Second Blog Post

This week on March 24th, The Jerusalem Post published an article titled "What's Happening in Gaza?" by author Khaled Abu Toameh. This investigative piece explores the motives behind the recent Palestinian-led protests in the Gaza Strip. Earlier this week, protests erupted in Gaza about economic hardships experienced by the Palestinians living there, under Hamas controlled territory. Initially, apparently Hamas had ignored these protests as they believed they were similar to protests from 2018 against Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) where Hamas sent out supporters to protest economic hardship but instead blamed Abbas, who is the current President of the PA. However, these protests were different since they appeared to be partially pro-Fatah protestors who were demonstrating against the corruption within Hamas that has led to the economic hardships currently being experienced in the Gaza Strip. After the first day of protests revealed this, Hamas sent out its security forces to apprehend, arrest, and put a stop to these protests and protestors. Several Palestinians were observed being beaten harshly by these forces and had to be hospitalized for their injuries. Hamas maintains that these protests are inauthentic and a conspiracy led by both Fatah and the PA to ceed Hamas from power as well as stop future planned authentic protests, mainly against Israel, from the region. Fatah denied these allegations and asserted that these protests are real. Since then, both Fatah and the PA have been trying to portray this as an intifada against Hamas on social media by various posts showing people being beaten by Hamas as well as being recorded stating that they were beaten by Hamas. However, it soon emerged that some of the photos used were actually taken from Iraq and Egypt, and therefore people not wounded by Hamas. Fatah got hate for spreading false information and people fired back by saying that Fatah also uses security forces with the same objectives in West Bank. In Gaza, representatives making up 12 Palestinian factions met up during the protests and demanded that Hamas remove their police forces from the streets and to release the people they arrested. Hamas, for their part, was condemned domestically in Israel as well as by many international groups which led to the organization releasing a rare lengthy apology. It is also reported that last week one of Fatah's primary spokesmen Alef Abu Seif was kidnapped, beaten, and wounded in Gaza and has since been sent to a hospital in Ramallah to recover. Since this, Fatah, the PA, and the PLO have accused Hamas of war crimes against Palestinians in Gaza.

The facts presented in this article appear to be reliable for several reasons. Primarily, the Jerusalem Post is known to be a valid news company in the first place. Second, the author Toameh is linked by name to this article and with a single click on his name one can access other articles he has written for the Jerusalem Post. While the website does not give a brief biography of him to see where he has studied, specialized in, or how long he has worked for the JP, it does allow one to view the other articles he has worked on. His earliest work is from September of 2018 and the majority of his articles focus on Gaza, Hamas, and Arabs in Israel which show that he does have some experience researching the topic of this article and reporting on it. As for the specific information reported on in this article, given that it was noted that internationally Hamas was condemned for their use of force in suppressing protests in Gaza, I began to look for these international condemnations. The UN released a statement condemning Hamas's actions in Gaza as well as the New York Times. These two notable sources supported this article's assertion that first, protests were taking place in Gaza against Hamas and second, that Hamas sought to undermine and disrupt protestors by using violent methods from their private police force and lastly, that the international community condemned these actions that led to the harm of Palestinian civilians. It was interesting to me that this reporter made a special distinction that Hamas does not usually apologize and that their lengthy statement was notable so I looked up Hamas's statement. They did in fact write a lengthy apology which I was surprisingly able to access on my device. Their apology in both length and that toward the end they blame the PA for what they believe was a PA-led and funded protest against Hamas to oust them from power. Therefore, given that this article appears to be properly researched and reported, it can be concluded this article is reliable.

This article seems reliable with the information it contains as it seeks to explore the perspective of Hamas, Fatah, and the PLO from relatively unbiased reporting.The reporter does give their opinion and future predictions from the evidence they gathered toward the end of the article. They postulate that the goal of both Fatah and Hamas is to oust of the other form their respective controlled territory so that the other can then go in and take control of the other's former area. This is not an unusual conclusion to draw considering that the PA used to control Gaza prior and would likely like to control it again. Taomeh also appears to be fond of making future predictions about the situation in Gaza, saying toward the end of the article that he believes that should more protests return to the Gaza strip that it would only widen the divide already present between Palestinian civilians who prefer the authority of Hamas versus the authority of the PA. In regards to the bias of the newspaper publishing this article in the first place, the Jerusalem Post is known to be a slightly more conservative paper. It should be acknowledged that this meaning of conservative is in regards to the term being used in the context of what conservative means in the state of Israel as opposed to what conservative means for the United States of America. Lastly, toward the end of the article when Taomeh notes that Fatah, the PA and the PLO accesses Hamas of war crimes he quotes a Fatah official who calls Hamas terrorists and then quotes a PLO official who compares Hamas to the Gestapo. Due to him deliberately choosing to include these specific quotes as opposed to just noting that they accused Hamas of war crimes suggests that he does not favor Hamas and their methods, at least for this particular occasion and is on the "side" of Fatah, the PLO, and the PA in not supporting Hamas's action in Gaza.