Commentary by AMW adviser: Reverse engagement
Tuesday, March 16, 2010 (5 reads)
By Rime Allaf, Arab Media Watch adviser and associate fellow at Chatham House
11 March 2010
Bitterlemons International
The Obama administration is still an international novice compared to other governments around the world, but it can already claim to have achieved results with its approach to the Arab-Israel problem. Every time US officials have made a request or embarked on a trip aiming at resuscitating a process of some sort, they have been met, sometimes preemptively, with a significant Israeli gesture.
Indeed, Israel believes in confidence-building measures and will spare no effort in finding new opportunities to demonstrate them, as long as they achieve the desired goal: boosting its own position and its own confidence. And nothing can build Israel's confidence like the public rejection of a request, let alone a requirement, made by an ally: the closer the friend, the bigger the humiliation, the greater the Israeli self-confidence and the more futile the subsequent interchange.
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Action Alert: Thank Independent columnist Johann Hari re Palestine
Tuesday, March 16, 2010 (7 reads)
On 12 March 2010, the Independent published a commentary by columnist Johann Hari entitled "Palestinians should now declare their independence." It is arguably the best commentary to be published in the British press since Israel's latest announcements of new settlement construction. The Independent and Hari will no doubt be condemned for this, so please spare a few minutes to thank the newspaper and columnist.
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AMW media interactions: 8-14 March 2010
Tuesday, March 16, 2010 (5 reads)
During the week of 8-14 March 2010, Arab Media Watch issued an Action Alert urging its members and the public to thank Independent columnist Johann Hari for a commentary entitled "Palestinians should now declare their independence."
AMW met with Reuters and Agence France Presse.
Al Hayat published an article by AMW adviser Guy Gabriel on offensive Google results for the search term 'Arab.'
AMW adviser Tahrir Swift wrote to the BBC about its coverage of the Iraqi elections.
AMW liaised with the BBC, Reuters, Al Jazeera English, Al Hayat, Al Quds Al Arabi, the Global Arab Network, Arab News, JNews, Arab News Broadcasting, the Palestine Telegraph, the Arab Media Centre at Westminster University, Al Hiwar, the UN, the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office, and the Moroccan and Saudi embassies.
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Commentary by AMW member: Complex business of assassination
Saturday, March 13, 2010 (15 reads)
By Brenda Heard, Arab
Media Watch member and Friends of Lebanon
co-founder
11 March 2010 Antonio Cassese, President of the Special Tribunal for
Lebanon
(STL), recently presented the First
Annual
Report on the operation and activities of the Tribunal during the
period
from 1 March 2009 to 28 February 2010. With
its remit to investigate the 14 February 2005 Beirut bombing that killed
former Lebanese
Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and 22 others, the international Tribunal
has been
busy. The year has been spent "establishing
the basic structure of the institution" and gathering "evidence against
both
the direct perpetrators of the crimes, as well as the 'perpetrators
behind the
perpetrators' - i.e. those senior political, military and paramilitary
leaders
who - although physically, geographically or temporally removed from the
crimes - in fact bear the greatest responsibility."
Cassese notes the "obvious discipline and
sophistication of
those behind the attack." He explores at
length the theoretical ethos of the work being undertaken, a step he
terms "indispensable." He concludes that:
"All the organs of the STL are not
unmindful of the host of hurdles they will have to face, both at present
and
when they begin to discharge their judicial mandate fully. But they are
prepared to surmount those hurdles with intrepidity. After all, the
undertakings of anybody struggling for the realization of human rights,
and in
this case, for the vindication of the rights of the victims and the
punishment
of the authors of very serious misdeeds, is a labour of Sisyphus."
Intrepid as they may be, however, it must be
remembered what
the tale of Sisyphus has come to symbolise: a task that accomplishes
nothing
beyond its own futile implementation. The mythological figure, you will
recall, was subject to the eternal
punishment of pushing a boulder up a hill, waiting for it to roll back
down,
and then pushing it up again and again.
The complex mysteries of unsolved
assassinations in Lebanon,
Cassese suggests, may always remain just that. It is ironic timing then,
that just as the STL published its report, we
find other perplexing news reports on this complex business of
assassinations
in the Middle East. There is the admiration expressed for a
British/Israeli "spy." And there is the
audacious pride exhibited over the recent "Dubai mission."
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Commentary by AMW adviser: The benefit of proximity talks
Friday, March 12, 2010 (20 reads)
By
Rami Khouri,
Arab Media Watch adviser,
director of the Issam Fares Institute at the American University of
Beirut, editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star,
and co-laureate of the 2006 Pax Christi International Peace Award.
10 March 2010
Watching US policy in the Middle East as I do these
days from Boston, and seeing the deep and persistent tilt towards
Israel, it is hard to see any breakthrough emerging from the
US-concocted "proximity talks" to launch this week between Israel and
the Palestinians. At the same time, it would be irresponsible simply to
write off this effort as the latest example of that bizarre process that
sees American romanticism or amateurism in mediating peace combine with
strong American support for Israeli colonialism (settlements
expansion), barbarism (the siege of Gaza that now results in stunting
among Palestinian children), and recidivism (refusing to deal with the
Goldstone Report on war crimes in the Gaza war).
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AMW media interactions: 1-7 March 2010
Wednesday, March 10, 2010 (27 reads)
During the week of 1-7
March 2010, the Daily Mirror's
security correspondent
wrote about AMW's launch of adviser Haifa Zangana's new book "Dreaming
of
Baghdad." He also emailed AMW to say: "I found it really
interesting."
AMW met with the Daily Mirror, Reuters,
Al Quds Al Arabi, Sudan Vision, Press TV, and the EU observer and media
outreach staff in Khartoum.
Al Quds Al Arabi published an article by
AMW adviser Guy Gabriel on offensive Google results for the search term
'Arab';
and a senior editor at Al Hayat emailed AMW saying: "I loved your Google
report."
AMW chairman Sharif Hikmat Nashashibi was
interviewed by a media student from Falmouth
University on Gordon
Brown's questioning at the Chilcot Inquiry; and AMW helped a South
African
radio station find interviewees on the Iraqi elections.
Nashashibi was invited to a journalism
conference in Denmark.
"You represent some very interesting thoughts on how we in the Western
media address Muslim issues, and how Muslims address issues in the
Western
world," one of the organisers said.
The UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office
invited AMW to a Middle East briefing with
Minister of State Ivan Lewis.
AMW liaised with the BBC, Daily
Telegraph, New Statesman, Reuters, Press Complaints Commission, Global
Arab
Network, Arab News Broadcasting, Press TV, Al Hiwar, London Student,
Pluto
Books, the UN, the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office, and the Saudi
and
Syrian embassies.
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AMW finds offensive suggestions by Google for search term 'Arab'
Monday, February 22, 2010 (82 reads)
The labour-saving search engine feature Google Suggest, according to the organisation itself, "guesses what you're typing and offers suggestions in real time." However, it also reveals what others have been searching for on the internet. When that search term is 'Arab,' this reveals some alarming trends.
Google avows: "We try not to suggest queries that could be offending to a large audience of users." However, their success is limited in this regard. Arabs, along with other ethnicities, may find plenty of offensive terms using this feature.
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