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Israel-Gaza X Space

Press Freedom48min

Speaker 1

00:43

You. Hello everyone. Thank you so much for joining us today. We're just going to wait for a few minutes to allow more people to join in. You.

Unknown Speaker

00:59

Music.

Speaker 1

01:13

Thank you again for joining us today. Just gonna wait for 30 more seconds to allow more people to Join us. Applause.

Speaker 1

01:41

All right, so we're going to start thank you again, everyone for joining us today. My name is Ahmad Zidan. I'm the Deputy Director of audience at Freedom of the Press Foundation, or FPF in New York, and we are here today to discuss Israel's ongoing wars in the Middle East and the heavy, unprecedented toll they have been taking on journalists over the past year in Raza, the West Bank and beyond, and the role of the US in enabling such wars. I'm joined today by Palestinian journalist in exile, Mohammed mahaus, who was the Gaza correspondent for Al Jazeera English until last May. Mahaus is also a contributing writer for The Nation and MSNBC. I'm also joined by Sharif Mansoor in Washington, DC. Mansoor is an Egyptian American democracy and human rights advocate who served as the Middle East and North Africa program coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists. CPJ for 11 years until last April. And Seth Stern, my colleague, Seth, is in Chicago, and he's the advocacy director at FPF. Prior to that, he was a media and First Amendment attorney for over a decade, since the start of the Israel Gaza war in October of last year, at least 41,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel, with the majority of identified victims being women and children, and at least 95,000 Palestinians have been injured. The war has also displaced a staggering 85% of Gaza's population, all According to the Ministry of Health. In the strip on the Israeli side, at least 1700 people have been killed in the war, to date, between civilians and soldiers, and hundreds were taken as hostages. These are according to combined figures from the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the Israeli army, among the civilian casualties, at least 128 journalists and media workers have been killed in the current war, including at least 123 Palestinians, two Israelis and three Lebanese. That makes up to at least 80% of all journalists killed all over the world over the past year, the vast majority of whom were killed by Israel all according to statistics from the Committee to Protect Journalists. CPJ has declared the current war as the deadliest for journalists since the organization's founding over 45 years ago. The International Federation of Journalists estimates the mortality rate for media workers in Gaza Strip to be over 10% Paris based Reporters Without Borders said there have been at least 32 credible cases where there is enough information to confirm the journalists were murdered by Israel while Working and according to recent reports from CPJ, Israeli authorities now hold the global record for arresting the most journalists per capita in a one year period, many of whom have been detained without charge. There are numerous accounts or journalists held in Israel being subjected to violence, humiliation and mistreatment during this during the detention, according to the Palestinian Journal's Syndicate, Israeli forces have over have destroyed over 70 media facilities in Gaza Strip since the beginning of the current war. And of course, all of this comes in the context of a war that is being financed by the United States. We. Has resisted calls to condition, to condition, further funding or arming of Israel on compliance with international law, as is required by US law, this space will be recorded and made available on X slash Twitter and elsewhere. If you have questions for our guests, please reply to us on X or send us a DM, and we might get to some of them toward the end of the space. Let me start here with Muhammad, who is one of the journalists who covered the war on the ground in Gaza for nearly seven months. Muhammad, can you share with us your story in covering this war?

