Khaled Abu Toameh speaking in Vancouver next Saturday

I have the opportunity to listen to Khaled Abu Toameh about once a year, and frankly I'm always surprised to find out he's still alive.

He's a Palestinian journalist who used to write for one of the PLO's propaganda newspapers, until it was shut down by Yasir Arafat when the PLO had their funds cut off by their Saudi and Kuwaiti patrons after the PLO backed Saddam in the first Gulf War. However unlikely it sounds, Abu Toameh now works for, amongst other media, the Jerusalem Post.

I say I'm always surprised to find out he's still alive because whenever I read his work in the Post, I always think he's going to be hit with a fatwa for writing so honestly about the real situation in Gaza and the West Bank. But the fact that Hamas and Fatah leaders still give him interviews suggests that they think he's an honest reporter, too. What a balancing act.

He's really the only mainstream media source I trust to find out what's really going on in Palestine.

And, to my surprise, he's in Vancouver next Saturday as a keynote speaker at the Canadian Association of Journalists convention. You can read a bit more about the convention here, and you can get tickets to his luncheon speech by e-maiingl John Dickins of the CAJ here.

(I see that Tony Burman, formerly of the CBC and now of Al Jazeera, is also speaking. I'd put him at the other end of the credibility spectrum on Palestinian issues. I would love to hear what people who attend both speeches have to say about the two panelists.)

I wish I could attend Abu Toameh's speech. He's a true journalist, and every day he puts his life on the line to write his reports. We hear a lot about journalistic "courage" -- this guy doesn't boast about it, he just lives it.

If you're in Vancouver, go if you can -- John Dickins will give you the details.