The Challenge of Arab Journalists and Gaza

This was a hard week for me being asked on more than one occasion to choose between being a professional journalist and being a patriotic Palestinian.

As a bilingual observer one is completely frustrated when following what is happening in our region on Arab and international television channels. Using sleep-deprived reports, Arab satellite stations have been continuously filling the airwaves with heart wrenching stories of Palestinians being violently assaulted with a seemingly endless and indiscriminate Israeli attacks.

On the other hand you get sanitized reporting from well rested western journalists in flak jackets on the borders of Gaza or in the streets of Israeli towns. CNN's Ben Wedeman expressed this frustration best noting that while his team is banned by Israel from entering the Gazan war theatre, they are being allowed unfettered access to Israeli civilian locations where the Palestinian rockets are landing.

While the images coming out of Gaza are very moving, the tone of the narrative on many western TV stations appeared to reflect some sort of military equivalency. Reflecting this huge military imbalance, Azmi Bishara a Palestinian academic and former member of the Israeli Knesset called -- on an Arab TV station -- the Israeli war on Palestinians "the most cowardly war in the world."

The absence of international journalists from the streets of Gaza allowed Israeli spokespersons to spin the rational of the war mostly unopposed. Local Hamas leaders' unavailability -- for security reasons -- provided Israeli representatives an unchallenged opportunity to manipulate information. On more than one occasion, I, as a Christian nationalist who is opposed to the Hamas policies, found myself correcting clearly false assertions. Without the ability to present a forceful counterpoint an entire mythology was created leading many naïve viewers to buy the Israeli rationale hook, bait and sinker.

Following the bombardment of the UNRWA school in Gaza, again I was frustrated about the absence of independent journalists on the scene where the attack took place. While UNRWA emphatically denied that anyone had shot from that school area, Israel quickly claimed that their action is justified because -- according to their claim -- shots had been fired at them from that school. International journalists could have helped settle the issue and could have pointed out the potential of a war crime.

Faced with an Israeli ban on international journalists from entering Gaza, many Arab journalists responded by calling for the boycott of Israelis from appearing on Arab media outlets. A petition in Jordan entitled "No to Zionists appearing on Arab media outlets" garnered the signature of tens of journalists. Speaking on BBC World Service January 7, I rejected this idea insisting that one can be a professional journalist and be patriotic to his people at the same time. For a society that feels that the media is part of the conflict rather than an observer the idea, of hearing the Israeli point of view was tantamount to capitulation.

The following day I decided to organize a debate on the subject on Radio al Balad, the community radio station that I established in Amman. What ensued provided our listeners with an opportunity to hear professional journalists who insist that we need to debate the other side with facts and logic and not get carried away emotionally. Ironically the example that was used to defend this point of view was al Jazeera TV. The Qatar-based pan Arab station has been providing uninterrupted coverage of the situation in Gaza with live reports from inside and outside of Gaza but at the same time giving Israeli spokespersons a chance to state their point of view.

Opponents of the closed minded media attitudes also recalled some of the Arab media's dark hours with Egypt's Sawt al Arab's Ahmad Said in 1967 and Iraq's Information minister Saeed al Sahaf in 2003 as examples of the results of what happens when the entire population is led by media demagogues.

The debate on our station also reminded me of a courageous statement made by an independent Jordanian media activist Nedal Mansour who fought the overwhelming public sentiment and opposed the protest methods of the Iraqi shoe thrower. While calling for the immediate release of the detained Iraqi journalist, Mansour attacked those who went overboard in praising his action. "Instead of throwing a shoe, the Iraqi journalists should have confronted President Bush with a tough question including asking him to respond to the accusation that he is a war criminal," he said in a live interview on our station.

Reform in the Arab world is a long and difficult process. Independent media activists have been greatly helped by the opportunities that satellite, the internet and other new media platforms are offering. While the international press has been barred from fully covering the unfair and unjust war on the people of Gaza, we the Arab professionals must combine our professional skills with personal courage to tell the facts, all the facts. Only this way can we not only serve our cause but also truly serve our people.

Daoud Kuttab is an award winning Palestinian journalist and former Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton Unviersity. His email is [e-mail].

