The Arab media and the lull (tahdia) with Hamas

The lull, or Tahdia, that was reached with Hamas some 6 months ago, has expired, thus creating a strong possibility for escalation.

The problem is that there was no lull to begin with. More than 200 rockets and mortar shells rained on southern Israel in the last few months, but did the Arab media cover this? not really. Well, it is no secret that the Arab media, especially the satellite TV channels, does not even try to hide its sympathy to the "Palestinian Cause" and animosity towards Israel. Although this is not accepted by Western jouralistic standards, this is the reality. More over, some TV anchors, even on channels that are not owned by Arab countries, do tend to act as if they themselves were the champions of that cause. Therefore, the coverage of everything that's happening here is totally one-sided, whereas interviews with Israelis are either meant for entertainment (when they speak broken Arabic) or to be used as a fig leaf, to rebuff claims as if they are one-sided.

Let me give you an example. A week ago, I was interviewed on some none-Arab channel in Arabic, about the lull's expected expiration. The anchor started off in a very business-like manner, but soon became emotionally involved and didn't even let me finish answering his question, while keeping on editorializing, by expressing pro-Palestinian views without even trying to stick to the point.

And there's another thing. Most of the Arab media outlets tend to "forget" facts which do not correspond to their point of view. I was repeadtedly asked why Isarel had closed the crossing points with Gaza while totally ignoring that this was a response to the continued firing of rockets at Sderot.

Talk about keeping up jounalistic standards... However, we do get a lot of airtime on Arab channels, so at least we have the podium to speak from directly to the Arab public opinion.

Israel is launching a blog to start a dialogue with the Arab world and public opinion

Hello everyone,

We, at the Arab Press and Public Affairs division at the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, are thrilled to launch today our very own blog. Being the people who convey Israel's policies to the Arab world, we would like to use this podium to express our thoughts about the way the Arab media is covering Israel and the conflict, and of course - to initiate a dialogue with our readers.

As you may know, interveiwing Israelis used to be taboo in the Arab world. The Egyptian and Jordanian Journalists' Associations still kick out a member who will dare to speak with an Israeli...

But things have thankfully somewhat changed. We appear regularly on most of the prominent TV and radio stations and clarify, in Arabic, our positions, to the Arab public opinion, in their own language.

But there's the rub: there's no real dialogue between us. We cannot speak to each other directly.

This is why we have launched a few months ago our own channel on YouTube - called israelmfaarabic, where we are regularly posting interviews and other videos. You are most welcome to check them out (most have English subtitles, for those of you who don't speal Arabic).

So, yesterday was a busy day for us. The UN's Human Rights Council's special repporteur, Mr. Richard Falk, has issued another biased report about the situation in the Gaza Strip, blaimg Israel stating that it has committed crimes against humanity by imposing sanctions there.

Not a word was written about the bombardment of Israeli towns and cities with thousands of Palestinian rockets and mortar shells, as if it's normal. Imagine that the UN was in existence back in 1941, when the Nazis attacked London day in and day out (the Blitz), and the UN was condemning Britain for fighting against the Nazis whilst exhonorating the Nazis from any wrongdoing!

How absurd and how sad for all mankind. Imagine all those poor people around the world who live under oppresive regimes and have no one to speak for them, beacuse the esteemed Counsil is ignoring them all together!

By the way, it is important to remind that most of the member states in the Human Rights Council are Arab and Muslim countries who violate the human rights of their own citizens, let alone ours. And indeed, the Council never said a word about the houndreds of thousands of Sudanese who were killed by Muslim millitias in Darfur.

So much for human rights... It seems that the Council does not really care when people's rights are offended. On top of that, the report actually plays into the hands of Hamas, which is violating human rights in the Gaza Strip every day, but no one, even Arabs, don't seem to give a damn.

That's all for today. Talk to you soon.