COMM 209: Israeli reporter on Gaza attack

Stories that I post to the class blog carrying a course number -- in this case COMM 209 -- are assigned reading for that class. I realize our class doesn't begin for another two weeks, but for some reason the world doesn't always bother to follow the Springfield College-Benedictine University academic calendar. So I'll post stories that illustrate things I think are important. But I'll try not to post too many (if the world will just let me slack off like that ...) Keep scrolling down, BTW, there's also one of these on Jan. 2 on the difference between newspapers and blogs.

On the Haaretz.com website today is a story by Amira Hass on what it's like for civilians in the Gaza Strip under attack by the Israeli army, known in Israel as the IDF or Israeli Defense Forces. It's a remarkable piece of reporting.

Amira Hass is, in my opinion, in a category all by herself. She's Jewish, born in Israel to two survivors of the Shoah or Holocaust. She reports from a Palestinian point of view for Ha'aretz, a Labour party newspaper, and she's lived both in Gaza and Ramallah on the West Bank. According to a profile in Editor & Publisher magazine in the past month she was: (1) thrown out of Gaza by Hamas; and (2) promptly arrested by Israeli police on her return to Israel. She won the Press Freedom Hero award from the International Press Institute in 2000, the Bruno Kreisky Human Rights Award in 2002, the UNESCO / Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize in 2003 and the inaugural award from the Anna Lindh Memorial Fund in 2004.

Today's story begins with a matter-of-fact account of how difficult it is to communicate in Gaza:

Three hours after the Israel Defense Forces began their ground operation in the Gaza Strip, at about 10:30 P.M. Saturday night, a shell or missile hit the house owned by Hussein al A'aiedy and his brothers. Twenty-one people live in the isolated house, located in an agricultural area east of Gaza City's Zeitoun neighborhood. Five of them were wounded in the strike: Two women in their eighties (his mother and aunt), his 14-year-old son, his 13-year-old niece and his 10-year-old nephew.

Twenty hours later, the wounded were still bleeding in a shed in the courtyard of the house. There was no electricity, no heat, no water. Their relatives were with them, but every time they tried to leave the courtyard to fetch water, the army shot at them.

Al A'aiedy tried to summon help on his cell phone, but Gaza's cell phone network is collapsing. Shells have hit transponders, there is no electricity and no diesel fuel to run the generators. Every time the telephone works, it is a minor miracle.

At about noon Sunday, Al A'aiedy finally managed to reach S., who called me. There was nothing else that S., who lives nearby, could do.

I had known Al A'aiedy for eight years, and I called Physicians for Human Rights. They called the IDF's liaison office to ask it to arrange to have the wounded evacuated. That was shortly after noon - and as of press time, the liaison office had still not called PHR back.

Meanwhile, someone else had managed to reach the Red Crescent Society. It called the Red Cross and asked it to coordinate the evacuation of the wounded with the IDF. That was at 10:30 A.M. - and as of press time Sunday night, the Red Cross had still not been able to do so.

Notice how she knows these people, from living in Gaza before. (She's on the Israeli side of the lines now, of course.) Notice also how she identifies one of them only by initial and doesn't pinpoint where he lives. Sometimes you do things like that to protect your sources.

And notice also how she tries to get humanitarian aid across the lines for the Palestinian family. Under American standards of journalistic ethics, that might be considered an ethical violation - i.e. putting yourself in the story too much. Ask yourself: What would you do in a similar circumstance?

Israeli journalism is more like that in Europe than America. And Hass is a columnist, which means she gets to express her opinion more than a hard news reporter would. In an earlier column quoted extensively in the Editor & Publisher profile, she did just that:

This is not the time to speak of proportional responses, not even of the polls that promise a greater share of Knesset [Israeli parliament] seats to the mission's architects. This is, however, the time to speak of the voters' belief the operation will succeed, that the strikes are precise and the targets justified.

Take, for example, Imad Aqel Mosque in Jabalya refugee camp, bombed and strafed shortly before midnight on Sunday. These are the names of the glorious military victory we achieved there - Jawaher, age 4; Dina, age 8; Sahar, age 12; Ikram, age 14; and Tahrir, age 17, all sisters of the Ba'lousha family, all killed in a "precise" strike on the mosque. Another three sisters, a 2-year-old brother and their parents were injured. Twenty-four neighbors were wounded and five homes and three stores destroyed. This part of the military victory did not open our television or radio news broadcasts yesterday morning, nor did they appear on many Israeli news Web sites.

Powerful writing, as Editor & Publisher's editor Greg Mitchell noted.

Something else must also be noted: Israel is a democracy with a strong tradition of freedom of the press. In most countries worldwide, Hass would not be allowed to do this kind of reporting in time of war.