Department Of Mass Communication And Journalism

Tezpur University

An assignment on
Broadcast Media: Radio

Supervised by

Dr. Manoj Deori

Assistant Professor

Prepared by:

Mohammed Abunahel MCM19039

Dina Abu Jarad MCM19038

Master in Mass Communication and Journalism 1st semester .

 Palestine

Palestine is a small region of land—roughly 2,400

square miles—that has played a prominent role in
the ancient and modern history of the Middle East.
Violent attempts to control land have defined much
of the history of Palestine, making it the site of
constant political conflict. Arab people who call this
territory home are known as Palestinians, and the
people of Palestine have a strong desire to create a
free and independent state in a contested region of
the world that’s considered sacred by many groups.

Palestine located in South-west Asia, in the heart of

the Middle East. Palestine has a great strategic location because its linking the three
continents with each other. Its bordered by Lebanon to the north, The Mediterranean Sea
to the West, Egypt and Gulf Aqaba to the South , Jordan and Syria to the East.

What Is Palestine?

Until 1948, Palestine typically referred to the geographic region located between the
Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. Arab people who call this territory home are
known as Palestinians. Much of this land is now considered present-day Israel. Today,
Palestine theoretically includes the West Bank (a territory that divides modern-day Israel
and Jordan) and the Gaza Strip (land bordering modern-day Israel and Egypt). However,
control over this region is a complex and evolving situation. The borders aren’t formally
set, and many areas claimed by Palestinians have been occupied by Israelis for years.

More than 135 United Nations member countries recognize Palestine as an independent
state, but Israel and some other countries, including the United States, don’t make this
distinction.

Palestine’s Early Roots

Scholars believe the name “Palestine” originally comes from the word “Philistia,” which
refers to the Philistines who occupied part of the region in the 12th century B.C.
Throughout history, Palestine has been ruled by numerous groups, including the Assyrians,
Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Fatimids, Seljuk Turks, Crusaders,
Egyptians, Mamelukes and Islamists.
From about 1517 to 1917, the Ottoman Empire ruled much of the region.

When World War I ended in 1918, the British took control of Palestine. The League of
Nations issued a British mandate for Palestine—a document that gave Britain the
responsibility of establishing a Jewish national homeland in Palestine—which went into
effect in 1923.

The Partition of Palestine

In 1947, the United Nations proposed a

plan to partition Palestine into two
sections: an independent Jewish state
and an independent Arab state, with
Jerusalem as internationalized
territory. Jewish leaders accepted the
plan, but many Palestinian Arabs
vehemently opposed it. Arab groups
argued that they represented the
majority of the population in certain
regions and should be granted more
territory. They began to form volunteer

armies throughout Palestine. http://www.newagebd.net/article/17987/un-the-last-

hurdle-before-israel-can-rid-itself-of-palestinians

The PLO is Born

In 1964, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was formed to create a platform for
establishing a plan for a Palestinian state within Israel. The PLO also emerged as a
response to Zionism, an organized movement to reestablish a Jewish homeland in Israel. In
the years after its inception, the PLO became associated with extremism and violence. In
1969, the well-known Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat became the Chairman of the PLO
and held that title until he died in 2004.

The Six-Day War

Israel attacked Egypt, Jordan and Syria between June 5 and June 10, 1967. This brief
conflict, which became known as The Six-Day War, resulted in major land gains for Israel.
After the war, Israel took control of the Gaza Strip, West Bank, Sinai Peninsula (a desert
region situated between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea) and Golan Heights (a
rocky plateau located between Syria and modern-day Israel). The outcome of this war led
to more fighting that continued for decades.

The First Intifada and the Oslo Accords

In 1987, the First Intifada broke out. This conflict was fueled by Israeli occupation of Gaza
and the West Bank. Palestinian militia groups revolted, and hundreds of people were
killed.

A subsequent peace process, known as the Oslo Peace Accords, was proposed to end the
ongoing violence. The first Oslo Accord (Oslo I) created a timetable for a Middle East peace
process and a plan for an interim Palestinian government in parts of Gaza and the West
Bank. The agreement was signed in 1993 and witnessed by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak
Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Arafat returned to Gaza in 1994 after being
exiled for 27 years. He headed up the newly-formed Palestinian Authority.

