Dear Anas al-Sharif, Hossam Shabat, Ismael Abu Omar, Talal Arrouki, Ashraf Saraj and Alaa Salameh,
This letter is written with gratitude for your honorable work. Journalists and readers around the world are grateful to you for your reporting from Northern Gaza. As you and your families have suffered not only under the genocide of the last year, but due to the particular terrors of the last month during the siege of Jabalia—including hunger, displacement, and constant bombing—you have shone as models of integrity and as beacons of what journalism can and should be in the twenty-first century.
This letter is also written as a demand for your safety and well-being so that you may continue performing your necessary witness as reporters. It is written with horror at the scurrilous claim made by the United States-backed Israeli occupation military that is currently waging genocide against your people that you are “Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists.”
“Silence or Death” one of you, Anas Al-Sharif wrote. “This is what the IOF wants from me and from the journalists of Gaza, while directing new threats against me and against a number of fellow journalists.” Al-Sharif has kept reporting despite the targeted destruction of his home and murder of his father. It is deeply shameful and dangerous that this latest slander happened not only after 177 of your colleagues have already been killed in Palestine and Lebanon by the US-backed occupation military, but the same week three journalists were killed in Lebanon—Wissam Qassem, Ghassan Najjar, a correspondent, and Mohammad Red—which brought the total number of journalists killed by US-backed Israel up to about 180.
This letter is also written as a call to journalists, writers and academics in the United States and Europe to demand institutions which say they believe in a free press—such as newspaper editorial boards, journalism schools, and literary nonprofits—to put pressure on the United States government, and its proxy army, to guarantee your safety. Now is the time for PEN America, the National Association of Black Journalists, the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association, the White House Correspondents Association, Press Gazette, the Pulitzer Prize board (which awarded you a Pulitzer just a few months ago), America’s journalism schools and the editorial boards of the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Guardian to not only speak loudly and clearly in your defense, but to apply political pressure and to work their contacts to maintain your safety.
It is well documented that these kinds of institutions have not only spoken forcefully for the safety of reporters, but have actively engaged in media blackouts while working with governments to ensure their safety. For instance, in 2008, New York Times reporter David Rohde and two colleagues, interpreter Tahir Ludin and driver Asadullah “Asad” Mangal, were abducted by the Taliban near Kabul, Afghanistan. For six months, while the New York Times actively worked with the United State Department to secure the journalists’ release, at least 40 media organizations knew about the abduction but did not report about it.
“Israeli occupation forces have just killed him, and what remains of his body is in pieces in a plastic bag. Why do I have to see my friends in plastic bags?”
Writing in Editor and Publisher in 2009, Greg Mitchel described it as “the most amazing press blackout on a major event that I have ever seen.” Even Wikipedia allowed the editing of its pages about the abductee Rhode, not only removing references to his kidnapping but “changes to the article to emphasize the work that Rohde had done, in such a way that Rohde would be seen by his captors as being sympathetic to Muslims.”
The western press broke many of its own rules about so-called “objectivity” to try to protect Rohde, Ludin and Mangal (who escaped in two separate instances in June and July 2009). Just as protecting their lives was important to the practice of a free press, so are yours. Just as they were being held hostage by the Taliban, you have been held hostage inside of Gaza for most or all of your lives—and the noose around your necks has only gotten more tight over the last year of genocide (and especially during the siege of Jabalia).
The press in the west is not without contacts in and relationships with the United States State Department, White House, Congress nor with its proxy army wreaking genocide in Gaza. Current PEN American CEO Suzanne Nossel was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations in the Obama Administration. Allowing all of its editorial material on Palestine to be approved first by government censors, CNN has a close working relationship with the Israeli occupation military.
Indeed, as Drop Site News’ Jeremy Scahill writes, “There are numerous journalists working for US media outlets who have served in the Israeli military, worked for Israeli intelligence, been Israeli prison guards.” And while, yes, “This should be disclosed on every single article they write about Israel’s war against the Palestinians of Gaza,” every press organization should go further, right now, by using those reporters’ contacts to ensure the safety of their colleagues in Gaza—you.
Some of you are quite young. Hossam Shabbat, who writes both with the strength of the strongest journalists of all time yet also with the sensitivity of a poet, is just 21-years-old. Before the genocide, you were preparing to finish your journalism studies at university; now, you spend your days reporting on mass graves, covering your murdered friends, and trying to comfort to parents when they become a thekla (ثكلى). Despite your young age, you have already experienced and reported on more loss than a thousand generations of journalists should ever know.
“I just saw my friend and colleague Hassan Hamad an hour ago,” you wrote of your friend, a 19-year-old freelance journalist. “Israeli occupation forces have just killed him, and what remains of his body is in pieces in a plastic bag. Why do I have to see my friends in plastic bags? Why is this world so cruel to us?”
And now, only a few weeks later, you have written about another journalist friend who was killed: “We would like to remind everyone that after murdering our colleague Ismail Al Ghoul, Israel released a document that claimed he supposedly received a military ranking on July 1, 2007, when he would have been a 10 year old child.” In a photo of you, Hassan and Ismail—you wrote, “I promise you guys I’m still carrying the torch, rest in peace my beloved Ismail and Hasan.” And you been true to that promise, vowing just hours after being imperiled that “Despite the dangerous and untrue threats made against us from the Israeli occupation, we remain committed to our profession and will continue to report on this genocide.”
It is now time for readers, scholars and practitioners of journalism the world over to declare their gratitude to each of you—Anas al-Sharif, Hossam Shabat, Ismael Abu Omar, Talal Arrouki, Ashraf Saraj and Alaa Salameh—and to demand your safety.
With the utmost respect,
Steven W. Thrasher, Lit Hub columnist, Medill School of Journalism
Alice Wong, Disability Visibility
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