A Voice for the Voiceless: On Winning the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism

By Mohammed Omer


	Journalist John Pilger (c), a member of the Martha Gellhorn Prize judges panel, congratulates co-recipients Dahr Jamail (l) and Mohammed Omer (Photo Paul de Rooij).

RAFAH, A refugee camp in the south of the Gaza Strip, is my hometown—the only home I’ve known for 24 years, along with my six brothers, a sister, parents and extended family. Prior to 1948 my family lived in the village of Yebna, near Tel Aviv. During that year, along with 750,000 others, my grandparents were forced to leave their home. Like many, they found their way to Gaza, which remained free until 1967. That year, within six days the people of Gaza went from a thriving self-sufficient society to a disdained ghetto enclave ruled by another nation. We’ve lived under occupation ever since.

To Be a Palestinian Child

Growing up under occupation, Palestinian children confront issues foreign to children living just a few miles away. While Israeli Jewish children play at the beach, enjoy an afternoon at the cinema or congregate with friends in malls and clubs, the Muslim and Christian children of Gaza navigate a life of checkpoints, food shortages, bombings, targeted assassinations and humiliation. While Jewish children are encouraged in their schools, Palestinian children are told we do not exist. Even Palestinian citizens of Israel are prohibited from living in, and often working in, enjoying or traveling through 93 percent of their nation, for these areas are Jewish Only. In this “democracy,” whether occupied or within the Green Line, the defining aspect of our lives is physical, legal, economic and racial segregation.

In order to survive, Palestinian children must face injustice and oppression head-on. We learn at a young age to view the killing of innocents and the demolition of our homes as the price we must pay because we are Muslim and Christian, rather than Jewish. We witness death and destruction at an early age—scenes no child should face, but images we are forced to live with, or else fall into an abyss of desperation and shame. Few alternatives exist for us. The occupiers control everything. Education remains a possible way out—if, that is, jobs exist. We can choose to fight against the oppression through nonviolent means, through armed resistance—or we can simply give up.

I chose to fight through words and education, believing that the pen always trumps the sword. Any animal can fight, after all, but only man can think—and it is through thinking that injustice is reversed and change occurs. Therefore, at the age of 17, I chose the front-line of thinkers and became a journalist. I wasn’t really sure how I was going to do this without a camera, a computer or the money to buy such things. But I did have a little notebook and a pen and I could observe. And I could write.

Homeless and Determined

Following the outbreak of the second intifada I began to learn my craft. At first the stories were only for my own use. I tagged along with other journalists, started reading about journalism and learning about photography. In the beginning, I asked a lot of questions and took every opportunity I could to work with anyone who would allow me—whether as an interpreter, a guide, or assistant. In time I acquired a camera, but my notebooks containing two years of work did not survive the day in March 2003 when I returned home from school to find rubble where my family’s house had stood that morning. An Israeli bulldozer had flattened our home to make room for the occupier’s iron wall.

Shocked, I stared in disbelief, realizing that beneath the jagged concrete remains my notebooks lay buried, gone forever. Their loss was the first angst I felt—a feeling quickly replaced by the terror of knowing that my entire family was now homeless. All of our possessions, books, photographs…our lives destroyed. Only two things remained: memories and hope. We still had our memories of our life, and we still had hope for the future.

The ruins of razed homes represent the most concrete image of occupation, injuries and death the most personal. Over the past few years most of my brothers have been injured by Israeli occupation forces. One was killed in our courtyard as he prepared to go to high school by an Israeli sniper. Two neighbors who rushed to help met the same fate. This is our life in Gaza. We live under occupation as targets in gun sights. Nobody knows if he or she will survive through the next day.

Yet we go on. Despite the constant threat and terror, the death of my brother and the destruction of our home, even the Israeli occupation forces with their tanks and weapons and two-story-high bulldozers could not destroy hope or erase our memories. In fact each act of injustice further entrenched my resolve. I knew more than ever that becoming a journalist, one of the best, provided a way out and a way to give voice to the more than one million people I lived with, people who could not speak for themselves. I would become the voice of Gaza’s voiceless and I would make the world listen.

Confronting Journalism’s Reality

Naïvely, I threw myself into my studies and craft, unaware of the challenges I’d face going up against the world’s most sophisticated propaganda machine, Israeli Hasbara. But I soon discovered its power. Israel’s international support, after all, depends on how it is viewed by the world. Promoting an acceptable image requires thousands of advocates, from editors and journalists to diplomats, politicians, advertising and public relations agencies, and network of grassroots activists dedicated to making sure very little about Israel’s policies and actions makes it into the consciousness of the world community.

To my amazement and dismay, not even local Israeli media reported on the daily realities, although occasionally a story would surface. The international press seemed to yawn with indifference, preferring misbehaving Hollywood stars to children dying and under siege. War crimes—in the form of home demolitions, collective punishment, targeted assassinations, arrests without warrant and the building of walls—were being committed daily. Yet any mention of them was couched in Israeli-approved language: captures of Israeli soldiers were kidnappings; 12-to-25 foot-high concrete walls, complete with moats and gun towers, became fences; illegal colonies, settlements; children killed were unfortunate accidents; all arrested Palestinians were suspected of terrorism, although rarely charged or tried.