In 1995, Oslo II called for a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from parts of the West
Bank and other areas. It also set a schedule for Palestinian Legislative Council elections.

The history of Radio situation in Palestine

The radio in Palestine has been in many stages which were influenced by the different
regimes that ruled Palestine.

The Palestine Broadcasting Service (PBS) was the state-owned radio broadcasting station
that operated from Jerusalem (with the main transmitter in Ramallah) from March 1936
until the end of the Mandate. It broadcast programs in Arabic, Hebrew, and English, with
broadcasting time allotted in that order. Its Hebrew service, Kol Yerushalayim, which was
inaugurated on March 30, 1936, played an important role in the development of Hebrew
as a national language for the founders of Israel. While news broadcasts and political
commentary was heavily censored, the PBS' cultural programs - including its live music
broadcasts - played an important role in the development of interwar Palestinian and
Zionist (later Israeli) national identities.

In Palestine, radio broadcasts began on March 30, 1936, only 15 years after the first-ever
news and entertainment broadcast on radio worldwide. This Is Jerusalem Radio, built by
the British Marconi Company, was the second radio broadcast to be established in the
entire Middle East after Radio Cairo (1934). This Is Jerusalem Radio covered not only
Palestine but also Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, and parts of Egypt. It broadcast programs in
Arabic, English, and Hebrew. Its first director was the poet Ibrahim Tuqan. The Irsal
broadcast area and Irsal tower in Ramallah were among its most salient features, and it is
possible to find some older radio receivers with the name Ramallah on their stations’ dials.
After 1948, This Is Jerusalem Radio, under Jordanian control, became Near East Radio until
it was stopped when Israel occupied the whole of Palestine in 1967 and overtook the
medium-wave radio frequency that had been registered by the British as the frequency for
the Palestinian transmitting station.

After 1967, the Palestinian leadership (PLO) made numerous attempts to operate
Palestine Radio while in exile. It aimed to establish its own broadcasts outside Palestine
and direct its programs towards Palestine. Some Arab countries provided one hour of
broadcast from their national radios, and under the name Voice of the Palestinian
Revolution, broadcasts were sent from Cairo, Damascus, Baghdad, Algiers, and Aden. The
headquarters of the radio programs was in Beirut.

On March 30, 1936, Palestine made its first radio broadcast through a station that
introduced itself as Huna al-Quds, this is Jerusalem, the home of Palestine broadcasting.

During the civil war in Lebanon that started in 1975 and throughout the various wars and
invasions from Israel into Lebanon, the PLO always tried to have its own radio broadcasts
free from the control of Arab governments, but the Israelis kept bombarding these
stations to shut them up using frequency-guided bombs tuned to the transmitter
frequency. To avoid the total damage of the transmitters, studios, and staff, the antenna
would be erected some 100 meters away from the transmitter so that the bomb would
only destroy the antenna. A van with onboard transmitter and antenna made it difficult to
be tracked by Israeli airplanes. In southern Lebanon, close to the border of northern
Palestine, another method consisted in removing the output filter of Ham Radio
Transmitters operating on 40 meters and using the lower harmonics to reach the people of
northern Palestine within the medium-wave band.

After the 1982 Lebanese war and the dispersion of the Palestinian fighters and leadership,
the idea of having a radio station that reaches Palestine remained a priority. An attempt
was made in 1985 to get approval from the Cypriot authorities to build and operate
Palestine Radio in Cyprus, just as the BBC and Radio Monte Carlo cover the whole Middle
East from Cyprus, but the Cypriots adamantly refused. The prime minister of Greece at the
time, Andreas Papandreou, gave a green light to establish a Palestinian transmitter on any
Greek Island of our choice that would do the job. A study of the island of Rhodes was
made followed by another study of the island of Karpathos (south of Rhodes), which
proved ideal, with only the sea between the island and the shores of Egypt, Palestine, and
Lebanon. A study of the appropriate frequency and antenna type and transmitter power
was made at a specialized British consultancy company based in Brighton, and the next
step was to obtain and register the selected frequency with the Greek authorities. After all
this work, the project proved too large to be followed up on, and Palestine radio had to
await the Oslo and Madrid accords that enabled the Palestinian leadership to return to
Palestine.

