Because it is not Israelis who are perpetrating the abuse, the reports are ho-hum to these journalists.
Hamas is an extremist Islamist movement that does not consider itself obliged to abide by international laws and treaties concerning basic human rights. Indeed, the concept of human rights simply does not exist under Hamas in the Gaza Strip, where public freedoms, including freedom of speech and of the press, are non-existent.
In 2013, two Palestinian detainees reportedly died of torture in the Jericho Central Prison.
A London-based human rights organization reported 3,175 cases of human rights violations, including arbitrary detentions, by the Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces in the West Bank during 2016. Hundreds of those detained include university students and lecturers, as well as schoolteachers. During the same year, the PA security forces also detained 27 Palestinian journalists.
Unfortunately for them, they are not going on hunger strikes in an Israeli prison, where such actions garner the immediate interest of the mainstream media.
Many are willing to tell their stories. But who is willing to listen? Not Western governments, human rights organizations and journalists. Most of them seek evil in Israel, and Israel alone.
As Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas and his cronies occupied themselves in the past two weeks issuing warnings to President Trump against moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, reports resurfaced concerning the brutal conditions and human rights violations in a Palestinian prison in the West Bank.
These reports, however, were buried, along with the abuse, in favor of attention to rhetoric directed against the Trump Administration. Anything uttered by Abbas and senior PA officials regarding the possible transfer of the US embassy to Jerusalem made it to the headlines of major newspapers and TV networks around the world.
At one point, it actually appeared as if the mainstream media in the West was interested in highlighting and inflating these statements in a bid to pressure Trump into abandoning the idea of moving the embassy to Jerusalem. Western journalists ran to provide platforms for any Palestinian official interested in threatening the Trump Administration.
The threats included warnings that the transfer of the embassy to Jerusalem would “destroy the peace process,” “jeopardize regional and international security” and “plunge the entire region into anarchy and violence.” Some Palestinian officials went so far as to state that such a move would be considered an “assault on all Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims.” They also threatened to “revoke” Palestinian recognition of Israel’s right to exist.
Regrettably, as Palestinian officials from across the political spectrum joined forces to broadcast sensational headlines in the mainstream media around the world, the reports about torture of Palestinian detainees in a PA prison failed to attract the interest of the many journalists covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The torture that takes place in PA-controlled prisons and detention centers is not new.
Over the past few years, Palestinians have become accustomed to hearing horror stories about what is happening within the walls of these structures. Yet, because it is not Israelis who are perpetrating the abuse, the reports are ho-hum to these journalists.
A Palestinian who points a finger at Israel is guaranteed a sympathetic ear among journalists. When a Palestinian complains of torture at the hands of Palestinian interrogators or security officers, it is seen as just more of the same. Worse: It is seen as “Oh those Arabs, what can anyone expect from them?”