The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!
Saturday, 6 December 2014
Gaza health ministry declares state of emergency
By Mohammed Omer
Ministry officials say basic services may soon be cut in medical centres across Gaza as a result of a severe funding shortage
GAZA CITY – The Gaza health ministry has announced a state of emergency in hospitals and medical centres across the besieged Palestinian enclave, as top officials warned that basic services may soon be cut as a result of dwindling medical supplies and unpaid wages.
Dr Yousef Abu Elrish, head of the higher committee for emergencies at the ministry, told a press conference in Gaza City on Wednesday that nutrition and cleaning services in hospitals, and ambulance services, may soon be halted across the strip.
Elrish said the Palestinian consensus government - formed in June between rival Palestinian factions, Hamas and Fatah - had not met its in responsibilities towards Gaza's health sector, failing to fund the day-to-day costs at Gaza's hospitals since June.
The health ministry needs $6.3 million each month to run and can only cover $400,000 of this total through revenues, according to its latest records which MEE reviewed.
The paralysed Palestinian political process has resulted in unpaid wages for approximately 50,000 public sector employees in Gaza, including doctors and other medical staff.
Over the past two months, cleaners at medical facilities in Gaza have complained about not receiving their salaries. On Wednesday, they held a protest and walked out of government hospitals in a one-day strike, leaving piles of garbage at several Gazan hospitals.
This is not the first time the cleaners have protested, but they said they will not return to work this time until they are paid.
Garbage and supplies were strewn across several Gaza hospitals on Wednesday (AA)
Umm Ibrahim lay on bed at the Emirati Red Crescent Maternity Hospital, one day after giving birth to her son. She told Middle East Eye that the cleaners had not worked since the morning she arrived.
"One can't live without the help of cleaners in hospitals and doctors can't treat and clean rooms at the same time," she said.
Gaza has suffered from a chronic shortage of medical supplies for several years, a situation that was exacerbated by Israel's 50-day assault on the territory over the summer. Ministry of health spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said stocks for 120 medications and 470 types of medical supplies have entirely run out, including treatments for chronic diseases like kidney failure and liquids for blood analysis.
Palestinians in Gaza have also complained about long delays for surgical procedures.
One of those patients was Amal al-Arishi who was sitting in a corridor at Shifa Hospital on Thursday. Early in the morning, doctors told her that she was ready to give birth and they planned to do a caesarian section. But after they prepared her for the procedure, the doctors returned to tell her that the operation room was too unclean to be used to delivery new babies and she would have to wait.
Other patients who need surgery may wait for up to nine weeks, doctors said.
Dr Elrish warned that the coming days could see the complete closure to vital health facilities in Gaza, including Harazin Maternity Hospital, Beit Hanoun Hospital and Abu Yousef Al-Najjar Hospital, the only public facility which serves more than 170,000 people in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
At Shifa Hospital, the largest hospital in the Strip, frustration was mounting as people attempted to register for operations on Wednesday, most of which were delayed. Pools of blood and used bandages covered the floors.
A Gaza-based minister, who said he preferred to remain anonymous as he coordinated discussion between Gaza and Ramallah, said Gazan politicians are concerned about the situation and have raised the issue with the leadership in Ramallah, but have yet to see concrete action.
Source: http://www.middleeasteye.net/
Related Video
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!
On Palestine, identity, and the ‘non-state solution:’ Reviewing Khaled Diab's ‘Intimate Enemies’
Comment:
My Hebrew - Ex-Jew- speaking Palestinian brother once discovered that he i living in an Occupied Land he left and shall not return until Palestine is liberated from River to Sea.
"a brief book titled, “Intimate Enemies: Living with Israelis and Palestinians in the Holy Land,” recently released as an e-book by the UK-based newspaper The Guardian under their “Guardian Shorts” series."
Khaled Diab's wrote his "Guardian short ‘ntimate Enemies" for Guardian.
In case you missed it:
------
On Palestine, identity, and the ‘non-state solution:’ Reviewing Khaled Diab's ‘Intimate Enemies’
Nearly every facet of the conflict over Palestine has been dissected, examined, and rediscovered by writers of a multitude of backgrounds – and there is always room for more. Egyptian-Belgian journalist Khaled Diab is the latest, in a constant stream of writers, to tackle this hefty topic. Diab is mainly interested in the slippery concept of identity, through a paradigm centered on the cultural and social facets which comes at the expense of the historical and political dimensions. In the end, Diab’s proposal, the result of well-intentioned ambitions, falls far short from its lofty goal of solving the “conflict.”“After years of writing about the conflict, visiting and living [in Palestine], I was struck by how the reality does not match the prevalent, and oft simplistic, narratives and discourses. Mutual fear, distrust and misconceptions are widespread, which undermine efforts to resolve this conflict by enabling extremists to dehumanize the other,” Diab, elaborating on why he decided to tackle the topic, wrote to Al-Akhbar English.“Most of the available literature, which tends to focus on the situation through the prism of politics or history, does not highlight or dwell on these complex human realities and nuances, and few look at the human face of both Palestinians and Israelis together. As a kind of inside-outsider whose Egyptian identity opened up a surprising number of doors, hearts and minds, I found that I was in a privileged position to write a book of the people as a minor corrective,” he added.
The outcome is a brief book titled, “Intimate Enemies: Living with Israelis and Palestinians in the Holy Land,” recently released as an e-book by the UK-based newspaper The Guardian under their “Guardian Shorts” series. A larger, more expansive version is expected to be released sometime in the first half of 2015.
In the course of almost 50 pages, which can be read in one sitting, Diab’s journalistic attributes are clearly evident. He weaves together a multitude of Palestinian and Israeli voices, each at times respectively different within their own communities, to highlight their social and cultural differences and symmetries.
The writing is concise and easily digestible from the onset, and the fact that Diab was able to amass so many voices is a testament to his seriousness regarding the topic and to his solid journalistic ability.
