Media : A Full-Court Press: Newspapers Multiply as Self-Rule Transforms Gaza : Palestinian Authority says it’s open to diverse views, though some say criticizing Arafat still brings penalties.

JERUSALEM —  Rarely a week goes by when the little newsstand opposite Damascus Gate of Jerusalem’s Old City does not receive a new Arabic-language newspaper or magazine seeking a place amid the tumult of the Palestinian press.

“ Dakakim-- shop windows,” Dana, the aged vendor, said dismissively as he hung up the newest publications for display. “They are nothing but shop windows for this group or that. They are published to sell a point of view, and people look but rarely buy. These papers come one week and go the next.”

But four months of self-government--with the prospect of national elections--has transformed the Palestinian political scene and with it the Palestinian news media.

Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat, the head of the Palestinian Authority, has granted licenses for two new daily newspapers, one that will be independent politically and the other belonging to the Islamic opposition, and several political parties are planning to establish weeklies and reopen others closed over the past decade by Israeli military authorities.

“We have nearly a million people in (the) Gaza (Strip); currently it is the basis of the Palestinian Authority and we need a paper of our own,” said Taher Shriteh, 34, a respected Gaza journalist, who expects to publish the first issue of Falastin (Palestine) on Thursday. “We think there is also a strong economic base for it. . . .

“People want to know what is going on. With the ending of the Israeli occupation after 27 years and the establishment of the very first Palestinian government, they have tremendous interest in all the things that are going on around them. They want to be part of these changes, and for that they need news and information. We think there is a need and a demand for Falastin.”

With $150,000 pledged by Gaza business people and Palestinians abroad to finance the first six months’ publication, Shriteh has recruited a staff of eight, bought state-of-the-art computers and plans to start Falastin as a 16-page tabloid weekly with an initial press run of 5,000. The paper will go daily when there is sufficient advertising to make it profitable, he said.

Shriteh, honored by the National Press Club in Washington with its Freedom of the Press Award in 1993 after repeated arrests by Israeli military authorities and an attempt to deport him, has pledged that Falastin will be politically independent.

“Our business will be news, straight news,” Shriteh said. “Editorials will be limited, opinion columns will be labeled as opinion and news will be our mainstay. We are not with the Palestinian Authority or against it, we are not with the opposition or against it. I have worked with Reuters (the London-based international news agency) for three years, and I very much like the standards it has for objectivity and fairness.”

The paper planned by Imad Falouji, jailed in 1991 by Israeli authorities as a leader of the Muslim fundamentalist movement Hamas during the intifada , the rebellion against the occupation, will be decidedly different.

“We will be an opposition paper--a decent one--not only because we differ with Arafat and the Palestinian Authority on fundamental issues, but because we believe people want such a critical assessment,” said Falouji, 31.

In granting a license to Falouji for Al Watan (The Nation), Arafat made a point of stressing the Palestinian Authority’s adherence to the principle of freedom of the press.

“I gave Hamas a license for this paper because they are part of the Palestinian nation and have the right, within the law, to express their views,” Arafat told visitors to his Gaza City office last week. “We are not afraid of the opposition. We want a lively political scene.”

But Arafat shut down An Nahar (The Morning), one of the two principal Arabic-language newspapers in Jerusalem, at the end of July on grounds that it did not have a license from the Palestinian Authority. Despite protests from Palestinian journalists and human rights groups, Arafat did not permit An Nahar, which claims a circulation of 5,000, to reopen until publisher Othman Hallaq promised to end its pro-Jordanian line and replaced his managing editor.

Describing itself as “Palestinian to the bone and Arab to the marrow,” An Nahar resumed publication this month with an editorial titled “A Pledge . . . and a Thank-You,” that praised Arafat as “the brother, leader and symbol” of Palestinian nationalism and declared that Palestinians were living in a time of “great victories and excellent achievements.”

Shortly after arriving in Gaza to head the Palestinian Authority, Arafat had summoned Palestinian journalists to tell them of the role he expected the media to play.

“I cannot accept that our press be fed by imported ideas . . . or be bought by Arab, Western or Asian countries,” Arafat warned.

“You are forming ideas and influence public opinion. I hope this formation of ideas will be in Palestine’s interests and not against it. And it is my right to say this.”

Radwan abu Ayyash, chairman of the Palestinian Broadcasting Corp., issued similar warnings to his staff, but there have been only limited radio and no real television broadcasts as the authority awaits equipment promised by European donors.

“We are not saying ‘no’ to criticism or ‘no’ to opposition,” Freih abu Medeen, the authority’s justice minister, asserted in an interview in Gaza City.

“Our demand is that the media operate within the broad national consensus, not outside of it. We want our press to be pro-Palestinian, however it sees this cause, but not pro-Jordanian or pro-Saudi or pro-Syrian. We want political dialogue and political debate. We, in fact, have too little of it now and would like to encourage a diverse media.”

Arafat’s closure of An Nahar nonetheless alarmed many Palestinians for it appeared to be an early and ominous move against the political pluralism they believe must be the foundation of a democratic Palestinian state.

Daoud Kuttab, a prominent Jerusalem broadcaster and commentator, protested the action along with 25 other Palestinian journalists--and lost his space in the leading Arabic newspaper, Al Quds.

“I have the impression that people, including Mr. Arafat, who lived so long in exile in the Arab world brought back with them the style of other Arab leaders, including a subservient, monotone press,” Kuttab said. “That won’t work here.”

Al Quds takes its name from the Arabic name--”The Holy”--for Jerusalem, has a circulation of 60,000 and exercises considerable influence throughout the Palestinian territories. Mahmoud abu Zuluf, the veteran editor and publisher of Al Quds, sees a need for a more diverse press but doubts that it will come from politics alone.

“For me, these new papers and magazines are all pamphlets--they appear with a new political trend and they disappear when the money runs out,” Abu Zuluf said.

“I am a journalist, and I have no political ambitions. I can tell you, however, that a politician who has no popular support will not create it through establishing a newspaper--just as a paper will not gain a strong readership and become a success in the community simply through its politics.”