Palestinians Ban Pro-Jordan Newspaper

A decision by Palestinian authorities to prevent the distribution of a pro-Jordanian newspaper in Gaza and Jericho raised a storm of protest among editors and opposition figures Friday.

In the first instance of overt censorship by the newly formed Palestinian Authority, police seized all issues of An Nahar, a newspaper known for its pro-Jordanian leanings, when they were trucked into Gaza before dawn Thursday.

“This is a policy of dark regimes,” An Nahar’s editor, Othman Hallaq, told the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot.

“We cannot accept a collective punitive measure that suppresses publication or distribution of a paper,” said Hanan Mikhail-Ashrawi, a former Palestinian peace negotiator who now heads a civil rights commission formed to monitor the new leadership.

“Freedom of expression and the press must be respected,” Mikhail-Ashrawi told the Associated Press.

Another pro-Jordanian publisher said he decided to cease publication after learning his newspaper would also be banned.

“I could have stayed in Europe and published my paper, as so many Arab editors do, but I thought there would be freedom of expression and democracy under the Palestinian authorities,” said Nasser Eddin Nashashibi.

Nashashibi said he has been publishing his weekly, Akhbar al Balad, for five months, and he makes no apologies for being pro-Jordanian.

“Those are my views,” he said. “I conveyed the invitation of (former) Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek to (Jordan’s) King Hussein to visit Jerusalem, and I conveyed the invitation of Mayor Ehud Olmert to the king to visit. I am friends with the king. Why shouldn’t I express my views?”

Yasser Abed-Rabbo, minister of information and culture for the Palestinian Authority in Gaza, told the Associated Press that he had no knowledge of the decision to stop distribution of An Nahar.

“We do not approve of it, whether banning the paper or confiscating it. Freedom of the press is sacred,” Abed-Rabbo said.

But Nashashibi said he has yet to hear such reassurances directly from any senior Palestine Liberation Organization official.

“All it would take is for a senior official to say something publicly, that this is not true. But they have said nothing,” said Nashashibi, who said he received “hundreds” of telephone calls from supporters across the Palestinian political spectrum Friday.

The move comes at a time when relations between PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and King Hussein are at a low. Hussein says Arafat has failed to coordinate with Jordan on the expansion of Palestinian control in the Israeli-occupied territories, and Arafat faults the king for laying claim to Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem.

Tensions between the two leaders were exacerbated when Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin acknowledged Hussein’s role in Jerusalem’s Muslim holy sites in a formal document signed by Rabin and Hussein at the White House this week. The Palestinians say that only they should have political control over mostly Arab East Jerusalem, which they claim as the eventual capital of a future Palestinian state.

The censorship fracas also comes at a time when Arafat is facing increasing criticism from Palestinians inside and outside the territories for his leadership of the Palestinian Authority.