Speaker 2

05:39

Thanks very much Ahmed for having me and thanks for giving me the platform today. It's an honor to be with you as a journalist from Gaza and Palestine, like covering the latest war particularly, has meant to be a witness to unimaginable suffering of myself, of my family, of my people. It meant, like documenting the destruction of homes, the death of children all around me, bearing witness also to the loss of entire generation of people, the displacement of like, over 2 million people across the Gaza Strip. As journalists in there, we're not only just reporting on these events, we are part of them. We're living them. And even now, from exile, I can't detach myself from what's happening. It's a reality that I can't get myself separated from. I mean, every time we still write about a bombed hospital or a family killed an airstrike, I think of my own family, of my own loved ones in there, my own colleagues, who are being targeted by by the clock on a daily basis, just for trying to speak out what's happening. The separation, I would say, between the professional and the personal disappears when we as journalists, like we live under the constant threat of death, but we keep on continuing to report, despite the risk, despite the dangers and despite the constant targeting. Because, like as Palestinians, we believe that it's our own way and national duty to show the world what's happening. It's not only a professional responsibility, it's a national duty. This is what Palestinian journalists, particularly those from Gaza, how they see it like it is the truth that we are trying to deliver that's been buried under, like, I would say, a sea of misinformation and, you know, propaganda, like we believe, it has been always our priority to give voice to the humanity of Gaza, To the world that often chooses to ignore the stories behind the headlines, behind the statistics, behind the numbers of death and casualties and the injured people, because at the end of the day, it's not only just about the numbers and casualties, it's about people. It's about entire population striving for life, for a better future. It's about the faces like behind those headlines, and the children who were buried under the rubble, who were dreaming of a better and safer future. So it's not only a war, as journalists like I see it like I would say, a genocide, and the world must understand that, because even journalists who should be protected by every international human rights body are also targeted like unfortunately, we are seen as a threat. We are seen as danger. Who like, who have to be silenced in the eyes of the Israeli military.

Speaker 1

08:59

Thank you so much. Mohammed for sharing. Mohammed, Did you receive any threats before going into exile?

Speaker 2

09:06

Absolutely. I mean, I repeatedly received a number of threats from the Israeli military, starting with SMS messages, with text messages and phone calls that ended up ordering me and my family to evacuate, and they made it explicitly clear to me that we are being targeted only because I was working as a journalist, let alone my affiliation with Al Jazeera English, I was spoken to an atone that meant to scare me, to silence me, and to stop my reporting. And after that evacuation order. We did not commit to it. I thought it was just an attempt to, more generally, displace the neighborhood or somewhere that would be like a battle zone or something, but at the end of the day, it meant targeting explicitly the house where me and my family members and around 30 people. Of displaced neighbors and close friends and extended family members were sheltering. A lot of people got killed, unfortunately, and a lot of people sustained serious injuries. But it it as much as it was scary, it was also a bald emphasis that I have to keep on going reporting. I had to persevere in my work, even if it meant losing my life. Because if a journalist, if journalists in Gaza, drop their cameras and their drop like they draw their pens, there would be nobody else to pick up the work that's left to be done, you know. So we would receive threats all the time through a number of formats, but we did not stop reporting, and we did not stop telling these stories, no matter where we are, and even now in exile, it's so much dangerous to continue the work that we are doing. You know, to report to make sure the world sees the reality of Gaza. But through that emphasis, we try also to say that we are not only victims, we are human beings, and our voices deserve to be heard. So yes, threats are omnipresent for journalists in Gaza, including myself, but it didn't mean that we have to stop and if anything, it meant that we have to continue going further with our reporting, especially as we are witnessing like an unprecedented crackdown on journalists and press crews in Gaza who are trying to speak out. So despite like the fact that international press crews are not permitted entry in Gaza, it's only the local voices who remain in that obligation to speak up, and they're being targeted for only doing that, for doing their jobs, for doing their professional responsibility. And I've lost colleagues. I've lost friends, not only from Al Jazeera team, but also from like, colleagues who were freelance journalists, who were independent journalists, who were photojournalists, who were researchers, who were like, trying to do some work on their own. But they at the end of the day, they were marked as press. They were identified as press. They were identified as journalists, and the press vest on their chests did not provide any protection. It provided like a red a red target on their chests and their back. And unfortunately, that's the reality that Palestinian journalists are grappling with in Gaza more recently, as we're witnessing, did,

Speaker 1

12:37

did the person who sent you these threats Mohammed identified themselves, and were you able to confirm their identity? Their identity?

