Category: News and Views
http://www.ipsnews.net/
MIDEAST: Israelis Assault Award Winning IPS Journalist
By Mel Frykberg
GAZA CITY, Jun 28 (IPS) - Mohammed Omer, the Gaza correspondent of IPS, and joint winner of the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism, was strip-searched
at gunpoint, assaulted and abused by Israeli security officials at the Allenby border crossing between Jordan and the West Bank on Thursday as he tried
to return home to Gaza.
Omer, a resident of Rafah in the south of Gaza, and previous recipient of the New America Media's Best Youth Voice award several years ago, was returning
from London where he had just collected his Gellhorn Prize, and from several European capitals where he had speaking engagements, including a meeting with
Greek parliamentarians.
Omer's trip was sponsored by The Washington Report, and the Dutch embassy in Tel Aviv was responsible for coordinating Omer's travel plans and his security
permit to leave Gaza with Israeli officials.
Israel controls the borders of Gaza and severely restricts the entrance and exit of Gazans allegedly on grounds of security. Human rights organisations
accuse the Israelis of using security as a pretext to apply collective punishment indiscriminately.
While waiting in Amman on his way back, Omer eventually received the requisite coordination and security clearance from the Israelis to return to Gaza
after this had initially been delayed by several days, he told IPS.
Accompanied by Dutch diplomats, Omer passed through the Jordanian side of the border without incident. However, after arrival on the Israeli side, trouble
began. He informed a female soldier that he was returning home to Gaza. He was repeatedly asked where Gaza was, and told that he had neither a permit nor
any coordination to cross.
Omer explained that he did indeed have permission and coordination but was nevertheless taken to a room by Israel's domestic intelligence agency the Shin
Bet, where he was isolated for an hour and a half without explanation.
"Eventually I was asked whether I had a knife or gun on me even though I had already passed through the x-ray machine, had my luggage searched, and was
in the company of Dutch diplomats," Omer said.
His luggage was again searched, and security then proceeded to go through every document and paper he had on him, taking down the names and numbers of
the European parliamentary officials he had met.
The Shin Bet officials then started to make fun of the European parliamentarians, and mocked Omer for being "the prize-winning journalist".
The Gazan journalist was repeatedly asked why he was returning to "the hell of Gaza after we allowed you to leave." To this he responded that he wanted
to be a voice for the voiceless. He was told he was a "trouble-maker".
The security men also demanded he show all the money he had on him, and particular attention was paid to the British pounds he was carrying. His Gellhorn
prize money had been awarded in British pounds but he was not carrying the entire sum on him bodily, something the investigators refused to believe.
After being unable to produce the prize money, he was ordered to strip naked.
"At first I refused but then I had an M16 (gun) pointed in my face and my clothes were forcibly removed, even my underwear," Omer said.
At this point Omer broke down and pleaded for an end to such treatment. He said he was told, "you haven't seen anything yet." Every cavity of his body
was searched as one of the investigators pinned him down on the floor, placing his boot on Omer's neck. Omer began vomiting, and fainted.
When he came round his eyelids were being forcibly opened and his eardrums probed by an Israeli military doctor, who was also armed. He was then dragged
along the floor by his feet by the Shin Bet officials, with his head repeatedly banging on the floor, to a Palestinian ambulance which had been called.
"I eventually woke up in a Palestinian hospital with the doctors trying to reassure me," Omer told IPS.
The Dutch Foreign Ministry at the Hague told IPS that Foreign Minister Maxime Zerhagen spoke to the Israeli ambassador to The Netherlands and demanded
an explanation.
The Dutch embassy in Tel Aviv has also raised the issue with the Israeli Foreign Ministry, which in turn has promised to investigate the incident and get
back to the Dutch officials.
Ahmed Dadou, spokesman from the Dutch Foreign Ministry at the Hague told IPS, "We are taking this whole incident very seriously as we don't believe the
behaviour of the Israeli officials is in accordance with a modern democracy.
"We are further concerned about the mistreatment of an internationally renowned journalist trying to go about his daily business," added Dadou.
A spokeswoman at the Israeli Foreign Press Association said she was unaware of the incident.
