by: Dhimam Abror Djuraid *)
The first casualty of war is truth. The adage was expressed by United States senator Hiram Johnson in 1918 which later became very popular and is often quoted today. When the war rages on, the news becomes confusing and both parties make claims to each other. That’s why Johnson called the first victims of war the truth.
Israeli soldiers are very aware of this, and they practice it in a vulgar manner by shooting dead Al Jazeera television journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, Thursday (12/5). Killing journalists is the same as killing two targets with one bullet, killing journalists means killing the truth at the same time.
Shireen Abu Akleh, 51, a senior journalist of Palestinian and American descent, has covered the Palestinian and Middle East conflicts throughout her decades-long journalistic career. He is originally from East Jerusalem, his mother is from West Jerusalem and his father is from the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Shireen has United States citizenship.
While covering the riots in the West Bank, Shireen was hit by Israeli army bullets and died on the spot. He is already wearing a vest that reads “Press” with a striking color on the chest which also protects himself. He was targeted by a sniper who fired right at the unprotected back.
Videos circulating around the world depict Shireen’s body lying on the road covered in blood. The sound of the barrage of gunfire did not stop for a moment so that an evacuation could not be carried out. When Shireen’s body was later evacuated her life was not saved.
The world strongly condemns Israel’s brutality. The hashtag ”Rest in Power” became an international trending topic on Twitter. In that hashtag, many Indonesian netizens also mourned. World netizens say that the shooting of Shireen Abu Akleh by Israeli soldiers is a barbaric act.
Israel denies and says Shireen was shot by Palestinians, but eyewitnesses dispute that claim. a journalist colleague of Shireen who was at the site said there were no Palestinian fighters at the site. He believed the shots were coming from the direction of the Israeli troops. According to his testimony Shireen was shot in the head.
This is Israel’s way of silencing the truth. Al Jazeera is known for its critical reporting of Israel in its conflict with Palestine. Al Jazeera’s more objective reporting makes Israel feel cornered.
Shireen’s courage to do live coverage of the Israeli attack has opened the world’s eyes to the atrocities of the Israeli army against Palestinian civilians.
There was no other way to stop Shireen but to silence her for good.
This is not the first time Israel has been involved in an incident with Al Jazeera. In an attack on Palestinian soldiers in Gaza, Israeli forces missileed the tower of a tall building that houses the offices of the Associated Press (AP) and Al Jazeera. Israel claims the office is a spy center for the Palestinian army. Al Jazeera and the AP deny the accusations and insist that they are fully carrying out journalistic duties.
Al Jazeera is like a thorn in the flesh that prevents Israel from taking repressive measures in Palestine. Al Jazeera is the world’s first satellite television network to broadcast in Arabic non-stop 24 hours a day. Since broadcasting in 1996 the network can be watched throughout the Middle East region and then expanded to the rest of the world with an English language broadcast edition.
So far, satellite news television broadcasts that broadcast non-stop have been dominated by CNN (Cable New Network) owned by US businessman Ted Turner. Middle East bias is inevitable in CNN reporting. The emergence of Al Jazeera became an antithesis for CNN and succeeded in turning the world’s public opinion on the Palestinian conflict.
The network is based in Doha, Qatar, a small Arab country, a peninsula whose geographical location juts into the Persian Gulf from the eastern part of Saudi Arabia. Al Jazeera, which is Arabic for peninsula or peninsula, is funded by the Qatari royal family.
Al Jazeera has promoted a lot of democratization movements in various regions of the Middle East. When the revolutionary movement “Al-Tsaurat al-Arabiyah” or the Arab Spring broke out, Al Jazeera became the most active media in reporting. This angered several monarchy-based countries who feared their power would be overthrown by popular protests, as happened in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Libya, Yemen, and several other regions.
Saudi Arabia is the country that has been the strongest against Al Jazeera. Diplomatic relations between the two countries are also not friendly due to various issues. Saudi Arabia rallied to boycott Al Jazeera by persuading advertisers to stop.
Boycotts and pressure did not stop Al Jazeera. Broadcast in English makes Al Jazeera get a very wide audience in various countries of the world. Al Jazeera has 2,500 staff members and journalists from 40 countries. The network is broadcast from four centers in Doha, Kuala Lumpur, London, and Washington DC, as well as multiple bureaus around the world. Al Jazeera claims its English-language service reaches 100 million homes. Its Arabic language service has an audience of around 40 million to 50 million.
Al Jazeera was born out of an internal political conflict in Qatar. In 1995 the Crown Prince of Qatar Hamad bin Khalifa took over from his father and carried out reforms in various fields including the media. The Crown Prince has ambitions to make Qatar the Persian Gulf version of Switzerland.
Massive publicity will help that ambition. The Crown Prince wanted to emulate CNN and then hired hundreds of professional journalists from the BBC to establish Al Jazeera. In a short time Al Jazeera became a sensation in 22 Arab countries that had never before seen 24-hour Arabic news broadcasts.
Al Jazeera penetrates everywhere. In Casbah Algiers, in the slums of Cairo, on the outskirts of Damascus, even in Bedouin desert tents with satellite dishes, the channel has become a way of life. In two years Al Jazeera changed the way Middle Easterners consume news to become more critical because of the objective and real time news. Usually the Arab media only provides boring government news, and Al Jazeera changed everything.
Al Jazeera’s open and aggressive style of journalistic reporting from across the Arab world is a new experience for Arab regimes. They do not like the news that exposes closed practices that have been going on for decades.
Various boycotts were carried out. The Algerian government banned Algerian correspondents and did not allow reporting news from Algeria. Bahrain banned personnel from the station from operating there in 2002 and 2004. In 2001, US missiles destroyed Al Jazeera’s Kabul office
In March 2008, the Israeli government imposed a boycott of Al Jazeera journalists working in Israel. Israeli authorities have accused Al Jazeera of showing bias in its report on Israel’s clashes with Hamas in Gaza.
Al Jazeera is undeniably anti-American as well as anti-Israel. Much of Al Jazeera’s coverage of American violence in the Middle East and Israeli violence in Palestine has escaped the attention of other media.
Killing Shireen was a shortcut to silence the truth produced by the media. However, killing Shireen will not stop the truth. The Palestinians have never backed down in the struggle for the right to recognition in their own homeland. Every one person falls, a thousand others will be born. New Shireen-Shireen will also continue to be born and emerge.
*) Deputy Chairperson of the Central Indonesian Cyber Media Union (SMSI) Expert Council
