Palestinians: Pursuing War on Their Media

by Khaled Abu Toameh • June 15, 2020 at 5:00 am

"The case of Sami [Al-Sa'i] and what he was exposed to drove concern regarding the attempts of Palestinian Security Services... of torturing Palestinian Journalists, that may enhance the intimidation of journalists and the practice of self-censorship," MADA said. It also called on the PA to launch an investigation into the torture and ill-treatment of Al-Sa'i and other Palestinian journalists.
These are extraordinary violations of press freedoms and freedom of expression. Perpetrated anywhere else in the world, the international community would be up in arms. Because they are being committed by Palestinians against Palestinians, however -- and because the Palestinian leadership has not yet found a way to blame Israel for these particular crimes -- the torture of a Palestinian journalist is considered a no-news story.
We do not know how pro-Palestinian groups feel about the abuse: they never object to it. What they only seem to find objectionable is Israel. No wonder Palestinian leaders feel they have a green light to continue persecuting journalists and anyone else who utters a word against Abbas and his associates.

Palestinian journalist Sami Al-Sa'i was arrested on June 9 by Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces, for publishing news on social media platforms. The last time he was arrested, in 2017, for Facebook posts critical of the PA leadership, he was tortured by his Palestinian interrogators. "They used to tie my hands behind my back with a rope... They also hung me with a rope from the ceiling of the cell. They slapped me on the face and dragged me with a rope, telling me to walk like a dog." (Image source: iStock. Image is illustrative and does not represent any person in the article.)

While the Palestinian Authority (PA) appears to have suspended security coordination with Israel in accordance with PA President Mahmoud Abbas's May 18 announcement, it has not ended its long-time policy of harassing, intimidating and arresting Palestinian journalists.

By suspending the security coordination, Abbas is actually emboldening his political enemies and paving the way for Hamas to unseat him -- as they did in the Gaza Strip in 2007 and as they have apparently been planning to do again in the West Bank.

One of the main goals of the security coordination between the PA security forces and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had been to prevent Abbas's rivals in Hamas from undermining his rule over parts of the West Bank.

Abbas's Fatah faction has revealed that Hamas members detained by the PA security forces have admitted to planning the coup.

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Deciphering Bidenese

by Daniel Pipes • June 15, 2020 at 4:00 am

There is a brand-new game: decipher the rhetoric of Joe Biden...
The game he has inspired has two simple rules: (1) prune the gibberish and (2) add what is needed to make sense.
Whatever the impetus, should Biden win in November, let us hope he has sufficient influence on his own administration to implement this sound policy on Turkey.

American politics has never had a top politician like who (apparently suffering from dementia) makes such wandering, incoherent, garbled comments. (Photo by Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

There is a brand-new game: decipher the rhetoric of Joe Biden, former vice president and presumptive Democratic nominee for president.

American politics has never had a top politician who (apparently suffering from dementia) makes such wandering, incoherent, garbled comments. The game he has inspired has two simple rules: (1) prune the gibberish and (2) add what is needed to make sense.

Here is an example on an important topic, taken from a long interview with New York Times editors on December 16, 2019. Speaking about Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Biden said:

"He has to pay a price for whether or not we're going to continue to sell certain weapons to him. In fact, if he has the air defense system that they're flying F-15s through to see how they can try to figure out how to do it."

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