International Journalists Union Expels Israel After Fight Over Politics and Money
By Alex Weisler and Nathan Jeffay
The expulsion of an Israeli journalists’ union from the International Federation of Journalists is mired in a murky cocktail of politics and money.
The Israeli group –— the National Federation of Israel Journalists — was ousted June 7 in a unanimous vote of the international union’s executive committee. The vote immediately raised the specter of another effort by international unions to boycott Israel for political reasons; recently, a number of academic unions around the world have voted to boycott Israeli professors.
In this case, Aidan White, general secretary of the international journalist union, told the Forward that the decision was purely financial, pointing to the fact that the Israeli union has not paid membership dues in four years.
But the dispute has a distinctly political edge to it, because of the international union’s criticism of the Israeli government. After the recent conflict in Gaza, for instance, the international union published a report criticizing the Israeli government for endangering journalists and keeping them out of Gaza. The report pointed to the number of journalists who were injured or killed during the conflict.
Haim Shibi, a member of the Israeli union’s board of directors, said that the report was an unfair attack on the Israeli government.
“I’m not expecting anyone to sing songs of praise, but I expect fairness,” he said. “If I see a precooked report, I recognize this.”
Shibi said that relations between the international union and the 800-member Israeli union have been tense for several years. The “turning point” came, he said, when the international union condemned the Israeli government’s July 2006 attack on Al-Manar, the Lebanon-based TV station of Hezbollah. More recently, Shibi said it had been a problem that the international union had not consulted the Israeli union before publishing its report on Gaza.
“The relationship is getting sour because of politics, not because of money,” Shibi told the Forward.
White said that in his 22 years on the job, the international union has published reports about numerous countries, including Israel, and the Israeli union had never complained. On the Gaza report, White said that input from Israeli journalists was not relevant, because the international union has affiliates in Gaza and the West Bank.
Whatever the politics, both sides agree that the Israeli union has not paid its dues. It has asked to pay the reduced rate offered to unions in neighboring nations such as Jordan, rather than the higher rate paid by unions in European nations. The international union has offered to forgive the Israeli debt and require a slightly reduced rate in the future, but the Israeli union has not agreed to the offer.
“Many of our unions would like to pay less fees,” White said. “If we bow to this intransigent position… it seems to me it would make our position untenable with our other members.”
A June 19 letter to the Israeli organization outlined the international union’s position: After a year of unsuccessfully trying to negotiate a payment plan for the piled-up arrears, the Israelis were being expelled.
Shibi acknowledged that his union was facing financial difficulties, but he said that the financial hesitation from the Israeli side also arose out of a sense that the international union had treated the Israeli government unfairly.
“When we are expected to automatically pay for anti-Israel campaigns, we don’t see why we should pay for this pleasure,” he said.
Though the Israelis have the opportunity to appeal the international union’s decision at the group’s next major meeting, to be held in Spain in May 2010, Shibi said his group will not be pursue that option.
“I don’t think we’re going to act as a guilty party and appeal,” he said. “If they don’t want us, they don’t want us.”
Contact Alex Weisler at weisler@forward.com or Nathan Jeffay at jeffay@forward.com
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This story is exactly why I hate unions. No union representative had better show up anywhere where I'm at, or they may be counting the bodies.
I hope some common ground can be found. I'm very proud of the good unions do, but as democratic institutions the politics can sometimes be difficult, like any democracies.
See here:
http://www.tuliponline.org/?p=520 "Israeli journalists union kicked out of international federation" June 7, 2009
and here:
http://www.tuliponline.org/?p=533 "IFJ: Problems with expelled Israeli journalists union not just financial, cites political differences" July 8, 2009
That is JULY 7, for
http://www.tuliponline.org/?p=520 "Israeli journalists union kicked out of international federation"
it is interesting that the article speaks of the israeli raid an dintentional murder of children in gaza as a "gazan conflict".
compare this label with label "warsaw ghetto conflict" and one get's 'zionist' message.
resistance against germans/nazis in warsaw ghetto was morally and legally correct. Resistance to israeli occupation, people hunting, assassinations, abduction of people, siege, land theft, etc., was and remains legal and obligatory even if qassams were used against israel.
once again as always before 'jews' were able to escape any punishmnet for its crimes only because of the veto power of their equally criminal driends.
however, time goes on and with it change. And change is always unpredictable. But what will never change is the fact that israel had commited numerous crimes against innocent palestinians. future generations of 'jews' will hav eto live with this just like germans are now living for their crimes against roma, slavs, and 'jews'. tnx
My belief now that I am retired is that Israel should withdraw from all international organizations that spit on her. It is high time that we Jews, to borrow a phrase from the French, roundly say to these racist groups: "Allez vous faire cuire un oeuf!"
Apart from half a dozen courageous journalists on Haaretz, the Israel press is basically the mouthpiece of the Israel government and the IDF (just listen to the humbug from these scroungers: "we are expected to automatically pay for anti-Israel campaigns"). You wouldn't hear such talk coming from union members in a country with a free press. The problem essentially is that all these Israelis have done their 2 or 3 years' IDF service and they all still think (and possibly are) that they are on active service. What they write is lies and half truths and such people do not deserve the honour of being called journalists.
Seymour is it really true you really don't see more than this facile one-eyed propaganda response?
Click on the below URL to find another (good) example of a free press in Israel - which does not exist, unfortunately, in neighbouring Middle East countries.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0zw72XTUpo
I do wish the Israelis would smarten up and show some self-respect. It is high time those foreign journalists who have been bashing and slandering Israel in their media outlets -- be it the New York Times or the BBC - were given the heave-ho as persona non grata and not allowed back into the country until their masters apologized to the government and people of Israel for their decades-old false journalism besmirching Israel. China does this all the time. So does Sri Lanka and Saudi Arabia. In fact, India and Japan are not shy about doing so either, and they're democracies to boot!
So we have one fascist - going by the name Glaser - who's going to kill any trade unionists who get near to him - and doesn't like the story and isn't able to articulate why and Ben Zion Shek who doesn't get the fact that the expulsion of an ISRAELI union has no consequences at all for Jews since anti-racist Jews support this expulsion.
The only regrettable matter was that the pliant propaganda merchants (read 'journalists) weren't expelled for supporting the Israeli blockade of Gaza to journalists. What kind of yellow journalists are they that support their own government's attack on free reporting?
The answer is the same type of 'journalist' who sang the praises of apartheid or who, when they interviewed Goebbels asked about his wife's recipes.
Journalists who support their own state's actions, even against fellow journalists and reporters, e.g. the bombing of Al Jazeera and Al Manar, should be booted out of every respectable forum.