Thursday, February 5, 2015

Islamic State Joins Hamas, PA in Threatening Palestinian Journalists


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Islamic State Joins Hamas, PA in Threatening Palestinian Journalists

by Khaled Abu Toameh  •  February 5, 2015 at 5:00 am
This is no longer a "local" issue or internal Palestinian affair. Those who are seeking to silence the Palestinian journalists are also trying to prevent the international media from finding out what is really happening in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Now that Islamic State has come into the picture with its own threats, one should only expect the coverage from the West Bank and Gaza Strip -- largely dependent on information provided by local Palestinian journalists -- to become even more hostile toward Israel and the West.
A recent study by the Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms found that 80% of Palestinian journalists practice self-censorship in their writing. A Palestinian journalist is not going to report truthfully when he is daily facing threats from so many parties. What is more disturbing is that many of the international journalists are willing to turn a blind eye to the dangers facing their employees and colleagues.
Freedom of the media exists only when journalists direct their criticism against Israel. Reporting about political or financial corruption in the Palestinian Authority is seen as an act of "treason."
The international media outlets are willing to take almost any story offered to them by Palestinian reporters, especially if it consists of anti-Israel statements. The Palestinian journalists know that at the end of the day, they need to go back to their family in the West Bank and Gaza without having to worry about masked men knocking on their doors at night.
Members of Islamic State, in Gaza. (Image source: Islamic State YouTube video)
The Islamic State terror group appears to have joined the Palestinian Authority [PA] and Hamas in their campaign to silence Palestinian journalists.
Over the past few days, several Palestinian journalists have received death threats from the "Gaza branch" of Islamic State. The group accused the journalists of publishing "lies" about Islamic State in particular, and Islam in general.
The threats were sent to the journalists through social media and messages to their mobile phones.
"Islamic State warns the journalist and media people against their continued and constant attacks on us," read one of the messages sent to the journalists. "We in Islamic State affirm that we will execute the rule of the sharia [Islamic religious law] against these apostates, who are sowing discord among Muslims."
The last threats have created panic among many Palestinian journalists, who are already being targeted by Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the PA in the West Bank.

Turkey: Don't Get Mad, Take Over a Bank

by Burak Bekdil  •  February 5, 2015 at 4:00 am
Erdogan is raising the stakes, not just to hit Gulen. The way he fights Gulen has a message to present and potential enemies: if you dare to gain my enmity, this is what you, too, will face.
Customers of a Bank Asya branch in Izmir, Turkey, demonstrate their support for the bank, Feb. 4, 2014. (Image source: Cihan video screenshot)
"Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names," John F. Kennedy apparently once said. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan follows a different practice: He neither forgives them, nor forgets their names -- not even those of his enemies' friends.
Until they openly declared war on each other at the end of 2013, Erdogan and Fethullah Gulen, an influential Muslim preacher who lives in self-exile in Pennsylvania, were best political allies. Everyone thought this was a "marriage made in heaven" between an ambitious Islamist politician and a preacher who, together with his millions of followers, ran a worldwide empire of schools, charity organizations, banks, media companies and businesses.
Surprisingly, the ideal partnership broke up over ideological differences and a struggle over sharing power.

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