Award winning Israeli Arab journalist and Arab affairs correspondent for the Jerusalem Post, Khaled Abu Toameh, has written a fascinating and insightful article for the Gatestone Institute.
His anecdotes concerning the ignorance and bias of many foreign journalists reporting from Israel are shocking yet not altogether surprising. Some key points:
- Foreign journalists based in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv have for years refused to report on the financial corruption and human rights violations that are rife under the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas regimes. Palestinian “suffering” and the “evil” of the Israeli “occupation” are the only admissible topics.
- Another Ramallah-based colleague shared that a few years ago he received a request from a cub correspondent to help arrange an interview with Yasser Arafat. Except at that point, Arafat had been dead for several years. Fresh out of journalism school and unknowledgeable about the Middle East, the journalist was apparently considered by his editors a fine candidate for covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
- Western reporters would do well to remember that journalism in this region is not about being pro-Israel or pro-Palestinian. Rather, it is about being “pro” the truth, even when the truth runs straight up against what they would prefer to believe.
Read the full article at the Gatestone Institute.
