Itamar Marcus will receive the Abramowitz Israeli Prize for Media Criticism this month. Photo: Palwatch.org.

JNS.org – The director of Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), an Israeli organization dedicated to exposing incitement to violence by official Palestinian outlets and other sources, will be honored with the Abramowitz Israeli Prize for Media Criticism this month.

The Abramowitz prize, named for its sponsors Kenneth and Nira Abramowitz, and will be awarded to PMW’s Itamar Marcus by Israel’s Media Watch, a fellow media-monitoring group.

“PMW’s work both within Israel as well as in its presentations abroad, in the media, parliaments and other platforms not only provides the Israeli people and allies abroad with an essential service, but by its very existence constitutes a profound critique of the Israeli media. PMW’s work should have been carried out by the Israeli media,” wrote the chairman of Israel’s Media Watch, Eli Pollak, and the organization’s vice chairman Yisrael Medad in a Feb. 4 announcement in the The Jerusalem Post.

The Abramowitz Prize is “intended to encourage journalists, pundits, public figures, and organizations to contribute toward a critical review of the media,” wrote Pollak and Medad.

“One of the topics that the Israeli media is loath to cover seriously is the Palestinian Authority (PA),” they wrote. “The Israeli media is dominated by those who believe that Israel’s future depends on the realization of the two-state vision. Our pundits describe PA President Mahmoud Abbas as a relative moderate, with whom one may cut a deal. This may be true or not, but the public deserves to know whether the facts support it.”