Speaker 2

12:45

Well, as much as, like, in terms of confirmation, I would say he, like, identified himself as a general of the Israeli military, and he said a name, and that's everything that I got to get from him, you know, because there wasn't so much time of me to confirm whether that threat was legit or valid, or that was like just an attempt to scare and silence some work. You know, what we had to do is just try to find some shelter. But we knew, know that you are being monitored when you're being watched, when you're being seen all the time and heard to there is no much that you can do journalists, no matter where they hide, no matter where they seek safety or shelter, they're being targeted just a few like less than half an hour ago, I was notified by the news of the injury of a dedicated colleague and friend who is a photojournalist in Gaza by the name of Fadi lo hay, who was shot by an Israeli sniper in the neck just around an hour ago, or less than one hour ago, as he reported on the raids of the Israeli military in the refugee camp of Jabalia in northern Gaza Strip. It's, it's now all over the news, and it's shocking my heart. It's, it's, just like very enraging to me to see that it's continuous these targeted attacks against journalists and the world keeps just watching us die every day. I wish like we could see more action, but at the end of the day, it's like it's us who are being watched. It's just who being targeted and attacked for only just trying to open up and fire up our cameras and just trying to report on the daily events unfolding across Gaza. And

Speaker 1

14:30

this obviously comes also on the heels of the killing of a 19 year old journalist on Sunday morning, Hassan Hamid, also in a similar story to what you shared, did receive threats, at least according to to Middle East. I thank you so much, Hama for sharing. I would like to turn to you, Sharif. And first of all, thank you, Sharif, for rejoining X today. Only for the sake of this space, we appreciate it. You indeed spearheaded cpjs efforts to tally the. Number of journalists killed in the first six months of the war and tell their stories. But you also documented Palestinian journalists, killings, threats, detentions and harassment in both Palestine and Israel for over a decade with CPG, did you find the pattern of of of Israel targeting journalists over over the course of your work with CPJ,

Speaker 3

15:25

thank you Ahmad, and thank you for the freedom of the press foundation. But most of all, thank you, Muhammad, for telling your story and telling the story of the Palestinian journalists, including the many in Al Jazeera who continue to face direct threats and targeting by the Israeli army, including shutting your own office in Ramallah and taking away your registration arbitrarily. I have been at CPJ 11 and a half years. My first day was the second Gaza war, 2012 my first quote was about asking the Israeli army to investigate its shilling of local and international media who used to be able to operate in Gaza at the time, but over the years, I counted before this War start, 10 journalists killed by the Israeli army. And when I arrived, there was already 10 who were killed before I arrived in the second and first and father and in the first Gaza war. And 2022, when another Al Jazeera journalist was killed and shot by the Israeli army, Shireen of akla was killed, we at CPG, at the time, decided to make a report, and we published it on the first anniversary of her killing in Tel Aviv. We called it deadly pattern, and we showed in that pattern, cases of 20 journalists over 20 years since 2001 who been killed by the Israeli army and who have faced who have seen no justice and no accountability. And that report deadly pattern was basically the basis of the research that later was done to document the increase of scale, of magnitude of the killing of journals that we saw happen during this war. I want to put the numbers more in context, because, yeah, 20 journalists before this war, but at least three of them were CPG characterized as murder in there is enough evidence to see that they were specifically targeted. Shreena bakla is known case. It happened in the West Bank, but the other two murder cases were also in Gaza in 2018 during peaceful protests and since this war started. CPJ says at least five murder cases by the Israeli army are and I think there is a coalition of news organizations who've documented also at least 18 that been specifically targeted with precise drone attacks. And all in all, this is an unprecedented number, not just in terms of the total number the impunity that we've seen. Those killed also include people killed in Lebanon, like I saw Abdullah, who was a writer, correspondent. And that pattern, of course, have persisted and continued because we have never seen any justice within Israel and outside Israel against any of the soldiers who have been involved in killing journalists over time, I want to highlight also not just the cases of those who are killed, but this war in prison, where Israel have with. In course of one year, client to be one of the worst jailers of journalists in the world, and continued a practice that has existed before also military trials, where journalists are held without evidence, indefinitely and without rights to talk to their lawyers, sometimes their families, on the suspicion that they may commit A future offense. This kind of arbitrary detention, of course, is the same, similar to what we see in the region. And of course, the numbers per capita put it as far as China numbers, but right now, at least 66 have been arrested by Israeli military majority, the fleet majority is actually in the West Bank, not in Gaza, and this is coupled with unprecedented censorship within Israel and around the world. Basically what we saw, Israel allows 1000s of journalists to come in and report out of Tel Aviv and only allowed to go into Gaza in guided sensor toward the Israeli military censor can decide what they can publish, and that's an exception we've never seen in any war accepted by international media. It's a de facto ban that was enforced and accepted by international media, and it's a part of censorship that we saw echo all over the world, where, basically only Al Jazeera continue to able to operate under even the worst of conditions, losing colleagues and continuing to face intimidation and threats across the region, But very rarely, we are allowed to see the magnitude. We're allowed to basically like any other war. Have international journalists, international mid correspondence, war correspondence present. And this is, I think, where we should be talking about the US role. But before I do, I would like to give also context to the number with this 123 genres being killed, according to CPG so far by Israeli army and 20 before this war we're heading that makes iopt or Israel occupied Palestinian territories Third competing with Syria since 1992 in terms of the total number of journalists killed, and that happened over a course of 11 years in Syria. It happened only in a course of one year so far in this war. They are only, of course, in context from the region and worldwide, supersede by Iraq, who had more than 200 journals killed since the Iraq war in 2003 I would like also to finish by saying that the mere fact that impunity matters, because we all are unsafe, if journalists are unsafe, and if we are indifferent or about some journalists because of their nationality, because of their background, that is not just unethical, it's irresponsible and dangerous. It makes journalists everywhere unsafe, and it makes us all unsafe because impunity acts like a virus. It knows no border and like violence, it knows no boundaries. I'll stop here.