The writing is concise and easily digestible from the onset, and the fact that Diab was able to amass so many voices is a testament to his seriousness regarding the topic and to his solid journalistic ability. He was not only able to access such voices with ease, but was also able to clearly present them to the reader. As simple as this may seem, it is rare for journalists, let alone writers, to do so, and Diab is quite successful in that regard.
Structurally, the book is akin to a long-form article, in which the general Palestinian and Israeli communities are introduced, their histories and ideologies briefly discussed, before delving into the contradictions and parallels that exist within and between the sub-communities of both. Diab concludes with his own thoughts and views on what the future may hold.
Erased vs. enforced identities
The most successful sections of “Intimate Enemies” in which Diab attempts to ‘cross the political divide’ are parts that discusses Palestinians still residing in the 1948 territories and Mizrahi (West Asian) Jews, both groups whose existence are real examples that cuts through the crude, simplistic and prevalent narratives of Jew vs. Arab or Israeli vs. Palestinian.
Here, the reader, through Diab’s account, comes in contact with Palestinians in 1948 occupied territories, those who are struggling and resisting Israel’s attempts to wipe out their Palestinian identity and those who are more keen in being part of the large Israeli social identity. In the same vein, Mizrahi, or Arab, Jews find themselves equally caught between a constant clash between their traditional, historical Arab identity and their enforced Jewish identity under Israel.
Ultimately, both these two communities are more or less perceived as being ‘caught in the middle,’ due to their peculiar position, and the various trails and tribulations they respectively faced, and continue to face today. Ultimately, they are linked by the core issues that have driven the struggle against Zionism and Israel for decades, issues that include nationality, rights, identity, ownership, dignity, and legitimacy.
These are perhaps the strongest sections in “Intimate Enemies” that will leave the reader with much to ponder.
Other brief sections that are equally as strong are parts of the book in which Diab effectively shows the role reversal that has occurred socially and culturally between Palestinians and Israelis in terms of exile.
In Judaism – especially the European interpretations of the religion – the experience and effect of exile from a “homeland” (whether this is historically or archaeologically accurate is best left for another discussion) was part and parcel of building an identity for centuries and is commonly articulated presently. It has become infused in their political, religious, and cultural acts and thoughts of its followers.
Similarly, for the Palestinians today, many of whom have been forced into exile due to the Zionist ethnic cleansing in 1947-1948, and the ongoing incremental genocide that followed, much of their current social and cultural identity has naturally been shaped by that trauma. The Palestinian, in effect, has become the “wandering Jew.” This adds a further wrinkle to the narratives in play, and Diab is quite effective in that aim.
The Palestinian, in effect, has become the “wandering Jew.” This adds a further wrinkle to the narratives in play, and Diab is quite effective in that aim.
While it is quite rare for articles or books to solely to tackle the Palestinian issue from a social and cultural standpoint, it is not an entirely novel approach. Moreover, for those well-versed in the complexities and history of the conflict, “Intimate Enemies” does not provide anything ground-breaking or new. Because of the brief nature of the work, there is a constant desire left for the reader for more, deeper analysis to the points that Diab brings up, and he does not tackle further complexities within communities like class, urban vs. rural, Gaza vs. West Bank, among other matters.
(Un)masking power dynamics
The most glaring omission, which Diab acknowledges, is a more thorough, critical examination of history and the power dynamics that inherently divides an Israeli and a Palestinian. To his credit, Diab does touch on the historical events, like the Nakba or the Holocaust, but it is more a matter of cursorily noting them.
“I do explore the effects of the Nakba and the loss of Palestine on the Palestinian psyche, as well as the disparity in the power relationship between Israelis and Palestinians, not to mention within Israeli society itself, i.e. the Ashkenazi-Mizrahi divide,” Diab responded when asked of this by Al-Akhbar English. “But, like I said, in the limited space available, I could only go so far, especially since my primary focus is on the people. I go into these issues in much greater detail in the full-length manuscript.”
Diab’s keenness to concentrate on “the people” rather than the political is both important and problematic. Undoubtedly, it is important to humanize those who are effected by the issues and consequences that arose in the colonization and conquest of Palestine. But the effort to humanize and tackle other elements – in this case, the cultural and social sectors – regarding Palestine does not automatically shrug aside the politics. Diab’s desire to separate the two is understandable considering his aims and the limitations he is faced with, but it results in two points of contention.
First is the artificial creation of equivalency. Diab is right to note that there are parallels and symmetries between Palestinians and Israelis, and these parallels are universal and can include any community anywhere in the world. Yet, the facts, history, and politics created one community as the victim and the other as the aggressor, one community as the occupied and the other as the occupier. This is not a matter of opinion, but a matter of fact despite issues of “terrorism,” the discriminatory treatment of European Jews in Europe, and the evolution of social and cultural norms in occupied Palestine today.
And because of this unequal power relations, whatever bridges built from social and cultural links between Palestinians and Israelis will ultimately collide with all the privileges, advantages, and controls that power bestows to only one of the two.
Secondly, Diab’s compartmentalization and separation of politics from the topic assumes that culture and identity can be apolitical – while the reality is starkly different. To use the classic adage, the personal is political, and the political is personal. The basic identity of Israelis – Zionism – is derived from a political movement and action, and by not challenging or leaving room to discuss the politics, Diab’s “Intimate Enemies” feels hesitant and somewhat naive.
[D]iab’s compartmentalization and separation of politics from the topic assumes that culture and identity can be apolitical – while the reality is starkly different.
Envisioning a ‘people’s peace process’
This leads to the final point Diab attempts to make during the concluding chapters of “Intimate Enemies.” He argues:
[T]alking of a one- or two-state solution, or even an alliance of city states, is premature. What we urgently need are strategies to help move us towards a state of justice. It is my conviction that we need to pursue an incremental path forward and adopt what I call the “non-state solution.”Instead of the current fixation on borders and territory, as if soil is so much thicker than blood,
the focus must shift to the people. Prioritising the people will necessitate transforming the
Palestinian struggle into a mass, non-violent civil rights movement. Under this model,
Palestinians will deploy all the tools of peaceful resistance that they have constructed and
utilised over the years, including non-violent protest, civil disobedience, strikes and targeted
boycotts.