After the Oslo Agreement, broadcasts started from Gaza and Jericho. The Voice of
Palestine began in Jericho on July 2, 1994, and as soon as the remaining cities of Ramallah,
Hebron, Nablus, Jenin, etc. were added to the areas under PA control, Voice of Palestine
moved its headquarters to Ramallah, and the same original Irsal tower was used to
broadcast the programs. This was followed by the first Palestinian television station on
September 2, 1994. All the TV stations were ground stations. As expected, this evolved
into satellite TV and reception along with the technological developments of this field.
Palestine TV now reaches all over the globe, including the Americas.

Again, the Israelis would not leave the broadcasts alone, which culminated in the
destruction and burning of the Palestinian radio and television building in Ramallah’s Um
al-Sharayyet neighborhood on January 19, 2002. Later that year, an Israeli helicopter
bombarded the main three-legged inverted dipole broadcast tower in Ramallah, damaging
one of its legs and thereby destroying the output stage of the transmitter. A group of
engineers from the Palestine Broadcasting Corporation and the Ministry of Telecom and
Information Technology and others managed to repair the damage and get the station
back on air. This did not please the Israelis, and on December 13, 2002, an Israeli military
tank toppled the main historic 90-meter-high Irsal tower and destroyed the medium-wave
station. Palestine lost the possibility of having one national medium-wave station to cover
all its territory, and the Israelis blocked the import of a replacement medium-wave station.
From then on, we had to depend on numerous FM transmitters to cover all the territory.

The only remaining tower that now carries the main FM transmitter for the Voice of
Palestine was rehabilitated and maintained and repainted, thanks to UNDP funding, and
the Voice of Palestine still broadcasts from this historical tower. But the original Marconi
station and its successor, a Telefunken transmitter, are both buried under an area near the
tower where we hope a Palestine Radio Museum will be established and this history
brought to life.

Although the number of broadcasters varies from one year to the next as newcomers get
into this business and others leave, there are currently 67 working FM radio stations and 5
terrestrial TV stations that broadcast from the West Bank alone and a handful of FM radio
stations and a couple of terrestrial TV stations that broadcast from Gaza.

The Ministry of Telecom and Information Technology is the de facto regulator of the
telecommunications spectrum. During the early days of the Palestinian Authority, and
even though Article 36 of the telecommunications agreement of the Oslo Accords grants
the Palestinians specific frequencies and the rights to use them, Israel barged into the
premises of several local stations, destroying all their equipment and stealing some,
especially the media material, under the false claim that their broadcasts affected Ben
Gurion Airport’s landing system.

Because the ministry was not able to defend the ability of these stations to broadcast, it
could not charge them for the license fees of using a Palestinian frequency, which is
considered a government asset. Therefore, the ministry started to provide what it called a
No Objection License, a free license to enable as many broadcasters as the frequency
spectrum allowed to erect and operate local radio and TV stations all over the country at
their own risk.

Despite the intense irritation from the Israeli occupation authority, Palestine is home to
numerous FM radio and several terrestrial TV stations that broadcast in both the West
Bank and Gaza. Moreover, Palestinian broadcasters are resisting the Israeli settlers’
attempts to take over every free frequency slot available. The Palestinian Ministry of
Telecom has maintained a liberal licensing policy towards TV and radio broadcasting to
resist Israeli dominance.

Palestine radios are alive and well, and the No Objection License has given a huge boost to
the important specialties of radio, television, studios, editing, audio and video recording,
lighting, outside broadcasting, programming, music and film and audio productions,
acting, university and college courses, professional degrees and professions in the various
media fields, etc. All these professions have kept the Palestinians a jump ahead compared
to many other Arab countries where the main media is strictly under government control.
In addition, with the proliferation of internet streaming for both audio and video, again,
many specialties and professionals are found all over the Palestinian territories. In 2008 ,
2012 , 2014 wars , All stations were destroyed.

Popular Palestine Station