As a journalist, I made my vows earlier to stand behind the truth, not my origin nor my emotions

I won't set all of the great veiled women I know under the stereotype of being radical, illiberal, or even worse: Anti-Semitic.

There is a lot of misunderstanding and stereotypes from all sides: the German, the Palestinian, and the Jordanian.

Working for more than eight years in political pan Arab journalism and more than four years from Germany made me understand "women's" professional life, especially in the media world. I am a Palestinian Jordanian, writing and analyzing politics with a big mouth, and to add to that already provoking combination, I am a woman. I had all of what it takes to be frequently attacked in my country, especially since I was writing for Arab news portals. It was always easier to attack me personally than open a conversation and talk about my ideas back in Amman.

No matter when and how we wrote or said, “We Are Guilty” in this public trial and the rest are just details!

Being “Pro Islamic State or Daesh” was one of the most awkward things I never imagined I would be accused of, and I guess was behind Deutsche Welle’s decision to appoint an external investigator with an “Anti-radicalisation” background to investigate in my case.

It is so odd to be addressed in the German media in the same way I have been addressed in many brutal social media attacks in Jordan. Being “Palestinian Jordanian” was used in Amman to tell me that I am not “Jordanian enough” and need to back off of critical political journalism, although I never backed off!

It was a normal workday at Deutsche Welle when I got an email from a journalist in “Süddeutsche Zeitung” asking me if I wanted to comment on three sentences he picked up from old articles that look criticizing to Israel. The sentences were from an ironic column I wrote that dated back to 2014 and 2015. The “colleague” gave me a mixed deadline of fewer than 24 hours to answer his email.

“Collateral damage” is how my lawyer insisted on referring to me since the “scandal of Deutsche Welle” set off when I was included in Süddeutsche Zeitung’s allegations attacking the Arabic service. The said allegations mainly claimed that a couple of colleagues and I were Anti-Semitic and Anti-Israel, and were formulated, giving a sense of conspiracy led by the head of the Arabic service in DW, who allegedly chose the four of us to form a “systematic movement”.

This is Blind Spots with Farah Maraqa, a newsletter opening an Honest discussion about Journalism in the West.