Speaker 1

24:47

Thank you. Sharif, this I would like now to turn to my colleague Seth to speak specifically about the US role in this war. I. Freedom of the Press foundation and partner organizations sent a letter to President Biden in January, urging his administration to do more to protect journals ability to safely and freely report on the war, pressure its allies, both Israel and Egypt, to allow international media access to the strip and conduct a thorough, transparent and public assessments of the end use of US weapons and military assistance to Israel. Did this administration uphold its promise to support free and independent media worldwide when it comes to the Israel Gaza war Seth,

Seth Stern

25:40

thanks Ahmed, and thanks to Mohammed and Sharif for for joining us today. I will try to keep my comments short, because the insights I have from reading about this war from the comfort of my couch are not comparable to the insights that someone like Mohammed has from from living it. But you asked Ahmed whether the US has upheld its promise to support free and independent media. No, it's done the opposite. It's supported the slaughter and censorship of free and independent media in Gaza and other affected areas. And you mentioned the letter we signed asking for an assessment of the end use of US weapons. We also signed a later letter led by defending rights and dissent and the courage foundation calling for the cessation of weapons shipments to Israel based on, among other things, its treatment of journalists. It's at a point where the United States can't claim to not know anymore, and it can't claim to trust the Israeli authorities to investigate and change course. From from recent reports, the military aid the US has provided might be up to around 18 billion. So this is, you know, a significant to say the least, undertaking on behalf of American taxpayers. It's not about, you know, micromanaging Israel or respecting its sovereignty. Those are lines we often hear from government spokespeople when asked about specific killing, specific incidents that happen in in Gaza or elsewhere, we're not asking the US to to investigate every single incident at this point. There is a totality. There is a track record. There are hundreds of cases, threats, killings, bombings, shootings, multiple investigations finding intentional targeting, targeted and indiscriminate killing of journalists, if deliberate or reckless, is a war crime under international law. And US law prohibits the US from arming countries that don't comply with international law. You know the Lee act, Leahy act, beyond the the killings, the injuries, there's the bar on foreign media entering Gaza, unless embedded with the Israeli army, which, which, which, which Sharif discussed, severely restricts their movement and what they can publish. And there was reporting last year that the Biden administration is concerned that media access to Gaza would turn the world against the war that reporting was during the temporary ceasefire in late 2023 in Politico if that is true, one, that's That's awful. That's contrary to everything the administration claims to value. But two, that that that ship has sailed. The world has turned against the war. America is increasingly isolated in its support of the war and of the current Israeli government. And it's it's time to insist on transparency. Americans need to know what they're financing. The expressions we hear from spokespeople that we're concerned, the platitudes. It wasn't enough 10 months ago, and it's certainly not enough now. Any continued funding of the war, if it does need to be continued, should be conditioned on compliance with international law regarding journalists and everyone else, and that's something I want to emphasize. We're not here to put journalists on a pedestal. A journalist's life is no more important than anybody else's, and journalists make up a small percentage of those who have died in the war, but journalists do play a vital role in ensuring that the story gets out, it's not just about protecting individual journalists. It's about protecting protecting history, protecting the public discourse and right to know,

