The Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) is an agglomeration of journalist unions around the world. Like other international journalism organizations it is highly defensive of journalists having the right to go anywhere and say anything, and usually do well at voicing such defenses. But, sometimes they don’t, as in the known threats and mayhem visited upon any native or visiting journalists who veer from the Hamas or PA lines in Gaza and the West Bank, respectively, even though the IFJ says its mission is to be “opposed to discrimination of all kinds and condemns the use of media as propaganda or to promote intolerance and conflict.”
The IFJ just expelled Israel from membership. Israel has been withholding dues, demanding not to pay more than Jordan. Israel is, also, mighty upset with the IFJ’s report on the last Gaza operations that blasted Israel for violating journalists “rights”, although the IFJ team refused to meet with Israelis and just got its info from Hamas supporters.
The co-chair of the IFJ’s “Future Group”, tasked with building a more competitive survival course for its globally declining membership as citizens of the world find better and faster ways to be informed, told an interviewer about its meeting, ““What kind of members do we want — well, anyone breathing,” quipped one unionist at the IFJ “Future Group” meeting. “I’m not even sure they need to be breathing,” added another.”
If international journalists keep kowtowing to Hamas and other thugs in the world, it needn’t worry about finding Israeli members who aren’t breathing.
Israel refused to let journalists enter Gaza from Israel during its operations there, not seeing any advantage in “if it bleeds it leads” sensationalism and anti-Israel bias from journalists to further impede its operations, as it had in its Lebanon offensive, both offensives against missile-terrorists’ safe havens. The world’s press expressed solidarity with reporters at the border, pillorying Israel for denying them access. Israel said, go enter from Egypt. But, Egypt also turned them away. The world’s press, somehow, failed to highlight this turnaway.
Meanwhile, coming forward to the present Obama administration and global press obsession with Israeli settlements, a Palestinian journalist now working from the outside quotes another Palestinian journalist he privately has access to: “A Palestinian journalist in the Gaza Strip remarked: ‘The Americans and Europeans are fighting against Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan while Hamas is building a new fundamentalist entity here. The settlements may be an obstacle to peace, but Hamastan will soon become a major threat to stability in the region.’ "
So are journalists who forget or pervert their mission for facts and truth.
BTW: Here's a prior post of mine about the IFJ defending Hamas propaganda.
