.
According to the organization’s own data, Israel does not even feature its so-called “Global Impunity Index,” which charts the countries in which press freedom is curtailed and where there is a lack of accountability when journalists are killed.
Why is @pressfreedom singling out #Israel in a special report when it didn’t even crack CPJ’s own Global Impunity Index?
They attribute 50%+ of all journalist deaths to Ukraine, Mexico & Haiti.
Newsflash: your double standards are showing. https://t.co/N7KIzYcEik pic.twitter.com/jiNWZponQb
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) May 8, 2023
Yet Israel stands in the dock ahead of countries where far more journalist deaths have occurred.
Upon being asked whether it was unfairly targeting Israel, the CPJ argued that it “regularly undertakes special reports on press freedom in a range of countries and on a range of thematic issues” and cited its reports on press freedom and journalist safety in the EU, Afghanistan, the United States and Myanmar.
‘Israel Labels Journalists as Terrorists’
One of the CPJ’s charges is that “Israel labels journalists as terrorists.”
Indeed Israel has repeatedly said that a number of the dead Palestinians were affiliated with terrorist groups. While the CPJ seeks to cast doubt on that claim, a quick glance at the report reveals Israel’s allegations are bang on the money.
For example, the CPJ highlights the 2018 death of Yaser Murtaja, a Palestinian press photographer and co-founder of the Ain Media production company during the Great March of Return protests in Gaza.
Testimony from local journalists who witnessed the incident described Murtaja as wearing a bulletproof vest and helmet that were both clearly marked with the words ‘PRESS’ when he was hit.
Hossam Hisham Salem, a photographer for Ain Media who witnessed his colleague being shot, told MADA that Murtaja was approximately 350 meters (1,148 ft) from the border fence when a bullet hit the right side of his abdomen.”
What CPJ fails to mention, however, is that Murtaja was also a Hamas terrorist who served for four years as an officer holding the rank of captain within the designated terror group’s internal security services in the Gaza Strip, and in 2015, Murtaja attempted to smuggle a drone from Israel into the coastal enclave with the purpose of aiding Hamas intelligence gathering.
Additionally, if the name of the key witness to Murtaja’s death sounds familiar, it’s because it is. Hossam Salem, whose testimony the CPJ relies heavily on, was recently fired from his freelance role at The New York Times after HonestReporting exposed his terrorist sympathies and murderous hatred of Jews — which should give an indication as to the reliability of the evidence.
Another death CPJ includes in the report is that of Khaled Reyadh Hamad, a member of Hamas’ Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, a terrorist operative who also apparently moonlighted as a cameraman in the terror group’s media network. Following his death in 2014, he was wrapped in the distinctive green flag of Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades (below) and was referred to as a “jihad fighter.”
Furthermore, three employees of the Al Aqsa Media Network are highlighted in the report — Hussam Salama, Sameh al-Aryan and Yousef Abu Hussein.
First, calling anyone on the payroll of the Al-Aqsa Media Network a “journalist” requires a reimagining of the word’s definition. Run by Hamas and regularly featuring programming that encourages terror attacks on Israeli civilians, the broadcaster is an Islamist propaganda outfit rather than a legitimate news outlet.
Second, both al-Aryan and Salama were fully-fledged Hamas operatives, with the latter’s terrorist involvement actually confirmed by Palestinian media shortly after his death in 2012.
Naturally, this CPJ report was swiftly and uncritically disseminated by international media outlets, including CNN and the Washington Post, which is perhaps unsurprising given that both media outlets were responsible for their own farcical “investigations” into Shireen Abu Akleh’s death that concluded she was deliberately targeted by the IDF despite independent probes into the incident proving otherwise.
The death of a journalist while doing their job is a tragedy that deserves to be properly investigated.
However, the CPJ’s shameless lumping of Hamas terrorists in with journalists seemingly to tarnish Israel is the opposite of good investigative work — it is blatant partisanship that is unworthy of the CPJ’s cause.
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