 

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Comments

[mamiejane]

Thanks for this great post. It's frustrating to see that the American media fails to seek out intelligent spokespeople for the Palestinian position. It's always the Israeli spokespeople with European backgrounds who seem to know how to play to the American media. The Palestinian spokespeople seem to spend all their time on the defensive, rebutting the Israeli positions and not able to make the case for the necessity of getting the Palestinian people out from under Israeli control. I do think it's getting better because I'm seeing more and more criticism of Israel and more nuanced discussion of the politics within Gaza and the West Bank. Please keep up the good work and stay safe.

[charlietuna11]

as the saying goes, the differance between fox news and al jazeera is that fox shows missiles being fired at unarmed palastinians., al jazeera shows them landing....

[gemcando06]

War is Hell. And Hamas is in......Gaza. Where is Peace? A halt in the fight, again, and that seems to be Peace - but not really. Reports on the War seem to be always surprised that real people die, get wounded, and lose their homes. Why is the Press - Arab or other - always so surprised at the results of War? Why is so bad to talk of Peace? War is madness!

[athenasword]

Great post.

It is always sad to me that the Palestinian people have NO good spokespeople. No reporters are allowed to tell the story. They have no one signifcantly placed in the media. They have no American-educated "experts" who are featured on CNN. Of course, the Israeli's have many. And they have skillfuly crafted their language in a way that Americans are quickly sympathetic to the "terrorist" attacks they have to endure.

The Palestinian side of the story must be heard.

[SiberianRat]

Surprisingly, one of the best spokesman for Palestine is an Israeli now working as a professor at Oxford University in England. Avi Shlaim gave an excellent interview on today's Democracy Now broadcast. I highly recommend checking it out www.democracynow.orgg).

[InjunTrouble]

The brave IDF is better at fighting women and children than any other army in world.

Don't you dare call them cowardly.

[boyo1872]

and brave Hamas likes to hide behind those women and children and use them as human shields..and Hamas was just shooting fireworks over Israeli towns and cities.

[Tony K]

Say anything!..

In the movie "A Civil Action" there is a sequence of a lecture where the lawyer Robert Duvall, is telling his students about his own experience in the courts and how to impresss the judge and the jury... he insists on objecting, and tells the students that the best way to get the attention of someone or gain an impression is Objection.. whenever and wherever is the situation, you should object, Objection your honnor! you should shout! he says... Objection no matter what and no matter how.. say it anytime even if you where in a middle of a nap.. Objection !!

In the recent news shows we see the Israelis politicians, the Generals and the Analysts, we see them saying everything in their interviews, they're saying anything! All the rubbish, all the lies they are spreading through the air.. Whatever idea is there they say it..right or wrong they say it, they even object to the public opinion about the pictures of the victims presuming they are fake, made in "Photoshop", as well as the TV reports they are edited with some visual effects and graphics..
Objection (they say) those victims do not exist, everything is fake!

It is very sad that the jury starts believing these lies! not because they are convinced, but because there is no one from the other side who could say : Objection!!

[Fein]

"the most cowardly war in the world." An appropriate epitaph for this 'war' and the whole occupation.

It's going to be a real challenge for them to spin this into some kind of 'victory', when Hamas remains standing after they give up and slither away.

[gageeandbaba]

ATLEAST THEY ARE HAVING DEBATES THERE there is NO debate on what is happening in American Corporate Media

[ArmandAllegro]

Amen brother. And good luck. Even with the undeniable media bias the truth about Israel's illegal, immoral, and abhorent behavior is seeping out. The "big lie" strategy, "there is no humanitarian crisis", must be exposed and defeated. One other thing I've noticed, all the cool people are on my side, Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Annie Lennox,Noam Chomsky,Jimmy Carter. On Israel's side Bush, Rice, Christal, Cheney and all the other neo-con losers who have yet to get one thing right, and many of whom are war criminals.

[SantaFeScribe]

I found this interesting and a rare window into how barred Arab press deals with its ostracism from ground zero. The most credible journalism -- to my mind -- on the Israeli war (or massacre) in Gaza comes from those Palestinians or visitors in the Occupied Territories or from al Jazeera online. However, the discussion among banned journalists on how to encourage free speech and press from the fringes fascinates.
Thanks to the writer.