The Press Faces Climate of Fear in Gaza

BBC correspondent Alan Johnston was freed by Hamas. But the media remains under fire in the chaotic territory—where reporters face attacks, censorship and a climate of fear.
WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Kevin Peraino
Newsweek
Updated: 2:15 p.m. ET July 5, 2007

July 5, 2007 - In the language of political spin doctors, the television images beamed around the world yesterday were the kind of "good optics" money can't buy. Alan Johnston, the BBC correspondent who had been held in Gaza for almost four months by a criminal gang, emerged from his captivity grinning, laughing and sharing his breakfast with Hamas's top political leaders. After seizing power in Gaza two weeks ago, the Islamists have been eager to try to convince the West—and particularly Europe—that they are the only ones who can bring law and order to the chaotic territory. Springing Johnston has been a goal from Day One, and the journalist seemed (understandably) grateful for the effort. "I'm pretty sure that if Hamas hadn't come in and put the heat on, I'd still be stuck in that room," Johnston told reporters yesterday.

But while Johnston's release may let foreign correspondents breathe a little easier in Gaza, hundreds of local Palestinian reporters are still wary. According to a new report by the Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedom (PCDMF), more than 30 Palestinian journalists were attacked in Gaza and the West Bank last month, the highest in the territories' history. Already three reporters have been killed this year, compared with only one fatality in the preceding three years. Three radio stations were raided during the fighting in June, and Palestine TV, considered sympathetic to Fatah, has at least temporarily shuttered its Gaza operation. Late last week a prominent Gaza correspondent for the Saudi-owned al-Arabiya TV station fled to Norway with his family. The Hamas takeover "has had a terrible negative impact on the media," says Musa Rimawi, the director of the PCDMF. "Journalists are scared. They're panicking."

Freedom of the press is always a tricky proposition in the Middle East; here, as elsewhere, it belongs only to those who own one, as A.J. Liebling famously observed. Even in relatively liberal capitals like Beirut, media outlets tend to have close ties to political movements, or simply wealthy individuals. After seizing control of the Gaza Strip last month, the Islamists considered local TV and radio stations to be legitimate booty. To be sure, many of those who are complaining loudest now are simply Fatah publicists who have lost their cushy jobs and fear reprisals from long-held grudges. (Even before Hamas took over, Fatah security forces had been known to launch their own crackdowns on unfriendly commentators.)

Yet genuine advocates of press freedom have some legitimate fears. Correspondents I spoke with yesterday in Gaza said the only newspaper currently available there is the Hamas-run Fallastin. And Hamas's mass-media efforts have never been known for being particularly even-handed. One popular children's show, called "Tomorrow's Pioneers," stars a Mickey Mouse lookalike named Farfour, who urges kids to fight for "a world led by Islamists." The final episode last week featured Farfour being clubbed to death by an Israeli soldier.

Female correspondents in Gaza are particularly concerned about the new regime. After Johnston was released yesterday, I called Najah Awad, one of Gaza's best-known broadcast journalists. She hosts a show called "Family Journal" on Palestine TV. When the fighting broke out, she had been working on a documentary series called "My Body," about a woman who had been raped in Gaza. Awad describes herself as politically independent, but since the Islamists consider Palestine TV to be a Fatah mouthpiece, the station's 700 employees have mostly stayed away from the studio for fear of confrontations. Awad hasn't been to work since the fighting started, and has no immediate plans to return. Her documentary is on hold. "I sit at home," she told me. "I do nothing." She says a Hamas Web site recently accused the station's female broadcasters of being "loose women"—one more reason to stay away. To Awad, Johnston's release seems little more than a PR ploy. "Hamas is flexing its muscles for political reasons," she says. "I don't think they really care about Alan Johnston."

Still, Hamas leaders are politically savvy enough to know that the news media is one of their most effective weapons against Israel—and one that is virtually useless if Palestinian reporters are too scared to leave their homes. Often a single powerful photograph has been enough to rally international opinion or unite feuding factions. When 13-year-old Fares Odeh was photographed hurling a stone at an Israeli tank during the second intifada, the image quickly became iconic. (Yasir Arafat liked to tell audiences of children that they should try to be more like Odeh; Palestinian bureaucrats hung framed prints on office walls.) As the fighting intensified in September 2000, a series of pictures showing 12-year-old Mohammad Durra being shot to death in front of his father sparked an international outcry. Last spring, as Gaza degenerated into a low-grade civil war, only the heartbreaking image of a disconsolate Huda Ghalia—whose entire nuclear family had been wiped out during a beach picnic by what Palestinians say was an Israeli artillery shell—had the power to unite Hamas and Fatah loyalists. (Israel denied responsibility.)

Hamas leaders argue that the real danger to press freedom comes from small, radical splinter groups like the one that held Johnston—just the kind of organizations that would be likely to proliferate if the U.S. and Israel continue to isolate Hamas. Last month a previously unheard-of Islamist organization calling itself the "Swords of Truth" issued a leaflet threatening to behead female Palestinian broadcasters if they didn't start wearing headscarves. Najah Awad says she collapsed and had to be taken to the hospital when she heard about that threat. A senior Palestinian intelligence officer, who didn't want to be identified because his work is classified, told NEWSWEEK that he knows virtually nothing about the new group, which has also claimed credit for a series of attacks on Internet cafes and Christian bookstores. Hamas leaders have a point when they insist that they're more politically pragmatic than some of these renegade splinters. But Gaza's new rulers will need to be careful as they consolidate control over the territory's media outlets. Good photo-ops like the Johnston release are virtually useless, after all, if there are no longer any credible reporters there to record them.

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