PARIS, Jan 19: Reporters Sans Frontieres the non-governmental Paris-based organization that monitors press freedom around the world, has expressed what it characterizes as its “indignation” over the way Israel has been treating Palestinian journalists in recent days.

Through its secretary-general Robert Menard, Reporters Sans Frontieres says that it’s “indignant” over the non-renewal by the Israeli Government Press Office (GPO) of the press credentials of Palestinian journalists who work for the international media.

According to Mr Menard, “this measure constitutes discrimination. No more, no less. It is not only the Palestinian media that is being targeted here, but also the international media, which will simply no longer be able to carry out its work as usual. We demand that the Israeli authorities go back on their decision rapidly so that Palestinian reporters can do their jobs under normal conditions. We need reporters in the Occupied Territories in order to find out what is happening there”, he added.

RSF says that according to information it’s obtained, the Israeli GPO has since the beginning of the year systematically not renewed the press cards for Palestinian journalists and their co-workers who work for the international media. The decision taken by the GPO, says RSF, “for reasons of security,” affects journalists living in the Occupied Territories who work in Jerusalem as well as those who both live and work in the Israeli-occupied territories.

Moreover, complains RSF in its statement of indignation, the Israeli GPO is apparently also not renewing the press cards of Palestinian technicians working for foreign broadcast companies, this under the pretext of safeguarding employment in Israel, says RSF, with the GPO reportedly insisting that foreign television companies could easily employ Israelis instead.

Without their press credentials, says RSF, Palestinian journalists “are at the mercy of the Israeli security forces, who may decide to refuse to let them into Jerusalem if they so wish.” As an example of the practice, RSF cites the case of Awad Awad, a Palestinian photographer who works for Agence France-Presse, in Ramallah. He was unable to get to Jerusalem on January 14 when he was stopped at a checkpoint because he did not have an Israeli press card.

Some of the international media, according to RSF, are obliged to take along with them teams of technicians that they would much rather hire among the large pool of Palestinian journalists that have until recently been able to work for the international media with hardly any interference from the Israeli government. Among those affected by this new problem, which has proved costly, France’s own public television channel France 2 has been obliged in recent week to bring in from France its own team of technicians, this to make reports in the Occupied Territories as France 2, like other international TV networks, has effectively been forbidden by Israeli authorities from hiring Palestinian technicians.

According to the head of a press agency based in Jerusalem, reports RSF, press cards are being allocated “in a more less arbitrary fashion.”

RSF says that the non-renewal of press cards by Israeli authorities has become so wide-ranging in recent weeks that on January 14, a number of heads of offices of foreign media — among them the press agencies Agence France-Presse, Associated Press and Reuters, the US television channels ABC, CBS and NBC, — signed a statement in which they protested against the refusal by the Israeli authorities to renew the press cards of their Palestinian staff members. As a result of the action, the Israeli GPO, according to its director Daniel Seaman, says that the problem of press accreditation is presently “under examination.”