In order to do this, Diab adds:
The non-state solution does not actually determine the final form of borders or the character of the state(s) but, on the contrary, can potentially empower the citizenry, rather than the political class, to forge the solution which most appeals to them.Once disenfranchisement has ended and everyone is an equal citizen, then a bi-national
conversation can commence to reach gradually a final settlement through a people’s peace
process. Any Israeli or Palestinian should be free to propose initiatives and suggest actions.
Any proposals that garner enough initial support should then be voted on by the Israeli and
Palestinian publics. Any measure for which the majority on both sides vote should be
implemented immediately, to create momentum.
Having the voices of people in the process of justice and peace is laudable and necessary. To a degree, Diab hits the mark on the need to bring to the fore voices of those other than usually useless, self-interested politicians who are working with the long-dead, defunct Oslo process. Yet, true justice – and here we are speaking of actual implemented justice, such as the Right of Return, compensation, restitution, reparations, and accountability, which are absolutely necessary for long-term real peace for all – will necessitate that certain voices and concerns – i.e. Israeli – be set aside.
”[I]nstead of the current fixation on borders and territory, as if soil is so much thicker than blood, the focus must shift to the people.” – Khaled Diab, “Intimate Enemies”
If we follow Diab’s suggestion of a “non-state solution,” one that is concerned with ending disenfranchisement and creating equality, that will ultimately require a political, as well as an economic, social, and legal solution. The politics will be vital in the end game, and Diab’s circumventing of the politics is a major flaw in an otherwise generally strong work, and feels more of an unnecessary detour, or for some readers, a dangerous deviation.
This short book dives headfirst into one of the most important regional and international struggles today and is written by a high-profile journalist – who has privileged access to different parts of Palestine and has lived there for a number of years. For this reason, a critical deconstruction and an intellectual review of the work is necessary. This is especially so since Diab ends with a suggestion of a “non-state solution,” a thoughtful, even if lacking proposal. The act of humanizing the ‘other’ is meaningful, but recognizing and acknowledging humanity should not belittle the inequalities in power, privilege, poverty, and suffering. Yes, Palestinians and Israelis are humans, their respective communities assembled from a medley of micro-universes of hopes, fears, desires and dreams that sometimes mirrors each other. However, the similarities end when it comes to occupation, ethnic cleansing, abuse, and humiliation.
In the end, “Intimate Enemies” is useful for those not well-versed in the intricacies of Palestine and want to learn more about the various identities in a quick and easily digestible manner. For those who are in tune with developments in Palestine, “Intimate Enemies” has value in terms of suggested ideas and tactics through a social and cultural lens that should and need to be mulled over.
As for the problems noted above, they stubbornly linger beneath the current abridged edition of “Intimate Enemies,”and one has to wait and see if Diab’s expanded edition will cover the gaps.
Yazan is a staff writer for Al-Akhbar English. Follow him on Twitter:@WhySadeye
A MUST READ
- GILAD ATZMON: ZIONIST PROJECT HAS FAILED; ISRAEL VERY BIG THREAT TO WORLD PEACE
- THE JEWISH SUPREMACY OF JEWISH VOICE FOR PEACE
- No alternative to FULL LIBERATION
- God’s “chosen” Psychopaths
- “Genocidal Supremacy? What Supremacy? This is Blood Libel!”
- Violence of the “Chosen” is a “virtue” and a “moral value”
- “Chosen”, so they can!
- A culture of Supremacy
- God’s Chosen Terrorists
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!
Nasser Kandil: 60 Minutes on Putin's speech to Russia’s parliament, Ukraine, Lebanon and Syria
ستون دقيقة مع ناصر قنديل | توب نيوز 05 12 2014
حوار الاخبارية | د محمد صادق الحسيني 05 12 2014
سورية صمدت ... _ عبد الباري عطوان _ الحدث | الجديد
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!
Nusra Front claims to have executed Lebanese policeman
Updated at 2:55 pm (GMT+2): Anger erupted in eastern Lebanon early Saturday after Al Qaeda-linked Syrian jihadist group al-Nusra Front said it had killed a captured Lebanese policeman to avenge the arrest of Islamic militants' wives and children.
Families of Lebanese soldiers held by militants blocked roads in Beirut and highways between major cities on Saturday, pressing the government to do more to free them.
The body of an unidentified man who had been shot dead was found on a road in the Bekaa Valley region bordering Syria in a suspected act of revenge for the policeman's murder, while gunmen abducted an unknown number of residents from the area, security sources said.
Angry residents were blocking roads and set fire to tires in the village of Bazzalieh, an AFP correspondent at the scene said.
The village is not far from the border town of Ersal, where an alleged former wife and young daughter of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the head of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group that has seized large parts of Syria and Iraq, were detained this week. Lebanese authorities also said they had detained the wife of a Nusra Front leader.
The women were apparently viewed by some Lebanese security elements as a possible bargaining chip with the militants to gain the release of the captive soldiers.
The flare-up came after al-Nusra posted a photograph that it said showed the execution of detained Lebanese policeman Ali al-Bazaal, in a statement on its Twitter account picked up by the SITE terrorism watchdog.
Bazaal was one of around 30 Lebanese soldiers and policemen abducted by jihadists in August during fighting in Ersal.
"If the sisters that were unjustly arrested are not released, then after a short period of time the death sentence will be executed against another prisoner we hold," al-Nusra said.
Lebanese security sources said they were trying to verify the claim.
The group did not identify the women and children it said Lebanon was holding, nor did it say how many were missing.
On Wednesday, Lebanon's interior minister said authorities there were holding the daughter and former wife of ISIS chief Baghdadi.
While both ISIS and al-Nusra are based in neighboring Syria, they have clashed with Lebanese border forces and with Hezbollah, which supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
One leading militant, Abu Ali al-Shishani, has pledged to attack Lebanese women and children and end talks to free the soldiers, after his wife was detained by authorities.
