Ghanem Zreikat. Alaa al-Rabi. Amer Hamdan. Jihad Abdo. To the readership of prominent publications like The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN and others, the names of these detained Palestinian activists and journalists likely mean little. None of the leading global news outlets and wire services have reported on the plight of fellow journalists. The fact that Zreikat, al-Rabi, Abu Lafh, Hamdan and Abdo were detained by the Palestinian Authority — the Western-backed interim government in the West Bank widely seen as the official representative of the Palestinian people – is seemingly being treated as a banality.
In addition to the arrests, a PA court in the city of Ramallah on December 19 heard cases against 35 Palestinians charged with protesting the death of anti-corruption activist Nizar Banat, who was severely beaten during a raid on his home by troops loyal to PA President Mahmoud Abbas. These Palestinians also stand accused of insulting the PA leadership, a crime punishable by up to three years in prison under the territory’s penal statute.
The indictments were the culmination of a months-long campaign of intimidation and violence by Abbas’ forces, many of which had initially received training and weapons from the United States as part of a security assistance program (see here and here). Yet media are categorically failing to hold Ramallah accountable for the suffering being inflicted upon the Palestinian people.
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The PA’s crackdown on peaceful protesters went into overdrive following the death of Banat at the hand of PA forces in June, described by some Palestinians as an “assassination.”
Take, for example, the case of Ghanem Zreikat. The Hebron dentist, a friend of Nizar Banat, was arrested on December 13 following a raid that some called “brutal.” In July, Zreikat had shared video footage that purportedly showed Palestinian Authority-linked gunmen opening fire on his clinic. The attack, according to Zreikat, came after a “smear campaign and incitement” over his support for the anti-corruption movement.
Despite widespread support for Zreikat’s cause, including from the Palestinian Dental Syndicate, PA intelligence forces on December 12 apprehended him on unknown charges. After his arrest, Zreikat reportedly started a hunger strike. His current fate remains unclear.
Jihad Abdo, the co-founder of the Coalition of Civilized Demand for Fair Palestinian Telecom Sector, was arrested this summer at a rally in support of Ghassan al-Saadi, characterized by Amnesty International as a “vocal critic of the Palestinian authorities.” During his previous incarceration in 2020, Abdo’s health deteriorated to the point that his heart required catheterization in the hospital. This week, five months after his arrest, the activist again stood in front of a Ramallah court, together with 34 others.
Meanwhile, on December 16, Jerusalem Post correspondent Khaled Abu Toameh reported that Palestinian journalist Alaa al-Rabi was arrested by “dozens of soldiers belonging to the [Palestinian] security agencies.”
Some six months ago, 50 Palestinian journalists urged the United Nations to protect them from Palestinian Authority, a distress call that was, for the most part, disregarded by international news organizations.
Similarly, media outlets this week ignored the likely arbitrary detention of Zreikat, Abdo and al-Rabi by PA forces. This lack of coverage is especially glaring given the media attention that Associated Press (AP) photographer Mahmoud Illean received last week after being lightly injured by Israeli police as he was covering the latest protests in the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah/Shimon HaTzadik.
As HonestReporting has detailed before (see here and here), silence seems to be the rule of thumb rather than the exception when Israel cannot be blamed for the predicament of Palestinians. For instance, the media for months refused to acknowledge that some 15 percent of all rockets launched by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad during the May conflict fell short inside Gaza, unquestionably killing and injuring many Palestinians inside the enclave. Only this week did The New York Times concede that “[r]ockets from Hamas and its allies killed […], accidentally, at least 15 Palestinians in Gaza.”
As Palestinian people fight for change against an increasingly repressive PA government in Ramallah, journalists have an obligation to report on these rapidly developing events. No different, in fact, than the way news outlets reported on recent protests in Serbia, Sudan, Burkina Faso and the Solomon Islands.
Or is the plight of these Palestinians simply not newsworthy?
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Featured Image: Hazem Bader/AFP via Getty Images
