 Good late afternoon, but early evening everybody. My name is Barry Colfer and I'm the director of research here at the IIA It's a pleasure to have an audience here before me in Dublin and also to those joining online a very sincere welcome We're delighted to be joined by RT's Paul Cunningham Who's been very generous to take time out of his schedule at this time of year Christmas, of course But also this is a very busy reporting schedule. So it's really great. We're trying to pin Paul down for some time So it's great. It's finally come together. Paul is going to speak as ever for about 20 minutes in a moment about his experiences reporting most recently from the conflict in in Gaza from his from his vantage in Tel Aviv as he's going to tell us in a moment But also about his experience as an accomplished and indeed an award-winning journalist As ever those of you who wish to participate in the discussion here before me when we get to the right moment You can just put up your hand and a microphone will come to you and for those of you who are joining us online As ever also if you wish to participate with the question, please use the question function on on zoom that you should see on your screens Quick reminder that the discussion today is ever is on the record And if you wish to participate on X or Twitter, please use the handle at IIEA I'm going to very briefly introduce Paul before handing over to him Paul Cunningham is a political correspondent for RT News Ireland's national broadcaster Previously Paul was Europe correspondent based in Brussels and environment correspondent Paul has reported for more than 50 countries around the world Including from war zones and also from natural disasters a documentary maker and author He has won multiple awards for his work and in 2023 Paul is reported from Ukraine Israel and the West Bank Paul thanks again for being with us and the floor is yours My thanks very much for your invitation and the possibility of speaking on possibly the most contentious issue facing us Let's hope for maybe something a little bit safer and What I'm going to talk about today is the difficulties of reporting on the Israel Gaza war and The most difficult aspect of this is that I wasn't in Gaza and I wasn't allowed to enter and Really when it comes down to it that is sort of the gold standard for journalism to be able to go in and eyewitness To see what's happening to be able to interrogate both sides to a conflict and to be able to respond in a In an as open way possible about what you see how to articulate it and that wasn't possible We didn't get the chance to go and see those buildings pancakes We didn't go to see the hospitals and the morgues We weren't able to interrogate people about what was being said and I think One of the things we have to do is to ask why Why is it the case that the international media was not allowed to do the job that I wanted to do and was kept outside when the conflict is raging And we now believe that as many or it seems to be heading towards an early 20,000 people death the Dead the majority of them men and women and Some of the international news organizations we were just talking about this earlier on Like bbc and fox news have been allowed to travel into Gaza But it's under strict conditions. They travel in with the Israeli defense forces They're told where to go and the material that they produce is also vetted by the IDF And this type of embedded journalism to my mind is no substitute for what is required Which is unfettered access by the media so that they're able to do their job and The journalists inside Gaza themselves mostly local Palestinians are doing an incredible job In trying to work under very extreme circumstances And and I think it's worth sort of underlining this fact because according to the committee to protect journalists in its most recent report And it says and that's an independent body advocating on behalf of media workers It says that um 63 journalists have been killed so far And 56 of them are Palestinian four of them are Israeli and three of them are Lebanese now on top of that If you go to their website, it also indicates that it believes other journalists are dead It hasn't verified them others are missing and some are arrested or detained And it's continuing to try to get to the bottom of it just exactly how many media workers are in trouble And I think it's probably worth mentioning a few names And if you go to october the 7th the committee to protect journalists and names Yennef Zohar Aliette Aran and Shai Regev These were three Israeli journalists who were killed one in in the kibbutz on the other two at the nova festival And the following day a Palestinian journalist Assad Shamlak was killed along with nine members of his family In an Israeli airstrike in southern Gaza. So journalists were being targeted almost immediately This is and what was happening if they weren't targeted. Certainly they were being killed anyway They're clear and significant risks to reporting from Gaza And I think we also would take account of that But journalists are not just civilians. They're also specialists And what they're trying to do is to work in very extreme circumstances to do what they want to do Which is to inform to educate and try and throw some light on a very difficult and complicated situation And that is Underlined and enshrined in the universal declaration of human rights article 19 states everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression This right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek receive and part information And ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers Now one of those journalists who is Working under that difficult situation is a contact of mine a man called Muhammad And he has regularly provided material to us which we then use in