Palestinian Journalists Attacked – By Whom?

by Khaled Abu Toameh • September 8, 2025 at 5:00 am

Reporters Without Borders also ignored allegations that many of the Palestinian journalists targeted by the Israel Defense Forces were affiliated with Hamas and other terror groups.
The silence of the international community has empowered Hamas to get rid of most of its political critics, as well as journalists who dared to criticize the terror group and its leaders. Consequently, the only Palestinian journalists who were free to operate in the Gaza Strip for nearly the past two decades were those working for Qatar's Al-Jazeera (Arabic) television empire, serving as Hamas's unofficial mouthpiece, or those whose reporting was limited to attacking and smearing Israel.
Several international news agency journalists received telephone threats and warnings against covering Hamas' suppression of the protests.
Those who continue to ignore Hamas atrocities and human rights abuses against Palestinians are doing a great disservice to the Palestinians: they are allowing Hamas to get away with its crimes against its own people.

A global media campaign of more than 150 outlets from 70 countries, coordinated by a group called Reporters Without Borders, pointed an accusing finger at Israel and ignored allegations that many of the Palestinian journalists targeted by the IDF were affiliated with Hamas and other terror groups. Pictured: Reporters Without Borders director general Thibaut Bruttin delivers a speech during a demonstration in Paris, on September 26, 2024. (Photo by Thomas Samson/AFP via Getty Images)

A recent international campaign to express solidarity with Palestinian journalists in the Gaza Strip has pointed an accusing finger at Israel, while ignoring the suffering they have experienced under Hamas's rule during the past two decades.

The global media campaign of more than 150 outlets from 70 countries, coordinated by a group called Reporters Without Borders, also ignored allegations that many of the Palestinian journalists targeted by the Israel Defense Forces were affiliated with Hamas and other terror groups.

Since its brutal and bloody takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007, Hamas has been waging a systematic campaign to silence its critics, including journalists who do not toe the line. We have not seen any global protests against Hamas's crackdown.

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China Forgets its Amnesia

by Amir Taheri • September 8, 2025 at 4:00 am

The Beijing parade had a much deeper message. Xi presented it as an homage to China's role in "defeating fascism" in World War II, thus, for the first time, joining the narrative that propelled the US, USSR, Britain and China before the Maoist regime, and France into the five leaders of the new world order via the United Nations.
Xi is trying to end China's amnesia by reminding his people and the world that China didn't start with the 1949 Maoist outburst. He is trying to reclaim China's place as a major power, whether we like it or not. It is up to others to see it as a rival, a competitor, a partner or an enemy.

With last week's military parade, Chinese President Xi Jinping is trying to end China's amnesia by reminding his people and the world that China didn't start with the 1949 Maoist outburst. He is trying to reclaim China's place as a major power, whether we like it or not. Pictured: A CS-5000T drone rolls by during the parade in Beijing's Tiananmen Square on September 3, 2025. (Photo by Pedro Pardo/AFP via Getty Images)

This month, China hit the world headlines with two events that could change the perception of its role and place in the global system in either a negative or positive way.

The first event was the summit of the so-called Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) that brought together heads of state from 10 member nations plus another 10 wannabe members.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was among the first category, along with Indian Premier Narendra Modi, his Pakistani counterpart Shehbaz Sharif and a string of Central Asian "stans" plus Iran. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and North Korean leader Kim Jun-un were in the second category.

Western pundits saw the summit in Tianjin as an attempt at building a rival pole of power to challenge the United States and its European and Japanese allies.

They played the old tune of "a new multipolar world system," forgetting that in using the geographical metaphor, one can't have more than two poles.

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