The threat, delivered in a video distributed on jihadist websites, was published on Friday hours before Nusra Front said it had killed Bazaal.
Officials say Shishani is a fighter in the Nusra Front, al-Qaeda's official Syrian wing. But in the video he praises Baghdadi, whose ISIS group splintered off from al-Qaeda. ISIS and Nusra have both clashed and worked closely with each other at different times.
Shishani said Shia Muslim women and children and families of Lebanese soldiers were now legitimate targets.
"My wife, Ola Mithqal al-Oqaily ... was taken two days ago from Tripoli, the city that is called the city of Islam and Muslims," Shishani said.
"If my wife is not released soon, do not dare to dream about the release of the soldiers without negotiations," he added.
"All your wives, children and men are legitimate targets now," he said, using the phrase "slaves of (late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah) Khomeini" to refer to Shias.
Last month, a roadside bomb wounded three Lebanese soldiers near Ersal, where in August troops fought a fierce gun battle with militants who streamed across the border.
Fighting ended with a truce mediated by clerics, but the jihadists took with them the Lebanese army and police hostages.
At least four have since been executed and Qatari-led efforts to free the rest have so far failed.
(AFP, Reuters, Al-Akhbar)
River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian 
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!
Is it the Guardian Of Judea Or Just The Observer Of Zion?
GA: Being the subversive mind who coined the above observations, I wasn’t surprised to read the following expose by Nafeez Ahmed. I urge you to read this superb piece of Journalism. The Guardian is clearly a mere symptom of the colossal ethical bankruptcy of the ‘liberal’ and whatever is remaining of the Left. It is a glimpse into the Kosherization and the corrosive impact of Zionists in our midst.
source: https://medium.com
How I was censored by The Guardian for writing about Israel’s war for Gaza’s gas
By Nafeez Ahmed
After writing for The Guardian for over a year, my contract was unilaterally terminated because I wrote a piece on Gaza that was beyond the pale. In doing so, The Guardian breached the very editorial freedom the paper was obligated to protect under my contract. I’m speaking out because I believe it is in the public interest to know how a Pulitizer Prize-winning newspaper which styles itself as the world’s leading liberal voice, casually engaged in an act of censorship to shut down coverage of issues that undermined Israel’s publicised rationale for going to war.
Gaza’s gas
I joined the Guardian as an environment blogger in April 2013. Prior to this, I had been an author, academic and freelance journalist for over a decade, writing for The Independent, Independent on Sunday, Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Scotsman, Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, Quartz, Prospect, New Statesman, Le Monde diplomatique, among others.
On 9th July 2014, I posted an article via my Earth Insight blog at The Guardian’s environment website, exposing the role of Palestinian resources, specifically Gaza’s off-shore natural gas reserves, in partly motivating Israel’s invasion of Gaza aka ‘Operation Protective Edge.’ Among the sources I referred to was a policy paper written by incumbent Israeli defence minister Moshe Ya’alon one year before Operation Cast Lead, underscoring that the Palestinians could never be allowed to develop their own energy resources as any revenues would go to supporting Palestinian terrorism.
The article now has 68,000 social media shares, and is by far the single most popular article on the Gaza conflict to date. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, Israel has seen control of Gaza’s gas as a major strategic priority over the last decade for three main reasons.
Firstly, Israel faces a near-term gas crisis — largely due to the long lead time needed to bring Israel’s considerable domestic gas resources into production; secondly, Netanyahu’s administration cannot stomach any scenario in which a Hamas-run Palestinian administration accesses and develops their own resources; thirdly, Israel wants to use Palestinian gas as a strategic bridge to cement deals with Arab dictatorships whose domestic populations oppose signing deals with Israel.
Either way, the biggest obstacle to Israel accessing Gaza’s gas is the Hamas-run administration in the strip, which rejects all previous agreements that Israel had pursued to develop the gas with the British Gas Group and the Palestinian Authority.
Censorship in the land of the free
Since 2006, The Guardian has loudly trumpeted its aim to be the world’s leading liberal voice. For years, the paper has sponsored the annual Index on Censorship’s prestigious Freedom of Expression Award. The paper won the Pulitzer Prize for its reporting on the National Security Agency (NSA). Generally, the newspaper goes out of its way to dress itself up as standing at the forefront of fighting censorship, particularly in the media landscape. This is why its approach to my Gaza gas story is so disturbing.
The day after posting it, I received a phone call from James Randerson, assistant national news editor. He sounded riled and rushed. Without beating around the bush, James told me point blank that my Guardian blog was to be immediately discontinued. Not because my article was incorrect, factually flawed, or outrageously defamatory. Not because I’d somehow breached journalistic ethics, or violated my contract. No. The Gaza gas piece, he said, was “not an environment story,” and therefore was an “inappropriate post” for the Guardian’s environment website:
I was shocked, and more than a little baffled. As you can read on my Guardian profile, my remit was to cover “the geopolitics of environmental, energy and economic crises.” That was what I was commissioned to do — indeed, when I had applied in late 2012 to blog for The Guardian, an earlier piece I’d written on the link between Israeli military operations and Gaza’s gas in Le Monde diplomatique was part of my portfolio.
So I suggested to James that termination was somewhat of an overreaction. Perhaps we could simply have a meeting to discuss the editorial issues and work out together what my remit should be. “I’d be happy to cooperate as much as possible,” I said. I didn’t want to lose my contract. James refused point blank, instead telling me that my “interests are increasingly about issues that we don’t think are a good fit for what we want to see published on the environment site.”
In the end, my polite protestations got nowhere. Within the hour, I received an email from a rights manager at The Guardian informing me that they had terminated my contract.
Under that contract, however, I had editorial control over what I wrote on my blog — obviously within the remit that I had been commissioned for. From May to April, environment bloggers underwent training and supervision to ensure that we would eventually be up to speed to post on the site independently based on our own editorial judgement. The terms and conditions we signed up to under our contract state:
The problem is that I had committed no breach of any of my contractual obligations. On the contrary, The Guardian had breached its contractual obligation to me regarding my freedom to determine the contents of my blog, simply because it didn’t like what I wrote. This is censorship.