Speaker 1

29:49

as a spokesperson for the Israeli government, David menser told Sky News about a couple of months ago, and I quote, it's a very dangerous war zone for the safety of these. Journalists, we are keeping them out. What is your comment on that Seth,

Seth Stern

30:05

well, journalists who want to stay out for their own safety don't need to go war. Correspondents are brave and willing to take risks. They're rather tough. People who do this for a living, they know there is going to be some risk in covering any war, significant risk in covering any war, but they also fairly expect that warring parties, particularly governments that claim to be beacons of democracy in their regions, governments that claim to operate the most moral army in the world, they expect them to take some reasonable measures to protect them, and particularly not target them. That's not an impossible task. This obviously, is, unfortunately not the first war in in Gaza, in the Middle East and in the world, there are procedures that are followed to try to keep journalists safe when reporting in war zones where the Israeli military is highly sophisticated, one of the most sophisticated militaries on Earth. If the US is going to continue funding the Israeli military, it should make sure that that some of that funding is allocated to ensuring that the military has whatever technology it needs to be able to know where journalists are and attempt to protect them. I suspect that the Israeli military has all the technology it needs to do so and is not, is not using it. You know, we're not expecting perfection here. We understand that covering a war is dangerous, but there's quite a bit of middle ground between zero and, you know, 120 plus killed, not to mention all of those who are injured. You know, as as Mohammed said, Without journalists, the Israeli government, the Israeli army, becomes the source of information, and that might well be the goal.

Speaker 1

32:16

Mohammed, you recently wrote an article for MSNBC in which you said, what we witnessed daily, and I quote you here, from drone surveillance and press tents being bombed to the direct shooting journalists and targeting of their vehicles as they traveled for coverage, was not just an attack on the ones trying to report, but on the very idea of journalism. It is an attack on the notion that the world has a right to know what happens in places like Raza and the West Bank, and despite the Israeli suppression, this has been called the first genocide to be live streamed, people are seeing what's happening. However, it might be difficult for the average person to tell what's real from what's not if they are only relying on social media, and it's easy for people who have already chosen a side to ignore what do you think is lost when more established news outlets are not able to report on the war?

