Lack of Palestinian journalists at historic Middle East summit
By Jay Bushinsky Posted Apr 1 2005
JERUSALEM — When three Palestinian journalists were asked why there was no Palestinian press attendance at the historic Middle East Summit Conference, Feb. 8, at Sharm el-Sheikh, an assortment of answers were recieved. But officials representing the four governmental bodies involved (Egypt [the host], Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Authority) prefer to leave the question wide open.
Khalil Assali, correspondent of Radio SAWA (affiliated with the Voice of America) says the Arabic-language newspapers of the West Bank and Gaza Strip “were not willing to pay the money” necessary to cover the cost of travel.
“Anyway,” he went on, “the PA didn’t want them to come and did not offer to provide the requisite services at the scene.” He quoted unnamed PA officials as having told him and his Palestinian colleagues, ‘Take it from the wires.’
He assumed that they did not want the Palestinian journalists “to cover the juicy stuff, like Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and PA President Mahmoud Abbas shaking hands, engaging in small talk and behaving like old friends.”
Despite this attitude, a staffer from the daily Al-Ayam, one of the PA’s mouthpieces, “wanted to go, but the PA said ‘no.’”
Time magazine’s Jamil Hamad, a veteran member of its Jerusalem Bureau blamed the Palestinians’ absence on the Egyptians.
“Egypt did not want Palestinian journalists to be in Sharm el-Sheikh because it cannot control them and they are not considered sufficiently loyal to the Cairo regime,” he said.
The daily Al-Quds news editor, Maher Al-Alami, saw no reason to read any hidden meanings in the Palestinian journalists’ absence from the summit. “The PA simply had no interest in taking any Palestinian journalists along,” he says. “There was no space for them” on Abbas’ plane.
Recalling the precedents which go back to the days of the late Chairman Yasser Arafat, founder and head of the PA, he conceded that “usually they took one or two from each newspaper.” But Abbas did not follow Arafat’s
example.
Like the competition, Arabic dailies published in Jerusalem, Gaza and elsewhere, Al-Quds got the story from the news agencies.
Jay Bushinsky
Jay Bushinsky’s foreign correspondence began in 1967 when he covered the Six-Day War for the Chicago Daily News. In 1980, he established CNN’s Jerusalem Bureau and ran it until 1985. He currently works as correspondent for WINS Radio in New York and other radio stations.