As the Index on Censorship points out, the
Ironically, a few days later, I was contacted by the editor of The Ecologist — one of the world’s premier environment magazines — who wanted to re-print my Gaza gas story. After publishing an updated version of my Guardian piece, The Ecologist also published my in-depth follow up in response to objections printed in The National Interest (ironically authored by a contractor working for a US oil company invested in offshore gas reserves overlapping the Gaza Marine). Obviously, having been expelled by The Guardian, I could not respond via my blog as I would normally have done.
That follow-up drew on a range of public record sources including leading business and financial publications, as well as official British Foreign Office (FCO) documents obtained under Freedom of Information. The latter confirmed that despite massive domestic gas discoveries in Israel’s own territorial waters, the inability to kick-start production due to a host of bureaucratic, technological, logistical and regulatory issues — not to mention real uncertainties in quantities of commercially exploitable resources — meant that Israel could face gas supply challenges as early as next year. Israel’s own gas fields would probably not be brought into production until around 2018-2020. Israeli officials, according to the FCO, saw the 1.4 trillion cubic meters of gas in Gaza’s Marine (along with other potential “additional resources” as yet to be discovered according to the US Energy Information Administration) as a cheap “stop-gap” that might sustain both Israel’s domestic energy needs and its export ambitions until the Tamar and Leviathan fields could actually start producing.
By broaching such issues in The Guardian, though, it seems I had crossed some sort of invisible barrier — that this topic was simply off-limits.
Energy is part of the environment, wait, no it isn’t, not in Palestine anyway
To illustrate the sheer absurdity of The Guardian’s pretense that a story about Gaza’s gas resources is “not a legitimate environment story,” consider the fact that just weeks earlier, Adam Vaughan, the editor of the Guardian’s environment website, had personally assented to my posting the following story: ‘Iraq blowback: Isis rise manufactured by insatiable oil addiction — West’s co-optation of Gulf states’ jihadists created the neocon’s best friend: an Islamist Frankenstein.’
Proposed headlines for stories that environment bloggers work on are posted on a shared Google spreadsheet so that editors can keep track of what we’re doing and planning to publish. Adam had seen my proposed headline and requested to see the draft on the 16th June: “… would you mind sending this one by me on preview, please, before publishing? Just conscious it’s very sensitive subject,” he wrote in an email.
I sent him the full article with a summary of what it was about. Later in the day, I pinged him again to find out what he thought, and he replied: “thanks, sorry, yes — I think it’s fine.”
So an article about ISIS and oil addiction is “fine,” but a piece about Israel, Gaza and conflict over gas resources is not. Really? Are offshore gas resources not part of the environment? Apparently, for The Guardian, not in Palestine, where Gaza’s environment has been bombed to smithereens by the IDF.
The Blair factor
Meanwhile, the Israel-Gaza gas saga continues. Just over a week ago, Ha’aretz carried some insightful updates on the strategic value of the whole thing. Quoting Ariel Ezrahi, energy adviser to Quartet Middle East envoy Tony Blair (the Quartet representing the US, UN, EU and Russia), Ha’aretz noted that there was a reason why Jordan — which had recently signed an agreement with Israel to purchase gas from its Leviathan field — had simultaneously announced that it intended to purchase gas from Gaza. As Israel attempts to reposition itself as a major gas exporter to regional regimes like Egypt and Turkey, the biggest challenge is that “it’s very hard for them to sign a gas contract with Israel despite their desperate need,” due to how unpopular such a move would be with their domestic populations.
“If I were Israel’s prime minister,” Blair’s energy adviser said, “I’d think how I could help the neighboring countries extricate themselves from the jam, and if Israel closes the Palestinian gas market, that’s not a smart thing.” So Israel has to find a way to open the Palestinian gas market and integrate it into the emerging complex of Israeli export deals: “… it would be wise for Israel to at least consider the contribution of the Palestinian dimension to these deals,” said Ezrahi. “I think it’s a mistake for Israel to rush into regional agreements without at least considering the Palestinian dimension and how it can contribute to Israeli interests.”
Israel, backed by its allies in the west, wants to use the Palestinians “as an asset as they strive to join the regional power grid, and as a bridge to the Arab world,” by selling Palestinian “gas to various markets,” or promoting a deal with the corporations developing Israel’s “Tamar and Leviathan [fields] that will allow for the sale of cheap gas to the [Palestinian] Authority.”
But there is a further challenge when considering the Palestinian dimension, namely Hamas: “I can’t meet with people linked to Hamas,” said Blair’s energy adviser. “It’s a very firm ban dictated by the Quartet. [emphasis added] The Americans don’t enter Gaza either.” So it is not just Israel that has ruled out any gas deal with the Palestinians involving Hamas. So have the US, EU, UN and Russia.
But Israel has no mechanism to eliminate Hamas from the Gaza strip — except, as far as Moshe Ya’alon is concerned, military action to change facts on the ground.
Over the 70 odd articles I’d written for The Guardian, not a single piece falls outside the subject matter I had been commissioned to write on: the geopolitics of interconnected environment, energy and economic crises. The conclusion is unavoidable: The Guardian had simply decided that resource conflicts over the Occupied Territories should not receive coverage. It should be noted that before my post, the paper had never before acknowledged a link between IDF military action and Gaza’s gas. Now that I’m gone, I doubt it will ever be covered again.
Well, at least Ya’alon, and his boss Netanyahu, will be happy.
Not to mention Tony Blair.
Liberal gatekeeping
When I began speaking in confidence to a number of other journalists inside and outside The Guardian about what had happened to me, they all consistently told me that my experience — although particularly outrageous — was not entirely unprecedented.
A senior editor of a national British publication who has written frequently for The Guardian’s opinion section, told me that he was aware that all coverage of the Israel-Palestine issue was “tightly controlled” by Jonathan Freedland, the Guardian’s executive editor for opinion.
