The history of Journalism will perpetuate the name of Colonel Daniel Seaman in thick black letters as an Enemy of Journalists and Journalism in the 21 century. Due to his actions, Seaman disgraced himself and the State of Israel before the world. He is well-known among the Journalists who have worked in Israel and the Palestinian cities for his extraordinary hate and vindictiveness, for his arrogant and ignorant manners and behaviour. In December 2000, Colonel Daniel “Danny” Seaman was appointed as the head of the Israeli Government Press Office (GPO). Seaman was transferred from the News department to replace the previous director of the GPO, Colonel Moshe Fogel.

Since Seaman heads the GPO, the Palestinian journalists have been subject to mistreatment and insults. He was full of contempt for our mission as journalists, and he accused us of working under-cover for the Palestinian Authority. He counted our words, and he categorized us as “hostile media”. He never treated us as journalists or respected our work. He destroyed our rights and our free access, not in Israel but in our own homeland, in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The first time I met colonel Daniel Seaman at his office in the GPO he raised the issue of the settlers. He threatened me and he said that he would “see how I will report about them”. He said that the GPO card which I had been granted since 1990 by the former directors of GPO could be cancelled at any time. Seaman said that the “Jewish community in Hebron” (the illegal squatters) was not satisfied of my journalistic work in Hebron. I understood from the discussion with Daniel Seaman that the Kach terrorists from Hebron, Baruch Marzel, Moshe Levinger, Noam Federman, or others around them, had found their way to him.

After the Palestinian Intifada broke out, Daniel Seaman and Dr. Fawaz Kamal, the director of the Arabic Department at the GPO, invited the Palestinian journalists to meet then-President Moshe Katsav at his office in Jerusalem. I was among the journalists who were invited. I went to President Katsav with a small present from Hebron. At that time the city had been under a strict curfew and closure implemented by the IDF for over four months. I brought Katsav a piece of bread, some olives, and one tomato. This was the only possible food which the “rich” Palestinians could afford to eat during the closure, and as much I explained to the President.

At the entrance of President Katsav’s house, Dr. Fawaz Kamal from the GPO ordered me to throw my present in the garbage. He threatened me and told me that he would not allow me to meet the President, and that this invitation would be the last one which I would receive from the GPO.

Seaman Stopped my GPO Press Card
In 2002, Daniel Seaman did not renew my GPO Press Card, which is needed in order to work in Israel and the West Bank. This meant that the IDF soldiers were now allowed to arrest me and to confiscate my films and beat me any time they wanted. Seaman threatened to arrest me if I came to his office asking for the renewal of my GPO card; he told me during a phone call that I was an "undesirable journalist" and that the Jewish settlers and the army did not want to see me in Hebron any more, and that he would not renew my GPO card because of that. He told me “It’s better if you stop your journalistic work in Hebron”.

Dr. Fawaz Kamal told me that Daniel Seaman was very angry with me because I had challenged him and published his refusal to renew my press card in the international media (the Irish Times in Ireland), and also because he received a FAX from Mr. Aidan White, the director of the International Federation of Journalists, begging him to solve the problems he had with me.

Daniel released contradicting answers about freezing the renewal of my GPO card. He told AFP employee Mr. Joe Stritch (an Israeli colleague) that he hated to hear my name and anybody asking him about me. Joe said that Seaman raised his voice and spoke in an angry tone to him when he interceded in my favour because of my press card. Joe added that he felt that Seaman hated me much: Seaman had stated that he wished me “a disaster”.

Seaman wrote to MK Tamar Gozansky that he had stopped the renewal of my press card after I had made “hostile propaganda against Israel” in Europe. What had happened is that I participated in a demo before the Israeli embassy in Ireland, that I contradicted and corrected the statements of Israeli ambassador, Mark Sofer, during a conference, and that I spoke some facts to the Irish media during a stay there.

He told another journalist that he wanted to stop me working because I put my nose in everything, and that I “deserved having my head broken instead of having my GPO card renewed”.

Seaman wrote the former MK Naomi Chazan that I was “manoah shabak” – meaning that the renewal of my GPO card had been stopped by the intelligence for “security reasons”. Seaman also wrote to my lawyer, Lea Tsemel, that he had asked the office of the Israeli intelligence about renewing my press card, GPO, and that he had not received an answer.

Seaman is an American Jewish Settler
Colonel Daniel Seaman is an American Jewish settler. He was born on a US Air Force base in Germany in 1961, a hint that he is probably the son of an American military officer. Seaman is an orthodox right wing activist. He has good connections to the settlement council, the “Yesha”.