our reports And anytime I message him It's a difficult situation because i'm never quite sure if he's going to reply Because there is a grave possibility that he's going to be killed in advance of this meeting I just decided to contact him again and said are you okay? And what he responded was by saying i'm still fine. Thank you for your question I hope this war will end as soon as possible and as we're sitting here tonight and people watching online Muhammad is still Out there somewhere in hand unis, which is the epicenter of the israeli military attack at the moment And once again, we don't know if he's going to be okay I sometimes sometimes see comments Online saying well, why aren't you in Gaza or you should be in Gaza? And the sky news correspondent alex crawford said during the week that is absolutely ridiculous for anyone to peddle the myth The journalists are not in Gaza doing their job on account of being too afraid or too scared The fact is that we are not allowed to be in Gaza And that is coming down to a decision by both israel and egypt to seal the borders So that is why we're not in there because we're not allowed to be there and camera man oan corkan and I that was the team of journalist marty who went to gas and we arrived a few days after October the 7th and it's worth restating that in that attack by Hamas 1200 people were massacred Around 240 hostages were abducted and hidden in Gaza men and women Children and the elderly and a week of mourning was In operation when we were there everything was closed down all the television stations were reflecting on the horror of what had happened in southern israel and Tel Aviv is a coastal city and a member walking out onto the beach on the first night and just looking south and that was You know around 80 kilometers down the road is gaza an hour's drive And one was wondering and what was going to happen to the 2.3 million people as a result of what had taken place on october the 7th My aim as much as possible because we weren't in gaza was to try and make direct contact with People who were there and that's how we were trying to work around this issue We weren't in gaza, but we wanted to talk to people in gaza or hear from them One of the opportunities we have is international news agencies like Reuters like agents Angeles, France press afp because they have palestinian journalists who are able to give us Information some of the major and humanitarian organizations like the world health organization the united nations They had people and were supplying statements We had organizations like oxfam who had Staff members there who were posting messages about what their life was like what was happening there We also had people from medias en frontière, which is independent and partial and it was setting up zoom Contacts and meetings with journalists to allow them to know what was happening in their hospital And what was the death toll? What were the circumstances? What were their medical supplies? So that was giving us some information about what we were doing one of the most controversial aspects of it Was a daily update we received from what was called the gaza health ministry and that would tell you about the zivinian death toll that was building and it's controversial because And it is hamas controlled because it's operating inside gaza and hamas controls gaza And this was something that the israelis would continually say if it is controlled by hamas It is propaganda on that on that basis. What you can't do is take it as fact But what we saw and clearly over the course of the weeks was the statistics being used by The un ochre which is sort of the humanitarian office within gaza was tracking And what the figures were saying coming from the gaza health ministry I think it's also worth saying is that from the media point of view We were saying that had we been allowed to be in gaza that we would have been in those hospitals We would have been able to vet that information that was being supplied But we were being kept out from gaza and this was part of the difficulties in the fog of war How do you evaluate? How do you work it through? And social media platforms obviously can be of huge help and we were able to Pick up what individual politicians are saying and we were able to hear from People outside of the country from journalists around the the theater of the conflict So that was very important But as we know social media can be both helpful and it also can be confusing And it's worth interrogating that there's two elements to it one is the misinformation where People are getting things wrong not out of maliciously But that is then sort of reproduced and it becomes Sometimes fact and then you've also got bad actors who are deliberately going out to try and confuse Or they're using it as a polemic or to propagate their view on whatever has just happened And that becomes a real real problem and the political theorist Hannah Ardent Adroitly observed in 1974 if everybody always lies to you the consequence is not that you believe the lies But rather that nobody believes anything any longer And my former colleague mark little often talks about this issue He's and former or t now works in so the question of fighting misinformation and disinformation currently with kinsen And he uses a quote which actually comes from or is at least attributed to mark twain And he says a lie can go around the world before the truth is time to put its boots on And it gives you an insight into that fact of we have to try and vet something to interrogate it to assess it to Size it up and to be able to give some read on it Whereas this other stuff is churning rolling constantly and in a fast-moving situation. That's really really complicated While trying to sift to a welter of information one of the other things we were trying to do was