16 August 2007

This report summarises the work Arab Media Watch has done on Lebanon from January to August 2007.

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.

26 September 2007

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner a few days ago offered a very apt, very French, comment on the real significance of the Middle East peace conference the United States hopes to convene this fall, calling it "a very light, weak, magnificent possibility."

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.

3 October 2007

Egypt is a towering enigma -- sometimes monstrous, sometimes magnificent -- that hovers above the rest of the Arab world like storm clouds over a dry prairie, bringing both life and destruction. Egypt is kaleidoscopic, ever-changing and dazzling, simultaneously wonderful and woeful. It remains the big riddle of modern Arab politics -- the birthplace of constitutional democracy, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the modern police state -- but also its most vaunted prize.

This article, by Arab Media Watch adviser Rime Allaf, was originally published by Bitter Lemons.

9 March 2009

Arab nationalism and Alexandretta notwithstanding, a Turkish-Syrian affair is currently in full bloom, joining the proverbial hearts and minds across the border, letting bygones be bygones and picking up from where things were last left. This is a courtship in which people and regime are in full agreement, in contrast to certain marriages of convenience with other partners found less palatable by many Syrians. For all the noted rise in religiosity in Syria, as in other mainly Muslim countries, the easygoing Turkish balance of "secular Islamism" sits much better than the Iranian clerics' sternness.

By Ian Black
16 March 2009
The Guardian

On the outskirts of Damascus a theme park gives tourists the chance to travel back in time, with lifesize models of key places and periods in Arab history – Babylonian, Islamic and medieval. But most visitors make a beeline for the 19th-century Syrian city quarter, complete with massive wooden gate, guard post, butcher's shop, bakery and blacksmith.

This is where filming takes place for the outdoor scenes of Bab al-Hara – The Neighbourhood Gate – a wildly popular TV soap opera watched by millions across the Arab world. And the sight attracting most attention one day recently was the show's star, Wael Sharaf, aka Mu'taz, heart-throb and Johnny Depp lookalike.

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.

23 March 2009

US President Barack Obama continues to make intriguing gestures in the Middle East that seem to soften or even reverse the policies of the George W. Bush administration, the latest being his video taped message to the Iranian people and leaders on the occasion of the Nowruz holiday that ushers in Spring. Obama should be commended for his initiative, which started from his first moments in office when he made a gesture to the people of Iran during his inaugural address.

Haider Al-Safi worked for the Baghdad bureau of 'The Independent' during the invasion of Iraq and the beginning of the war. In 2005, anxious about his safety, he came to Britain, where he has been studying journalism. Last week he went back to see his family. This is what he found.

24 March 2009
The Independent

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.

1 April 2009

One of the important, even historic, changes taking place in the United States these days is the slow but steady erosion of the once absolute taboo to speak out about the excessive influence of pro-Israeli groups in the country. Pro-Israeli forces in politics and the mass media can still destroy a public career, especially for a politician, but the stranglehold on discussing this phenomenon is slowly loosening.

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.

11 March 2009

The United States in the greater Middle East is doing the equivalent of walking and chewing gum at the same time, i.e., doing more than one thing at a time, and tackling more than one political issue at a time. The Obama administration has sent envoys to the Middle East peace process and Afghanistan-Pakistan, and is simultaneously re-establishing lines of communication with Syria and Iran. President Obama this week said the US should consider speaking with some elements of the Taliban in Afghanistan in order to wind down that country's war.

This is a worthy approach that will probably be supported widely in the United States and abroad. It was also one of several key themes that dominated a fine two-day conference I just attended at the Issam Fares Center of the Fletcher School at Tufts University near Boston. The knowledgeable and experienced participants - academics, journalists, former senior military and political officials - kept returning to two core issues: a "grand bargain" is likely to be needed to resolve the tensions between the US and Iran that are so pivotal to other conflicts in the Middle East, and, the US has much work to do on this because Washington knows nothing about key aspects of Iran's strategic aims, nuclear goals or motivations, or decision-making system.

By Arab Media Watch adviser Rime Allaf
24 March 2009
Syria Today

In a world where nation branding has become the order of the day for most governments, Syria has a lot of catching up to do and faces challenges on several dimensions. It would normally be reassuring to hear the terms "marketing", "public relations" and "image" being mentioned hesitantly in official Syrian circles, but there is a real danger that this sudden awakening may result in a sloppy and simplistic campaign of no strategic depth, supported by non-expert contributors with no background in these disciplines. This would be a sure recipe for spectacular failure at the most sensitive of times, when Syria needs to attain an image commensurate to its reflection and ambition.

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.

8 April 2009

President Barack Obama's speech to the Turkish Parliament on Monday, April 6, was another milestone in what appears to be his continuing attempt to steer the American ship of foreign policy in new directions. He made some important new statements and changes in style, while repeating some silly old bad habits and simplistic insults. If he intended to address the Islamic world and signal a more humble, realistic policy towards majority-Islamic countries, he gets high marks for intent and execution, and medium marks for substance.

By Maymanah Farhat
20 April 2009
Electronic Intifada

Swiss filmmaker Anne-Marie Haller's 60-minute documentary Telling Strings provides a rare look into the profound workings of a Palestinian family of musicians. Initially, the film appears unassuming yet its powerful content, stunning cinematography and informing moments make it a welcomed addition to a long list of documentaries on Palestine. Traversing between the interior and exterior spaces of their lives, Haller captures how culture flourishes within the private realms of Palestinians inside the virtual prison of the Israeli state.

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.

29 April 2009

The scene in the ballroom of the venerable old Bristol Hotel in Beirut last week was the epitome of low-keyness - dozens of mature men and a sprinkling of women seated around a large, U-shaped conference setting, in slightly dim lighting, hearing lecturers and participating in open discussions over two days.

This gathering, however, reminded me why I am confident that the dysfunctional mismanagement and occasional criminality of the modern Arab world will not persist forever. The meeting - organized by the Arab Anti-Corruption Organization - reminded me why I am confident that the Arab world in my lifetime will start to transform top-heavy, mismanaged, and corruption-riddled governments into more productive and humane systems.

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.

11 May 2009

As has been the case for the past six decades or so, the usually turbulent politics of Lebanon mirror almost perfectly the many strands of political, ideological, commercial and criminal activities that define public life in the Arab region. So it is again with the elections that will take place on June 7 - comprising a series of positive and negative attributes that give these elections much greater significance than would normally be the case. I would suggest five dimensions in which the election results could shed light on pertinent national, regional and global issues.

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.

5 June 2009

President Barack Obama in Cairo Thursday provided a combination Bible and Quran class mixed in with some American civics lessons - a touching, sincere performance that gets high marks for boldness and empathy, but nevertheless leaves a lingering hollowness in some areas.

By Stefan Christoff
7 April 2009
Electronic Intifada

An important development in the growing international campaign for a cultural boycott of Israel has recently taken place in Quebec, Canada.

Documentary filmmaker Malcolm Guy made media headlines last year for withdrawing from a jury for a key award for Tolerance in Cinema at the Rendez-vous du cinema quebecois (RVCQ) film festival in 2008, given that the award was funded by pro-Israel organizations. In response, this year the festival cancelled the major cinematic prize for the 2009 edition of the main festival celebrating filmmaking in Quebec.

By Brenda Heard, Arab Media Watch member and founder of Friends of Lebanon.

16 June 2009

On Sunday 14 June 2009, hours before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a statement announcing his expectations of the international community, Israeli F-16 jets dropped several bombs along the southern Gaza border. The Israeli military said it was targeting underground tunnels. Four Palestinians were wounded. (More on the exchange of hostilities here and here.)

As the Palestinians were being treated in hospital, Netanyahu proclaimed, "Peace has always been our people's most ardent desire." In fact the speech was interwoven with Hallmark-Greeting-Card-messages of tranquil harmony. "If we join hands and work together for peace...."