Gaza’s gas
I joined the Guardian as an environment blogger in April 2013. Prior to this, I had been an author, academic and freelance journalist for over a decade, writing for The Independent, Independent on Sunday, Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Scotsman, Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, Quartz, Prospect, New Statesman, Le Monde diplomatique, among others.
On 9th July 2014, I posted an article via my Earth Insight blog at The Guardian’s environment website, exposing the role of Palestinian resources, specifically Gaza’s off-shore natural gas reserves, in partly motivating Israel’s invasion of Gaza aka ‘Operation Protective Edge.’ Among the sources I referred to was a policy paper written by incumbent Israeli defence minister Moshe Ya’alon one year before Operation Cast Lead, underscoring that the Palestinians could never be allowed to develop their own energy resources as any revenues would go to supporting Palestinian terrorism.
The article now has 68,000 social media shares, and is by far the single most popular article on the Gaza conflict to date. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, Israel has seen control of Gaza’s gas as a major strategic priority over the last decade for three main reasons.
Firstly, Israel faces a near-term gas crisis — largely due to the long lead time needed to bring Israel’s considerable domestic gas resources into production; secondly, Netanyahu’s administration cannot stomach any scenario in which a Hamas-run Palestinian administration accesses and develops their own resources; thirdly, Israel wants to use Palestinian gas as a strategic bridge to cement deals with Arab dictatorships whose domestic populations oppose signing deals with Israel.
Either way, the biggest obstacle to Israel accessing Gaza’s gas is the Hamas-run administration in the strip, which rejects all previous agreements that Israel had pursued to develop the gas with the British Gas Group and the Palestinian Authority.
Censorship in the land of the free
Since 2006, The Guardian has loudly trumpeted its aim to be the world’s leading liberal voice. For years, the paper has sponsored the annual Index on Censorship’s prestigious Freedom of Expression Award. The paper won the Pulitzer Prize for its reporting on the National Security Agency (NSA). Generally, the newspaper goes out of its way to dress itself up as standing at the forefront of fighting censorship, particularly in the media landscape. This is why its approach to my Gaza gas story is so disturbing.
The day after posting it, I received a phone call from James Randerson, assistant national news editor. He sounded riled and rushed. Without beating around the bush, James told me point blank that my Guardian blog was to be immediately discontinued. Not because my article was incorrect, factually flawed, or outrageously defamatory. Not because I’d somehow breached journalistic ethics, or violated my contract. No. The Gaza gas piece, he said, was “not an environment story,” and therefore was an “inappropriate post” for the Guardian’s environment website:
“You’re writing too many non-environment stories, so I’m afraid we just don’t have any other option. This article doesn’t belong on the environment site. It should really be on Cif [i.e. the Guardian’s online opinion section known as ‘Comment Is Free’].”
I was shocked, and more than a little baffled. As you can read on my Guardian profile, my remit was to cover “the geopolitics of environmental, energy and economic crises.” That was what I was commissioned to do — indeed, when I had applied in late 2012 to blog for The Guardian, an earlier piece I’d written on the link between Israeli military operations and Gaza’s gas in Le Monde diplomatique was part of my portfolio.
So I suggested to James that termination was somewhat of an overreaction. Perhaps we could simply have a meeting to discuss the editorial issues and work out together what my remit should be. “I’d be happy to cooperate as much as possible,” I said. I didn’t want to lose my contract. James refused point blank, instead telling me that my “interests are increasingly about issues that we don’t think are a good fit for what we want to see published on the environment site.”
In the end, my polite protestations got nowhere. Within the hour, I received an email from a rights manager at The Guardian informing me that they had terminated my contract.
Under that contract, however, I had editorial control over what I wrote on my blog — obviously within the remit that I had been commissioned for. From May to April, environment bloggers underwent training and supervision to ensure that we would eventually be up to speed to post on the site independently based on our own editorial judgement. The terms and conditions we signed up to under our contract state:
“You shall regularly maintain Your Blog and shall determine its content. You shall launch Your own posts which shall not be sub-edited by GNM. GNM occasionally might raise topics of interest with You suitable for Your Blog but You shall be under no obligation to include or cover such topics.”The terms also point out that termination of the contract with immediate effect could only occur “if the other party commits a material breach of any of its obligations under this Agreement which is not capable of remedy”; or if “the other party has committed a material breach of any of its obligations under this Agreement which is capable of remedy but which has not been remedied within a period of thirty (30) days following receipt of written notice to do so.”
The problem is that I had committed no breach of any of my contractual obligations. On the contrary, The Guardian had breached its contractual obligation to me regarding my freedom to determine the contents of my blog, simply because it didn’t like what I wrote. This is censorship.
As the Index on Censorship points out, the
“absence of direct state-sponsored, highly visible censorship, which prevails in many countries around the world, may contribute to the commonly held view that there is no censorship in this country and that it is not a problem.” However, “contemporary UK censorship, which sits within a liberal democracy” can come “in many different forms, both direct and indirect, some more subtle, some more overt.”Invisible barriers
Ironically, a few days later, I was contacted by the editor of The Ecologist — one of the world’s premier environment magazines — who wanted to re-print my Gaza gas story. After publishing an updated version of my Guardian piece, The Ecologist also published my in-depth follow up in response to objections printed in The National Interest (ironically authored by a contractor working for a US oil company invested in offshore gas reserves overlapping the Gaza Marine). Obviously, having been expelled by The Guardian, I could not respond via my blog as I would normally have done.
That follow-up drew on a range of public record sources including leading business and financial publications, as well as official British Foreign Office (FCO) documents obtained under Freedom of Information. The latter confirmed that despite massive domestic gas discoveries in Israel’s own territorial waters, the inability to kick-start production due to a host of bureaucratic, technological, logistical and regulatory issues — not to mention real uncertainties in quantities of commercially exploitable resources — meant that Israel could face gas supply challenges as early as next year. Israel’s own gas fields would probably not be brought into production until around 2018-2020. Israeli officials, according to the FCO, saw the 1.4 trillion cubic meters of gas in Gaza’s Marine (along with other potential “additional resources” as yet to be discovered according to the US Energy Information Administration) as a cheap “stop-gap” that might sustain both Israel’s domestic energy needs and its export ambitions until the Tamar and Leviathan fields could actually start producing.
