The New Dark Age

Saturday, 12 October 2024 — Anti-Imperialist News

This could have easily gone horribly wrong

We know what Israel thinks of journalists in Palestine because it’s killed something like 175 of them, and now we know what it would do to western journalists who report the facts because it caught one of them. I’m talking about Jeremy Loffredo here. Now before I go any further, I would like to point out Jeremy has been released, but only because the legal case against him fell apart. I’ll get to that later, but make no mistake, the IDF and Israeli police would have happily handed out a lengthy prison sentence or worse.

If you missed the original story, three days ago the IDF beat up, blindfolded and arrested Grayzone journalist Jeremy Loffredo because he was on the ground, reporting the damage the recent Iranian missile attack caused. He showed vehicles that had been destroyed as well as an unexploded missile near Mossad HQ in Tel Aviv. But what I suspect really made Loffredo a target is that he exposed Israelis blocking aid into Gaza.

The corporate media didn’t touch the story of Loffredo’s arrest because it never reports when journalists are arrested for exposing Israel. I guess that’s self-preservation. Imagine how cowardly they have to be to ignore the arrest of a fellow journalist, but of course, those in the corporate media cannot be considered real journalists.

An actual journalist who was arrested with Loffredo, someone whose Twitter name is Andrey X, explained what happened in a lengthy post. Here is an excerpt from that post.

On October 8th 2024, at approximately 01:00 PM, a car with five journalists (an American journalist, a Palestinian journalist, a Russian-Israeli journalist, a Canadian-Israeli videographer, and an Israeli photographer) was stopped at a checkpoint in the northern West Bank. […] The soldiers then illegally requested that the journalists hand in their phones, and when they refused, the soldiers pointed a gun at one of the journalists, hit him with their hands and the barrel of a gun, then dragged him out of the car and slammed him onto the concrete. When lying on the ground, they pointed 2 guns at his head. The rest of the journalists exited the car and the military raided it, confiscating phones, cameras, and personal items. […] After two hours, the soldiers handcuffed and blindfolded the journalists. The Israeli photographer had a panic attack and started throwing up, and after stating she was Israeli, was allowed to remain without a blindfold. The Palestinian journalist was left in the sun for two more hours, then he was released. […] In the meantime, the other four journalists were stacked on top of each other into a military jeep, and taken to a military base. There they were held blindfolded and handcuffed on the floor for two hours, while being insulted and interrogated by the soldiers. The soldiers told the female Israeli photographer that she should have been raped by Hamas. […] The two female journalists were released without charges at 11:00 PM. The Russian-Israeli journalist was released at midnight. The American journalist was held for three days and was released Friday, October 11th. The army confiscated two phones and one camera that they have yet to return.

The American journalist that Andrey X refers to is Jeremy Loffredo who was reportedly charged with “aiding the enemy during wartime and providing information to the enemy”. Worryingly, this “crime” can result in a death sentence or life imprisonment. What was particularly perverse about the charge is that a PBS journalist reported the same information and was not arrested. This seems to be down to the fact Loffredo works for the Grayzone, a publication known for robustly calling out the genocide.

Dan Cohen pointed out on Twitter:

Jeremy Loffredo was beaten and detained in Israel for reporting the exact same information about damage caused by Iranian strikes that PBS correspondent @nickschifrin published. But Schifrin wasn’t arrested and is silent on Loffredo’s detention.

Thankfully, the case against Loffredo collapsed when a Ynet reporter pointed out that an Israeli military censor gave him permission to cover the arrest and republish all of the information that Loffredo has reported.

Loffredo’s Grayzone colleague Max Blumenthal reported:

I have learned that the district court in Israel has ordered US journalist Jeremy Loffredo to be released from custody but has forbidden him from leaving the country for a period of time

While Loffredo has been released, he is not allowed to leave Israel and I understand the authorities still have his devices. They will be going through all those devices to see what dirt they can find, similar to what counter-terrorism police did to Sarah Wilkinson in the UK. Since Loffredo is no longer facing charges, this is surely an abuse of power.