'Something to hide'

Operation Protective Wall may be aptly named, at least in so far as reporting the truth is concerned. Michael Jansen, in Jerusalem, reports on the trials and tribulations of covering the Israeli invasion
In 1982 the world press representatives, holed up in the Commodore Hotel in besieged Beirut, sent forth a stream of reports on Ariel Sharon's brutal military campaign which, ultimately, compelled the White House to call a halt. Today's equivalent of the Commodore is the American Colony Hotel in East Jerusalem, an elegant Ottoman-era villa where well- bankrolled television anchors wear their $1,000 flak jackets and park their armoured jeeps. We lesser mortals make do with cheaper digs, courageous Palestinian taxi drivers and sturdy walking shoes. All are determined that in this war truth will not be the "first casualty."
The Israeli Government Press Office efficiently processes press cards for the estimated 1,100 journalists who have come to cover the campaign and messages them on their mobile phones about briefings by Israeli spokesmen. Chosen Israeli and foreign journalists are given army-guided tours of story sites. But for the mass of foreign correspondents, Israeli press cards do not ensure access to the Palestinian cities, towns, villages and refugee camps reoccupied by Israel's armed forces, even after all Palestinian resistance has long since ended. Indeed, press cards often ensure a rebuff or incite threatening behaviour on the part of Israeli troops. And Israeli briefings do not satisfy the public's thirst for eye-witness accounts of what is happening on the ground.
The instrument the Israeli army uses to deny media access is the army order proclaiming a specific location a "closed military area." Troops blocking access are obliged to show journalists a copy of this order. However, it is written in Hebrew, a language few foreign correspondents know, and is rarely displayed. At the checkpoints which close off virtually all West Bank Palestinian population centres journalists are given a verbal "no." Occasionally armed troops block their way and fire warning shots. This policy forces the media to enter forbidden areas by the "back door," risking life and limb and courting arrest to get the ongoing story.
Jenin refugee camp and the old city of Nablus, sites of fierce fighting, have been the most difficult high-profile stories to cover. However, the army's encirclement of these cities is loose when compared to the tight sieges imposed on scores of forgotten West Bank villages where journalists never set foot. Israel closed off easy "back door" routes to Ramallah in mid-April, forcing journalists to walk for as long as an hour and a half to get into the city. In Bethlehem, the most accessible town, troops temporarily seized the press cards of 17 foreign and Palestinian journalists on 22 April. Undeterred by this incident, other journalists remain in flagrant breach of the "closed military area" order at the Bethlehem Star Hotel awaiting developments in the month-long siege of the Church of the Nativity.
Early last month, Reporters without Borders issued a formal statement accusing the Israeli army of "knowingly targeting journalists in a deliberate policy of intimidation. The Israeli authorities are treating many journalists as 'enemies' and accusing them of being 'Palestinian sympathisers.' They are also doing everything they can to hide their military operations and accompanying abuses from the world's media."
The organisation criticised Israel for failing to honour its signature on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which guarantees "the freedom to seek, receive and impart information... The press freedom situation has deteriorated as never before in Israel's history." Two weeks later the group issued a tally of Isaeli abuses against the media: seven journalists wounded, four detained, 15 arrested, 60 targeted by gunfire, 20 roughed up or threatened, 20 who had passports, press cards or equipment confiscated, one deported and 10 Arab media offices ransacked or occupied. These now out-of-date figures do not reflect the difficult conditions in which journalists operate.
Danny Seaman, director of the Israeli press office, told Sara Liebovich-Dar, writing in Ha'aretz on 26 April, "There's a limit to freedom of expression even in a democratic country... I am supposed to look out for the interests of the State of Israel in the media." During the first week of the Israeli offensive, Seaman refused to meet with a delegation from Reporters without Borders and denied its members accreditation.
His explanation for such treatment is that in August the organisation dubbed Israeli Chief-of-Staff Shaul Mofaz an opponent of press freedom. Seaman said that the group's "objective is to slander the State of Israel." This is very far from reality. Most Western correspondents are receptive to the Israeli point of view or work for media which sympathise with Israel. However, many of these journalists now believe that Israel's campaign to deny access to the media means it "has something to hide." This makes dedicated press people all the more determined to make certain that the truth emerges from the fog of war.
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