Palestinians: "No Jews Allowed!"

[Mosby]

"We will approve the meeting on condition there are no Jews."

This is what you are likely to hear these days if you request a meeting with any senior Palestinian Authority official in the West Bank.

Palestinian journalists who try to arrange meetings or interviews with Palestinian Authority representatives for Western colleagues have become used to hearing such things almost on a daily basis.

Just last week, for example, a journalist who requested a meeting between Western journalists and a top Palestinian Authority official was told "to make sure there were no Jews or Israelis" among the visitors.

The official's aide went on to explain: "We are sorry, but we do not meet with Jews or Israelis."

Another Palestinian journalist who tried to arrange an interview with a Palestinian Authority official for a European colleague was turned down "because the man's name indicates he is a Jew."

In yet another recent incident, a Palestinian Authority ministry instructed its guards to "prevent Jewish reporters" from attending an event in Ramallah.

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3783/palestinians-no-jews-allowed

[PDJane]

1. And why would anyone blame them?

48 years or so of a vicious occupation???

[shira]

3. Anti-racists blind to anti-Jew bigotry are adorable. n/t

[PDJane]

4. Shira, you are blind and deaf. This is a reaction to jewish bigotry, and you're a part of it.

[azurnoir]

11. with all due respect the whole thing is a load of bull pucky based on this from the OP

Even the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate in the West Bank has come out in support of the restrictions. The syndicate has even gone a step further by urging the Palestinian Authority leadership to ban Israeli journalists from entering Palestinian cities and working there without permission.

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3783/palestinians-no-jews-allowed

however where are most Palestinian cities in the West Bank located? could it be Area A where the Paalestinians have full civil and security control?

[Fozzledick]

2. THIS is what a real apartheid state looks like.

[msongs]

5. exaclty but the israelis keep doing it anyway nt

[JoDog]

6. So....

If they do not want to meet or talk to any Israeli or Jew, how can they negotiate with Israel? Or am I missing something here?

Also, I am a former reporter, a writer, and a Jew. What if a PA official comes to the US, holds a press conference, but refuses to start until all the Jews leave the room? Would that be OK? Should I grant this ridiculous request and risk losing my job, or stay and hope my Irish last name is enough to fool him?

If the Israeli government systematically started excluding Muslims and ethnic Arabs from meetings and news conferences no one here would stand for it, and for good reason. It would be wrong. I am disappointed that some people think that these action by the PA are acceptable.

[Scootaloo]

8. Well, so long as his ID doesn't say "A Palestinian Official" you'll probably be fine

That "A Palestinian Official" guy is kind of a bastard. So is his cousins, "Unnamed Minister" and "Anonymous Reporter." And frankly I don't blame these guys for being bastards, could you imagine going through life with a name like that? Their therapists must be rich beyond all imagining.

Your name helps too, of course. You're "JoDog," not "a reporter," or "Jewish Reporter."

What we have here is total anonymity for everyone involved - for the PA side and for the reporter side. These incidents happened "recently," and they occurred at some event or instance, in a place somewhere. You know, even Pam Gellar manages to utilize link technology, it's not that difficult. Elder of Ziyon sources and cites.

So then we consider the source that is telling us this vague, murky stuff. Khaled Abu Toameh is a journalist I probably wouldn't see eye-to-eye with politically, but he's an actual journalist, with plenty of writing credibility. But he seems to have forgotten how to journalize here. If he's trying for a gonzo "trust me I was there" style... he does a marvelously terrible job of it. But at the end of the article, his name is the only one we have to go on, and we're left having to take his word as truth. Which for a guy who participates in - no kidding here - Hasbara Fellowships," I have to say I'm a little reluctant to do

However, despite being a senior fellow at the Institute (another eye-roller for me) he's not an editor.

So we take a step up the ladder - the Gatestone Institute itself. I love these ultra-right bullshit "think tanks" that our "Liberal Zionist" posters swarm around like fruit flies. If you thumb through their stuff, there's a clear narrative at the GSI to portray Arabs and Muslims as howling devils out for flesh, unreasonable monsters who need to be resisted when not ignored. Unsurprising given its Neocon staffing, and its founder Nina Rosenwald's warm embrace of Geert Wilders and the invasion of Iraq (See, look, links! Names! Sources! Citations! Who-what-when-where-how-why!) When you realize this particular direction of bias in the articles and op-eds furnished by the Gatestone Institute, you begin to understand the murkiness of Mr. Toameh's piece a little better.

The goal is to demonize Palestinians, to portray them as unreasonable, hateful savages. Now with that in mind, let's guess that these events described are seeded in reality - I'm willing to grant Mr. Toameh probably has the journalistic integrity to not just make shit up and report it as fact. The question becomes, how close does the reality mirror what mr. Toameh is reporting? I don't know - and from Toameh's article, I can't find out. However I'm going to take a guess that it probably doesn't mirror it very closely - if it did, perhaps there would be links, citations, names, dates, something that can be backed up and verified and checked. What we're looking at is something that got spun so hard that the fact-finding trail just flew off of it like debris from a tornado.

And what we're left with is a hasbara writer, a senior fellow at an anti-Arab, islamophobic, neocon think-tank, assuring us that, trust him, the Palestinians are basically Nazis.

[shira]

9. No Jews in future Palestinian state (Oct 2010)

When you imagine a future Palestinian state, do you imagine it being a place where Jews, if they wish to become Palestinian citizens, could own property, vote in elections, and practice their religion freely?

I remember in the mid-’90s, the late [PLO official] Faisal Husseini said repeatedly “OK, if Israelis choose to stay in a future Palestinian state, they are more than welcome to do that. But under one condition: They have to respect and obey Palestinian laws, they cannot be living as Israelis. They have to respect Palestinian laws and abide by them.” When Faisal Husseini died, basically no Palestinian leader has publicly supported the notion that they can stay.

What we are saying is the following: We need to separate. We have to separate. We are in a forced marriage. We need to divorce. After we divorce, and everybody takes a period of time to recoup, rebound, whatever you want to call it, we may consider dating again.

So, you think it would be necessary to first transfer and remove every Jew—

Absolutely. No, I’m not saying to transfer every Jew, I’m saying transfer Jews who, after an agreement with Israel, fall under the jurisdiction of a Palestinian state.

Any Jew who is inside the borders of Palestine will have to leave?

Absolutely. I think this is a very necessary step, before we can allow the two states to somehow develop their separate national identities, and then maybe open up the doors for all kinds of cultural, social, political, economic exchanges, that freedom of movement of both citizens of Israelis and Palestinians from one area to another. You know you have to think of the day after.

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/48834/qa-maen-areikat

[Shaktimaan]

10. For once I agree

This article is bullshit

[Mosby]

12. granted the article is light on details

But Abu Toameh has a really good reputation as a reporter, it would be stupid for him to just make stuff up imo.

[azurnoir]

7. quite the scarecrow abu Tomah built there

based on this

Even the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate in the West Bank has come out in support of the restrictions. The syndicate has even gone a step further by urging the Palestinian Authority leadership to ban Israeli journalists from entering Palestinian cities and working there without permission.

fact is Israel bars Israeli citizens from entering Area A which is under Palestinian control both civil and security, and where oh where would Palestinian cities be located?



then skips merrily along to apply it to high level international meetings and attempts to smear John Kerry with it and BTW he doesn't mention but anyone should know Obama is included here as he would have to approve of such a thing

and sadly albeit unsurprisingly it's being lapped up like a cream given to starving kitten

[Shaktimaan]

13. Journos get no special rights of access? Np