The Cairo-based Arabic Network for Human Rights Information reports on yet another example of apartheid Israel:
The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information “ANHRI.Net”condemns the detention of Palestinian Journalist Mohammad Omer Mughir by Israeli Occupation Forces. Muhammad was detained, assaulted and interrogated on June 27th upon his return to Gaza after receiving the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism. The young journalist returned to Gaza from the London ceremony and was subsequently seized and detained by the Israeli Military for several hours. During his detention he was assaulted, stripped, beaten, and interrogated about his trip to London and about the press award, which he received.
The international prize was awarded to Muhammad Omer Mughir for a series of newspaper articles that have portrayed the suffering of Palestinians under the current Israeli economic blockade of Gaza and the ongoing military occupation. Muhammad also wrote about his past detention at “Jesser El-Nabi” and how he has been targeted daily by Israeli Occupation Forces because of his journalism. The Martha Gellhorn prize for Journalism was established in 1999 by the wife of the late writer Ernest Hemingway, and honors journalists who give “a view from the ground” of world issues and conflicts.
The joint winner of the prize was leading independent journalist Dahr Jamail.
Does not it stuck you odd that Omer would have been attacked by the Israeli security forces upon his return to Gaza? There are no Israeli forces in Gaza and any incursion would have been such a mnajor violation of the ceasefire that even the Australian media would have reported it.
Omer was set upon at the Aleenby Bridge while crossing the Allenby Bridge into the West Bank from Jordan. With the Rafah crossing closed someone with a permit need to travel via the West Bank into Israel and from there in to Gaza. If bloggers would like to be treated as journalists then fact-checking of obviously impossible assertions is not an option but a necessity.
Sol, your invaluable work and insights are an important contribution to informed dialogue about Israel/Palestine and so you do yourself an disservice by choosing to score cheap points against Antony with such utterly trivial matters and inflating them to appear as if some major journalistic lapse is involved. This is unworthy and debases the serious issues at stake. At worst, Antony’s account is ambiguous and permits a correct reading, but your concern to make a point of this - gives enormous pleasure to adversaries of our common cause - the faithful, uncritical Zionist lobby bloggers (http://rwdb.blogspot.com/2008/06/author-and-journalists-fact-checking.html) who are delighted at your pot shots as evidence of the spurious split on the Jewish ‘left’ that you were yourself so concerned about. You may feel that such trivial gestures is a useful way to dissociate yourself from Antony’s views but you are doing yourself and your own cause more harm than good. The critics are only too pleased to use your “case” against Antony as evidence that he is unreliable on factual matters and you are, with them, guilty of diverting attention from the overwhelming, serious and tragic matters that deserve attention. In this case, the treatment of Omer is so appalling that you might have better used your talents to help these Jewish critics question their own allegiances and support of such crimes. Instead, you are playing into their hands and helping to undermine the enormously valuable contribution that Antony has been making to the goals that you share. By the way, the spelling is “Allenby” not “Aleenby”!