Cut the violins. In essence, Netanyahu stated that he expected the international community to support his desire to turn his holy land into his Disneyland so as to regain the tourist trade needed to bolster an ailing Israeli economy. We could make this whole Palestinian problem go away, he said, if we simply ignore those we forced out and bend those remaining into complete submission. Lest anyone get the wrong idea, though, we'll let them keep a flag and a song. Just to prove how civilised we are.

By Arab Media Watch member Nu'man Abd al-Wahid

22 June 2009

Barack Obama's election victory was greeted with a sigh of relief by most of the world, glad to see the back of George W. Bush.  In the UK, the first African-American president was also heralded in with a good royal dose of cynicism by political commentators.

Whether it be that the honourable political commentator was of right-wing or left-wing persuasion, all agreed, the euphoria which greeted Obama's victory in November 2008 was comparable to that which greeted Tony Blair upon his first election victory in 1997. As such, and imperially armed with this superficial wisdom, they grandly implied that only disillusionment will materialise from the euphoria of Obama's victory. British commentators as politically diverse as John Pilger, Richard Littlejohn, A.C. Grayling, Marina Hyde, John Rentoul, Charles Moore and others drew this turgid comparison. Yet a close inspection of certain statistical facts and campaigning strategies which brought both candidates to power, could not be further apart.

By Arab Media Watch adviser Rime Allaf
23 June 2009
New York Times

It has practically become the norm for Arab people and the regimes that rule over them to have different reactions to big events happening in the region. This is also the case with Iran, but in very different ways.

By Arab Media Watch adviser Haifa Zangana
29 June 2009
The Guardian

In Iraq, we have an expression: same donkey, different saddle. Iraq's interim government has now formally assumed sovereignty. Official labels and tags have duly changed. The US administrator will now be an ambassador, while Sheikh Ghazi al Yawar and Iyad Allawi, US-appointed members of the former governing council, are to be president and prime minister.

To formalise the change, the UN has issued a resolution under which "multinational forces" will replace "US-led forces". On the issue of control over US troops, the message is clear: the US forces are there to stay only because "Iraqi people" have asked them to. But which Iraqi people? Do they mean the new administration headed by the CIA's Iyad Allawi? And why does all this sound familiar?

By Maymanah Farhat
29 May 2009
Electronic Intifada

In addition to a long list of films exploring themes of social injustice and conflict, Swedish filmmaker PeÅ Holmquist has directed several on Palestine. Young Freud in Gaza (2008), his most recent documentary on the subject, enters the recesses of Palestinian society as it copes with life under Israeli occupation.

Neve Gordon - who teaches politics at Ben-Gurion University and is the author of Israel's Occupation - shows how the Israeli government, with the collusion of the media, is manipulating the false spectre of civil war with the Jewish settlers in order to fend off US pressure to freeze settlement activity.

13 June 2009

By Arab Media Watch adviser Rime Allaf
2 October 2009
Al Jazeera English

Big speeches with grand accompanying events marking an 'umpteenth' rekindling of the strangest and longest peace process have been Middle East fixtures for decades, as have the inevitable follow-up periods of analyses and projections. 

No matter where the leaders in question stood on the scale of left to right, or to which party they belonged, little new ever emerged; peace talks had fallen into a vicious cycle of deja vu.

Not this time, however. 

By Max Ajl
2 April 2010
Electronic Intifada

"Is it true that the Jews want to retake this country?" asked a Palestinian farmer close to the turn of the 20th century, according to the notes of Albert Antebi, an official of the Jewish Colonial Association. They did and do. Palestinian peasants were the first to feel the effects of Zionist encroachment. And today, the countryside and its villages are where the struggle against territorial maximalism continues, dunum by dunum, olive orchard by olive orchard.

This Palestinian Life, a 28-minute documentary, surveys rural resistance in occupied Palestine: in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, in the Jordan Valley, and in the south Hebron hills. The film was made by Egyptian-German journalist Philip Rizk, who lived in Palestine from 2004 to 2007, talking with those struggling under the daily violence and oppression of Israel's occupation, and recording their stories. The project was political, a sort of ad hoc social history of agrarian resistance. Rizk narrates his wish to "Capture the stories of villagers because these examples of sumud ... are the most rarely told." This film begins to fix that problem.

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.

18 June 2008

Like everyone else in the world, Americans care about how they are perceived by others. Unlike most other countries, though, the United States is characterized by three distinct attributes: It is the world's single most powerful country; it uses its economic, military and diplomatic power to try and change conditions around the world for the better (to promote freedom, democracy and prosperity, it says); and it is widely disliked and feared in many parts of the world.

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.

11 February 2009

The Israeli elections Tuesday are expected to usher in a Likud-led right-of-center coalition. Regardless of the final result (I write this Tuesday morning, as the voting begins), one thing is already clear: The chances of a negotiated peace based on a two-state solution are slim, and becoming more difficult every year.

By Gabriel Ash, a core member of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network.

12 February 2009

I read Jonathan Cook's new book Disappearing Palestine: Israel's experiments in human despair before Israel committed its most recent massacres in Gaza. Israel's massive disregard for Palestinian life and the clearly deliberate destruction of life-sustaining infrastructure shocked many poorly informed observers, but few of those acquainted with the knowledge contained in this book would have been taken by surprise. Cook is a British journalist who made the Palestinian city of Nazareth his home. Over the last six years Cook published a series of highly informative and original articles that broke with the Western tradition of stenographic journalism. Although previously a staff journalist of the liberal British paper The Guardian, few of his recent articles were featured in the mainstream Western press. He knows too much.

With Israel's foreign ministry organising volunteers to flood news websites with pro-Israeli comments, Propaganda 2.0 is here, writes Richard Silverstein.

9 January 2009
The Guardian

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.

26 December 2009

A year after the Israeli attack on Gaza, a scorecard of "winners and losers" suggests that nobody won anything, but Israel has probably suffered political losses that it could not have envisioned when it decided to invade Gaza. I count seven main aims that Israel had in mind when it launched its war a year ago and tightened its siege of Gaza; one of them was achievable without a war, and the six others have not been achieved, or have turned things to Hamas' and the Palestinians' favor.

When Jon Snow went to report on the conflict in Gaza, he was barred from entering the conflict zone, along with other Western journalists. It's wrong, he says.

19 January 2009
The Independent

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.

30 December 2009

In my desire to get a fresh perspective on the Middle East and also enjoy a white Christmas and New Year's eve full of snow, my wife and I traveled to Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, and succeeded in achieving both aims, along with seeing some dear old friends. The view of Vilnius in the snow is enchanting, but the view back towards the Middle East is frightening. An end-of-year glance around the region suggests that - hard as it may be to believe - political conditions have deteriorated to a large extent in many parts of our region, and very few countervailing improvements can also be noted.

By Ethan Bronner
5 January 2010
New York Times

GAZA - In the year since Israeli fighter jets and troops invaded this coastal Palestinian strip to stop rocket fire, time seems to have stood still. A blockade imposed by both Israel and Egypt to isolate the Hamas government bars the vast majority of goods and people from moving in or out. That means there is no reconstruction of destroyed buildings. Thousands remain homeless. Winter has arrived.

With humanitarian aid staving off hunger and disease, perhaps the hardest part for people here is the feeling of having been forsaken. The economy is closed down and the exits have been shuttered; a pall of listlessness hovers.

But there are thousands of stories in the wake of the war and in the face of the blockade. The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem decided to do something about getting them out, especially to an Israeli audience. Months ago it distributed video cameras to 18 young people in Gaza and set them up with an instructor and Web guidance. The assignment: tell us about your lives.

By Yasmin Alibhai-Brown
2 February 2009
The Independent

So that's that then, is it? Gaza is done and dusted? Very satisfying, I'm sure, for the Israeli leadership and their devoted allies at the BBC. But not so fast. For the one and a half million traumatised and wounded souls in that small strip, unendurable agony goes on. The very earth they stand on burns and cracks. And I am not here indulging a writer's tendency to hyperbole or neat metaphor.

