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| March 28, 2011 |
| Op-eds and Features |
What Egypt can learn from Palestine Friday 25 March 2011 A persistent theme of the recent Arab revolutions has been a fear of Islamists coming to power via democratic means. For Middle East analysts based in the West, all eyes are on Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood and its likely fortunes in the parliamentary elections scheduled for June. Statements made by senior representatives of the Brotherhood about the impossibility of women or Coptic Christians holding the presidency, or how Iran is a model for human rights, should give democracy proponents pause, since they seem to confuse the concept with the mere holding of elections. Democracy properly understood means the development of civil society, constitutional guarantees that are not easily nullified by a ruling party, and safeguards on the rights of minorities and women - all things that Islamists have historically sought to undermine by the "one man, one vote, one time" principle that sweeps them into power and then threatens to keep them there indefinitely. Egypt and other Arab countries struggling to prevent extremists from hijacking democracy should look to an unexpected place: Palestine. The state-building program instituted by Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has focused not only on building up the West Bank economy but also on the concomitant marginalization of cultural Islamism in advance of new elections. |
| BBC Focus |
BBC removes misleading 'settlements' claim Mon. 28 Mar. 2011 @ 12.16 - BBC removes picture of rocket damage inside Israel with caption referring to 'settlements'. After receiving an email from Just Journalism, the BBC News website has taken down a picture with a caption, which wrongly depicts Israeli towns and cities on the receiving end of rocket and mortar fire from Gaza, as 'settlements'.
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| The Wire |
BBC suggests Israel responsible for breaking Gaza cease-fire
 Mon. 28 Mar. 2011 @ 13.49 - Israeli air strike on Islamic Jihad members allegedly preparing to launch rockets described by BBC as 'blow to those calling for calm'. Following a week of continuing violence along the Israel-Gaza border, which has seen both rocket fire from Islamist militants as well as retaliatory strikes from Israel, the British media reported on Sunday that Israel had killed two members of Islamic Jihad in Gaza. The BBC News website's coverage of the death of the two militants emphasised that the strike threatened to escalate the violence in the region - despite Israel stating that it had targeted the Islamic Jihad members as they prepared to fire rockets, itself a breach of any ceasefire. |
| The Wire |
Hamas in Gaza: Media offices to no longer be raided 'without due legal justification' Fri. 25 Mar. 2011 @ 18.10 - Hamas vows to stop the arrest, assault and harassment of journalists, following press complaints. As Just Journalism reported on Monday, the office of the Reuters news agency in Gaza was recently invaded by armed security forces, who proceeded to physically intimidate the journalists:
Today, the Palestinian news agency Ma'an is reporting that Hamas has vowed to cease its campaign of harassment against independent media. 'Hamas govt promises to ease media restrictions' notes that Hassen Abu Hasheesh, head of Hamas' media office, has stated that the Islamist party 'decided to end [the] harassment of journalists in the Gaza Strip':
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| Featured |
Just Journalism is hiring Just Journalism is recruiting a London-based Editorial Manager for maternity cover of at least six months from July. Essential skills and experience include:
Contact carmel@justjournalism.com with CV for more details. |
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