West Bank/Gaza Media Sustainability Index (MSI)
November 3, 2011
About the MSI
IREX designed the MSI to measure the strength and viability of any country’s media sector. The MSI considers all the factors that contribute to a media system—the quality of journalism, effectiveness of management, the legal environment supporting freedom of the press, and more—to arrive at scores on a scale ranging between 0 and 4. These scores represent the strength of the media sector components and can be analyzed over time to chart progress (or regression) within a country. Additionally, countries or regions may be compared to one another. IREX currently conducts the MSI in 80 countries, and produced the first Middle East and North Africa MSI in 2005.
MSI Overview | Africa | Asia | Europe & Eurasia | Middle East & North Africa
Download the Complete West Bank/Gaza MSI Chapter (PDF): 2008 | 2006/7 | 2005
MSI West Bank/Gaza - 2008 Introduction
Overall Country Score: 1.76
MSI panelists agreed that the expansion in the Palestinian media landscape attained an unprecedented level by early 2008, when, as a result of the internal conflicts between Fatah and Hamas, the two movements sought to establish media outlets of a partisan nature, in particular websites. Most of their media activities were used to incite and defame, with no legal accountability whatsoever and in a manner that exacerbated the situation and increased the pressure on the private independent media to favor one party or the other. The intensification of the internal conflicts, the escalation of political polarization between Fatah and Hamas, and the division of power by the two political entities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip resulted in a worsening situation for citizens’ rights and increasing violations of freedom of expression and media freedom.
Serious violations of media freedoms in West Bank/Gaza occurred in 2008, including detention and illegal prosecution. The Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR) Ombudsman’s Office described them as reaction against the unprecedented shift towards operational freedom enjoyed by the media in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. ICHR believes that the pattern of serious violations of media freedom and persecution of media professionals, by all the various Palestinian security forces in the West Bank and also by the deposed Hamas government in the Gaza Strip, undoubtedly points to a systematic policy designed to circumvent the limits of applicable laws in the territories of the Palestinian National Authority.
Other measures to control information were applied in contravention to applicable laws in Palestine and international human rights conventions. For example, distribution of Al Hayat al Jadidah, Al Quds and Al Ayyam was banned for several months in the Gaza Strip, while the distribution ban on Felesteen and Al Resalah continued in the West Bank. A block imposed on the news website Donia Alwatan on November 3, 2008 by order of the attorney general of the Palestinian National Authority was a first in West Bank/Gaza, where the Internet is regarded as an open forum where all can express their views freely.
Marches and public gatherings were banned; journalists were prevented from covering those that took place anyway. Palestinian security forces confiscated various pieces of media equipment and assaulted a number of journalists. Some journalists even suffered assassination attempts. Certain non-Palestinian Arab media were targeted for being “non-neutral,” while some local media institutions had their licenses withdrawn. Many had had their offices broken into.
MSI panelists concluded in the light of the above that the further aggravation of internal conflicts in 2008 claimed public freedoms, including freedom of opinion, expression, and the press, as its first victims. At the conclusion of the MSI panel meeting, which was held as a video conference between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the panelists highlighted the remarkable deterioration in the sustainability of media. The overall score suffered further erosion, falling to 1.76 compared to 1.84 for 2006/2007 and 2.09 for 2005.