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.

4 February 2009

The stark juxtapositions within the Arab World - and the wider Middle East-South Asia region - were brought home to me one morning this week in Kuwait. I am here participating in a global gathering that seeks to increase the production of indigenous research in the Middle East in order to better influence policy-making. But our noble endeavor contrasted sharply with the morning newspaper headlines of suicide bombings in Somalia and Afghanistan, continued military strikes in Israel and Palestine, and even the provincial elections in Iraq, happening during a lull between a string of suicide bombings in that country.

Where, in this range of events, is the center of gravity of the Arab world? It is in none and all of these things simultaneously. For the Arab World is defined by both rampant violence - home-grown and foreign-instigated - and a deep desire to become democratic, productive, vibrant societies, intellectually and culturally.

By Sarah Irving
22 January 2010
Electronic Intifada

In October 2009 Palestinian photojournalist Nayef Hashlamoun traveled to Jordan to collect a lifetime achievement award from the Arab Youth Media Forum, a Dubai-based press project. The award recognized Hashlamoun for his "professionalism and skill and for his service in the media, and courage to work despite being wounded several times by Israeli soldiers and settlers," according to Forum president Haitham Yousif.

Hashlamoun, who until December worked for Reuters in Hebron, had also been feted during the 2006 China International Press Photo Contest in Shenzhen. His work documenting the incessant persecution of Hebron's Palestinian residents by Israeli soldiers and settlers has appeared in newspapers around the world.

"But I am especially happy about this latest award," says Hashlamoun, "because this is not just about one photograph. It's about the whole package -- my body of work, my professionalism, my ethics. Because of that it's something special."

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 February 2010

When the public policy institute that I work for, the Issam Fares Institute at the American University of Beirut, organized a regional seminar this week on researching "youth identity and values" in the Arab world, we decided to hold it in the United Arab Emirates, in a Gulf region where "identity issues" are widely debated because nationals tend to account for less than twenty per cent of total populations.

With our partners Unicef and the Dubai School of Government, we gathered a dozen scholars from the UAE, Lebanon, Morocco, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere to analyze what may well be the single most important knowledge and public policy challenge facing the Middle East and its future: how the current youth cohort sees itself in its world, and how it behaves in response.

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.

17 February 2010

American secretaries of state have been coming to the Middle East to create all sorts of complex alliances against Iran for most of my happy adult life, and every time this show passes through our region I learn again the meaning of the phrase "lack of credibility." Hillary Clinton is the latest to undertake this mission, and like her predecessors her comments often are difficult to take seriously.

Last night I went to the book launch of a new edition of Dreaming of Baghdad
by Iraqi writer and political activist Haifa Zangana.

I have only just started reading this fine book - which she wrote originally 20 years ago
and in which she remembers her time as an activist in Baghdad in the 70's.

During this time she suffered terribly and was jailed and tortured by Saddam's police but her deep affection for and conviction towards Iraq as a nation shines through.

I will discuss the book later once I have finished reading it. The launch was organised by our friends at Arab Media Watch.

A niqab-wearing mother is storming the Arab answer to Pop Idol with poetry that is scathing about hardline clerics, writes Hugh Tomlinson.

7 April 2010
The Times

By Jonthan Cook, author of "Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East," and "Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair."

9 April 2010

What is misleadingly being called in Israel the "Anat Kamm espionage affair" is quickly revealing the dark underbelly of a nation that has worshipped for decades at the altar of a security state.

Next week 23-year-old Kamm is due to stand trial for her life -- or rather the state's demand that she serve a life sentence for passing secret documents to an Israeli reporter, Uri Blau, of the liberal Haaretz daily. She is charged with spying.

By Frank Smyth, Washington representative and journalist security coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists

26 April 2010

These are busy days for Freedom of Information. On April 5, the watchdog Web site that knows no borders, WikiLeaks, posted a classified U.S. military video showing U.S. forces firing on Iraqi civilians, killing many, including two Reuters journalists, as well as wounding children. Two days later, the Pentagon posted a redacted U.S. military assessment of the same incident concluding that U.S. troops fired “in accordance with the law of armed conflict and rules of engagement.” The very same day President Obama hailed the scheduled release of a new Open Government Initiative by all Cabinet agencies to improve transparency and compliance with information requests.

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.

25 January 2010

The epic story of the modern Arab world - largely untold in our societies and unappreciated around the world - has been the quest by ordinary men and women for reforms that would allow our societies to break the chains of three predominant trends that have plagued us: autocratic political regimes, a seemingly permanent state of post-colonial distortion and dependence, and an inability to tap our human and natural resources to match the Western or Asian developmental bursts that have left us coughing in their dust.

I believe an Arab breakthrough towards coherent statehood and stable, prosperous societies is inevitable - to judge from the power of the two poles of society that define our continuing epic.

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.

1 February 2010

Every time I go to a conference or workshop on civil society and non-governmental organizations in the Arab world, I come away with the same mixed feelings of despondency and pride. I am despondent because decades of work and tens of millions of dollars of local and foreign money that have been spent on strengthening civil society have had very limited impact on the quality of life of ordinary citizens in our region. Civil society institutions continue to be almost totally at the mercy of state power and controls.

Yet I am proud because tens of thousands of Arab men and women nevertheless continue to strive for better societies where citizens can form associations and organizations to work in that vast public space between the family and the state. The quest to develop a thriving civil society reflects the desire to create - and is an indispensable part of - a society governed by the rule of law, defined by social equity, and propelled on a trajectory of growth, pluralism, and prosperity by developing and unleashing the full talents of all their citizens.

By Joseph Richard Preville
8 February 2010
Saudi Gazette

Some books have perfect timing. This is one of them. According to a recent Gallup World Religion Survey, a majority of Americans have little or no knowledge about Islam. Also, the study revealed a disturbing American bias against Muslims. The contagious disease of Islamophobia can be cured, and a strong antidote may be found in John L. Esposito's new book, "The Future of Islam" (Oxford, 2010).

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.

3 May 2010

One of the fascinating aspects of recent tensions between the American and Israeli governments over Washington’s Middle Eastern diplomacy has been a sea-change in the public posture of what is usually called “the Israeli lobby” in the United States.

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.

7 July 2008

One of the frightening lessons one learns from spending time in Washington, DC is that most of the men and women who make or influence American policy in the Middle East actually have little or no first-hand experience in the region. They know very little about its people, or its political trends at the grassroots level - as the Iraq experience reconfirms so painfully.

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.

14 July 2008

If the tensions in the Middle East between the American-Israeli-led side and the Iranian-Syrian-led side were a baseball game, this would be the fourth inning of a regulation nine-inning game. The players are warmed up, and have had a good look at each other's strengths and weaknesses, and are now prepared to get to the nitty-gritty core of the contest.

In 2006, Neil Young reunited with Crosby, Stills and Nash to protest against the Iraq war. Now he's made a film about the tour. Kaleem Aftab hears why.

14 July 2008
The Independent

Interview by Leo Benedictus
17 July 2008
The Guardian

In 2006 I went to photograph the hajj, the holy pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, which every believer must take during his or her lifetime to be considered a true Muslim. I was taking part myself for the sixth time.

In the face of kidnap, murder and no resources, Maysoon Pachachi's Baghdad film school is helping Iraqi film-makers find their voices once again, writes Cath Clarke.

1 May 2009
The Guardian

By Annabel Symington, winner of the 2009 John Ivinson Memorial Prize for Freedom of Expression.

5 May 2009

War raged in Gaza for 22 days. The battle for media coverage raged still longer. Western journalists viewed the war from a corralled position on a hill in Israel overlooking Gaza. The local journalists were inside, surrounded by the realities of the war. But did we hear their story?

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.

20 May 2009

The meeting in the White House Monday between President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu clarified significant differences as well as deep convergences in the two countries' approaches to two major sources of tension and conflict in the Middle East - the Iranian nuclear sector and the Arab-Israeli conflict. The convergences are well known, but the new gaps are the important element to watch in the coming months.

