During the week of 24-30 November 2008, Arab Media Watch issued to the media a monitoring study entitled "Middle Eastern Sovereign Wealth Funds in the British Media," and a document entitled "Israeli Settlements: The Peace Process, the Quartet, International Law & Leading NGOs," which a Times journalist described as "very helpful."

Al Jazeera English interviewed AMW chairman Sharif Hikmat Nashashibi about media coverage of Gaza; Press TV interviewed AMW adviser Guy Gabriel; and Nashashibi presented Press TV's Middle East Today programme, in which he interviewed writer and human rights activist Peter Tatchell, former MI5 intelligence officer Annie Machon, and Sir Alan Munro, former British Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and chairman of the British-Saudi Society.

Nashashibi had lunch with a senior journalist at the Times.

AMW issued an Action Alert urging its members and the public to thank the Independent and Yasmin Alibhai-Brown for her column entitled "Where is the media outrage over Gaza?" Alibhai-Brown thanked Nashashibi for his email thanking her.

AMW adviser Dr Karma Nabulsi was part of a panel with Israeli professor Ilan Pappe (Exeter University) and Gideon Levy of Israel's Haaretz newspaper, entitled "The occupation and Israeli civil society."

The Russian news and information agency Novosti published a commentary by AMW adviser Rime Allaf entitled "Courting Syria: London joins the queue."

AMW liaised with every British national daily broadsheet newspaper, as well as the Economist, Sun, Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, Evening Standard, Observer, Reuters, BBC, Associated Press, ABC News, Arab News Broadcasting, Press TV, and the Palestinian, Saudi and Syrian embassies.

27 November 2008

Margaret Nashashibi, widow of the late Arab Media Watch member Issam Nashashibi, has donated his extensive library on Palestine to the Deir Yassin Remembered Archives. This wonderful collection (24 boxes) of rare books and periodicals will be available to the public when the archives are reinstituted at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York.

25 November 2008

A study by Arab Media Watch has revealed that many of the criteria relevant to the significance of settlements are not frequently reported. Vital information such as their position under international law, their construction on occupied Palestinian land, and their contravention of the peace process, are often omitted.

AMW has therefore produced an easy-to-read document to clarify these issues, as well as the positions taken by the "Quartet" (UN, US, EU, and Russia) and international NGOs with respect to the settlements.

25 November 2008
Arab Media Watch

Jordan has won its first International Emmy Award with Al-Igtiyah (The Invasion), a love story about a Palestinian caught up in the chaos and destruction of the large-scale 2002 Israeli military incursion into the biggest West Bank cities. The TV series won the newly established telenovela category at the International Emmys in New York yesterday.

On Saturday 29 November 2008, Arab Media Watch adviser Dr Karma Nabulsi joins a panel alongside Israeli professor Ilan Pappe (Exeter University) and Gideon Levy of Israel's Haaretz newspaper, entitled "The occupation and Israeli civil society."

On Tuesday 2 December, Nabulsi joins a panel with Levy and Israeli Eyal Sivan of the University of East London, entitled "The Israeli occupation: Apathy in society."

During the week of 10-16 November 2008, Arab Media Watch sent to the media a background document detailing and quoting Barack Obama's views and policies towards Israel, as well as those of his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. Journalists from the Times and Al Hiwar TV thanked AMW for the document, Media Lens published it, and someone emailed AMW saying he "cited your excellent briefing page" in correspondence with Financial Times columnist Philip Stephens.

AMW helped an Al Jazeera English presenter with contacts in Lebanon.

AMW director Muna Nashashibi attended the Fikr 7 conference organised by the Arab Thought Foundation in Cairo. Afterwards, she was interviewed about AMW by Al Khalij newspaper of the United Arab Emirates, and Al Muheit online newspaper; and by Al Hayat newspaper about the interfaith dialogue meeting held by Saudi King Abdullah.

The Guardian published a commentary by AMW chairman Sharif Hikmat Nashashibi, entitled "How US claims about Syria became media facts."

He presented Middle East Today on Press TV, interviewing Jim Brann from the Stop the War Coalition; Alexander Deane, a barrister, author, former chief of staff to Tory leader David Cameron, and a World Universities Debating Champion; and Alex Jones, a documentary filmmaker and nationally syndicated radio talk show host in the US.

A Guardian journalist replied to an email from AMW adviser Guy Gabriel about his review of the documentary "Inside the Saudi Kingdom"; AMW adviser Tahrir Swift wrote to the Independent to thank its Iraq correspondent Patrick Cockburn for an article entitled "The US can quit Iraq, or it can stay. But it can't do both"; and AMW member Lena El-Malak wrote to the Guardian to point out an error in an article by Middle East correspondent Rory McCarthy.

A conference took place entitled "Under Siege: Islam, War & the Media," organised by Media Workers Against War, whose committee includes AMW advisers Sami Ramadani and Haifa Zangana. Ramadani spoke on "Prospects for Iraq under Obama" at the Iraq Occupation Focus annual general meeting. The UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office invited AMW to a Middle East briefing.

AMW liaised with the Times, Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Reuters, Channel 4, Al Jazeera English, ABC News, Al Hayat, Al Hiwar TV, Arab News Broadcasting, Lebanon's Daily Star, Press TV, the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office, and the Palestinian and Syrian embassies.

Journalist and author Hugh Miles is looking for a native Arabic speaker interested in assisting him perform a qualitative analysis of some Arabic TV and Internet output.

Lena El-Malak, Arab Media Watch member and PhD candidate in international law at London's School of Oriental and African Studies, emailed the Guardian readers editor on 11 November 2008 to point out an error in an article on Israel / Palestine.