The Candy Bar that Blew Barghouti's Cover

Palestinian Incitement against the Media

by Bassam Tawil
May 10, 2017 at 5:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10330/barghouti-eating

Tellingly, although Nasser Abu Bakr's conflict of interest has been reported several times, his spectacular breach of journalistic ethics does not seem to bother his employers at Agence France-Presse (AFP). Worse, it calls into serious question AFP's professional ethics.
Let us be clear on this: Abu Bakr and his PA friends are demanding that the Israeli and international media refrain from reporting anything offensive about the Palestinians. That is censorship -- not to mention shock-troop thuggery.
Since his appointment as chairman of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate (PJS), Abu Bakr has spearheaded a campaign to boycott Israeli journalists and media organizations. He has repeatedly accused Israeli journalists of serving as an "arm" of the Israeli military authorities and government. Ironically, it is Abu Bakr and his PJS who serve as part of the Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership establishment and do not conceal their role as officials.

The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate (PJS), a body dominated by loyalists to Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, has resumed its incitement against Israeli media outlets and journalists.

On May 7, Israeli authorities released a video showing imprisoned Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, who is leading a "hunger strike" of more than 1,000 inmates held in Israeli prisons, secretly eating a candy bar in the bathroom of his prison cell. Israeli media outlets and journalists, like many of their Western colleagues, reported on the video, which has seriously embarrassed Barghouti and many other Palestinians.

A screenshot from a video showing imprisoned Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, who is leading a "hunger strike," secretly eating a candy bar in the bathroom of his prison cell. (Image source: Israel Prisons Service)

The prisoners' "hunger strike" is not about torture or denial of medical treatment. The prisoners seek expanded visitation rights, better access to public phones and more access to higher education.

But Barghouti, who began leading the "hunger strike" on April 17, has more on his mind than incarceration privileges.

The "hunger strike" is actually a strike against Mahmoud Abbas, who Barghouti believes has marginalized him, denying him an official senior position in Fatah.

It is worth noting that no one in the Israeli media was involved in the secret filming of Barghouti. Nor did any Israeli journalist know in advance about the authorities' decision to film Barghouti. All the Israeli media did was report on the release of the scandalous video, together with analysis about the implications of the video on the Palestinian prisoners' "hunger strike."

Yet the moment the video appeared in the Israeli media, Palestinian Authority officials and several Palestinian institutions and groups rushed to make serious and unfounded charges against the Israeli media for reporting on the video.

The charges, needless to say, are so grave that they endanger the lives of Israeli journalists covering Palestinian affairs.

Strikingly, the worst threats against Israeli media came from none other than the body representing hundreds of Palestinian journalists -- the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate. Equally disturbing, the PJS is headed by Nasser Abu Bakr, a highly partisan political activist -- and veteran journalist with the French news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP).

A statement issued by Abu Bakr's PJS, shortly after the Barghouti video was broadcast on Israeli television and radio stations, accused Israeli journalists of "collusion with the Israeli occupation authorities."

The statement warned Palestinian, Arab and Western media outlets against dealing with Israeli journalists, whom it accused of "broadcasting poison" by exposing that Barghouti was eating while claiming to be on hunger strike.

The PJS falsely accused Israeli media outlets of committing a "crime by seeking to break the will of the hunger-striking prisoners by publishing false claims" about Barghouti's eating.

The PJS said that its chairman, AFP's Abu Bakr, has filed a complaint with the International Federation of Journalists against Israeli reporters. According to Abu Bakr, the Israeli media is "involved in the crime of starving and terrorizing our prisoners and are major accomplices of the actions of the occupation."

This is far from the first time that Abu Bakr, who, unethically for AFP, holds a senior job with the international news agency, has been involved in incitement against Israeli journalists and media outlets. Moreover, in addition to his job as chairman of the PJS and reporter with AFP, Abu Bakr recently ran in internal elections for Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction. Tellingly, although Nasser Abu Bakr's conflict of interest has been reported several times, his spectacular breach of journalistic ethics does not seem to bother his employers at Agence France-Presse. Worse, it calls AFP's professional ethics into serious question.

Would AFP ever hire a journalist to report about the French presidential elections while this journalist was running in the election or holding a senior job with the French government?

Since his appointment as PJS chairman, Abu Bakr has spearheaded a campaign to boycott Israeli journalists and media organizations. He has repeatedly accused Israeli journalists of serving as an "arm" of the Israeli military authorities and government. Ironically, it is Abu Bakr and his PJS who serve as part of the Palestinian Authority leadership establishment and do not conceal their role as official organs.

