Last Wednesday the undercover Border Police commandos who disguise themselves as Palestinians, known as mistarvim, entered Birzeit University near Ramallah and arrested student council president Omar al-Kiswani. Al-Kiswani is active in the Hamas students' cell at the university, which controls the student council.
According to reports based on Palestinian eyewitness accounts, the Mistarvim who arrested Al-Kiswani that day entered the university grounds disguised as journalists.
The very fact that military
forces entered a Palestinian university in the middle of a school day
and arrested the head of the student council in itself merits criticism.
Disguising themselves as journalists is naturally another reason for
the great deal of attention the story received, both in the Israeli and
Palestinian media, for good reason.
But as a journalist who works in the West Bank,
it was clear to me that the reports of this arrest are likely to have
significant consequences for me too.
As
Israeli journalists covering the West Bank, we often encounter
entrenched suspicion on the part of Palestinians. Some aren't interested
in being interviewed because they have been burned by the Israeli media
and how they were presented, and others boycott Israeli media outlets on principle, and see them as a part of the occupation and intelligence establishments.
As the years pass, the degree and depth of the
severance between Israeli and Palestinian societies is growing, as is
the mutual hostility of both sides. This distancing makes the work of
Israeli journalists on the West Bank even more important, if more
difficult.
Telling
stories from behind the wall and exposing truths is our way to make
sure people stay informed. To do it, we have to speak to people, to be
in the field, to win a certain amount of trust.
There's
another reason for Palestinians' wariness of Israeli journalists, and
it's got nothing to do with abstract feelings of mistrust or hatred.
It's very concrete: Israel's use of undercover commandos disguised as
Palestinians to perform arrests, Israel's continual attempts to recruit
collaborators, and the permits regime, which requires Palestinians to
report to a Shin Bet security service investigation in order to receive
entry visas to Israel, creates a society in which almost nobody can be
trusted.
Someone who looks like you could turn out to be an Israeli soldier in disguise; your neighbor may be an informant.
That
suspicion becomes even greater when it comes to foreigners: Every
journalist who has traveled around the West Bank is familiar with the
looks and the questions, the need to build trust, in the face of decades
during which the Israeli system has broken up Palestinian society into
ever smaller and more controllable units. Any individual can pose a
danger, any stranger is seen as a potential undercover commando.
The mistarvims' activity is the most
performative act of sowing this fear: sneaking, literally, into the
heart of Palestinian villages, towns and cities. Unsurprisingly, those
acts trigger the ultimate mistrust.
Disguising
themselves as journalists in order to carry out an arrest "confirms"
the link that's already there between the Israeli media and Israeli
intelligence. That is a clear and present danger for the Israeli
journalists who really do legitimate reporting work in the West Bank.
This point caused the Union of Journalists in Israel to issue a quick and unusual condemnation after the arrest. According to the declaration it "regards with concern the fact that the mistarvim
were disguised as a film crew of journalists. This behavior is liable
to endanger real journalists who come to do their job, and undermines
freedom of the press."
The organization's announcement was laudable and
necessary, though it stands isolated in the face of Israeli universities
and students' unions' silence; they didn't see fit to condemn an arrest
taking place in the middle of a university.
But actually the anger at exploiting journalists
as cover emphasizes how Israeli journalists express outrage only when it
affects us directly. There is an ongoing lack of solidarity of with
Palestinian journalists per se.
There's no shortage of examples of issues
requiring solidarity: Israel's use of administrative detention against
Palestinian journalists is a clear example, closing media outlets and
confiscating equipment is another, not to mention the physical harm
Palestinian journalists suffer during the course of their work.
Palestinian journalists do not enjoy the same
protection as Israeli (or foreign) journalists. The most basic example
is that while Israeli journalists can travel freely in the West Bank,
without any need for a permit except for a press card from the Israeli
Government Press Office, Palestinian journalists must receive an entry
visa to Israel, which often involves questioning by the Shin Bet.
Even
when they manage to receive an entry permit and to enter Israel, their
coverage is limited compared to that of Israelis, since – in contrast to
Israeli or foreign journalists – Palestinian journalists are rarely
granted a GPO press card. The absence of the card means a restriction on
entry to official events as well as on freedom of movement within and
beyond the Green Line.
During
the Temple Mount crisis (in which Palestinians protested against
Israel's installation of metal detectors at the site's entrance), some
Palestinian journalists with entry visas to Israel were prevented from reporting in Jerusalem's Old City because they had no press card.
The
huge differences between the Israeli and Palestinians' ability to
report, and the decided silence of Israeli journalists on behalf of
their Palestinian peers, exposes the lack of any real collegiality, and
constitutes an implicit collusion with limiting the freedom of the
press.
And finally, there is the question of how the
Israeli media covers the IDF's incursions into Palestinian territory
itself. Here, too,
Hagar Shezaf
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