I'm grateful to blogger Andrew Grant-Adamson for pointing out a story I had missed, that the Israeli Association of Journalists last week suspended its membership of the International Federation of Journalists. It did so because the IFJ issued a statement on July 14 condemning the Israeli attack on the Lebanese broadcaster Al-Manar, which was described as being "linked to Hezbollah."
The IFJ's general secretary, Aidan White, said that day: "The bombing of Al-Manar is a clear demonstration that Israel has a policy of using violence to silence media it does not agree with. This action means media can become routine targets in every conflict. It is a strategy that spells catastrophe for press freedom and should never be endorsed by a government that calls itself democratic."
But the Israeli association did not view it as a press freedom issue and called on White to retract his statement. He refused and it responded by sending a strongly worded letter to the IFJ accusing White of "cowardice" for failing to resile his position. He deserved a "badge of shame", it said, for referring to Hezbollah's propaganda tool [Al-Manar] as "free press."
Yaron Enosh, the Israeli association's representative on the IFJ executive, said: "Al-Manar gets its budget from the same people firing on us. They are not journalists, they are terrorists and I won't be a member of the same organisation as terrorists." He also made it clear that this was not an isolated incident, telling the Jerusalem Post that it followed three years of repeated IFJ condemnations of Israel. However, he said the organisation made no comment when five Israeli and foreign journalists were harmed by Hezbollah fire.
Far from being cowed by this decision, the Brussels-based IFJ issued a further statement yesterday, this time condemning Israel's attacks on other Lebanese television stations, including Future TV and the nation's leading private network, the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation, in which a worker was reportedly killed. White commented that the attacks "represent an appalling threat to press freedom and to the safety of media staff and cannot be justified."
Once more, Israeli journalists were aggrieved that White made no mention of Hezbollah allegedly kidnapping "a group of journalists" (though I think this refers to two journalists who were detained briefly by a crowd in southern Beirut and, in fact, rescued by a Hezbollah leader).
Now, at the risk of attracting the wrath of Israeli journalists and the unwelcome attentions of the Zionist lobby, let me explain as rationally as possible why the IFJ is right to have adopted its stance. Leaving aside the argument about whether ALL journalism is a propaganda of sorts, it must be blindingly obvious to anyone connected to the conflict in the Middle East that each side views the other's media as purveying some form of propaganda. Consider the intractability of the situation. The Israelis and the Arabs - of whatever nation, of whatever Muslim persuasion - have no point of agreement. They do not agree about ancient history let alone modern history. They both view each other as terrorists. Both sides see themselves as victims and both are convinced they are right. So it is quite logical that each should view the journalistic output of the other as a form of propaganda.
But whether it is, or is not, propaganda is a value judgement. For example, if a Hezbollah radio station devotes its news bulletin to haranguing the enemy and urging its supporters to mass on the border and fight, is this any different from an Israeli radio station devoting its news bulletin to warning its citizens of the enemy at the gates and urging them to support the nation by joining the defence forces? In a very real sense, what should underpin our journalistic view of both such broadcasts is the right of each of them to their freedom of expression. In other words, it is a press freedom matter, and it is wrong of any military force to deliberately target non-combatants exercising their right to freedom of expression (just as it was wrong for NATO to have bombed the Belgrade headquarters of a Serbian broadcaster in 1999).
I don't know a great deal about the IFJ, though I understand that it claims to represent more than 500,000 journalists in some 110 countries. But I've noted the work it has done in company with other media organisations in trying to make life safer for journalists trying to report during conflicts. And I've also read its two statements on the bombing of Al-Manar carefully. On the basis of that knowledge, I'd say it has nothing to apologise for. I think Israel's journalists have to think again, and think more deeply, about the step they have taken. Then they might well realise that their public rejection of the IFJ is a far less acceptable form of propaganda than any broadcast in Beirut.
