Dodging Bombs and Insults in the Gaza Strip

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If you believe her most fervent critics, Palestinian journalist Taghreed El-Khodary’s primary professional accomplishment is “<a target=”_blank” href=”http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2009/01/taghreed-el-khodary-on-her-own.html”>vomiting Israeli propaganda</a>” onto the front-page of the New York Times, her employer since 2001. As a passionate and talented journalist from Gaza employed by an American newspaper often accused of <a target=”_blank” href=”http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6061.shtml”>marginalizing or ignoring the issue of Palestinian rights</a>, El-Khodary walks a near-impossible line.  In a piece for <strong>Columbia Journalism Review</strong>, El-Khodary writes about her struggles to walk that treacherous tightrope during the recent Israeli attack on the people and infrastructure of Gaza:</p>
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<em>Israel did not let any international journalists into Gaza, so I feel the weight of responsibility, the need to explain to the world what is happening. And that is one of several kinds of pressure: I want to maintain my credibility, so I work hard not to exclude any element of the story. I deal with Hamas watchers and fighters, which I know how to do. I feel the pressure and possible death from Israeli drones, F16s, helicopters, and tanks.</em>
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<p>The piece (only available online to subscribers) is also a catalog of the horrors she witnessed and reported:</p>
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<em>I enter a location that has been hit five times by Israeli bombs. I worry that the drones could hit at any moment, but try to focus on the story. I attend a funeral for more than thirty people, and talk to a father while staring into his dead daughter’s brown eyes. “From now on,” he says, “I’m Hamas.”</em>
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<p>At the height of the Israeli attacks–which Israel dubbed “Operation Cast Lead”–El-Khodary gave a gripping television interview that makes a fool of any critic who declares her to be anything other than what she most certainly is: a journalist prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice to share the tragedy and complexities of the Palestinian story. Here she is:</p>
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<strong>Source: <a target=”_blank” href=”http://www.cjr.org/magazine/”>Columbia Journalism Review</a>
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UTNE
UTNE
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