By M. Shahid Alam, professor of economics at a university in Boston and author of Challenging the New Orientalism: Dissenting Essays on America's 'War Against Islam'

7 November 2006

In a recent interview published in Haaretz, Naftali Tamir, the Israeli ambassador to Australia, articulates a perennial need for 'white' collaborators that has defined the Zionist project since its inception.

He speaks bluntly of an Israeli partnership with Australia, founded on racial solidarity, to "enhance" Israeli influence over East Asia. Only perhaps in the nineteenth century could a Western diplomat have spoken so plainly about race as the basis of a political alliance. Infinitely better armed against their Arab victims, the Israelis have no need for caution. They can dispense with diplomacy, with political correctness.

By Jamal Juma, coordinator of the Palestinian grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign

9 November 2006

The Israeli regime unleashes racist brutality that by far outstands the crimes of the previous apartheid regime in South Africa. It imprisons an entire people behind ghetto walls, kills them and submits them to an economic blockade that has brought communities to the verge of starvation. Yet, while exactly 30 years ago the UN General Assembly called for comprehensive sanctions against apartheid in South Africa, Palestinians are reminded on a daily basis that the Zionist Occupation can still count on the blindness of the world to its atrocities and crimes. Until when?

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.

30 June 2007

A new Pew Research Center Global Attitudes Survey published this week reveals that public attitudes towards the United States around the world continue to deteriorate, as they have for half a decade now, with particularly strong negative views about the US role in Iraq and American-style democracy. The massive survey of 45,000 people in 47 countries contained few surprises or any major new trends -- America is still admired by many around the world, and distrusted by many others. The survey results document the strong opposition to both the substance and manner of American foreign policy, but they also tell us something important about the societies being surveyed around the globe.

There were some pretty offensive things said and written in the British media during Israel's war against Lebanon, but most people, including the police, were unsure about whether some of those things crossed a line and incited racial hatred. Arab Media Watch intern Zeina Talhouni provides legal clarity.

10 November 2006

Following a spate of recent media inaccuracies concerning the legal status of the Arab territories occupied by Israel since 1967, and to coincide with the 40th anniversary of their capture, that of the Golan Heights is clarified by Arab Media Watch adviser Guy Gabriel and chairman Sharif Hikmat Nashashibi.

30 May 2007

It would be a disaster for the Middle East if the US neutered the region's most independent TV station, writes George Galloway, Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow.

15 June 2007
The Guardian

By Arab Media Watch intern Yasin Kakande

16 November 2006

A new law in the United Arab Emirates combating human trafficking was issued on 11 November 2006 after the US State Department report on human trafficking this year put the country on a watch list over the flourishing business.

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.

22 May 2007

For the past several years I and others have been warning that the growing number of conflicts in the Middle East is pushing this region towards new forms of radicalism and trouble. The clashes between the Lebanese army and the Fateh al-Islam extremist militants that have rocked the northern Lebanese town of Tripoli since Sunday are the latest face of that phenomenon.

The members may want to pin responsibility on just one man, but they have a moral duty to question their own role, writes Haifa Zangana, Arab Media Watch adviser and author of Women on a Journey: Between Baghdad and London.

28 May 2007
The Guardian

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.

9 June 2007

The Gulf and Arabian Peninsula attract attention often for the fast pace of their physical development, with the striking new commercial and government complexes appearing in the skylines of Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha, Kuwait, Manama and other Gulf cities. Yet something more intriguing and politically significant than spectacular architecture is taking place in the Gulf these days, and its impact is being felt around the region.

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.

7 July 2007

The continuing plague of terror attacks around the world seems to have reached another peak of moral indignation and political bewilderment with the arrest of eight doctors and medical workers suspected of being involved with last week's attempted attacks in the United Kingdom. This does not make it any easier to try to understand what motivates otherwise ordinary people to become terrorists; but it does make it more urgent to pursue such an enquiry fully and honestly, so that the world might improve the chances of actually fighting terrorism and reducing its menace.

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.

13 August 2008

Few observers expect the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli negotiations between the governments of Mahmoud Abbas and Ehud Olmert to achieve any significant breakthrough during the remaining months of President George W. Bush's term. One reason for the low expectations from the negotiations spawned by the Annapolis meeting in the United States last November is the low-key mediating role of the United States itself.

Ample experiences since the 1970s suggest that active external mediation is essential for success, due to low trust among the main protagonists and the need for foreign security guarantees and development aid that typically seal a peace deal in this region. Whatever happens in coming months, the stage is set for the next American administration to play an active role in Arab-Israeli peace-making - should it decide to do so.

By Jackson Allers, the English-language editor/writer for the Arab press freedom website www.menassat.com

14 August 2008

"The moment I stepped into the camps here in Lebanon, I thought I was in Palestine," Arab-American filmmaker Jackie Salloum said after a 6 August nighttime screening in the Shatila refugee camp of her documentary, Slingshot Hip Hop.

"I hope people living in Beirut come to see the film," Salloum said anxiously before a previous screening on 5 August in the Burj al-Barajne refugee camp.

Luckily for Salloum, the 2008 Sundance Film Festival entry about the Palestinian hip-hop movement in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip was shown last week to large audiences in Baddawi, Burj al-Barajne and Shatila -- three of Lebanon's 12 official Palestinian refugee camps.

More importantly, Palestinian youth from each of the camps came out in force to see what Salloum called, "a window into Palestine -- maybe feel a little more connected to the Palestinian hip-hop scene there."

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.

20 August 2008

The memorandum of understanding for easing sectarian tensions signed in Beirut Monday between Hizbullah and an obscure Lebanese Salafist (Sunni fundamentalist) Islamist movement isn't likely to have a major impact on anything.

But it is highly symbolic in revealing the constantly evolving line-up of major political actors throughout the Arab world. Key forces in the Arab world are very different from what they were a generation ago, and new actors keep emerging, representing different constituencies, and embracing new tactics and strategies.

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.

25 August 2008

Jordan is the great survivor in the Arab World, so when it starts shuffling its diplomatic cards, it means there is something going on worth watching. More specifically, when the Jordanian Intelligence Department chief holds political talks with a top Hamas official - as just happened - we should anticipate important changes ahead in the Arab world.

Israeli actor Igal Naor mesmerised critics and viewers as the Iraqi ruler in the BBC series House of Saddam. He tells Rachel Shabi why he came to empathise with the dictator - and how he landed the part thanks to a fake moustache and sticky tape.

26 August 2008
The Guardian

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.

3 September 2008

The agreement signed 30 August 2008, which sees Italy apologize and pay $5 billion in compensation for its colonial rule and misdeeds in Libya, is a powerful example of why it is so important to acknowledge that which many of our friends in the West constantly tell us to put behind us: history.

By Rory McCarthy
16 September 2008
The Guardian

As television dramas go, it was a modest affair. There was just one camera, a cast of 14 and all scenes were shot on the streets of Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank. The budget for the 10-episode series was about £120,000 - less than the cost of a single episode of a western soap opera.

But for the Palestinians, the television show Matabb marked a rare effort to produce a homegrown soap that would entertain as much as challenge its audience, tackling difficult issues of corruption and romance as well as the Israeli occupation.

Even that was too much for some. Before the first episode was screened, the state television channel, the Palestine Broadcasting Corporation (PBC), took the show off the air without explanation and has not broadcast it since.

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.

17 September 2008

It was almost exactly 20 years ago this month that Al-Qaeda was born in Afghanistan, as a movement of zealous holy warriors that was prepared to fight and die to protect the Islamic umma, or community, from foreign assault. The Russian occupation of Afghanistan was the immediate catalyst that sparked its creation, though the formative motivations sending thousands of young men from Arab and Asian lands to join the jihad were usually anchored in local events and personal experiences.

