Foreign Press Complicity in Terrorism
They are not just doctoring and staging photographs, folks.
Armored vehicles that were given to foreign news agencies operating in the country with the authorization of the State of Israel, may be used by hostile groups to carry out terror attacks against Israel, Director of the Government Press Office Danny Seaman warned in a letter addressed to Shin Bet Head Yuval Diskin.On August 27 an Israel Defense Forces helicopter hit an armored vehicle that belonged to the Reuters news agency in Gaza. According to Seaman, the incident illustrated the failures in overseeing the use of armored vehicles granted to the foreign media agencies with the permission of the State.
The vehicle’s presence in Gaza in itself constituted a violation of its license terms, and moreover, the jeep was carrying only Palestinians ‚Äì one with links to Hamas who was not a Reuters employee.
Licenses for armored vehicles are granted by the State to foreign news agencies in Israel for the purpose of carrying out journalistic missions in the West Bank and Gaza. The State has even agreed to extend the permits for more than the one year stipulated by the law, on the condition that the license holder is a foreign national and that he alone will drive the car.
“To the best of our knowledge, all of the vehicles’ owners have been violating the conditions for a long time now, despite our requests. This is not the first time we are warning that these vehicles will be used by hostile agents to carry out a terror attack against Israel. The recent incident in Gaza only illustrates the danger,” Seaman wrote the Shin Bet chief.
They better launch an investigation and deal with this problem, or not be surprised when we launch something else at their vehicles.
About the Author
An Australian immigrant to Israel, Aussie Dave has been blogging since early 2003.Filed Under: General
The Mideast, 160 (September 22, 2006)
Foreign press complicity: “They are not just doctoring and staging photographs, folks;” Aussie Dave writes on the use of armored vehicles by the press against the terms they were given by Israel. (Israellycool) Norway plot foiled: “Four men suspected…
It seems to me that foreign journalists are really embedded with the Palestinian forces. According to Stephanie Gutmann’s book about Israel’s poor media relations, The Other War, most foreign journalists purposely have nothing to do with the Israelis; they spend all their time with Palestinian guides and translators. According to Gutmann, who was a journalist herself based in Israel, they are generally openly anti-Israel in their views and often hang out at the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem trading war stories about their run-ins with the Israeli army.
Also, didn’t that letter from an Italian journalist reveal that reporters have to sign a document saying they would write or broadcast nothing negative about the PA? And…aren’t a lot of the cameramen and reporters hired by the major Western news organizations themselves Arabs with links to the PA?
Perhaps one should quit the pretense that these journalists are based in Israel, working with accreditation from the Israeli government. Just let them drop the masquerade. They’re answerable to the Palestinian Authority, and are voluntarily censored by the PA, so let them get their vehicles and other support from the PA.
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