IDF filmed aiming tear gas at Al-Jazeera reporter in West Bank

Is your definition of a reporter limited to one whose reporting is favorable to Israel? If not, what makes her "not a repprter"?

Mr Gold makes up history just as the Israelites claimed that god himself gave them the land of Palestine. Unfortunately, the land was already populated and had to be conquered before the Israelite squatters could move in. They murdered the original inhabitants and they are still at it.

I think it is just interesting to note that this is in an Israeli newspaper. In my 10 years of studying this matter, I have yet come across a Palestinian source that criticizes or reveals any wrong-doing on the Palestinian side (and I assure you there are quite a few points that could be stated! Even if you can justify suicide-bombings.). I'm neither for the Palestinian side nor the Israeli side, but I do have a difficulty in trusting the Palestinian reports. Was she legally supposed to be there? Was this an attack from the IDF or from Palestinian supporters? Are the lands really Arab-owned or legally bought by Israelis? I'm not saying that it isn't possible for the IDF to do something egregious (as I know they have!). Yet, I'm still really skeptical and don't take this at face value.

What were IDF soldiers thinking? They're showing this piece of news on all American channels. It was even on CNN. How can we appear in such a bad light? Like some banaba republic where journalists are shot at. I hope the soldiers who did this will go to prison for some time. This is a catastrophy for Israel's image, soldiers shooting at a young Western woman with a press outfit.

...Al Jazeera English absolutely had the best coverage of the aftermath and protests after the recent Iranian "elections." I've found that anyone who claims Al Jazeera is not impartial or that it has nothing but anti-Israeli bias to have never seen the satellite channel before. I would not be without it. The channel has some of the finest international coverage available, a slicker media rich updated version of what CNN was way back in the day.

It has saved the lives of countless Israelis and it is obviously in the interest of humanity that it be removed, before more lives are saved.

So Israel acts like a bully, so what? I've seen plenty of biased anti-Israel reporting on Al Jazeera before. They're a news network who are concerned with their ratings, and couldn't give a toss about the palestinians. Besides, who REALLY cares? The Irish dudes who harboured Nazis after WWII? C'mon, the Scandinavians? Get a life, there's much worse things going on right now...next topic Al Jazeera...

This weekly jokefest where Arabs sell tickets to foreigners (for profit) to bus them out to riot against the IDF must come to an end. Al Jazeera and other hostile propaganda agents must be forbidden to enter Israel (all parts) and the area that is assailed must be sealed hermetically in order to protect the hard working construction workers who are doing their best to protect innocent civilians from terrorism.

The women is reporting from a conflict zone, and tear gas containers are flying over her head. What is there to condemn? This is her job, no? This article is funny!

Shooting tear gas canisters directly at protestants, non-violant reporters or bystanders, appears to be a common strategy among the soldiers, whose duty is to defend Israel, or at least its current politics. Watch these clips: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aD1dM7NkOzI&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vGg-NC6Ovc

Or The Israeli Goverment taking away land,putting up a 'East/West German Wall, taking homes, bombing by air, Tanks and threating with their illegal Nukes;Cutting off supplies,starving children. All paid for with Billions of dollars from the good old USA! From an American Jew that lost all my family in WW11 and supports the Palestinian cause.

Also why are you comparing Israel (middle-easts "only democracy") to Iran? Is that how low Israels sunk now? lol

My understanding about the Arab media in general, and Palestinian media in particular, is that the slanted reporting of the news is part of their support for "the struggle." Impartiality is an unknown concept. If the biased reporting of news is part of the Arab attack on Israel, why are they whining that they get treated like part of the conflict?

Is the corrupt election-stealing theocratic regime in Iran really what you want Israel to be compared to? I though it was 'light upon the nations', not 'light upon third-rate banana republics'.

The ongoing weekly potests in Bi'ilin have been against the fence which illegally seperated the village from their farm lands. A supreme court decision has ordered the IDF to dismantle it, but the army has not acted in two years in defiance of the order. The protests have been peaceful and non violent, and now the IDF has acted in a negative and provocative way that has rebounded against it on the international media. Surely Bibi or Ashkenazi can see the damage their defiance of law has done, and it only weakends israel's credibility as a law abiding country. Persecuting farmers is cruel, un Jewish, and counter productive to israel's needs and soul and image..

Can anybody explain why she wore a ww2 nazi helmet.

