How many times have you read news stories in which information about a violent incident was sourced to anonymous Palestinian “medical officials” or “hospital workers”? Such sourcing is standard journalistic practice in reporting from the territories, and as I’ve noted before, it is one of the most dubious.

Here’s an amazing case in point: Mohammed Omer, a Gaza-based “journalist.” (Read his bio here, and his personal website, and decide for yourself what his actual profession is.) Anyway, Omer is a hero/celebrity in certain enlightened political quarters, and so he traveled to Europe for three weeks to receive a journalism award and bask in the adulation of the righteous.

Before returning to relentless victimization in Gaza, he had to pass from Jordan to Israel, which required a trip through customs. It is here that Omer appears to have gone crazy. He says that:

the policeman ordered him to strip naked. Omer said in a 10-page statement that after he refused repeatedly, the officer unholstered his weapon, “pressing it to my head and with his full body weight pinning me on my side, he forcibly removed my underwear.”

Omer said he was later allowed to get dressed again, but then was insulted and ridiculed by Israel agents, to the point of tears. He said he eventually vomited and fainted.

He claims that when he came to, an Israeli scratched his face deeply under his eyes, then someone gouged his head, clawed at his eyes and tore his skin. An Israeli pressed his neck to the floor with a boot, he charges, saying he suffered beating, scratching and assaults before Israelis summoned an ambulance that took him to a hospital in Jericho.

What did the hospital in Jericho say? Omer “had no signs of physical injury.” And the Israelis say they have no idea what Omer is talking about. Dutch diplomats — oh, the kindhearted Dutch — whisked him away to Gaza, where Omer now protests his abuse from a hospital, which has magically discovered — wait for it — that he has broken ribs. Keep this in mind the next time you hear journalists, the UN, and human-rights groups cite their “medical sources” to corroborate their reportage.

The great irony is that the honor bestowed upon Omer during his trip to Europe is the Martha Gellhorn Prize, which is awarded for journalists who expose “establishment propaganda.” I propose a new award: let’s call it the Mohammed Omer Prize, for journalists who are propagandists.

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This entry was posted on Friday, July 11th, 2008 at 8:34 AM and is filed under Contentions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.