Reporters on the Job

from the November 21, 2008 edition

• You Go Girl: Staff writer Ilene R. Prusher says that today's story about the new role of women in the Palestinian security forces was an all-women all the time event. She reported the story alongside a Danish female journalist and worked with a female Palestinian interpreter, and the story was photographed by an American woman. And Ilene came across another women who impressed her.

When Ilene went to interview Palestinian Brig. Gen. Samaeeh el-Safy, who is head of the new security campaign in the Hebron area, she found him scolding a Palestinian university student.

"She'd been outside the general's headquarters with a group of university students who were protesting the torture of those arrested by the Palestinian Authority. Her statements made him furious. He told his junior officers to get her to come into the office for a 'discussion,' in which he was lecturing her about how she was doing damage by spreading Hamas rumors," says Ilene.

"We arrived on this scene, and I was so impressed with this young woman, who despite facing this rather intimidating general, kept on boldly turning her little video camera on him to capture what he was saying. He looked extremely perturbed. I think the fact that we were there watching prevented the woman from getting into any worse trouble with the general," says Ilene.

– David Clark Scott

World editor

Survey Says ...

• Hawks Would Win in Israel: A pair of polls published Thursday showed Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-line Likud party cruising past Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's moderate Kadima party to a decisive victory in Israel's Feb. 10 elections. The Israeli polls indicate that Netanyahu would have a strong hawkish coalition that would probably end any two-state peace talks with the Palestinians, the Associated Press reports.

Rajesh Kumar Singh

Let us hear from you. Mail to: One Norway Street, Boston, MA 02115 via e-mail: World editor