The several phenomena that Al-Qaeda represents - defensive jihad, militant self-assertion, a puritanical interpretation of religious doctrine, cosmic theological battle, and political struggle to purify tainted Islamic societies - appeal to a wide variety of individuals who gravitate to its call in the same manner that zealots join any other such movement of true believers.

Coming to grips with the phenomena it represents - especially the continuing threat of terrorism - requires grasping the combination of social, economic and political conditions in local societies from which Al-Qaeda recruits emanate - mainly in the Arab World, South Asia, and immigrant quarters of urban Europe.

Al-Qaeda's 20th anniversary is an appropriate moment to do this, and the 20-year analytical frame is much more useful than the shorter time context commemorating the September 11, 2001 attack against the United States that has been Al-Qaeda's hallmark signature event.

By Leonard Doyle
19 August 2008
The Independent

When Jon Stewart inaugurated his fake news anchor on The Daily Show eight years ago, his goal was to send up the hyperbolic and manufactured controversy of US Cable News and, if possible, be even more outrageous. Now, in a wonderful through-the-looking-glass moment, he has supplanted the subjects of his mockery in the country's current affairs consciousness, and finds himself crowned the bemused voice of reason in an insane world.

The underground comic has become such a cultural touchstone that The New York Times asked this week whether he has become "the most trusted man in America".

For anyone who has missed the influential anchor, then his take on the way mainstream media peddles false rumours about Barack Obama is instructive. He calls it "Baracknophobia" and shows clips of blow-dried anchors and experts repeating widely-believed but baseless rumours – that the Democrat is actually a secret Muslim, a plagiarist, a misogynist etc.

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.

1 October 2008

I was not surprised, during a working visit to Egypt for a few days, to read the results of the latest BBC World Service global poll showing that in 22 out of 23 countries surveyed most people feel the US-led 'global war on terror' has not weakened Al-Qaeda. On average, the poll showed, only 22% of respondents feel that Al-Qaeda has been weakened, while three in five believe that the war on terror has had no effect (29%) or made Al-Qaeda stronger (30%).

A child on Hamas TV talked of annihilating the Jews ... or did she?

By Brian Whitaker
15 May 2007
The Guardian

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.

19 May 2007

I write this from the Dead Sea in Jordan, at the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) Middle Eastern gathering of business, government, civil society and media leaders. Visible across the Dead Sea to the west is the Israeli-occupied Palestinian West Bank and Jerusalem, and further west is Gaza, ravaged by Palestinian in-fighting, Israeli strangulation and assassinations, and American-Israeli-led fiscal sanctions.

Here at WEF, though, many Arabs and a few Israelis persist in the quest for a negotiated, just peace. There is a peculiar incongruity to hundreds of immensely successful and very powerful Arab, Israeli and international businessmen and women who meet regularly, yet cannot find the tools needed to change the mundane, often mediocre, policies of their political leaders.

Following a spate of recent media inaccuracies concerning the legal status of the Arab territories occupied by Israel since 1967, and to coincide with the 40th anniversary of their capture, that of East Jerusalem is clarified by Arab Media Watch adviser Victor Kattan, research fellow at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law.

30 May 2007

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.

1 June 2007

UN Security Council Resolution 1757, passed last Wednesday to establish an international court to try those who will be accused of killing former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and 22 others since February 2005, has sparked intense and justified debate. This is indeed a historic resolution, especially coupled with the ongoing international investigation into the murders and other bombings that have plagued Lebanon in recent years.

The confusing truth is that the positions of both the resolution's supporters and opponents are correct to a large extent: The resolution promises justice and an end to impunity for the as yet unidentified killers and bombers; it infringes on Lebanese sovereignty; it exacerbates the existing domestic political polarization between the government and the opposition; it targets Syria and its friends in Lebanon; it ravages the Lebanese legacy of consensus-based national policy-making; and, it offers all Lebanese an opportunity to rally around a new political idea in order to move their country forward again.

As such the resolution is merely one more facet of the fundamental ideological war that has defined Lebanon and the Middle East for the past few years.

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.

18 April 2007

I'm not sure if it's mere serendipity or anything more challenging, but every time I have come to Jordan recently, my trip has coincided with the visit of a senior American official. Three weeks ago I was in Amman at the same time as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and this week my fellow visitor to the Jordanian capital was Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

These top officials from Washington seem less significant these days in many ways, due to a drop in global perceptions of the United States. Over a decade and a half since the Cold War ended, we hear less from leading American academics, polemicists, and entertainers who offer theories that explain the new grand order of the world. Most of those theories have tended to see the world from the US perspective, which is a perfectly normal sort of temporary self-infatuation, given the power of the United States globally.

We may be able, conversely, to identify new trends that reflect how the rest of the world looks at the United States. I can think of three principal criteria by which we can gauge how the world perceives American values (positively) and foreign policy (negatively): public opinion as measured by many credible opinion polls, the policies of foreign governments, and the manner in which senior American officials are treated by their hosts, the public and the media in countries they visit.

On all three counts, the United States is slipping in the eyes of the world. But I suspect we're seeing something far more significant than just a normal rising curve of anti-American sentiments in response to America's robust use of its power around the world. Several related trends seem to be converging and are most visible in the Middle East.

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.

28 April 2007

We are often so obsessed with the problems and conflicts that define the Middle East-West relationship today that we tend to lose sight of the constructive currents that flow beneath the surface. An unusual week of consecutive conferences and seminars in Amman and Beirut brought that point home to me last week. Honest exchanges with scholars, officials and activists of integrity and insight -- especially ones we disagree with -- enrich our understanding of this region, its ties to the world, and the core issues that plague and challenge us.

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.

8 May 2007

Turkey's tempestuous current events are historic in their implications for this country and the entire Middle East, but they are about much more than a tug-of-war between Islamism and secularism.

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.

14 May 2007

It's hard to get away from a central fact of Middle Eastern politics and statehood: the role of the military and security in the business of government and the exercise of public authority. This is a largely unaddressed issue in the otherwise vibrant galaxy of political and economic reform issues being debated throughout the Arab World and other Asian and African states.

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.

28 May 2007

The United States makes so many abrupt changes in its strategy in Iraq, and its rationale for being there, that you need a direct feed podcast from the White House to keep up with the breaking news of its broken policy. The latest theme from the United States -- it is not clear if this is new strategy, new threat, new trial balloon, or just massive frustration -- is that it has limited patience with the Iraqis. If Iraqis do not get their house in order and grasp the democratic opportunity before them, the US will start leaving. We hear this from senior American officials, leading columnists and politicians, and it is the closest thing there is to a national American consensus on Iraq -- abandon the mess you created in the first place.

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.

27 June 2007

I was in Europe earlier this week speaking with assorted current and former officials, experts, and diplomats about the general situation in the Middle East, when the news broke of the expected appointment of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair as special envoy of the Quartet (US, Russia, UN, EU) for Arab-Israeli peace-making. It is hard to know if this is a joke, an insult, or a possible positive new beginning.

By Gary Leupp, professor of history at Tufts University, and adjunct professor of comparative religion.

7 April 2006

On NBC's "Meet the Press" March 26 Condoleezza Rice told Tim Russert, "Saddam was not related to the events of 9/11. But if you really believe that the only thing that happened on 9/11 was people flew airplanes into buildings, I think you have a very narrow view of what we faced on 9/11. We faced the, the outcome of an ideology of hatred throughout the Middle East that had to be dealt with. Saddam Hussein was a part of that old Middle East. The new Iraq will be a part of a new Middle East, and we will all be safer."

Russert might have asked whether the new, liberated Afghanistan and Iraq represent any improvement in the hatred department. In the former, to the administration's embarrassment and the consternation of its Christian fundamentalist supporters, people face death for conversion to Christianity. In the latter, women are now obliged to follow a religious dress code or risk attack. These countries are in Bush-theory "free and democratic" now, apparently solely because their regimes have been changed by U.S. military force. They're free by definition, much like the countries of the "Free World" labeled such during the Cold War.

