We gathered in a hall at the historic University of Westminster -- journalists and media experts from Europe, Middle East and the Maghreb, as members of the Euromed Media Task Force, including myself -- to assess the damage done to journalism in the aftermath of the Gaza bloodbath.
It was clear that the bloody Gaza episode had changed some things radically in the minds of journalists.
First, unlike any other war, the Gaza invasion passed without any reasonable media access. Israel, as we know, banned journalists from entering the strip, leaving a handful of "locals" trying to send reports and images to news outlets and making it very difficult to evaluate the pieces and put them into context.
Europe and America on one side and the Arab/Muslim world on the other watched two different wars. As we learned from "Unseen Gaza," a lengthy documentary made for Channel 4 by Jon Snow, Muslims in the UK switched to channels such as Al Jazeera to see the nasty, ruthless side of the war, while others watched a "sanitized" version of it.
Then, the question was whether or not Israel lost because of banning access. The discussion developing in the hall, with its mixed composition, focused on severe criticism of Israel's behavior. "We know who the perpetrator is and who the victim is" was a phrase used in various forms.
There was no doubt, Israel had lost large segments of the Western media.
This was an entirely new development because, contrary to its intentions, Israel had come to a blind alley in the psychological warfare side of the conflict. Its rationale was that by not allowing journalists into Gaza and by feeding them loads of propaganda material, Israel would still maintain sympathy for what it should call "the war on terror" -- because the experience of the Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon, with access given to foreign media, was not seen as a successful project.
This time it backfired, again, entirely.
As more and more images poured out through the local Gaza channels, the overall perception became that Israel had blocked access in order to hide the extreme violence that took place. The ban led to Israel's side of the story being toned down much more strongly.
I realized that I had witnessed a radical shift, even amongst the most "Israel friendly" circles in media monitoring, in free and balanced media domains such as London, where the understanding of Israeli arguments was limited.
It was also noted that journalists operating on the fault lines of conflicts in the Middle East, often played out on religious divides, are facing increasingly severe difficulties. Israel's blockage of media coverage by keeping journalists out of Gaza may have brought a new element into these difficulties, but there is an ongoing phenomenon that threatens access to the truth: The killing of reporters, in the Middle East in particular, has surpassed all previous records.
Data collected by Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF), the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Freedom House reveal a frightening number: Until late autumn 2008, the number of journalists killed in Iraq since the beginning of the allied invasion is over 180. Compare that to the following casualties: 68 in World War II, 68 in the Vietnam War, 77 during the turbulence in Algeria, 89 in political conflicts and drug wars in Latin America and 49 in the war in ex-Yugoslavia.
The frightening figure for Iraq conceals another fact: Of every 10 journalists killed in Iraq, nine are "local" (Arab) journalists.
Worldwide, the impunity of those who harass, attack, wound and kill journalists is also a rising phenomenon. In a total of 732 cases in the past three years, the rate of impunity is around 90 percent. It is also clear that democratic governments are doing less and less for the safety of journalists.