Speaker 2

33:21

Thank you for bringing this up. Ahmed, I think like it's coming from the idea that journalists are not and they should not be collateral damage in Gaza because they're systematically targeted because they carry the stories that challenge the official Israeli narratives, the falsehoods, the propaganda that's being manufactured in Western media. And it meant like, as as journalists in Gaza, our job has always been like to it's been a dangerous, very dangerous job when, as you mentioned, like press buildings are being bombed, reporters are shot at, and many of us are marked for assassination simply because we're documenting the truth. And this targeting is deliberate, I said, because it's a way to silence the story and to silence those who seek to be telling that story. And so these journalists, when they carry cameras, they do not carry guns, but in the eyes of the Israeli military who seek to hide the truth, we are a threat. And my story was an only like it was about a very upsetting move. It showcased a very deliberate attempt by the Israeli military and military rule to soundness press freedoms in Palestine by shutting down Al Jazeera offices in the West Bank, but it represents a very much larger proof to strike at the trenches of the Palestinian people's right to speak up and to demand liberation, to demand freedom and to speak to the world. Al Jazeera was only. Is a pathway for the people to speak up. It wasn't the only one, and it will not be the only one that's going to be targeted for doing that. So it's a larger representation of media that's being stricken that's being targeted and attacked. I've been targeted myself, and I've had like bombs like fall near the buildings where I worked. I've been on like, the lists of journalists who were considered dangerous simply for reporting what we see. And that's what we are exactly witnessing and seeing. And continue to live horrendously, even one year in like, of like, friends and colleagues of mine being killed only doing the work. It's, it's a terrifying reality, okay, um, but at the end, there is no much choice. We are continuing to face these threats and these, um, illicit, I would say, propaganda by the Israeli government and military that were not saying the truth, yet we are, and that's why we continue. And that systematic targeting of journalists isn't just an attack on us, as you have previously mentioned, or isn't just only an attack on Al Jazeera as a news channel. It's an attack on truth itself, on the public's right to access information and to access the public's also free right to speak up, and that's why silencing journalists meant silencing the voices of the oppressed and Gaza on the people enduring a genocide for one year now, and the attacks on journalists did not start after October 7. It happened regularly on a daily basis, and it was a constant reality even before that. For years on, we've seen here in Abu akleh being shot in the neck by an Israeli sniper years ago, as we as she, reported in the West Bank engineer, okay, and in Gaza, that's exactly what the Israel military is trying to apply. Is the same trenches and the same approach to silencing those voices local journalists who are trying to speak up because they think that controlling the narrative is also as important as controlling territory. And that's what they're trying to do at the same at the very same time that we are speaking, right now in jabellian, they're trying to like threat, threaten and target and attack the journalists reporting from there, okay, but as as Palestinian journalists like, the more they try to silence us, the more determined we are to speak louder and like even as the world turning right now a blind eye to what's happening, I think silence is complicity, even from the bodies that aim to be protecting or claim To be protecting press freedoms in Palestine. And I would think to say that the message to the international community is simple. We do not want you to forget us. It's it's not because, like, we've been one year now in the war. Now it's time to turn attention to somewhere else. In fact, we're not living our days. We are not living a year of war, we have survived like we are literally surviving our days. We are not living them, okay? So we do not need like Gaza to become just another statistic, okay, another headline that people just scroll past behind every number of people. There is life, okay, there is a story behind every airstrike. There is a family left in pieces, and as the as long as the world listens, as long as the people care, there is hope. And it's up to all of us like to keep that hope alive. And it's our duty, national duty, and professional responsibility as journalists, to keep that attachment between Gaza and the world. And we are wondering, why should we get killed for that? I mean, Israel has changed a chilling prize and a message that's very, very dangerous to all reporters, not only Al Jazeera, people in Gaza and outside that telling the truth comes with a steep price, but that should not be the case. Journalism should be protected. It's not a crime. It's something that we should uphold with the very basic fundamentals of human rights and principles.

Speaker 1

39:28

So from the countless, from the countless stories that that that were accounted by our guests today and and other evidence, we can, we can say that Israel's attacks on press freedoms are sustained, multi pronged, and taking place on multiple fronts. And our guests today recounted the multiple fronts that this is happening. And as Seth mentioned, this might as well be to control the narrative around around the war. So this is from assassinations of journalists and threats against them in. That were severely restricting international media access in the West Bank. This question can be to any of our panelists. Why do you think Israel continues to target and kill journalists with impunity to any of our panelists who want to take this question, you can unmute yourselves and answer i

Speaker 3

40:26

Well, I think there has been no accountability, not just during this war, before this war. And let me just say that sharina, where I think a lot of people hoped that she would we will see accountability for her case based the fact that she was also American, and some have believe in hoped that the promises the Biden administration had for an FBI investigation into her case will matter realized by at least providing some transparency, just accountability as well, but we have seen nothing the administration has said. Also, at some point, said they would stop shipment of arm to Israel because of their conduct, but they only did it once and never again. They have said they are going to sanction some army, Israeli army officers who engage in gross human rights violations. And they did that in a few cases, here and there, and they stopped and eventually the this administration is hindering the International Criminal Court look into these and is not even supportive and trying to seek any accountability directly, not just publicly, by enforcing its own laws. It's it has ordered a review we hear every now and then the institutions within the governments, some would continue to try and do the checks and balances implement those conditions in assistance, those embedded conditions that we have for any relationship with any other government. And even what we hear is that those recommendations that come from UC, for example, about aid delivery are being dismissed at the top by Secretary Blinken, as if it never happened. Of course, you know you see and see and see evidence of complicity and the administration aiding and abetting, not just relinquishing their power or looking away. Yeah, I'll stop here.