By Rime Allaf, Arab Media Watch adviser and associate fellow of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) whose blog is www.rimeallaf.com.

19 July 2007
Bitter Lemons Internationals

The "blame Syria" game is in full swing again as the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared succumbs slowly and painfully to a battle begun a couple of months ago. Under shelling by an increasingly desperate Lebanese army - that is overwhelmed by the loss of over 100 soldiers as it tries to defeat the obscure militant group of Fateh al-Islam and is taking untold Palestinian civilian casualties in the process - the crumbling camp continues to harbor militants of various nationalities as different theories about their origins and their sponsors are proffered.

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.

21 July 2007

Iran is at once impressive yet offensive. I want to embrace it, but it keeps pushing me away through its own misdeeds. Iran is widely demonized in the United States, much of Europe, and throughout Arab official circles and pockets of Arab society. Yet, it is also lionized among other quarters in the Middle East and the world. It is difficult these days to hear a nuanced view of Iran, because of the crush of absolute verdicts that see it as either historically virtuous or criminally evil.

I share this dilemma over Iranian policies and behavior. Is it possible -- even ideologically permissible -- to see both good and bad lurking in the same place? I think that in the case of Iran, we should make the effort.

By Arab Media Watch adviser Guy Gabriel

2 August 2007

On 26 July 2007, the Arab-British Chamber of Commerce hosted a full-to-capacity event organised by Arab Media Watch entitled "Sudan: Challenges & Opportunities."

Speaking on the panel were the Independent's Africa correspondent Steve Bloomfield, and His Excellency Omar Siddig, Sudanese Ambassador to the UK. Nima Elbagir, international affairs reporter for ITN / Channel 4 / More 4, was scheduled to speak but was unable to due to unforeseen circumstances.

The evening was characterised by the polished diplomatic delivery of the Ambassador, the often-conflicting personal accounts of the journalist, and the always-conflicting personal accounts and questions of various members of the motivated, largely Sudanese audience.

By Tony Judt, director of the Remarque Institute at New York University and author of "Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945."

19 April 2006
New York Times

In its March 23rd issue the London Review of Books, a respected British journal, published an essay titled "The Israel Lobby." The authors are two distinguished American academics (Stephen Walt of Harvard and John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago) who posted a longer (83-page) version of their text on the Web site of Harvard's Kennedy School.

As they must have anticipated, the essay has run into a firestorm of vituperation and refutation. Critics have charged that their scholarship is shoddy and that their claims are, in the words of the columnist Christopher Hitchens, "slightly but unmistakably smelly." The smell in question, of course, is that of anti-Semitism.

This somewhat hysterical response is regrettable.

By Ahmed Amr, former editor of NileMedia.com.

7 April 2006

On any given day, anti-war bloggers vent their frustrations by tallying the inventory of damages from this war of choice. Their articles invariably begin by critiquing the bogus WMD rationale for the war and lamenting the escalating cost in blood and treasure.

There is no arguing with these peace activists – if only because they have all the facts on their side. To get an idea of the state of this enterprise, consider that Condi Rice is now owning up to “thousands of tactical errors” in what General William Odom has more precisely described as the “greatest strategic disaster in United States history.”

By Tahrir Swift, Arab Media Watch adviser and exile from Saddam Hussein's regime

29 March 2007

"The barbaric crime of violating 14-year-old Abeer Qassim Hamza in the town of Mahmoudiya, her murder and the massacre of her family by the occupiers, will not unfortunately be the last shocking crime to be committed in Iraq. History has shown us that such acts exemplify the occupation and its purpose."

These were the words of Hana Ibrahim, leader of the Women's Will Association, formed in the wake of the invasion of Iraq and committed to ending discrimination against women, in accordance with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (Iraqi ratification 1986).

Iraqi women have borne the brunt of the decline in public security and safety due to the dismantling of the police force and security instruments of the state by the occupiers. Women found out very quickly that any gunman can dictate whether or not they are allowed to go to school, work, or even visit friends and relatives. The atmosphere of fear means Iraqi women have lost their independence.

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.

23 April 2007

The debate over democracy in Arab and Islamic countries continues to twist and turn, responding variously to indigenous forces and to erratic perceptions from the West, especially the United States. New evidence of the native Arab commitment to human decency and democratic political norms comes this week from within, in the form of yet another relevant, quality regional poll by the Center for Strategic Studies (CSS) at the University of Jordan. The findings and their implications are significant, especially in this violence-wracked region where the attempt to promote democracy via foreign armies, as in Iraq, has been catastrophic for local stability, Western credibility, the public relevance of local Arab democratic activists, and the good name of democracy itself.

Follow the fortunes of seven families from seven countries for a year. This week: The Khalils in Sidon.

By Arab Media Watch adviser Karma Nabulsi
12 May 2007
The Guardian

By Rime Allaf, Arab Media Watch adviser and associate fellow of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) whose blog is www.rimeallaf.com.

11 April 2007

There are good news and bad news to report after Nancy Pelosi's visit to Damascus. The good news is that it seems to prove that there is no such thing as bad publicity (mostly for Syria), that more Americans are now vaguely aware of a place called Syria, and that some have even understood the meaning of "the road to Damascus" in its original and current political sense. The bad news is that many now think we actually killed John The Baptist, decapitated him and burried his head in the Omayyad Mosque.

If the US is going to wait until the time is right before withdrawing, we could be in for another hundred years war, writes Geoffrey Wheatcroft, author of The Strange Death of Tory England.

23 June 2006
The Guardian

By Arab Media Watch member Omar Waraich

22 June 2006

Survey the newsstands here each morning, absorb hours of television and radio news, solicit the opinions of those fine "passers-by", and one can easily be transported to the conclusion that there is no joy to be derived under the shadow of Tony Blair.

Aggression under false pretences
The Palestinian catastrophe: Then and now
Secrets and lies at the heart of Britain's Middle Eastern folly
Entry denied: Deporting witnesses of Israeli occupation and unilateralism

Former Arab Media Watch intern Faerlie Wilson explains why she is not evacuating Beirut.

25 July 2006

By Victor Kattan, director of Arab Media Watch and visiting fellow at a leading British institute of international law.

26 July 2006

Many pro-Israel TV pundits are justifying Israel's relentless bombardment of Lebanon as "self-defence". For example, Jerry Lewis, senior vice-president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, told the BBC's Dateline London programme on Sunday 23 July that Israel was acting in self-defence according to the UN Charter.

Self-defence is specifically mentioned in Article 51 of the Charter, and is effectively a derogation from the prohibition on the use of force contained in Article 2 (4). Whether or not Israel is acting in self-defence in Lebanon according to the Charter is a crucial question, as the implications of its actions could have negative ramifications beyond the Arab-Israeli conflict and spill over into other problem areas. I consider Israel's self-defence argument an abuse of terminology that is not applicable to the facts at hand and has no justification in international law.

Israel is seeking to cast itself as the victim even as it expels the people of Lebanon and Gaza from their homes, writes Karma Nabulsi, Arab Media Watch advisor, teacher of politics and international relations at Oxford University, and author of Traditions of War: Occupation, Resistance and the Law.

2 August 2006
The Guardian

By Arab Media Watch advisor Guy Gabriel.

9 August 2006

Water has been and will continue to be of great importance in the Israeli-Lebanese conflict, though the truth of this is often overlooked.

By Arab Media Watch advisor Guy Gabriel

31 July 2006

By Arab Media Watch advisor Guy Gabriel.

6 August 2006

In May 2000, Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon after 22 years of occupation. Some doubted what the withdrawal would achieve in the long term, given that Hezbollah remained undefeated and armed.

Nevertheless, until Israel's 2006 invasion of Lebanon, the years since the withdrawal saw a much more peaceful border, and although the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms saw incidents, the rest of the border was mostly quiet. However, political and media spin plays a large part in perpetuating the myth that Hezbollah has been consistently menacing and attacking Israel since its withdrawal.

