Opinion | The Palestinian Republic of Fear and Misinformation | CPT PPP Coverage

Many years ago, when I first started covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I got to know a gifted Palestinian journalist who, for reasons that will become apparent in a moment, I’ll refer to only by his first name, Said.

As with many other Palestinian journalists, Said’s primary source of income was working with foreign reporters as a “fixer,” someone who could arrange difficult meetings, translate from Arabic, show you around. Said had an independent streak and he was no fan of Yasir Arafat, which made him particularly helpful in cutting through the Palestinian Authority’s propagandistic bombast.

With Said, I interviewed senior Hamas leaders in Gaza, officials in Ramallah, retired terrorists in Nablus, political dissidents in Jenin and construction workers in Hebron. We developed a friendship. Then, shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, he called me in a panic because something I had written in The Wall Street Journal had met with the displeasure of officials in the Palestinian Authority. The goon squad, he said, had paid his family an admonitory visit in their apartment, and he wanted me to take the story down. That was out of the question, I told him. It was never safe for us to work together again.

I mention this anecdote in the wake of last week’s sensational story that an Israeli airstrike had killed some 500 people at a Gaza hospital — a story variously attributed to “Palestinian officials,” “the Gazan health ministry” and “health authorities in the besieged enclave.” The story sparked violent protests throughout the Middle East.