Palestinian cameraman shot by the Israelis: "It never happened..."

international | anti-war / imperialism | other press

Monday July 30, 2007 12:26

by pat c

Yes, as far as the main stream media was concerned it never happened. It was only a Palestinian journalist who shot by the Israelis. He was then shot twice more by IDF members as he lay injured on the ground. Oh, and 11 palestinians were shot dead by the IDF that day; maybe it got a paragragh somewhere. Full story at link.

"It never happened..."
John Pilger

One of the leaders of demonstrations in Gaza calling for the release of the BBC reporter Alan Johnston was a Palestinian news cameraman, Imad Ghanem. On 5 July, he was shot by Israeli soldiers as he filmed them invading Gaza. A Reuters video shows bullets hitting his body as he lay on the ground. An ambulance trying to reach him was also attacked. The Israelis described him as a "legitimate target". The International Federation of Journalists called the shooting "a vicious and brutal example of deliberate targeting of a journalist". At the age of 21, he has had both legs amputated.

Dr David Halpin, a British trauma surgeon who works with Palestinian children, emailed the BBC's Middle East editor, Jeremy Bowen. "The BBC should report the alleged details about the shooting," he wrote. "It should honour Alan [Johnston] as a journalist by reporting the facts, uncomfortable as they might be to Israel."

He received no reply.

The atrocity was reported in two sentences on the BBC online. Along with 11 Palestinian civilians killed by the Israelis on the same day, Alan Johnston's now legless champion slipped into what George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four called the memory hole. (It was Winston Smith's job at the Ministry of Truth to make disappear all facts embarrassing to Big Brother.) While Alan Johnston was being held, I was asked by the BBC World Service if I would say a few words of support for him. I readily agreed, and suggested I also mention the thousands of Palestinians abducted and held hostage. The answer was a polite no; and all the other hostages remained in the memory hole. Or, as Harold Pinter wrote of such unmentionables: "It never happened. Nothing ever happened . . . It didn't matter. It was of no interest."

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Comments (6 of 6)

I do not understand

by Helena Kyrinski

Tue Aug 14, 2007 01:23

Both comments printed by you before me indicate someone called 'Fred'(?) and someone then later called 'Johnston' and make comments, but there are no articles by these names on this link. Why? Where can I read them? If the comment isn't there, then the two comments above are nonsense. Has he written articles on political things before now?

hypocrisy

by Mark

Fri Aug 10, 2007 11:38

"A Palestinian kills an Israeli and it's terrorism." - I agree. Absolute hypocrisy. But some of those who now cheer-lead Hamas (such as Johnston) were equally hypocrital when it came to the conflict up the road. See the link to the article below.

CAMERA MAN The facts my young Fred -not the bile and bias

by JohHM

Fri Aug 10, 2007 09:19

I also looked at the video on Youtube.
It does indeed show that he was part of a crowd
of people who you see running from gunfire, and that one of the crowd is
carrying what seems to be a machine gun.
He certainly wasn't wearing any
yellow jacket to indicate he was a journalist.
It also shows that he was
shot whilst he lay on the ground but if armed could still have been a danger .
If the men in the crowd were firing on the Israeli unit, then one can
certainly understand why they could have assumed that the man carrying a
black, shoulder-borne device may have been armed and doing the shooting.
Not so clear why he was shot after he fell, unless the rules of engagement are
to finish off an armed attacker rather than let him get up and shoot again .
So objectively it is not all cut and dried .

video

by Kev - various

Mon Jul 30, 2007 18:53

The video of the shooting is doing the rounds on youtube and similar, should you want to subject yourself to it.

Electronic Palesine +Lebanon Coverage.

by Solidarity

Mon Jul 30, 2007 18:39

Grassroots and home coverage of the situations in both Palestine and Lebanon:-

http://www.electronicintifada.net/
http://www.electronicintifada.net/lebanon
http://www.rsf.org

(remember there is a 'fada' in intifada- solidarity)

Johnston's Colleagues

of insurgents and dissidents

by Keith Harris - newsmedianews.com

Mon Jul 30, 2007 18:04

Bless you for bringing this into the spotlight.

Day by day we are seeing more insidious activity by those deployed in action by various state agencies.

We also hear every day just how good a job is being done clearing and killing 'insurgents' and "dissidents" around the world.

What is an insurgent? Chambers Dictionary states thus: "a person who rises in opposition to established authority; a rebel".

And of dissident: "especially one who disagrees with the aims and procedures of the government".

Hitler's nazi regime once was 'established authority'. Do we likewise condemn those who fought against the nazi atrocities from within their midst?

The perpetrators of such insidious activity as your article highlight are the real enemies of society.

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Palestinian cameraman shot by the Israelis: "It never happened..."

Comments (6 of 6)