Israeli Occupation Media Smearing Campaign to Silence Palestinian News Agency, Ma'an

Israeli Occupation Media Smearing Campaign to Silence Palestinian News Agency, Ma'an

ccun.org, April 4, 2008

Two Israeli occupation media units have launched a smearing campaign against the Palestinian news agency, Ma'an, just for using few conflict terms which describe Israeli occupiers as occupiers and Palestinians defending themselves as martyrs.

This is a routine Zionist tactic to silence critics of Israeli occupation government atrocities and war crimes perpetrated on daily basis against Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, since 1967.

Until the Israeli occupation forces withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, they will be occupation forces and the Palestinian fighters who are killed there will be martyrs.

Until a Palestinian state is established and recognized by the Israeli state, nobody has the right to ask Palestinians to recognize the Israeli state. It will continue to be an occupation government.

For Palestinian refugees who are not allowed to return to their cities, towns, and homes, as UN resolution 194 calls for, Israel will be occupying their homeland.

Finally, for the brave Ma'an journalists and Editor-in-Chief, Nasser Al-Lahham, you need to be steadfast and to counter the attack. Dig for any racist, chauvinistic, imperialistic, colonialistic, and pro-occupation articles about the Palestinian people published by the Jerusalem Post and other Israeli occupation media units.

Israeli organisation accuses Ma'an of using "hate language"

Date: 04 / 04 / 2008 Time: 15:18
Jerusalem – Ma'an –

An Israeli organization that claims to be a watchdog for Palestinian media is to release a report accusing Ma'an News Agency of "glorifying terrorists" and using "hate language."

An article published in Friday's English-language Israeli daily newspaper The Jerusalem Post reveals that Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) is leveling a number of accusations at Ma'an, including that Ma'an "repeatedly honored murderers as 'martyrs' and referred to areas of pre-1967 Israel as 'occupied Palestine.'"

Ma'an's response

Ma'an was asked by Jerusalem Post journalist Gil Hoffman to write a response to PMW's accusations. The following is that response, reproduced in full.

"The PMW report cites two main discrepancies between Ma'an's English and Arabic coverage: the use of the terms Shahid/Istishhadi and the characterization of some Israeli forces/areas/actions as being occupation.

The term Shahid, as translated in the Hans Wehr Dictionary of modern Arabic (page 572), may refer to one killed in action or a martyr. Istishhad is given to heroes or martyrs. The second term implies intent – one who engages in battle, for instance, rather than one who is simply victimized by it. In the Palestinian cultural/religious tradition, the martyrdom aspect is significantly different from the Judeo-Christian understanding. Those who die as martyrs may be defending their wives or their property, not necessarily engaging in the Western notion of a holy crusade. The PMW interpretation, while undoubtedly held by some religious individuals is not necessarily the general interpretation of these terms.

Our use of the occupation concept stems from international law and internationally-recognized boundaries. In simple terms, Israeli forces operating in Tel Aviv may be considered Israeli security forces, while those in Bethlehem are occupying forces. Tel Aviv falls on the Israeli side of the “Green Line”. Bethlehem does not. That distinction is the crux of our decision-making.

The example cited from February 29, 2008, uses the terms “occupation authorities”, “occupation municipality”, “residents of ...the territories occupied since 1948” and “ 'Israeli' identity cards. Taken out of context, these certainly sound like biased and offensive terms. When looked at more closely, however, they are terms that reflect both the uneasy ethnic distinctions of Israeli society and Israel's status, under international law, as an occupation force. The article refers to crackdowns on access to the Al-Aqsa compound, an area in the Old City of East Jerusalem. Annexed following the 1967 war, East Jerusalem fell on the Palestinian side of the 1949 armistice line, the “Green Line”. Since 1967 the international community has considered it occupied territory, as do Palestinians. Ma'an's Arabic terminology reflects the internationally-recognized reality that the current Jerusalem municipal boundaries include Palestinian territory. In fact, Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem are eligible to vote in Palestinian national elections, a right not accorded to ethnic Palestinians in Israel proper. The US did not move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem for this very reason.

Moreover, describing Palestinians who live in Israel or Arab Israelis as residents of territories occupied since 1948 is perhaps the most accurate way of describing people whose citizenship is a matter of legal default rather than national identity. They do not have the same citizenship obligations, such as mandatory military service, that Jewish Israelis do, and the Israeli national anthem hardly reflects their hope. The construction, though awkward, reflects their uncomfortable position as residents of areas on which Israeli national identity has been superimposed. Meanwhile use of the word Israeli in quotation marks simply reflects common usage of “Israeli identity cards” to refer to the blue id cards possessed residents of Jerusalem or Israel and “Palestinian identity cards” to reflect the green id cards held by residents of the West Bank and Gaza. Had we been referring to the green id cards, we likely would have said green “Palestinian” identity cards.

In the 2 hours that the Jerusalem Post gave us to issue a formal response, we were not able to track down each cited article from our archives. Hyperlinks to the articles mentioned as hate speech would have been helpful. Interestingly, the only hyperlink included in the PMW's report was the one leading to their donation page.

Finally, our funding is issued through the Dutch and the Danish representative offices in Ramallah, who employ local, native Arabic speakers to assist in coordinating projects. We are fairly certain that they monitor our Arabic site in addition to our English one. Culturally-appropriate differences in terminology are, therefore, merely that and not an attempt to hoodwink our generous donors."

Fair Use Notice

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.