MIDEAST 2010 from the International Council for Press and Broadcasting. Earlier it received a United Nations Award for Intercultural Innovation. Angry phone calls and hacker disruption of the radio station’s website, however, amount to sideshows beside official crackdowns. In November 2011, the Israeli Communications Ministry issued a shut-down order. Claiming that All for Peace was broadcasting illegally into Israel (its transmitter is in the West Bank), the ministry initially justified the decision on the basis that the station’s Hebrew advertising caused economic harm to legal Israeli stations. A conservative Israeli politician later said All for Peace was shut down for “incitement.” Denying the charge of illegal operation, All for Peace appealed the ministry’s decision to the Israeli Supreme Court, which had not ruled on the case as of early September 2012. In the meantime, the station’s Hebrew frequency has been taken off the air, reducing its advertising revenue by 90 percent, according to other news reports (though, with grant and foundation money, the station is not wholly dependent on advertising sales). The station
continues to broadcast online, as well as through its Arabic-language frequency in the West Bank. For the moment, Baransi and All for Peace Radio remain caught in a limbo, awaiting the court ruling on the station’s future. In a way, it serves as an allegory, Baransi says, of the frustrating, up-and-down, one-step-forward, two-steps-back nature of the entire peace process. “Sometimes you feel very encouraged,” she says. “And sometimes you look back and say, ‘My God, I’m just going backwards.’” — AKJ Postscript: As Peacebuilder was being readied for publication, we learned that a rubber bullet shot from an Israeli checkpoint shattered Baransi’s rear car window on Aug. 10, 2012, as she drove with her daughter between Ramallah and their home in East Jerusalem. In seeking to understand the reason for the shooting, Baransi was told that a riot had recently occurred in that area and that Israeli officials were still in a response mode to that event.
Peace Journalists Needed in Lebanon and World Fellow journalists tend to react with confusion when Nisrine Ajab (SPI ’09 & '10) talks about “peace journalism.” It is not a widely understood or accepted term in Lebanese media circles, where newspapers and broadcast media traditionally align themselves with specific political parties. Ajab, however, believes that peacebuilding tools are an essential part of good journalism – and that good journalism is an essential part of peacebuilding. “The messages that are sent through media play a big role in influencing how people behave,” says Ajab, who works as an investigative journalist and news writer at Future News TV in Beirut. Because of this, she says, media can and should play an important role in peacebuilding work. Ajab also writes for Elaph, the first Arabic e-newspaper, as well as several other media outlets in the region. The principles of peace journalism, she says, include eliminating bias, seeking out multiple sides to every story, and using words and language carefully, mindful of their impact on readers and society. “I think a peace journalist is someone who has to dig for the truth before judging what’s going on,” says Ajab. “And when we are covering a story, we should give all
Nisrine Ajab (SPI ’09 & '10)
parties the chance to talk about their point of view.” While attending SPI, Ajab began work on a documentary film about the peacebuilding work her fellow students and instructors were involved in. While she has yet to finish editing the video, she hopes that it will become the first of many such projects. Eventually, she envisions traveling the world to film documentaries on peacebuilding themes. Now working on her master’s degree in media and communication studies (her thesis is on the role of social media in the Arab Spring), Ajab aspires to teach peace journalism at a Lebanese university. By doing so, she hopes to bring about a time when peace journalism will no longer be the strange, unfamiliar concept it is today. — AKJ
peacebuilder ■ 15 emu.edu/cjp