Instead of reporting objectively about the controversy surrounding Barghouti's "hunger strike" and the fact that the jailed Fatah leader was caught cheating, Abu Bakr and his PJS chose to wage a vicious campaign of incitement against Israeli media organizations and journalists for simply reporting the truth.

One can understand why Abu Bakr is so furious about the scandal surrounding Barghouti's "hunger strike": he belongs to the same Fatah faction whose members are purportedly fasting in Israeli prisons.

This conflict of interest explains why the PJS and the PA leadership have instructed Palestinian journalists and media organizations to refrain from reporting about the video showing Barghouti enjoying a snack in his prison cell.

Threats against Israeli journalists are intended to deter them from reporting about any topic that could shed a negative light on the Palestinians.

This is, in fact, the preferred method of intimidation among Palestinians. It was first used against Palestinian and Western journalists who dared to criticize Palestinian leaders or report about corruption and terror-advocacy by Palestinian officials. In recent years, the campaign of intimidation has expanded to include Israeli journalists covering Palestinian affairs.

No wonder, then, that many Israeli journalists have stopped reporting about anything that could anger PA officials in Ramallah. These Israeli journalists claim that they deliberately avoid any criticism of the PA because they do not want to "lose access to sources" among the Palestinians.

This campaign against Israeli journalists is far from an isolated move. It ought to be seen in the context of the overall Palestinian incitement against Israel.

While Abbas is busy lying to Trump and the rest of the Western world that his society is raising Palestinian youth on a "culture of peace," the latest threats against Israeli journalists prove once again the depth of his deception.

These threats should be taken seriously for two reasons: they pose a direct threat to the safety of Israeli reporters working in PA-controlled territories and, second, they constitute a flagrant assault on freedom of expression and the media.

Let us be clear on this: Abu Bakr and his PA friends are demanding that the Israeli and international media refrain from reporting anything offensive about the Palestinians. That is censorship -- not to mention shock-troop thuggery.

Will international human rights groups and the International Federation of Journalists call out the Palestinians for inciting against Israeli journalists and demanding censorship of unpleasant facts? Or will they take their habitual tack, holding off on their denunciations until they have something negative to say about Israel?

Western journalists would do well to hold the Palestinians accountable for these threats. If they choose not to, their next visit to Ramallah will involve significant appeasement of demanding PA personnel.

Bassam Tawil is a scholar based in the Middle East.

© 2024 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

Related Topics: Israel, Palestinian Authority

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Comment on this item

13 Reader Comments

Dan Kelso • May 14, 2017 at 07:24

Thank you Bassam Tawil for telling us about Nasser Abu Bakr and him being a Fatah apologist working for AFP.
I just looked him up online and I'm shocked AFP allows this person to write for them knowing he's a propagandist for Fatah.
A great article about this.

http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=147&x_article=3315
'Rigorous Neutrality'?: Palestinian Journalists' Syndicate's Nasser Abu Baker Moonlights For AFP
by Tamar Sternthal
December 4, 2016

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tiki • May 11, 2017 at 03:03

The world is in pain because of the injustice done to these "innocent" terror killers in Israeli jails.

Bargouti's wife is appealing to the Pope for help.

The Tate Modern in London is used for propaganda for convicted killers.

Universities are rising up in protest to free convicted murderers.

Caught with his hands in the cookie jar won't change the love for Palestinian terrorists from Arab/Western hypocrites.

*Terrorists must of course be killed, scolded, blamed, convicted & hated.....but not Palestinian ones for they are "freedom fighters" and killing Israeli's & Jews is not a crime.

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Bisley • May 10, 2017 at 12:23

Most of the people in the news business would be better classified as political operatives than journalists. Nearly all of them are trying to promote people and policies they support, while vilifying any opposition -- omitting and distorting inconvenient facts, and lying when the truth doesn't fit their agenda. News must be viewed with due skepticism, and compared with known facts and common sense. Nasser Abu Bakr, and the rest, have to be taken for what they are, knowing that most are advocates rather than impartial observers.

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Stella Brc • May 10, 2017 at 10:25

Really? a partner for peace? Agence France-Press- shame on you. You are discredited long time ago.

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Jackie Rozell • May 10, 2017 at 09:58

Used to be a section on the MSNBC format called "Mexico" where news of what was going on in that country could be viewed. Then a Mexican reporter posted an article on the format that in addition to many reporters being murdered, the president had asked reporters not publish anything negative about Mexico. Then one day the "Mexico" section just didn't show up on the news format and never has again. Now the only news we get from that quarter is when something so egregious happens, it overflows the information constraints and leaks out. The same has now been done in France when the media refused to report on the protest and anger of hundreds of French police from Paris to other towns and cities about the French government's lack of courage and will to deal with the street gangs formed by young Muslims who were firebombing police vehicles, walking on to campuses and assaulting the principals of schools, overflowing a hospital waiting room and attacking the medical personnel and destroying equipment, and savagely attacking police and others walking down the streets. Censorship of the media, even as biased as the media often is, is dangerous.

