Freedom of the Press: PA Style

Earlier thousands of confidential Palestinian Authority documents were leaked to the press. While many states had to deal with the embarrassing revelations of the the recent WikiLeaks affair (which made Israel seem like the only straight shooters in international politics), the PA is far too proud to withstand such an assault ;)

The PA is a completely corrupt, draconian regime, that actively tortures its subjects, jails them for arbitrary periods of time for as little as a dissident Facebook update. Not to mention the big bucks its top dogs are making out of their people's misery.

While I plan to go more deeply into the content of the documents at a later post, what's most telling is how the PA reacted to their publication.

Al Jazeera, which published the lion's share of the recent document dump is branded by our dear friend Saeb Erekat, as declaring a 'war' on the Palestinian people. Al Jazeera may have comrpomized their relationship with the PA:

Asked if the PA was now considering measures against Al-Jazeera, the official said he did not see how a TV station that "incites" against the Palestinians would be able to continue operating in the West Bank. However, he said that PA President Mahmoud Abbas, who is currently in Cairo, would decided on the PA's response to the exposure of the documents in the coming hours

It looks like the world's largest Arab language news network will have to cover their Palestinian brothers out of Israel ;)

-QP