Speaker 1

43:15

Thank you. Sharif, does any of our panelists have any final thoughts or comments? Going once, oh, Seth, I see Seth, I'm muting,

Seth Stern

43:28

sure, yeah. And just to follow up on what Sharif just said, I think there are the political reasons for the impunity, and there's also, I'm saying this just from my own experiences in my world as an American Jew, to some extent, I think American exceptionalism, the perception of American exceptionalism, has been extended to Israel, not only by government actors, but by members of our of our population, people simply can't believe Israel is capable of these things, much like a lot of people couldn't believe that America was capable of war crimes it committed in Iraq. And there's this tendency to say that, you know, the the bad actors must just be bad apples. This can't be, you know, systemic. And it's gotten to a point where I think that is harder and harder to deny. For anybody who isn't doesn't sort of have their entire identity wrapped up in denying it. And it's not a matter of Israelis being, you know, bad people or the IDF being bad people, it's a matter of they're being humans, and they're capable of the same evil all humans are capable of if they're not held accountable. And that's why it's so important for the US to hold them accountable. And beyond that, it's the importance extends beyond Israel. You know, where. We're, we're 55th in press freedom rankings by Reporters Without Borders this year. And you know, we and it's a really inconvenient time for us to be slipping in terms of our credibility on press freedom. We regularly attempt to position ourselves as morally superior to our adversaries, be it Russia, China, Iran, you know, based on comparing our tolerance for free speech to theirs, we're trying to ban Tiktok, and, you know, RT, and we're claiming to be acting in good faith and in the interest of national security, but at the same time, we're allowing Israel and supporting Israel as it uses very similar authorities to silence and ban outlets like, you know, Al Jazeera, and I'm not comparing our domestic press freedom situation to those countries. We've got our problems, but we are, for example, able to have this discussion right now, whereas in a lot of other places you couldn't, but the domestic situation isn't the full story. We can't lead globally if we bankroll armies that that don't uphold our our values and governments that censor the press. And again, this isn't about micromanaging. This is this is a big picture where we're talking about threatening, targeting and killing journalists, not borderline gray area stuff, not letting the international press into Gaza at all. Everything Muhammad told us about, it's, it's something we should be we shouldn't be supporting. We shouldn't be funding, and we should be thoroughly investigating, real investigations, not Sharif mentioned that FBI investigation that seems to have gotten nowhere real. Investigations Not, not, not cover ups, not back burner stuff really getting to the bottom of things like, things like the threats against journalists that Mohammed was talking about and that there are multiple accounts of. Now, you know there's credible information that people that in the IDF might be sending, you know, death threats to journalists conditioned on their stopping their reporting. The United States Government should be very curious to try to authenticate those and get to the bottom of them, because to the extent Israel claims it's not targeting journalists and all these killings were accidental. Well, if it's sending death threats, it's hard to maintain that position. So why isn't our government when some when news like that breaks? Why? Why isn't our government on top of that? Why isn't our government saying, Wow, we've got to get to the bottom of this and figure out if this is true. Because if it is, we've got a real problem. Instead, it seems to want to want a very upset in the sand.

Speaker 1

47:46

Thank you, Seth, we came to the end of our space today. We did not, unfortunately, have time for your questions, but we might include some of them in our write up about this space on our website. Thank you so much to our panelists and to everyone who tuned in, who tuned into our space today, this space was recorded and it will be available, will be made available to for replay immediately, right here on this website. It will also be available soon on our website. So make sure to check our website at Freedom dot press, and also sign up to our newsletters while you are at it, at Freedom dot press slash newsletter to stay up to date on press freedom and digital security news and views and on future conversations like this one, have a good rest of your day. You.

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