By Arab Media Watch chairman Sharif Hikmat Nashashibi.

16 August 2006

There are several problems with the resolution, which Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres has openly said is "favourable to Israel" and "justifies the stance Israel has adopted since the start." Following its passage on 11 August 2006, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor added that "we have the diplomatic advantage."

By Jonathan Cook, author of Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State.

20 November 2006

David Grossman's widely publicised speech at the annual memorial rally for Yitzhak Rabin earlier this month has prompted some fine deconstruction of his "words of peace" from critics.

Grossman, one of Israel's foremost writers and a figurehead for its main peace movement, Peace Now, personifies the caring, tortured face of Zionism that so many of the country's apologists -- in Israel and abroad, trenchant and wavering alike -- desperately want to believe survives, despite the evidence of the Qanas, Beit Hanouns and other massacres committed by the Israeli army against Arab civilians. Grossman makes it possible to believe, for a moment, that the Ariel Sharons and Ehud Olmerts are not the real upholders of Zionism's legacy, merely a temporary deviation from its true path.

In reality, of course, Grossman draws from the same ideological well-spring as Israel's founders and its greatest warriors. He embodies the same anguished values of Labor Zionism that won Israel international legitimacy just as it was carrying out one of history's great acts of ethnic cleansing: the expulsion of some 750,000 Palestinians, or 80 per cent the native population, from the borders of the newly established Jewish state.

By former Foreign Service officer John Brown, and former CIA analyst Ray McGovern.

22 November 2006

The war in Iraq began as a war based largely on illusions. But now most Americans realize that the always-illusory option of "staying the course" in Iraq will never work. This was the main message of the recent Congressional elections. Still, there is a great danger that we will fall victim to additional Iraq-related illusions - illusions fostered by the administration, Congress, the Pentagon and the mainstream media.

Rime Allaf, a member of Arab Media Watch and associate fellow of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), analyses Syria's current regional position.

23 November 2006
Bitter Lemons International

By Dr. James J. Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute in Washington, DC.

4 December 2006

Each year Zogby International (ZI) polls Arabs in six countries to test the mood across the region. Last year we found that despite ongoing conflicts and internal problems plaguing some countries, many Arabs were expressing a degree of confidence in their present circumstances and optimism about their futures. In fact, last year’s mood was the brightest since we began our annual polling in 2002.

That was last year. This year is a different story.

By Arab Media Watch advisor Dr Karma Nabulsi, teacher of politics and international relations at Oxford University, author of Traditions of War: Occupation, Resistance and the Law, and former representative of the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

19 December 2006
The Guardian

Mahmoud Abbas declared yesterday: "Let the people decide for themselves what they want." But there already is a national consensus: there must be Palestinian elections, not for a president of the Palestinian Authority, or for members of its legislative council, but for the Palestinian National Council, the institutional body that forms the sovereign base of the Palestine Liberation Organisation and is the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. The Palestinian people have already elected a legislative council that represents a proportion of the body politic. They now demand elections for the entire Palestinian population.

By Arab Media Watch intern Yasin Kakande

21 December 2006

The government of the United Arab Emirates has come under strong criticism from human rights activists for its mistreatment of labourers. According to a recent Human Rights Watch report, the government is failing to protect migrant workers from serious abuse by employers. HRW said the men - generally from India, Pakistan and China - were treated as "less than human."

By Chris Hedges, a senior fellow at The Nation Institute and author of War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning and American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.

21 December 2006
The Nation

Jimmy Carter, by publishing his book Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, walked straight into the buzz saw that is the Israel lobby. Among the vitriolic attacks on the former President was the claim by Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, that Carter is "outrageous" and "bigoted" and that his book raises "the old canard and conspiracy theory of Jewish control of the media, Congress, and the U.S. government." Many Democratic Party leaders, anxious to keep the Israel lobby's money and support, have hotfooted it out the door, with incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announcing that Carter "does not speak for the Democratic Party on Israel."

Carter's book exposes little about Israel. The enforced segregation, abject humiliation and spiraling Israeli violence against Palestinians have been detailed in the Israeli and European press and, with remarkable consistency, by all the major human rights organizations. The assault against Carter, rather, says more about the failings of the American media--which have largely let Israel hawks heap calumny on Carter's book. It exposes the indifference of the Bush Administration and the Democratic leadership to the rule of law and basic human rights, the timidity of our intellectual class and the moral bankruptcy of institutions that claim to speak for American Jews and the Jewish state.

By Arab Media Watch member Mazin Qumsiyeh, author of "Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human Rights and the Israeli/Palestinian Struggle." He served on the faculties of Duke and Yale Universities.

26 December 2006
Palestine Chronicle

As a Palestinian-American, I am appalled that many people meeting in Teheran claim to support Palestine while denying or trying to minimise Jewish suffering. Few at the conference articulated that the Holocaust did happen, was horrendous, and it need not be denied in order to support Palestinian human rights or to oppose Zionism (throughout I refer to political Zionism not cultural Zionism).

By Robert Fisk
30 December 2006
The Independent

Saddam to the gallows. It was an easy equation. Who could be more deserving of that last walk to the scaffold - that crack of the neck at the end of a rope - than the Beast of Baghdad, the Hitler of the Tigris, the man who murdered untold hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis while spraying chemical weapons over his enemies? Our masters will tell us in a few hours that it is a "great day" for Iraqis and will hope that the Muslim world will forget that his death sentence was signed - by the Iraqi "government", but on behalf of the Americans - on the very eve of the Eid al-Adha, the Feast of the Sacrifice, the moment of greatest forgiveness in the Arab world.

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.

12 January 2007

According to official Washington explanations, President George W. Bush is working hard to achieve a wholesale transformation of Iraq, and the Middle East, into a more stable, productive, democratic nation, and region. I know Bush enjoys reading a lot of American history, but he would do well to check out some historical narratives from this region, especially if he is sending many thousands more young American men and women with guns and missiles to engage with the natives out here. He might specifically benefit from reading about another Western leader who towered over the world and similarly tried to rearrange the Middle East -- the Roman Emperor Diocletian.

An AIPAC shot across Baker's bow?
The US occupation of Iraq: Act III in a tragedy of many parts
US troops should leave country, but how will America then keep control of oil fields?

Saddam jailed me but his hanging was a crime. Iraq's misery is now far worse than under his rule, writes Arab Media Watch adviser Haifa Zangana.

4 January 2007
The Guardian

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.

27 August 2008

In the world of nation-states, the small Arab emirates and states of the Gulf region have been peculiar beasts since their birth in the middle of the last century, in the wake of the retreating British. Their transformation into wealthy, glittering, bustling city-states in a matter of decades, in some cases, has been impressive - and perhaps unprecedented in the entire history of human civilization.

The Gulf city-state sheikhdoms remain largely unstudied, though. Their chosen course of breakneck speed, foreign-manned socio-economic development and growth, and their unique brand of overnight nationalism anchored in cities that barely existed decades previously, deserve analysis in their own right, and also for what they might teach other Arab countries.

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.

8 September 2008

Regional and international players have been meeting in Damascus for thousands of years, to do one of two things: make war, or make a deal. This week's four-way summit of the leaders of France, Syria, Qatar and Turkey in Damascus perpetuates the age-old tradition of deal-making - in this case bargaining over strategic assets and positions, rather than fine-thread carpets.

Britain seems reluctant to take a firm stand against the illegal colonisation activities by Jewish settlers, writes Abe Hayeem, Arab Media Watch member and founder member of Architects & Planners for Justice in Palestine.

9 September 2008
The Guardian

Arab soap operas are wildly popular during the Muslim holy month, but conservative clerics are in uproar, writes Middle East editor Ian Black.

17 September 2008
The Guardian

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.