..to make Israel look stupid. Gasing reporters with a live camera serves no point except to confirm the worst impression the audience has of Israel.

Hi Chaim - no doubt you also believe that Efrat has always been Jewish land? Does it look like it has?

Tear gas flying at reporters is not as bad as Palestinian bombers exploding in Israeli communities

But is this how a so-called Westernised state treats journalists when it doesn't like what they say? Sounds more like Venuzuala to me! Israel should make up its mind as to what kind of a community it is- developed or not!

I think that you will find that all of your Arab neighbours (200,000)have legitimate ownership of their homes and land and have done so for generations. By contrast you are the squatters in Hebron - your women spitting at and calling the Arab women whores, as we read this week. Get real, Baruch! Palestine is for the Palestinians and Israel for Israeli's. Go home!

I did not see reporter attacking any body just pointing out the facts that Israel and its supporters would like to hide. By theway nothing against the Iranians they are good people, do not shoot at children and do not steel villagers land and they are not arabs, they are persians.

I speak as one who opposes the occupation; having said that, this is, afterall, al Jazeera, which has its own built-in nationalist biases. And, the tear gas cannister appeared from off camera leaving open the question: who threw it? I can't tell from this clip if it was a soldier or if it was an activist from the ISM who may have picked up an already tossed tear gas canniseter and then threw it at her broadcasting live for the sake of creating a dramatic moment. It is possible.

The footage was very tight on her when the tear gas was fired. She really must have been frightened by the way she fled from the scene. OOps, my mistake, most of her broadcast was given while no tear gas was fired. Why? If she felt so threatened, why wasn't she wearing a vest in addition to the helmet. Perhaps the helmet was in case a rock did not reach it's target. Why no view of the tall concrete wall, not because there isn't one in the area?

how about the camera turn around and show us who is standing next to the them? stone throwers? anyone? if she was worried about getting hit by a projectile she'd be wearing a VEST and NOT a HELMET...

obviously she was allowed to go there, otherwise if she didn't have permission whe would not have been there.

You asked if Al Jazeera called the what happened to protesters in Iraq brutality, and the answer is "Yes, it did." Al Jazeera does not ignore Arab on Arab brutality. You clearly have no clue what Al Jazeera is like. All you know is it is an Arabic news agency, and that is all you think you need to know. Pathetic.

Wake Up Israel! Why do you let Al-Jazeera broadcast from Israel? Do you ever think Al-Jazeera will fairly report on Palestinian terrorism and why the fence is necessary? Do you think Al Jazeera will ever broadcast Hamas using a Mosque for launching rockets at Sderot? Who are the government officials responsible for this? Wake Up Israel!

I'm Pro-Israel but that was stupid.

1. The fact that other nations have problems with dealing with the press does not give Israel the right to be just as bad as they are. If you want to claim you are an enlightened western democracy, you has to prove it by behaving like one. 2. To all but zionists the fact that someone lived there in 1948 is more important than who lived there before the year 70. Remember the world's reaction to the Serbian claims that our ancestors lived there in the past so the people who moved in since have to leave? Why do you think your claim is more valid than theirs?

The only diffrence between al Jazeera in Arabi and Al Jazeera in English is that the latter avoids filming birthday /welcome home parties for terrorists. Their news is essentially Arab propoganda. The only reason they object to the security fence is that it provents terrorist from sneaking into Israel to commit acts of murder.

... protests are there because of the press?

The arab world does not respect freedom of speech, and Israel doesn't respect freedom of speech. There is no real arab democracy, just like Israel isn't a true democracy A recent study in the Economist labeled Israel as a failed democracy, along with a number of other countries. And to answer Vik, yes al Jazeera had amazing coverage of the Iran protests and the brutality incurred on the protestors. They also had the full story of Nada, the Iranian girl who was murdered. Al Jazeera does pretty good reporting. :)

You all sound like small children "yeah but he did it first!" "why can't I do it if he does!" So what if reporters don't get free press in Gaza, so what if they couldn't enter iran during the riots, THAT'S NOT THE POINT! The point is, the IDF has just fired on the free press. Unprovoked, with no threat, they fired tear gas at this news crew whilst live on air (It may not be life threatening but it's still an act of aggression). This is now a clip that will go viral and put Israel in bad light, AGAIN! Why does Israel constantly shoot itself in the proverbial foot! And for those of you who want to whine "We're ISRAEL! We don't need anyone's approval or support!" that's fine, but stop accepting financial, political and military aid first. If you're taking the payment, you need to follow the orders.

the protest in bel'in that takes place everyweek is highly newsworthy'that people know it remains active is part of nonviolent protest's strength... It happens everyweek for the people; everyweek for the soldiers and every week for every israeli whether they notice it or not; every week they march out to their land carrying banners and singing..

