Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, relaunches Hebrew-language editorial staff

A young Palestinian man carrying an olive tree between the Palestinian Territories and Israel, March 8, 2021. (Illustrative image) AP - Oded Balilty

Text by: Sami Boukhelifa Follow

3 min

For years, Wafa has disseminated information in Arabic, English and French.

Now she also does it in Hebrew.

Its objective is clear: to speak to the Israelis in their language, and to make them hear the Palestinian point of view. 

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From our permanent RFI special envoy in Jerusalem

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This is not the first time that this news agency has launched a service in Hebrew.

A first editorial in Hebrew had actually seen the light of day in 2009, before being closed six years later in 2015, officially for internal reasons. 

But this time around, Wafa's ambition is to impose himself on the Israeli-Palestinian media scene, explains from the agency's headquarters in Ramallah, its editor-in-chief, Khouloud Assaf.

Locked behind the separation wall built by Israel in the early 2000s, Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have become almost invisible in Israeli society.

Their cause and their demands are also a distant memory for the Israelis.

The younger generations of Israel know nothing about their struggle.

Their fight, their actions, are qualified as acts of terrorism by the political class of the Jewish state, as well as by most of the Israeli media.   

► Also to listen: The Palestinians, citizens of Israel in search of recognition

A bridge between two worlds

Yet thousands of Palestinians from the occupied West Bank pass through checkpoints every day on their way to Israel for work.

Almost half a million Israeli settlers live in the Palestinian Territories of the occupied West Bank.

But it is as if these two societies live in two parallel worlds, ignoring almost everything of each other. 

The Israelis are also banned from going to Palestinian cities.

Several kilometers before entering these Palestinian cities, the Israeli authorities erected huge red signs, on which is written in English, Arabic and Hebrew: " 

”. 

Countering censorship and the rightization of Israeli society

The service in Hebrew of the Palestinian agency Wafa, wishes to overcome the main difficulty: "the censorship imposed on the Israeli media" by the command of the armed forces of the Hebrew state, underlines the editor-in-chief of Wafa.

" 

 " explains Khouloud Assaf.

According to her, with rare exceptions, the majority of the Israeli media only broadcast a partial and partial image of Palestinian reality. 

Yet the mainstream Israeli media have journalists who speak Arabic, who read Arabic.

But the Wafa agency says it wants to relaunch its service in Hebrew to counter, according to it, a "right-wing" of the Israeli press "

 ".

The editor-in-chief of the Wafa agency admits it: Israeli society is not completely insensitive to the Palestinian cause.

Khouloud Assaf even remembers having received a hundred applications from Israeli journalists, wishing to work for the Wafa agency between 2009 and 2015. But the new service in Hebrew only counts 6 journalists for the moment.

The editor believes this is already a good start.

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