16 January 2007

In the span of five days last week, I had the pleasure of participating in five different events that brought together concerned civil society activists, assorted professionals, academics, and a few public figures from across the Arab world. These gatherings are routine nowadays, but are also noteworthy because they mirror a wider determination among Arab men and women to chart a new path out of the mediocrity, violence and despair that define many aspects of Arab society these days.

By Tahrir Swift, Arab Media Watch adviser and exile from Saddam's regime.

11 February 2007

The new American "surge" in Iraq is not new. The proposed military methods in this "new" campaign are also old, well-tried, and have proven their failure over and over again.

In 2006, the US administration increased the number of American troops to 165,000, mainly through postponing the leave of those due to return. Last year, we had two major military operations: "Freedom in the Balance" and "Together Forward." Neither brought security or stability to Iraqis. There is no good reason to believe this surge will be any different.

By Arab Media Watch member and Iraqi political analyst Munir Chalabi.

7 January 2007

The US Democrats and the Republicans may disagree on many tactics and probably on part of the strategy for how to sustain the military occupation of Iraq, but when it comes to the strategy for the future of Iraqi oil, they seem to be in agreement on every detail.

The Iraq Study Group (ISG) report represents a joint approach by both parties, and its recommendations look to be very similar to the right-wing Republican policies set by the State Department's "Future for Iraq Project" prior to the 2003 invasion.

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.

2 February 2007

Regardless of whether the United States' current military surge and slight shift in tactics in Iraq succeeds or fails, Washington has clearly defined and started to implement its fallback plan in the Middle East: an across-the-board, active battle against Iran.

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.

29 January 2007
Newsweek International

A major ideological war now defines the Middle East. Coalitions of countries and movements, led by the United States and Iran, do political and military battle on simultaneous fronts.

The latest of these is downtown Beirut, where barricades and barbed wire fortify the offices of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora. On the one side, the duly elected Lebanese government clings tenaciously to power behind cohorts of armed soldiers backed by APCs. On the other, camped in tents, are thousands of demonstrators who seek to topple it. The government has its foreign backers: the United States, the United Nations, France and the EU, as well as such pro-Western Arab nations as Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The protesters have theirs: Iran, Syria and their allies, Hizbullah, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. The twin blocs are faced off, eyeball-to-eyeball, in a bitter contest to define the future of the Middle East. Yet what a surreal war of wills. Strolling through the city center, you can find it hard to decide whether you've stumbled across a campy World War II movie set or a 1970s rock concert.

By Rime Allaf, Arab Media Watch adviser and associate fellow of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) whose blog is www.rimeallaf.com

3 February 2007

Well that's interesting. So you have your land occupied, and you fight a war to get it back, and it's called an "invasion" (a "joint Arab invasion" to be precise). That's the 1973 October War for you, an invasion.

In contrast, the initial invasion of Arab lands by Israel is called "capture." You see, the plateau was "captured from Syria by Israel in 1967 during the Six Day War," which from this description sounds like it just was an inevitable, unfortunate turn of events, rather than a unilateral, simultaneous Israeli attack on several Arab countries. They might as well have written that "The Golan Heights were just running around in the wild and Israel decided to capture them for safekeeping." Other equally imprecise reports describe the Golan as having been “seized from Syria in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.”  

It gets worse: the Golan Heights plateau, apparently, is "one of the most contentious strips of land on the planet." Really? Why is that? What exactly is controversial or debatable about which country has the rightful ownership of the Golan Heights? Are there no history books around? Are there no UN resolutions mentioning it?

And that's The Independent! Imagine the other media.

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.

6 February 2007

The one person whose photograph hangs in my office is the late Lebanese writer Samir Kassir. He was assassinated in 2005, but his ideas are more relevant than ever, as Lebanon, Palestine and the entire Arab world that defined his life embrace greater tension and violence practiced simultaneously by the state, opposition groups and foreign armies. The British publisher Verso has just put out an English translation of his small book, an extended essay really, entitled Being Arab.

Kassir's enduring power reflects two core aspects of his life and work: his insistence on challenging the oppression and indignities that many Arabs suffered at the hands of their own regimes or foreign powers, while at the same time rejecting the tendency to wallow in a sense of victimization. Instead, he affirms faith in the modern Arab world's capacity for national rejuvenation, cultural affirmation and humanistic progress.

Kassir touched so many people because these sentiments are not the lone thoughts of a maverick Arab writer. Rather, this conviction of one's worth and potential is a prevalent attitude in the heart of hundreds of millions of ordinary Arab men and women who, like him, refuse to submit to humiliation and powerlessness, and instead affirm their humanity and their rights as citizens.

The Guardian readers' editor Ian Mayes on ... charges of an anti-Israel hoax in south Lebanon.

11 September 2006

By William Blum, author of Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, Rogue State: a guide to the World's Only Super Power. and West-Bloc Dissident: a Cold War Political Memoir.

26 September 2006

Hand-in-hand with his threat warnings, Bush keeps telling us how his War on Terror has made us so much safer, bragging that there hasn't been a terrorist attack in the United States in the five years since the one of September 11, 2001. Marvelous. There wasn't a terrorist attack in the United States in the five years before that day either. But thanks to the War on Terror -- particularly the bombing, invasion, occupation, and torture of Afghanistan and Iraq -- numerous new anti-American terrorists have been created since that historic day. The latest confirmation of this, if any more were needed, is the recently leaked National Intelligence Estimate conclusion that "the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and ... the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks."

By Arab Media Watch member Mary Nazzal-Batayneh

4 September 2006

Activists arrived at the UK headquarters of Carmel-Agrexco before sunrise on Wednesday morning for a day of uncompromising protest. The purpose underlying the protest was clear: to expose an Israeli company that is engaging in continuous unlawful and brutal activity by importing fresh produce originating from illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

By Khalid Amayreh

When the Qatar-based pan-Arab Al-Jazeera Satellite Television announced two years ago plans to launch Al-Jazeera International (AJI), many people around the world hoped the new satellite channel would provide a genuine alternative to the notoriously biased western media, which often operates under Zionist influence.

The new channel, the launching of which has been postponed several times, will provide both regional and global perspective to a potential audience of hundreds of millions of English speakers.

AJI is the world's first English-language news channel to be headquartered in the Middle East, with news management rotating around broadcasting centers in Athens, Doha, London, Washington, D.C., and Kuala Lumpur.

AJI has already attracted a number of luminaries in the world of TV broadcasting, including such people as Sir David Frost and Riz Khan.

However, it seems that disappointment may lie in wait for many of those who expected to see an international TV channel that is fair and objective and — especially — free from the usual Anglo-American (and Israeli) worldview.

In fact, there are already ominous signs showing that pro-Israeli sympathizers, some of them with a background in the BBC, are exerting control on the editorial policies of the new channel, all under the rubric of professionalism and journalistic standards.

This writer, who has been working for Aljazeera.net/English (which has now been incorporated into AJI) has discovered, by chance, efforts by some senior western editors at AJI to minimize and avoid as much as possible the publication of articles, especially news and feature stories, portraying Israel in a bad light or otherwise exposing Israeli occupation practices against the Palestinian people.

By Dr Sara Roy, a professor at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University.

4 October 2006

In one of many reports and accounts of economic life in the Gaza Strip that I have recently read, I was struck by a description of an old man standing on the beach in Gaza throwing his oranges into the sea. The description leapt out at me because it was this very same scene I myself witnessed some 21 years ago during my very first visit to the territory. It was the summer of 1985 and I was taken on a tour of Gaza by a friend named Alya. As we drove along Gaza's coastal road I saw an elderly Palestinian man standing at the shoreline with some boxes of oranges next to him. I was puzzled by this and asked Alya to stop the car. One by one, the elderly Palestinian took an orange and threw it into the water. His was not an action of playfulness but of pain and regret. His movements were slow and labored as if the weight of each orange was more than he could bear. I asked my friend why he was doing this and she explained that he was prevented from exporting his oranges to Israel and rather than watch them rot in his orchards, the old man chose to cast them into the sea. I have never forgotten this scene and the impact it had on me.