By broaching such issues in The Guardian, though, it seems I had crossed some sort of invisible barrier — that this topic was simply off-limits.
Energy is part of the environment, wait, no it isn’t, not in Palestine anyway
To illustrate the sheer absurdity of The Guardian’s pretense that a story about Gaza’s gas resources is “not a legitimate environment story,” consider the fact that just weeks earlier, Adam Vaughan, the editor of the Guardian’s environment website, had personally assented to my posting the following story: ‘Iraq blowback: Isis rise manufactured by insatiable oil addiction — West’s co-optation of Gulf states’ jihadists created the neocon’s best friend: an Islamist Frankenstein.’
Proposed headlines for stories that environment bloggers work on are posted on a shared Google spreadsheet so that editors can keep track of what we’re doing and planning to publish. Adam had seen my proposed headline and requested to see the draft on the 16th June: “… would you mind sending this one by me on preview, please, before publishing? Just conscious it’s very sensitive subject,” he wrote in an email.
I sent him the full article with a summary of what it was about. Later in the day, I pinged him again to find out what he thought, and he replied: “thanks, sorry, yes — I think it’s fine.”
So an article about ISIS and oil addiction is “fine,” but a piece about Israel, Gaza and conflict over gas resources is not. Really? Are offshore gas resources not part of the environment? Apparently, for The Guardian, not in Palestine, where Gaza’s environment has been bombed to smithereens by the IDF.
The Blair factor
Meanwhile, the Israel-Gaza gas saga continues. Just over a week ago, Ha’aretz carried some insightful updates on the strategic value of the whole thing. Quoting Ariel Ezrahi, energy adviser to Quartet Middle East envoy Tony Blair (the Quartet representing the US, UN, EU and Russia), Ha’aretz noted that there was a reason why Jordan — which had recently signed an agreement with Israel to purchase gas from its Leviathan field — had simultaneously announced that it intended to purchase gas from Gaza. As Israel attempts to reposition itself as a major gas exporter to regional regimes like Egypt and Turkey, the biggest challenge is that “it’s very hard for them to sign a gas contract with Israel despite their desperate need,” due to how unpopular such a move would be with their domestic populations.
“If I were Israel’s prime minister,” Blair’s energy adviser said, “I’d think how I could help the neighboring countries extricate themselves from the jam, and if Israel closes the Palestinian gas market, that’s not a smart thing.” So Israel has to find a way to open the Palestinian gas market and integrate it into the emerging complex of Israeli export deals: “… it would be wise for Israel to at least consider the contribution of the Palestinian dimension to these deals,” said Ezrahi. “I think it’s a mistake for Israel to rush into regional agreements without at least considering the Palestinian dimension and how it can contribute to Israeli interests.”
Israel, backed by its allies in the west, wants to use the Palestinians “as an asset as they strive to join the regional power grid, and as a bridge to the Arab world,” by selling Palestinian “gas to various markets,” or promoting a deal with the corporations developing Israel’s “Tamar and Leviathan [fields] that will allow for the sale of cheap gas to the [Palestinian] Authority.”
But there is a further challenge when considering the Palestinian dimension, namely Hamas: “I can’t meet with people linked to Hamas,” said Blair’s energy adviser. “It’s a very firm ban dictated by the Quartet. [emphasis added] The Americans don’t enter Gaza either.” So it is not just Israel that has ruled out any gas deal with the Palestinians involving Hamas. So have the US, EU, UN and Russia.
But Israel has no mechanism to eliminate Hamas from the Gaza strip — except, as far as Moshe Ya’alon is concerned, military action to change facts on the ground.
Over the 70 odd articles I’d written for The Guardian, not a single piece falls outside the subject matter I had been commissioned to write on: the geopolitics of interconnected environment, energy and economic crises. The conclusion is unavoidable: The Guardian had simply decided that resource conflicts over the Occupied Territories should not receive coverage. It should be noted that before my post, the paper had never before acknowledged a link between IDF military action and Gaza’s gas. Now that I’m gone, I doubt it will ever be covered again.
Well, at least Ya’alon, and his boss Netanyahu, will be happy.
Not to mention Tony Blair.
Liberal gatekeeping
When I began speaking in confidence to a number of other journalists inside and outside The Guardian about what had happened to me, they all consistently told me that my experience — although particularly outrageous — was not entirely unprecedented.
A senior editor of a national British publication who has written frequently for The Guardian’s opinion section, told me that he was aware that all coverage of the Israel-Palestine issue was “tightly controlled” by Jonathan Freedland, the Guardian’s executive editor for opinion.
Jonathan Freedland is the Guardian’s executive editor for opinion
Several other journalists I spoke to inside and outside The Guardian went so far as to describe Freedland as the newspaper’s unofficial ‘gatekeeper’ on the Middle east conflict, and that he invariably leaned toward a pro-Israel slant.
These anecdotes have been publicly corroborated by Jonathan Cook, a former Middle East staff reporter, foreign editor and columnist for The Guardian, who is currently based in Nazareth where he has won several awards for his reporting. A profile of Cook at the progressive Jewish news
site Mondoweiss points out that a key turning point in Cook’s career occurred in 2001 when he had just returned from Israel, having conducted an investigation into the murder of 13 non-violent Arab protestors by Israeli police during the second intifada the year before.
The police, Cook found, had executed a “shoot-to-kill policy” against unarmed victims — as was eventually confirmed by a government inquiry. But The Guardian suppressed his investigation, and chose not to run it at all. Cook says that while the paper does contain some exemplary reporting and insights, and even goes out of its way to condemn the occupation, there are certain lines that simply cannot be crossed, such as questioning Israel’s capacity to define itself as simultaneously an exclusively Jewish and democratic state, or critiquing aspects of its security doctrine.