Lisa Dvir from the Israeli Airport Authority (IAA), the body responsible for controlling Israel's borders, told IPS that the IAA was neither aware of Omer's
journalist credentials nor of his coordination.
"We would like to know who Omer spoke to in regard to receiving coordination to pass through Allenby. We offer journalists a special service when passing
through our border crossings, and had we known about his arrival this would not have happened.
"I'm not aware of the events that followed his detention, and we are not responsible for the behaviour of the Shin Bet."
In the meantime, Omer is still traumatised and in pain. "I'm struggling to breathe and have pain in my head and stomach and will be going back to hospital
for further medical examinations," he said. (END/2008)
This is not a separate incident; it is very consistent with the Israeli policy of imposing a total blackout against any information regarding its practicies i occupied Palestine. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) placed Israel among the worst top ten places to be if you were a journalist. Here is an Exerpt of what the CPJ has to say:
"THE WEST BANK AND GAZA
Indiscriminate gunfire from the Israeli army made the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip a treacherous beat. Three journalists have been killed by Israeli
gunfire there in the last 12 months, including cameraman Nazeh Darwazeh, who was shot in the head at close range by an Israeli soldier in April despite
being well marked as a member of the press. Israeli soldiers are rarely punished when they shoot journalists.
Journalists operating near the front lines in the West Bank and Gaza continue to face a variety of other obstacles. In recent months, journalists have
been wounded by Israeli military strikes; the Israeli army has closed Palestinian radio stations; and military checkpoints and a tough Israeli government
policy limiting press accreditation continue to hamper reporting. Militant Jewish settlers, meanwhile, perpetrate violent attacks against journalists."
I really don't understand. it's murder! They violate people's basic human rights on a daily basis, and nothing at all is done! There was a supposed threat from Sadam Hussain and Iraq, and all hell broke loose! Sorry for the exclamation points guys, but I just don't get it. The information is out there, the evidence is there, and people who can do something about it, sit back and watch it happen. So wrong. I understand that the Israelis are trying to stop information and reports filtering through, but some stuff is getting through and still nothing is done.
this is what many people call a conspiracy of silence. but it must be taken in the context of colonial and neocolonial power structure of the world. The Zionist movement supported by the great powers--first the British and the French then later the Americans--has been perpetualy promoting a false idea since the beginning of the twentieth century. This idea is centered on the Jewish religious claims to Palestine, or as some Christians and Jews like to call, "the promised land". A collusion of interests between the Zionists who were eager to escape the Christian Antisematism in Europe, and the Western powers who were eager to advance their economic and strategic interests overseas made this conspiracy of silence a logical and rational choice. Neither the Zionist leaders nor the Western governments ever paid attention to the rights of the indigenous population of what is so called the "promised land". It is this collusion of interests that puts Israel beyond criticism in the west in general, and in the U.S. in particular. In effect the Western powers have hit two birds in one stone. First, by supporting the creation of Israel, they created an advanced post to promote Western hegemony and preserve western colonial interests in the Middle East, and second they washed off the Christian Guilt of maltreatment of Jews over many centuries culminating in the Holocaust. Needless to say that this silence, and the support the Western powers give to Israel has no moral foundations at all. As the Ex-Attorney General of the United States, Ramsey Clark once said: "The true test of one's morality is where he/she stands in regards to Palestinian rights".
Yeah I understand. But even if they *did* have a right to Palestine, (Israel if I must), that doesn't explain why people are keepign quiet about the murders they are committing! Ah, or does it. Is it that, people are so guilty about how the Jews were treated, including the holacaust, that they basically give them carte blanche to do what they like? "Well, they are a persecuted race, so no wonder they get a little carried away sometimes..." Nothing should excuse the treatment that this man had to face just for picking up a well deserved award, and trying to get back home again. Nothing should excuse the murder of innocent people, young and old while in their own homes, going about their business, trying to live their lives as best they can under dangerous and often deadly conditions. Nothing should excuse a system of segregation and persecution worse than that of the apartheid system in South Africa, and worse than what the Nazis did in world war ii.