Haaretz newspaper said that the Israeli authorities’ closure of Tel Aviv Tribune’s office in Ramallah in the West Bank by military order is also a warning message to Israeli journalists who remained silent about the matter and did not realize that by their silence they were paving the way for similar behavior inside Israel.
In an article titled “The closure of Tel Aviv Tribune’s office in Ramallah is a warning message to Israeli journalists,” Shireen Falah Saab wrote that what happened to the most important Arab channel that deals with Palestinian affairs may pave the way for a greater attack on freedom of the press in Israel itself. It is not unlikely that one day Danny Kushmaro and Yonit Levy (Channel 12 anchors) will stand in front of their station’s office, watching helplessly as the army raids it to close it down.
The writer reviewed the storming and raiding of Tel Aviv Tribune’s office in Ramallah by masked Israeli soldiers, who closed it for 45 days under military order. However, the news received only marginal coverage in the Israeli press, while it is assumed – according to Shireen – that every Israeli journalist and even “every citizen” should feel extremely concerned about what happened because it could be repeated in Israel.
The raid only took a few minutes, as the force asked the office manager, Walid Al-Omari, to evacuate the place immediately, and a soldier appeared in a video recording telling him: “For more details, you can contact the military commander (of Judea and Samaria) in the occupied West Bank.
The writer explained that the small details in the recording are only part of a larger picture that embodies the intimidation practiced by the army on the person of the office director, Walid Al-Omari, who realized that the matter was over but chose to film the scene before leaving, and that the closure of the office – despite its location in Area A of the Palestinian Authority – embodies the Israeli government’s use of war to strike freedom of expression.
“A tooth in a cupboard”
Shireen Falah described the raid as “just a tooth in a well-oiled wheel” for what she called a government of destruction that is gnawing away at freedom of the press every day. She recalled the law passed last May by a majority of Knesset members, which authorized the government to stop broadcasting foreign channels if the prime minister deemed it to be harmful to national security, a law of which Tel Aviv Tribune was among the victims.
Shireen Falah asked Israeli journalists to imagine the scene if a military force raided the offices of Channels 12 and 13, and Yonit Levy was forced to stand outside her station building to watch sadly what was happening, as happened to Tel Aviv Tribune correspondent Guevara Al-Badri, or if Danny Kushmarwa found himself appearing on air for the last time. She said that this is not a figment of the imagination, but could actually happen under a government in which the media minister, Shlomo Karhi, is the one who targets the media profession.
The moment the occupation forces prevented colleagues Jivara Al-Badri and Walid Al-Omari from working in the street in Ramallah and the broadcast stopped#Gaza_War #News pic.twitter.com/MldH03sNF5
— Tel Aviv Tribune Channel (@AJArabic) September 22, 2024
The writer expressed her regret that Israeli journalists ignored what was happening to their Palestinian colleagues, “as they are invisible to them,” and thus they did not rush to raise the issue on the “X” platform, and opposition MPs did not express their shock or sympathy for Al-Omari and other Palestinian journalists, because they did not realize that what happened on the other side of the Green Line could also happen in Israel.
Sherine concluded her article by saying that what was frightening was not only the closure of the Tel Aviv Tribune office, but the speed with which it was done. When Al-Omari asked a soldier how long it would take, he replied, “A few minutes.” The army, she wrote, “shuts down a media channel simply because it can.” She recalled that the Israeli authorities are arresting Israelis demonstrating to return prisoners from Gaza and demand an end to the war at the same rapid pace.
The Israeli occupation forces stormed Tel Aviv Tribune’s office in Ramallah and ordered it to be closed for 45 days under a military order. They then confiscated all the equipment and documents in the office, prevented its employees from using their cars, and stopped the channel’s broadcast, four months after the channel’s office in Jerusalem was closed.