Cook’s scathing criticism of his former paper in a 2011 Counterpunch article is highly revealing, and relevant, for understanding what happened to me:
“The Guardian, like other mainstream media, is heavily invested — both financially and ideologically — in supporting the current global order. It was once able to exclude and now, in the internet age, must vilify those elements of the left whose ideas risk questioning a system of corporate power and control of which the Guardian is a key institution.
The paper’s role, like that of its rightwing cousins, is to limit the imaginative horizons of readers. While there is just enough leftwing debate to make readers believe their paper is pluralistic, the kind of radical perspectives needed to question the very foundations on which the system of Western dominance rests is either unavailable or is ridiculed.”
Last month, Cook highlighted ongoing subtle but powerful insensitivities of language employed by The Guardian coverage’s of the Gaza crisis which, in effect, served to “disappear” the Palestinians. He specifically identified Freedland as a major player in this phenomenon. “The Guardian’s pride” in having helped create Israel is “still palpable at the paper (as I know from my years there),” especially among certain senior editors there “who influence much of the conflict’s coverage — yes, that is a reference to Jonathan Freedland, among others.”
===
UPDATE 4th Dec 2014 (10.13AM): Jonathan Freedland has offered a response this morning via TwitLonger, as follows:
“Your piece for Medium implies I was involved in the end of your arrangement with the Guardian. I don’t wish to be rude, but I had literally not heard of you or your work till seeing that Medium piece, via Twitter, a few hours ago. (The Guardian environment website, where you wrote, is edited separately from the Guardian’s Comment is Free site, which I now oversee.) I had no idea you wrote for the Guardian, no idea that arrangement had been terminated and not the slightest knowledge of your piece on Gaza’s gas until a few hours ago. What’s more, I was abroad — on vacation — on the days in July you describe. To put it starkly, my involvement in your case was precisely zero. I hope that as a matter of your own journalistic integrity, you’ll want to alter the Medium piece to reflect these facts. Perhaps you’ll also share this on Twitter as widely as you shared the Medium piece yesterday.”
However, Freedland’s reading of this piece is incorrect. I am not implying that Freedland was “involved” in the end of my Guardian tenure. I have no clue about that, and to be sure, I did not make any such claim above.
My simple point is that my experience of egregious Guardian censorship over the Gaza gas story — which Freedland does not address beyond denying his involvement — has a long and little-known context, suggesting that rather than my experience being a mere bizarre and accidental aberration, it is part of an entrenched, wider culture across the paper of which Freedland himself has allegedly played a key role in fostering.
It is not my fault that the range of journalists I spoke to all described Freedland as the Guardian’s resident unofficial “gatekeeper” on Israel-Palestine coverage.Notably, Freedland fails to address their allegations that he has previously quashed stories which are critical of Israel on ideological grounds rather than reasons of ‘journalistic integrity.’
END
===
This is perhaps not entirely surprising. A book commissioned by The Guardian, Disenchantment: The Guardian and Israel, by Daphna Baram, documents clearly the connection between the newspaper and Zionism, noting for instance that Guardian editor CP Scott had been central to the negotiations with the British government resulting in the Balfour Declaration and the very conception of the state of Israel. Her conclusion is that despite becoming increasingly critical of the occupation after 1967, The Guardian remains staunchly pro-Zionist, its staff devoting “inordinate time and effort” to ensure “fairness to Israel.”
Toward a media revolution
The Guardian, quite rightly, has a reputation for breaking some of the most important news stories of the decade — among them, of course, playing a lead role in releasing Edward Snowden’s revelations about mass surveillance and related violations of civil liberties. Yet hidden in the cracks of this coverage is the fact that while disclosing critical facts, The Guardian has been unable to raise the most fundamental and probing questions about the purpose and direction of mass surveillance, why it has accelerated, what motivates it, and who benefits from it.
Questions must therefore be asked as to why a newspaper that sees itself as the global media’s bastion of liberalism, has engaged in such grievous censorship by shutting down coverage of environmental geopolitics — a phenomenon which is increasingly at the heart not just of conflict over the Occupied Territories, but of the chaos of world affairs in the 21st century.
If this is the state of The Guardian, undoubtedly one of the better newspapers, then clearly we have a serious problem with the media. Ultimately, mainstream media remains under the undue influence of powerful special interests, whether financial, corporate or ideological.
Given the scale of the converging crises we face in terms of climate change, energy volatility, financial crisis, rampant inequality, proliferating species extinctions, insane ocean acidification, food crisis, foreign policy militarism, and the rise of the police-state — and given the bankruptcy of much of the media in illuminating the real causes of these crises and their potential solutions, we need new reliable and accountable sources of news and information.
We need new media, and we need it now.
As print newspapers go increasingly into decline, the opportunity for new people-powered models of independent digital media is rising exponentially. That’s why I’ve launched a crowdfunder to help support my journalism, and to move toward creating a new investigative journalism collective that operates in the public interest, precisely because it is funded not by corporations or ideologues, but by people. If we can create new journalism platforms that are dependent for their survival on citizens themselves, then it is in the interests of citizens that those platforms will function. Until then, fearless, adversarial
investigative journalism will always be in danger of being shut down or compromised.
I believe that together, we can create a new people-powered model of journalism that will make the old, hierarchical media conglomerates dominated by special interests and parochial paternalistic visions of the world obsolete. So, if you like, pop along to my Patreon.com crowdfunder for INSURGE INTELLIGENCE, a truly independent people-powered investigative journalism collective that will remain dedicated to breaking the big stories that matter, no matter what. Pledge as little or as much as you like, and join the coming media revolution☺
Dr Nafeez Ahmed is an investigative journalist, bestselling author and international security scholar. Formerly of The Guardian, he writes the ‘System Shift’ column for VICE’s Motherboard, and is the winner of a 2015 Project Censored Award for Outstanding Investigative Journalism for his Guardian work. He is the author of A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilization: And How to Save It(2010), and the scifi thriller novel ZERO POINT, among other books.
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
