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- Palestinian Struggle a Major Challenge to Media Integrity
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by Iqbal Jasarat
The current wave of widespread
protests by Palestinians against Israeli brutality has yet again focused
the attention of the world to what is commonly referred to as the ‘conflict-ridden’
Middle East.
No doubt, many pro-Israeli
commentators will at monotonous intervals be called upon by the mainstream
media to provide analysis and opinions, which invariably will pass off as ‘expert
views’. This practice stems from the fact that the South African
press, English and Afrikaans, has traditionally held a strong pro-Israeli
bias. It must be stated too, that since Israel represents a Western
colonial heritage, its profile as a European outpost in the midst of the
stereotypical ‘darker Arab savages’ , has allowed the Jewish
state an overtly favourable press.
Those individual journalists
and editors that have broken away from the legacy which demands an
uncritical acceptance of Israeli position as unchallengeable, while still
small in number, are fortunately on the increase. For a robust media to
thrive, it goes without saying that publishers and producers are expected
to deliver without fear. However, this fear of being excluded as ‘outcasts’
and vilified as ‘anti Semites’ has ensured that the discourse
on Palestine remains severely restricted.
By a strange twist of
coincidence, the current head of the right-wing Likud party, Ariel Sharon,
who is at the centre of the storm that has engulfed Palestine today, was
also responsible for the Sabra and Chatila massacre in 1982, when up to
2750 Palestinian civilians were slaughtered by Israel’s Phalangist
allies in Lebanon. In keeping with American media coverage of the Middle
East, which has largely been pro-Israeli, the white-controlled South
African media at the time not once referred to the Sabra and Chatila
murderers as ‘terrorists’.
Is it a consequence of such
shameful and poor journalism, that has led to the persistent paranoia
about Muslims in general and Palestinians in particular, that they are by
nature, mindlessly violent; and the belief that Israel is under siege and
deserving of sympathy, not censure?
Is it as a result of shoddy,
inappropriate analysis by Israeli leaning ‘experts’ that the Muslim
sanctified area of Jerusalem is lamely viewed as ‘disputed’, when in
effect UN Security Council resolution 242 demands the complete and
unconditional withdrawal of Israeli forces from territories captured
during the 1987 war, including East Jerusalem?
It is increasingly becoming
clearer that the processes through which the efforts of Western powers
coincide with the efforts of their client-states, whether in the Middle
East, Africa or Asia are there for everyone to see.
But due to an elaborate,
almost institutionalized routine which keeps the door wide open to
uncritical ‘experts’, contrary voices are either overshadowed or
overwhelmed. Writers or producers who take a view different from
established images are ostracized. Has anyone not wondered why, for
example, book’s by authors such as Roger Garaudy, Noam Chomsky, Israel
Shahak and Edward Said are not reviewed?
The media coverage of Saudi
Arabia is quite revealing too. Here we have the example of a country,
which is facing serious economic and social problems and a political
challenge from an increasingly restless populace. Yet, the conclusions
reached by media experts suggest that the West is better off with a pliant
House of Saud than with revolutionary Islamists.
In his landmark study "A
Brutal Friendship", Palestinian author Said Aburish claims that
the image of Arab leaders and countries are regularly doctored to suit
their usefulness to Western needs. Facts are subordinated to images, and
what filters through to the average person is aimed at including them to
concur with what has already been decided.
Responding to questions in the
House of Commons in April 1995 about the activities of dissident Arab
groups in London, the then foreign secretary, Douglas Hurd, making it
clear he was speaking about the Saudi opposition, stated that Her Majesty’s
Government had no intention of allowing London to become a centre for
terrorist activity. Hurd was talking about the anti-House of Saud efforts
of the Committee for the Defence of Legitimate Rights [of the Saudi
people], the CDLR. Unchallenged and in the absence of a thorough
interrogation by the British media on his strange remarks, Hurd
demonstrated how image overshadows reality.
Has silence induced by fear of
being viewed as anti-Establishment not contributed to a political culture
in Britain, which five years after the Hurd remarks, allows the UK to slip
into the statute books a new Terrorism Act, which seriously curtails
political activities against tyrants and dictators who are British allies?
The current battle for
Jerusalem and a free Palestine also challenges the integrity of mainstream
media, political commentators and ‘experts’. The first hurdle would be
to overcome prejudice by recognising and acknowledging that the
Palestinians live in a state of perpetual subordination and oppression
against their will.
The obvious will then be
relatively easy to support: The Palestinians have the right to struggle
and resist this state of affairs!
(Mr. Iqbal Jasarat is
Chairman of the Media Review
Network, which is an advocacy group based in Pretoria, South Africa.)
Source:
by courtesy & ©
200 1
Media Review Network & Iqbal Jasarat
by the same author:
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