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Laura • May 10, 2017 at 09:19

It appears to me that both the Moslems and the regressive left enjoy using "projection" and lying against their enemies - kufirs and conservatives - and their enemies are too "nice" to hit back, unfortunately.

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Michael Broughton • May 10, 2017 at 07:52

"Allah-hu-snack-bar"...aah now I get it!

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Dr Frank Leavitt "Yeruham"

Michael Broughton • May 10, 2017 at 14:02

"Akbar", big in Arabic sure sounds like "Acbar", mouse in Hebrew.
So when we hear them screaming from the loudspeakers at their mosques
it sounds as if they must be inviting their people to pray to a mouse: i.e. sounds like a call to prayer to a strange god.
Best wishes to all,
Dr Frank Leavitt (Yeruham)
Retired, Ben Gurion University,
Resident, Kiriat Arba, Hebron, (a place where their amplified calls to
prayer are heard day and night.

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Jeff Page • May 10, 2017 at 07:10

And so the fiasco is maintained! The West's leaders will eventually wake and take note and shudder at their incompetence and naivety by actually listening and even worse, believing, what the so called, Muslims have been telling them about the "Peaceful Religion Of Islam". What a joke that phrase is! The Muslims really know how to take the Mickey, don't they? Yet we get the most gullible of leaders such as Trudeau and Merkel totally convinced that Muslims are just like everyone else on this earth, and they, in turn, try on a daily basis to convince the rest of the Wests leaders that their path is the way to bring all together. Completely and utterly deluded people or simply in receipt of massive investment of Arab world money to their particular countries! People from all over the world and from different religions can live side by side in peaceful harmony, but unfortunately for the deluded leaders of the West, it will never include Muslims. The Muslim faith is totalitarian in practice and controls followers everyday lives, body and soul, through fear and intimidation. It seems as though Western leaders admire this and are aiding Muslims in their lifetime quest to control the whole world in the name of their false prophet and "Allah"!

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Ora

Jeff Page • May 13, 2017 at 17:14

Jeff, you say that: "The West's leaders will eventually wake and take note and shudder at their incompetence and naivety..." I hope you are right but if they haven't "woken up" by now, why do you think they will in the future? There are more Arabs and more Arab states than Jews and the Jewish state so it is more in their interest to pander to the Arabs. Do you think the West's leaders really aren't aware of the truth? But it is in their interest to turn a blind eye to this. It wins them points in the Arab world and they know the Jews aren't going to start riots in their countries.

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dm • May 10, 2017 at 06:54

The request for extra visiting rights and access to phones is hilarious, whilst he snacks on candy bars hiding in his bathroom! Any access to computers or outside connectivity can only be a means to an end to cause more trouble. Bargouthi is a convicted murderer, any further media involvement should be stopped, or discontinued immediately. He should be ignored!!!!!!

Why shouldn't the press report on criminal activities relating to criminal activities carried out by the so-called Palestinian people? It is ridiculous to think that the Palestinians or any other Arab country for that matter, can demand that reports on their criminal activities should not be reported. The term "Thuggery" is correct, originally emanating from Calcutta, West Bengal, where a group of "thugs" ran around murdering MANY people with a rope with a knot in it, crushing the windpipe, to create silence and fear. This demand is also reminiscent of the start of the SS in Germany, when the brown shirts ran around in gangs murdering people to silence the majority based on the FEAR FACTOR!!!

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Mickey Oberman • May 10, 2017 at 06:39

Left to their own devices Israel's enemies would eventually destroy themselves.

They should be encouraged.

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Jackie Rozell

Mickey Oberman • May 10, 2017 at 15:47

Unfortunately, they are not; they are aided by Israel's "allies" such as the US who keep trying to tell Israel how to handle them while sitting safely away from the Palestinian terrorist attacks. France, and now England, are beginning to suffer their own Muslim domestic terrorism and STILL won't stop denouncing Israel. You would think that, since their own policies and politics toward Muslims have not resulted in their own countries being safe and harmonious, they would have apologized to Israel by now... instead they call for more pressure on Israel to change THEIR tactics. And in spite of living daily with Palestinian attacks, Israel is safer than either France or England.

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