Fatah, the movement that dominates the Palestinian Authority, has a long history of intimidating and harassing journalists. But as CAMERA tells the Washington Times this is a story that the media ignores.
This week, both Hamas in Gaza and Fatah's Tanzim in the West Bank benefit from what is apparently AFP's equal opportunity tilt in the service of terror groups.
Terrorist groups and autocrats routinely use intimidation to influence press coverage to their advantage. As CAMERA noted in a recent Washington Examiner op-ed, the Taliban, for example, has a long history of threatening journalists. And, as a recent assault by Fatah against two Washington Post reporters illustrates, the practice extends from Kabul to Ramallah and beyond.
Hamas, the U.S.-designated terrorist group that rules the Gaza Strip, is making inroads in the West Bank. The genocidal terrorist organization is looking to supplant, Fatah, the movement that controls the U.S.-backed Palestinian Authority, and is gaining in popularity. Yet, as CAMERA noted in the Washington Examiner, too many press and policymakers are seemingly oblivious.
As CAMERA highlighted in a recent National Review Op-Ed: For the Palestinian leaders who choose to promote them, intifadas are often self-defeating. Going back to the first intifada in the 1930s, anti-Jewish violence and terror often upsets the Palestinian political landscape—often sweeping aside, or weakening, the very Palestinian leaders responsible for inciting them.
Palestinian leaders are never responsible for the inflammatory actions they take. That’s the overarching New York Times narrative about the Arab-Israeli conflict, and that’s the message again of today’s story, by reporters David M. Halbfinger, Adam Rasgon and Mohammed Najib, about Palestinian threats to cut off security cooperation with Israel.
The Associated Press, which in 2018 falsely reported that "Iran has never threatened to attack Israel," again today erases anti-Israel threats, fabricating: Palestinian President Mahmoud "Abbas has always been opposed to violence."
Fatah, the ruling Palestinian party, published a threatening video inciting against Israeli journalists, and the International Federation of Journalists, the largest organization representing journalists internationally, has yet to voice any concern.
It has become common to hear that the U.S. government has always had an unwavering “pro-Israel bias.” But as CAMERA noted in The Jerusalem Post, history is never as simple, or as neat, as common narratives suppose.
An AFP photographer captured images of Fatah supporters in Bethlehem carrying a huge sign glorifying Dallal al-Mughrabi, but the news agency's captions whitewash the arch-terrorist who slaughtered dozens of unarmed men, women and children in the bloodiest terror attack against Israeli civilians.