just to manage time I was getting up around 7 30 am And that would have been 5 30 am Irish time to try and prepare a brief report for morning Ireland and also do a long Interview we would finish up around half 11 local time because that would be just after the nine o'clock news as well But that's only the bookend in between you had three radio programs morning Ireland's news at one drive time You would have headlines on the hour every hour your three television programs the one o'clock the six o'clock and nine o'clock You also had additional things like prime time from time to time You would also then have the 24 7 social media beast Which wants everything all of the time? And and that would be individual clips different interviews tweets or long analysis pieces as well So it really was something which was Incredibly intense to do because each outlet was looking for something that was a little bit different And I think it's also worth Saying that part of the information we were receiving was also coming from the Israeli side We would have once you signed on to the government press office You go on to a whatsapp group called swords of iron, which is the name that they've given their military campaign You're getting updates from the prime minister from the defense minister. You're getting Invitations to briefings. You are also getting briefings from the Israeli defense forces in the morning and the night So you're trying to simulate all of that information And include it in what your reports and on top of that what you're trying to do Was to generate our own material as well And whether it was talking to tom hand the Dunleary born man Whose daughter emily at that time he believed had been killed by Hamas But we now know and was actually being held hostage So to move to Galilee or the Dead Sea and to come back to Tel Aviv or to move to Jerusalem to try and get into the west bank Once you were moving you weren't reporting and You're getting an awful lot of into difficult situations because there was such a demand for the actual material We were doing one thing I found very quickly almost immediately Was that the Israeli view of Ireland's politicians and media when it came to this particular conflict Was ankle high and I remember being at one particular protest in relation to Hostage families And their supporters and I was standing to the side and the man came over to me and said Where are you from and I said I'm from Ireland and he said immediately you're not with us And there is that sense that we are in somehow blinded by our support for the Palestinian cause not to see the righteousness of their case and I pointed out that The T. Shockley of Radkar had condemned what had happened On october the 7th unreservedly unqualified that our tarnished a deputy prime minister had Repeatedly said that israel had the right to defend itself But they just viewed it as words They didn't believe that we actually meant it and certainly didn't feel that the irish media was in any way Representative of where they were coming from understood it or even wanted to understood it either and At the core that I think and this is probably what comes down to is the difference between And the irish government the Israeli government The irish people and the Israeli people is that from the Israeli perspective that we have skipped over Too quickly what happened on october the 7th and they feel that We don't take into account the living and ongoing horror of the hostages families that Hamas could release them tomorrow but chooses not to whether they're Children or whether they are our adults and and one person said to me that And this was an israeli said that three and a half thousands people died in the irish conflict over 30 years They lost one third of that number in just one day And they don't believe that we take that on board and how we articulate it and I think if that the central fault line comes back to that and I think it's Interesting that you know from the irish government's point of view is that the key phrase it continues to use is that and it believes that israel has to be proportionate in its actions and in gaza And and that proportional word is important because it relates to International humanitarian law and what follows from that is if you're not being proportionate Then you're breaking international law although the irish government doesn't usually state that but it builds up to that point And you can see what they're actually saying And and I think it was interesting sort of you can see the strength of the commons from the irish government Increasingly being that case and one of them sort of stand out one came from tisha clear rocker When he said what I'm seeing unfolding at the moment isn't just self-defense. It looks resembles something more than approaching revenge That's not where we should be and I don't think how israel will that's how israel will guarantee future freedom and future security And that isn't just my analysis We saw us when me hall martin has tarnished a visited sederot Which is in southern israel an israeli town that was overrun by hamas and 50 people were killed And he went into a meeting with the mayor and the mayor immediately said are you here to support us And from that he talked about what life was like in the town under rocket attack And he came back and likened him as to isis and said that if we don't deal with them now You're going to be facing it and me hall martin said He said we call for ceasefire and gaza onto humanitarian grounds because we believe the scale of the death and destruction Is too high and I have to say that and mayor Alan devedy said I will say to my prime minister to stop the war if ireland can promise me that five days After five days all the weapons of amass has and gaza and all the armies of mass go outside egypt or someplace