By Ahmed Jazbhay
This week (May 18th), marks the 10th anniversary of the 2016 Palestine Media Conference held in Istanbul.
Media Review Network (MRN) recalls with gratitude the opportunity afforded to it to participate at the event known as Tawasul.
MRN was also honoured to have its member Iqbal Jassat receive an award in recognition for his sterling contribution made in media activism and advocacy in solidarity with Palestine’s freedom struggle.
Over 500 media professionals, journalists, academics, and experts from more than 50 countries attended to network and improve media coverage of the Palestinian cause.
The conference focused on formulating an authentic Palestinian narrative in international media, empowering Palestinian journalists, confronting Israeli propaganda, and utilizing digital and social media effectively.
Sessions included specialized workshops on data journalism, methods to confront and correct Zionist myths in Western media, and strategic news-making.
Hosted by the Palestine Media Forum in partnership with Middle East Monitor (MEMO), it gathered world-renowned media professionals including writers, heads of newspapers, radio and television journalists, artists and directors as well as intellectuals and international academics.
At the time, Dr Daud Abdullah, director of MEMO, was quoted as saying, “The forum offers an opportunity to appraise the performance and state of media coverage of Palestine on the one hand, whilst also providing an opportunity to interact with and benefit from the experiences of practitioners from various parts of the world.”
Daud Abdullah
Palestinians from the Occupied West Bank and the diaspora also attended the event including the parents of Mohamed Abu Khdeir, who was kidnapped and burnt alive by settlers in occupied East Jerusalem in 2014.
Parents of Martyr Mohamed Abu Khdeir
“This forum is important for two reasons: it supports the Palestinian media and ensures Mohamed’s memory lives on,” Suha Abu Khadeir said at the time.
Ahmed Dawabsheh — the sole survivor of the infamous 2015 Duma arson attack — was also honoured at the conference.
Ahmed (sixteen years old today) was the only member of his immediate family to survive after extremist Jewish settlers firebombed his family home in the West Bank. The brutal arson attack killed his parents, Saad and Riham, and his 18-month-old brother, Ali.
Ahmed Dawabsheh
Ahmed survived with severe burns covering 60% of his body and spent months in intensive care.
Accompanied by his grandfather Hussein and his uncle Nasr, Ahmed’s award and presence at the global media gathering served as a powerful visual testament to the human cost of Israel’s ongoing unlawful occupation, apartheid and genocide.
Ahmed in the arms of his grandfather Hussein
In recalling this momentous event, we dare not cast our eye away from the horrendous genocide that has been ongoing since the 1948 Nakba, for it is during this mont that Palestinians mark the 78th year since the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
From late 1947 to 1949, the majority of the native inhabitants of Pale-stine were forcibly displaced as Zionists established the Jewish State of Israel through force of arms. Some 800,000 Palestinians became refugees, others became internally displaced, and more than 500 Palestinian towns, villages, and localities were partially or completely destroyed.
Dr Ahmed Haroon Jazbhay
Executive Member
Media Review Network
South Africa