Why travel to Israel? She should report from Arabia, where there is a separation barrier separating poor arabs from Yemen from rich Saudi arabs?

Ah, once again an example of the concept of free speech and freedom of press - Israeli style. Disagree and you're not welcome. Israel has come a long way - a modern and developed society. Beautiful!

when will you land in XXI century? anyway, there's not much to expect about freedom from theocracies, veiled ones or not.

No surprise - why should the Israeli army behave any different than the politicians whose view on freedom of speech and other basic rights are...suffice to say...corrupted.

... if she and Jazeera accept this is not reporting, but blatant propaganda. Jacky is not a reporter. Call her gutsy, call her a stunt woman, but not a reporter. That is an honorable profession.

there's nothing to see...under attack ? LOL

'Did al jazeera call what iran did to protester brutal? ' Actually, as I recall, al Jazeera was expelled from Iran because it's coverage was so hostile to the government. ...but then, you can't let facts interfere with your argument if you're to support Israel, can you?

When you juxtapose Israel's actions here with their refusal to allow any international journalists during the assault on Gaza earlier this year, it becomes clear just who is trying to suppress the truth.

why do the Israelies always claim you Anti-semtic or a propagandist if say any thing against Israel. There is no one so blind as people who refuse to see the truth, did you not see the film.

There is simply no possible way to justify the deplorable behavior of Israeli occupation forces shown here. Clearly from the video there was no sign of any violent acts from the Palestinian side, while the IDF troops appear to be doing all they could to incite. If this is what the IDF is doing while cameras are rolling, I cannot fathom what the IDF is doing when they are not.

No matter how annoying you find them, there is the certainty that they were persecuted by the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and the United States at the same time. Al-Jazeera is a bit like that. No one likes seeing them show up. Not Saudi, Israeli, Iran or the USA. What higher complement is there than being universally hated for reporting the news?

Boo-hoo. That wasn't reporting: It was propaganda. Al-Jazeera has no business here. We should pull their presss credentials immediately.

The land in question has always been Jewish fields for thousands of years and have been illegally squatted upon by Arabs. These rioters come on Fridays are mostly foreigners looking to harass IDF soldiers and construction workers protecting Arabs and Jews from terrorist. Arabs must stop building on Jewish land and we must freeze all Arab settlement building for peace to have a chance.

Let's have some condemnation here. This is exactly the kind of video that will be used for years to show Israel in a bad light. The only way to counter that is for moderate Israelis to have the courage to condemn it. Everyone is watching.

The propagandist is in a closed military zone spreading lies and she is shocked when she suffers the consequences of breaking the law. She is also immoral in that she is lying that the land in question has always been Jewish owned and part of Israel.

reporters put themselves in danger all the time , a little tear gas wont hurt the poor woman, just make her cough a bit. israel does let al jazeera broadcast freely whatever they want to show, why does hamas not let everyone film freely in gaza??? when there was the raid on the al qaida compound mum was the word, only after did some pirate footage from a cell phone taken out... you can guess what happened to the poor guy who did that. And in lebanon obviously there is freedom of the press where the hizbolla wander around...give me a break. AND last but not least iran, hell they cant even have a normal election, and who ever wants to say a word about it is beaten to death by the govt. So all the people who say there is no freedom of the press in israel go try to film something anywhere else in the middle east , and you'll meet daniel pearl in a day or two.

I saw the "attack". Big Deal!

Did al jazeera call what iran did to protester brutal? Report the news impartial or deal with the reaction when you verbally attack israel, but say nothing about arabs killing other arabs and israelis. The israel border cops have to deal with being attacked and they are limited in their response. Maybe they should use the iranian approach and fire live rounds.

The IDF doesn't seem very subtle letting us know their opinion about free press, dont you think?

Last week we heard of a youth killed by Israeli bullets to the abdomen. Apparently they were firing at his legs....time the IDF learned to fire accurately.

What will the Israeli right do when the Arabs suddenly have English speaking, impartial TV stations, broadcasting all over the world the ugly truth about Israeli activities in the WB?!