Main Stream Media Self-Censorship In Gaza

If Jews broke up a political demonstration, beat the reporters and stringers for major news agencies, stabbed them, tortured them, beat them, confiscated their equipment and notes, then took the injured to a hospital and falsified the victims' injuries as "traffic-accident related," the world media would go crazy and descend on Israel in angry droves.

Op-eds would scream from every media outlet about Israeli brutality, lack of freedom of expression, the sanctity of the Fourth Estate. BBC would run special segments interviewing the victims, especially since most of them are women, and talk about Israeli misogyny and the trauma suffered by these hard working, earnest seekers of truth.

However, this didn't happen in Israel. It happened in Gaza, also known as Hamastan to those who understand that its political and military muscle comes from Iran, which uses Gaza as a forward military base.

Khaled Abu Toameh, a fluent Arabic speaker and correspondent for the Jerusalem Post, picked up the following story which has been totally ignored by the western mainstream media whores.

Pro-unity rallies took place in different parts of the Gaza strip where tens of thousands of Palestinians gathered to protest the on-going split between Fatah and Hamas. The rallies were organized by various youth groups and political factions, and called upon the divided leadership of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas to put aside their differences and form a united government for the sake of Palestinian national aspirations.

Inspired by the aocial-media-assisted revolts in other countries, Palestinians demanded an end to the dispute between the two governmental entities of the West Bank and Gaza.

These demonstrations were covered by reporters, including some from Reuters and CNN. Following the rallies, women reporters revealed that they were beaten and tortured by Hamas security forces in the Gaza strip while they tried to cover the pro-unity rallies.

Some were beaten; one was stabbed by a Hamas security official; many had laptops and computers confiscated; some were forced to sign statements that they would not cover such events in the future. The female reporter who was stabbed was accompanied to the hospital by Hamas police officers who forced the medical team to admit her under a different name and to list her as a victim of a traffic accident.

Other female journalists were beaten with clubs, hit over the head with a chair, and one was knocked unconscious by the severity of the blows. Hamas forces also set fire to the tent being used by the journalists while covering the demonstrations.

Major news outlets CNN and Reuters were raided by Hamas security personnel who confiscated equipment and documents.

So.....what did CNN have to say about this outrage? What depth of coverage did Reuters devote to these incidents?

None. Both agencies are conspicuous by their cowardly silence.

I went to both websites today, which is certainly enough time to upload coverage of events which happened last week.

I searched by using the terms "Hamas" and "CNN" and "Reuters" -- and found nothing. I searched again under "demonstrations" and "journalists." Nothing about these vicious attacks at all.

When the forces of repression, aggression, misogyny, and hate get a free pass from a cowardly, quaking press corps, which has expediently surrendered journalistic ethics in order to buy Hamas protection, and which peddles Hamas propaganda as "fact," we have entered a new age of evil, aided and abetted by the very "free" press that is supposed to be a watchdog of civil liberties.