Arab Muslim Journalist Decries Coverup of PA Reign of Terror

Three years ago I began writing a daily report for the Jerusalem Post. The irony is that, as an Arab Muslim, I feel freer to write for this Jewish paper than I do for any Arab newspaper....When Arafat arrived in Gaza in 1994, there was a lot of hope that now the Palestinians would have a free media. However, the first thing the PLO did was to order an immediate crackdown on the Palestinian media. Many local journalists had their offices torched. Some were arrested, beaten, or had their equipment confiscated. It was even sadder to see how the foreign media did not really cover the story. Those who came with Arafat from Tunis came with what can be called an "Arab regime" mentality, the mentality of Nasser, the mentality of Arab dictatorships. They wanted to make sure that the Palestinian media was 100% under control. They secured control by appointing editors, by closing down newspapers, and by funding competing newspapers.

Many of my foreign colleagues have tended to ignore the voice of the man in the street, but it is not enough to interview this or that official. To understand what the Palestinians are really thinking, you need to sit in the cafes. There were days when I would go to Nablus, for example, and I would hear Palestinians telling me, "You know what? We really hope the Jews will come back and reoccupy Nablus. It's not because we love Israel, but because we're fed-up with the Palestinian Authority and Palestinian corruption."

The foreign media did not pay enough attention to stories about corruption in the Palestinian areas, or to stories about abuse of human rights, to all that was really happening under the Palestinian Authority. They did not want to pay attention to the growing frustration on the Palestinian street as a result of mismanagement, as a result of the abuse of power, as a result of monopolizing of power by the PLO....Have things now changed with regard to the media under a Palestinian Authority led by Abu Mazen? Unfortunately, no....Under Abu Mazen there was a written order issued by the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate that forbids Palestinian journalists from reporting on internal clashes. Under Abu Mazen there is a written directive that says cameramen are not allowed to take pictures of masked gunmen marching with their guns in the streets....A hundred and fifty gunmen can surround a house and snatch a general from his home in his pajamas and shoot him in the street just outside Abu Mazen's office, and no one saw anything and there is not even one eyewitness....

What is the difference between the young guard and the old guard? Abu Mazen believes in the political track, that the only way to achieve something is through negotiations. The young guard believes there should be a two-track policy: negotiations and "resistance." The young guard is not prepared to give up the military option. So a victory for the young guard is not necessarily a victory for moderate voices....Fatah and the Palestinian security forces are first and foremost responsible for the anarchy and lawlessness. The Palestinian security forces were never real security forces; they were, and some of them still are, functioning as private militias. According to figures released by the Palestinian Interior Ministry, Fatah and the Palestinian security forces were involved in most of the incidents of violence in the Gaza Strip in the first nine months of 2005....The Palestinians want freedom and democracy. Democracy might happen, but not in the near future. As long as you have armed gangs in the streets and as long as the Palestinian security forces are not real security forces and as long as there is no rule of law, you can't have democracy.