Facing such well-organized denial of reality, I refined my life’s mission: to get the truth out—not pro-Palestinian or anti-Israeli, but simply as an eyewitness on the ground, reporting what happens and why, and thereby challenging the international consensus. I still wasn’t quite sure how to do this, but I started contacting media overseas and eventually built up a base. In December 2004 the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs published my first article, on Israel’s “Days of Penitence” operation, and soon made me its Gaza correspondent. In 2006 I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English language and literature from Gaza University. At last, I felt, I had the experience and the education I needed.

War Correspondent

Being a journalist in an active war zone, I knew I risked death or, worse, physical incapacitation. Israel’s occupation forces often target journalists, and the April 16 killing of my friend Fadel Shana, a Reuters cameraman, still jolts me awake. Logistics proved to be a challenge as well. With intermittent electricity, food shortages and little fuel I’ve often found myself running from place to place, using horses, cars, taxis and even donkey carts to find the accommodations necessary to write and get the story out. Before the siege, some Gaza journalists had bulletproof cars, and I’d hitch a ride with them. Now, without fuel, we all play duck and cover.

Even if I’m able to get a story out, many times mainstream media will either reject it or re-edit it to make it more Israel-friendly. And if a story of mine does get out, the attacks are sure to follow. At first I was shocked by the hate mail I received from pro-Israel activists: threats, derogatory comments, attempts to discredit me in public and private via e-mails, calls and articles. Fortunately, as these became more frequent, my network of friends, advisers, professional writers and journalists assured me, “The better you get, the more they’ll attack you. Take it as a compliment. They see you as a threat; that means you’re making a difference.”

Happily, some of the most supportive letters I’ve received have been from Jewish readers, thanking me for bringing the stories to light. The fact is, if most people in the world understood what Israel is doing, they would not support it. Zionism knows this, of course, and that is why the truth often ends up in the recycle bin and assignments evaporate. One certainly doesn’t get rich writing about Israel’s occupation and policies—but then I was never in this to get rich. What I want is an end to the occupation and the coming together of Israelis and Palestinians so we may all start living our lives in peace and start building a community together rather than tearing each other’s apart. If my writing helps achieve that, then I am successful.

Prize Winner

Early one May afternoon I received the news from Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist John Pilger that I and my respected colleague Dahr Jamail, an “unembedded” American journalist who covers Iraq, had been named co-winners of the prestigious Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism in 2008. It was the best news I’d received in years and I bubbled with excitement and gratitude as Mr. Pilger and I discussed the award…until he mentioned I needed to be in London on June 16 to receive it.

How in the world was I going to do that? Already the Ministry of Health had reported that since November 175 people have died at Gaza’s borders because Israel denied them exit visas for medical care. Students were being denied visas to attend colleges overseas, and husbands and wives remained separated for years. Many NGOs and aid workers were denied entry and exit. How was a journalist ever going to be allowed out to conduct a speaking tour on Gaza in Sweden, Greece, the Netherlands and France—plus head over to England to receive an award? We’d need a miracle!

Predictably I was denied exit as a “security risk.” Nothing unusual about that, of course, since Israel seems to consider all Palestinians “security risks”—even 4-year-old little girls and terminally ill cancer patients on life-support. Besides, I’d been through this before.

Last year I was invited to the Netherlands for a speaking tour (see “Your Presence Is Requested, Mr. Omer,” Sept./Oct. 2007 Washington Report, p. 38). At first I was also denied exit, but through the concerted efforts of MP Hans Van Baalen, head of the Dutch parliament’s foreign relations committtee, I was able to get out of Gaza through Israel and across Jordan’s Allenby Bridge rather than through the Rafah crossing located minutes from my home. It required substantial lobbying on his part to get me back to Gaza as well, and to this day I remain in awe of his diplomatic skill.

In 2007 I’d been lucky. Would I be so again? Once again Mr. Van Ballen took the reigns of diplomacy in his experienced hands, and by beginning of June, I was in Sweden speaking to parliament. On June 16 I received my award in London and finally was able to meet so many of the people who worked behind the scenes to ensure that I was able to get out of Gaza and speak. Through their efforts, support and acknowledgement I am achieving my life’s goal of becoming the voice of the voiceless.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank, in addition to the Martha Gellhorn Prize committee, my readers, advisers, friends, publishers, editors and colleagues for your encouragement, wishes and support. I dedicate this award to you and to the people of Gaza, in the hope that the day will one day come when being a war correspondent in Gaza is obsolete!

Award-winning journalist Mohammed Omer reports from the Gaza Strip, where he maintains the Web site <www.rafahtoday.org>. He can be reached at <gazanews@yahoo.com>.