and I think It sort of comes to that point where the irish believe that the only way you're going to get out of this Is through some form of political settlements And at the moment where israel is that there is a military solution after that point We will begin to talk about it and it seemed to me that to crystallize it Was that the israeli view was that what happened on october 7th can never happen again And on that basis they have to crush amass And there is nothing after that that's just it And that's the thing where it seems to me that that policy endures even when 1.8 million gassans are forced from their homes When nowhere in gaza is safe when the death toll heads remorselessly towards 20 000 a majority of the women and children It endures despite entities like msf. That's mezzo-son frontier doctors with their borgers Saying israel's military operation is brutal collective punishment And demanding that forcible displacement ends Assaults on hospitals and healthcare facility ends Indiscriminate attacks end the blockade on food water medical supplies and fuel ends an msf Is demanding all that happens immediately and yes The israeli view endures It endures when journalists are targeted according to human rights watch the orators journalist islam abdallah was killed in southern lebanon After two israeli strikes injuring six other reporters And human rights watch found no military target nearby the journalists were clearly identifiable And human rights watch concluded it was a deliberate attack on civilians and constituted a war crime has to be said israel Denies that charge and says that an investigation Is underway and it also endures when israel is being accused of carrying out genocide Against the palestinian people at the u.n. Security council meeting last weekend the palestinian ambassador Riyad mansoor said when you refuse to call for a ceasefire You're refusing to call for the only thing that can put an end to the war crimes crimes against humanity and genocide And despite 90 states as we know backing the europe united arab emirates demand for an immediate ceasefire It was vetoed I think it's worth just spending some time on this issue of genocide and Only be speaking for a few more minutes And because sometimes journalists are asked to call out why don't you say this is genocide? Why aren't you saying what is happening on the ground? And the short answer is that it's a legal determination It's not the opinion of a journalist as to whether or not genocide is taking place or not But it reminds me of 2004 when I was reporting from Darfur and at that time around 1.8 million people had been displaced The death toll was around 70 000 and a quarter of a million people had fled from Darfur into neighboring Chad And the u.n. Security council announced a special investigation into this charge of genocide Had at a five-member tribunal reported back very after about four or five months And it said that it couldn't say genocide was taking place Even though there'd been a huge expectation that that was the case And it said it was because it couldn't prove there was intent There were clearly people killed those clearly people displaced They clearly had all of those stats and figures but they couldn't prove intent And intent is a key issue in that and it just illustrates how Journalists have to be very careful about what they say when something isn't necessarily straightforward I mean a few years 10 years before that I'd been to Bosnia and reported from the war zone there No one believed in 1995 when Ratko Mladic was indicted on genocide that it would ever happen In 2011 it did happen. He was detained and brought to The Hague and I was there the following year his trial started I was there and reported from it and 2017 he was found guilty of genocide in relation to Shreva Nica But there was a second genocide charge which didn't proceed which once again just underlines that difficulty that we have Because one last point is just we were trying to travel to the west bank and on one occasion We went in with B. Hall-Martin the Taunashda And and it was great because we were able to get access to Ramallah But it was interesting that the Palestinian Authority and leaders didn't want to speak to us And we put in the request and they didn't reply which is a something I don't quite understand as to why that was the case And so we left and we spoke to some people on the ground who once again We're saying that they feel this has been going on for too long and that they want to find some way That peace can endure because they're tired of living in a war zone for the past 75 years Just to sum up then and I think it's a key thing for me is that You know, we were precluded from being able to independently verify what was happening inside Gaza And that means you continuously have to attribute what people say rather than being able to say it yourself I saw I witnessed this is my understanding at least from the limited part And that you can see and and that was a real problem And I know that there's a huge interest in these conflicts And I think that I was in Ukraine earlier on this year And I don't think I've seen as much interest in 30 years of journalism in both those conflicts in relation to Ukraine And Palestine and yet at the same time I think we have to be and straight with people that there's times when we didn't know And weren't able to say that we know because we weren't there And that is something we have to be honest with you and one last thing I know that when Owen Corken and myself were getting on the plane and we were heading over to Israel We were saying to each other no matter what we do In this no matter what we report We're likely to be getting one hell of a criticism from not one or other or probably both anyway And but that was something we were prepared to do. Thank you