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Qatar’s Al-Jazeera is not pro-Zionist
enough for Fouad Ajami’s taste
The
media in the US and in Europe consider themselves free and
impartial; whether this is really the case is disputable, to
say the least. Numerous incidents in the recent past have
indicated how easily its reporters have bowed to pressure from
authorities in various countries, or even from their own
bosses. This is particularly true with reference to events in
the Middle East and lately in Afghanistan.
For instance,
we recall how Reuters and the BBC, among others, responded
readily to Israel’s demand that assassinations (of
Palestinians only, of course) be referred to as targeted
attacks. More recently, CNN Chairman Walter Isaacson cautioned
his own reporters to regularly include reminders of Sept. 11,
saying “it seems perverse to focus too much on the casualties
of hardship in Afghanistan.”
Besides interfering with
freedom of speech, theoretically so sacred, this is a clear
infringement on the foundations of reporting. In any case,
there are many journalists whose obvious bias can be seen not
on the opinion pages where they belong, but in sections
supposed to be carrying straight reporting.
At the other
end of the spectrum, Arab news media have often been ridiculed
(not least by the “impartial” Western media) for being nothing
more than official government mouthpieces. A fair criticism in
most cases. So when a new Arab station answering all the
criteria required of independent media finally saw the light,
one would have expected the Arab masses to rejoice (which they
did) and Western Media to welcome it into its folds (which
they didn’t).
That certain Arab governments were not
too pleased (and tried to close its offices in their
territories) surprises no one. That the United States also
tried to stifle this new voice (not to mention that it blasted
its Kabul office out of existence) barely even raised
eyebrows.
Al-Jazeera’s age of innocence was short-lived.
In its five years of existence, it has managed to incur the
criticism of “free” media, the wrath of several Arab leaders,
and the irritation of a few Western ones, for whom freedom of
speech apparently only means freedom to emulate Western
speech.
Al-Jazeera, the station everyone loves to
hate, is getting more publicity from people who don’t know it
than from people who do. The latest addition to the list of
Al-Jazeera-bashers is Fouad Ajami, whose Nov. 18 article in
The New York Times Magazine might as well have been written by
the US State Department.
The misleading generalities begin
with the title, “What the Muslim world is watching.” Ajami
knows well that Al-Jazeera’s audience consists, logically, of
Arabic speakers, and that although most Arabs are Muslim, they
constitute only a small percentage of the world’s Muslim
population. This deceptive title is just an introduction to
his main argument that the station “deliberately fans the
flames of Muslim outrage.”
While admitting that there
is indeed Muslim outrage (but failing to explain its roots),
he infers that it is Al-Jazeera, and not world events, which
is the main contributor to this situation. That is not a valid
contention.
By mentioning the by-now worn cliche that
Osama bin Laden is the station’s star, Ajami starts off a long
succession of ludicrous arguments, unashamed exaggerations and
even stretches the truth (such as the claim that reporters in
Kabul sign off saying “from the Islamic Emirate of
Afghanistan”), using the same kind of sensationalism of which
he accuses Al-Jazeera. Most preposterous is his
characterization of its reporters as a whole, who he describes
as “a fiercely opinionated group, most are either pan-Arabists
or Islamists who draw their inspiration from the primacy of
the Muslim faith in political life.”
Making the two
terms sound like slurs, Ajami does not elaborate on how he
comes to this generalization, and does not refer to a single
encounter he has had with a reporter from Al-Jazeera who might
have given him personal positions.
However, he does shed
some light on the underlying causes of his aversion for
Al-Jazeera, when he claims that “like the dark side of the
pan-Arab world view,” it is an aggressive mix of
anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism (strange how the two terms
always go together). And there we find the real bone of
contention. Actually, Al-Jazeera, an Arab news medium
reporting on events in the Arab world, would be hard-pressed
to find much pro-Zionist sentiment in the region, a fact which
eludes or distresses Ajami.
Thus, the real
problem with Al-Jazeera seems to be its reporting on the
Arab-Israeli conflict which, for the likes of Ajami, is too
pro-Arab and (shockingly) not pro-Zionist (the latter, one
assumes, being what it takes to be considered “fair and
responsible”). Should Al-Jazeera not have repeated footage of
Mohammed al-Durra’s death, which Ajami describes as “careless”
and signaling the arrival of a “new, sensational breed of Arab
journalism?” Would limiting the exposure of Israeli excesses
and Arab suffering make media fairer?
Al-Jazeera’s
coverage of the intifada is hard to swallow for Ajami and his
likes. With no real arguments to back his claims, he resorts
to unsupported generalizations such as “broadcasters have
perfected a sly game, namely mimicking Western norms of
journalistic fairness while pandering to pan-Arab sentiments.”
In fact, Ajami calls the whole coverage of the intifada
“horribly slanted.” By that, he must mean that too many
Palestinians were seen dead (or dying), and too many Israeli
soldiers were seen shooting. Not the other way around. To
Ajami’s displeasure, Al-Jazeera’s cameras show too much of the
reality in the Occupied Territories, even if they also play
images of Palestinian violence.
Ajami has no choice
but to admit that Al-Jazeera has given a voice to Israeli
officials, but he laments that it simultaneously pressed on
with “anti-Zionist” reportage; and this, he claims,
contributed to further alienation between Israelis and
Palestinians. According to Ajami, therefore, the main reason
behind the problems with the peace process is Al-Jazeera’s
reporting, and certainly not the excessive brutality of
Israeli occupation!
It takes Ajami more than 6,000
words to make a weak case against Al-Jazeera, using few valid
points but many misleading statements and half-truths, hoping
to convince the readers who will never watch the station that
“Al-Jazeera’s virulent anti-American bias undercuts all its
virtues. It is, in the final analysis, a dangerous force, and
it should be treated as such by Washington.” How delightful to
hear, at last, that an element of the Arab media is considered
a force.
In effect, in its coverage of the intifada,
and that of the war in Afghanistan, Al-Jazeera has actually
given a voice to every side in the conflict, and done nothing
more than televise the images its reporters are seeing.
Al-Jazeera is not perfect, but neither are other television
stations, newspapers or media networks anywhere in the world.
It is fair to criticize any of them with valid arguments about
professionalism and, naturally, bias. But Al-Jazeera seems to
be paying a heavy price simply for emanating from an Arab
Muslim country.
Israeli media is not criticized for
being “anti-Palestinian.” American media has its
over-proportionate share of bias, and has introduced us to the
art of sensationalism. But Al-Jazeera is practically accused
of extremism for only doing its job. In the end, is it just an
Arabic CNN that the West really wants?
Rime Allaf is a writer and
a specialist in Middle East affairs. She is a consultant in
international communications and new economy business and
wrote this commentary for The Daily
Star |