His family emigrated from the United States to Israel in 1971 and settled in the port city of Ashkelon, but Seaman lives with his wife and three children among 371 settlers in the illegal settlement of Gilo, which was expanded with Har Gilo, on road 60, near Al-Nafaq tunnel. Har Gilo (and Gilo) are illegal settlements built on land which was stolen from Palestinians from the districts of Bethlehem and Jerusalem, and later annexed illegally and against international laws and treaties by Israel. Gilo is considered by Israel to be a "neighbourhood" of Jerusalem. Both Gilo and Har Gilo settlements were annexed by the apartheid wall, and the Israelis are expanding these settlements on Palestinian lands over the rocky hillsides.

Daniel Seaman enlisted in the Israel Defence Forces. He served in a paratrooper unit in 1979. He joined the war against Lebanon in 1982, where he murdered innocent Lebanese civilian and he received condecoration for that.
From 1983 – 1989, Seaman studied political sciences at the University of New York's Hunter College, and he worked at the Consulate General of Israel in New York.

He served as an officer at the Foreign Press Liaison office at the IDF spokesperson's unit.

In 2000, Daniel Seaman was appointed the director of the Israel Government Press Office (GPO). He treated the foreign journalists very badly, and he made their working conditions miserable. Some foreign journalists were deported from Israel and barred from ever receiving a visa for Israel again. In his zeal, Seaman recommended this treatment against them to the authorities. Seaman saw the foreign press as “anti-semitic”, and accused all foreign journalists of being "blinded" by a desire to support the Palestinian cause. He also stopped issuing press cards to many journalists, accusing them of “working for small newspapers” which were either “not good” or “leftist” or from countries “not supporting Israel”, or whatever other reason of the day he invented when he disliked the truth they wrote. Daniel also classified documentary filmmakers as not being journalists. Seaman said on 30 June 2003 that the Israeli authorities were cutting off all ties with the British BBC TV because it systematically criticized Israel and had put out programs that were "virtually anti-semitic”. In Seaman's strange and paramoralistic view of the world, criticizing genocide and ethnic cleansing had become “anti-semitic”, whatever that word means.

According to a recent Ha'aretz article, the Israeli Civil Service Commission is investigating accusations from foreign journalists saying that Government Press Office Director Daniel Seaman has treated them improperly and enforced the procedures for receiving a press pass in an inequitable manner.

Was Daniel Seaman involved in the murder of Palestinians exiled in Europe ?

According to his Wikipedia entry, Daniel Seaman headed a Mossad hit squad that operated in Europe during his years in the USA. The statement painted over in red in the above screenshot was posted on July 17, 2007 by somebody from address 147.237.73.201, which belongs to the Israeli Government Network, and which is also the address from which most of the edits of that Wikipedia article were made.

Concerning what is written in Wikipedia I can only say that I do not know if this is true, or not. I can neither confirm nor deny that, as the source of these statements is the Israeli government itself. But IF these informations are true, then here is a list of names of Palestinians exiled in Europe who were murdered in the years between 1983 – 1989.

• On 1 January 1983, Mr. Isam Sartawi was murdered in Portugal.
• On 3 August 1983, Mr. Ma’amon Imresh was murdered in Portugal.
• On 28 April 1984, Mr. Hana Mikbel was murdered in Cyprus.
• On 14 August 1984, Mr. Ismael Isa Darwish was murdered in Rome.
• On 21 January 1986, Mr. Monzer Abu Gazaleh was murdered in Athens.
• On 9 June 1986, Mr. Khaled Nazal was murdered in Rome.
• On 14 February 1988, Mr. Hamdi Sultan, Mr. Marwan Al-Kayyal, and Mr. Mohammad Hasan were murdered in Cyprus.

Murdering political opponents is called terrorism, and acts of terror carried out by government agents is state terrorism. I have written to Daniel Seaman to ask him for a statement about this, and I will be very happy if he either sends me an Email or posts a comment to clarify if he had a role in these murders, or not. I am sure that the authorities of several European countries will also find this to be of interest, and perhaps "Danny" will soon find himself in company of people like Doron Almog, who now must fear arrest whenever he leaves Israel.

A Honest Word
Moshe Fogel was the director of the Israeli GPO before Seaman, and working with him was the opposite of the troubles and nonsense introduced by Daniel Seaman. We received respect in his office, even while we had different and often opposed points of view. Fogel told me that he would not punish me because of my opinion or what I was writing in the newspapers. He recommended me to be free in my work and with my words, to write what I wanted and to criticize whomever I wanted to criticize, including him, but that I should always take care to write the truth.

When the Israeli civil administration in Hebron caused me problems, confiscated my travel permit and denied me the right of free access to Jerusalem because I had exposed a scandal about the military headquarters not implementing rulings if the Supreme Court of Israel, Mr. Fogel stood to his word and took his own decision. He invited me to his office and listened to my version of the story. Whatever he said or did, at the end I got back the travel permit. I still respect Mr. Moshe Fogel. He was the right person at the right place. After he left, Seaman turned the GPO into a place where only radical settlers and agents of the Israeli intelligence services felt well.