Al Jazeera is not pro-Zionist enough for Fouad Ajami's taste
Rime Allaf, December 2001

The media in the US and in Europe consider themselves free and impartial; whether this is really the case is disputable, to say the least. Numerous incidents in the recent past have indicated how easily its reporters have bowed to pressure from authorities in various countries, or even from their own bosses. This is particularly true with reference to events in the Middle East and lately in Afghanistan.

For instance, we recall how Reuters and the BBC, among others, responded readily to Israel’s demand that assassinations (of Palestinians only, of course) be referred to as targeted attacks. More recently, CNN Chairman Walter Isaacson cautioned his own reporters to regularly include reminders of Sept. 11, saying “it seems perverse to focus too much on the casualties of hardship in Afghanistan.”

Besides interfering with freedom of speech, theoretically so sacred, this is a clear infringement on the foundations of reporting. In any case, there are many journalists whose obvious bias can be seen not on the opinion pages where they belong, but in sections supposed to be carrying straight reporting.

At the other end of the spectrum, Arab news media have often been ridiculed (not least by the “impartial” Western media) for being nothing more than official government mouthpieces. A fair criticism in most cases. So when a new Arab station answering all the criteria required of independent media finally saw the light, one would have expected the Arab masses to rejoice (which they did) and Western Media to welcome it into its folds (which they didn’t).

That certain Arab governments were not too pleased (and tried to close its offices in their territories) surprises no one. That the United States also tried to stifle this new voice (not to mention that it blasted its Kabul office out of existence) barely even raised eyebrows.

Al Jazeera’s age of innocence was short-lived. In its five years of existence, it has managed to incur the criticism of “free” media, the wrath of several Arab leaders, and the irritation of a few Western ones, for whom freedom of speech apparently only means freedom to emulate Western speech.

Al Jazeera, the station everyone loves to hate, is getting more publicity from people who don’t know it than from people who do. The latest addition to the list of Al Jazeera-bashers is Fouad Ajami, whose Nov. 18 article in The New York Times Magazine might as well have been written by the US State Department.

The misleading generalities begin with the title, “What the Muslim world is watching.” Ajami knows well that Al Jazeera’s audience consists, logically, of Arabic speakers, and that although most Arabs are Muslim, they constitute only a small percentage of the world’s Muslim population. This deceptive title is just an introduction to his main argument that the station “deliberately fans the flames of Muslim outrage.”

While admitting that there is indeed Muslim outrage (but failing to explain its roots), he infers that it is Al Jazeera, and not world events, which is the main contributor to this situation. That is not a valid contention.

By mentioning the by-now worn cliché that Osama bin Laden is the station’s star, Ajami starts off a long succession of ludicrous arguments, unashamed exaggerations and even stretches the truth (such as the claim that reporters in Kabul sign off saying “from the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan”), using the same kind of sensationalism of which he accuses Al Jazeera.

 Most preposterous is his characterization of its reporters as a whole, who he describes as “a fiercely opinionated group, most are either pan-Arabists or Islamists who draw their inspiration from the primacy of the Muslim faith in political life.”  Making the two terms sound like slurs, Ajami does not elaborate on how he comes to this generalization, and does not refer to a single encounter he has had with a reporter from Al Jazeera who might have given him personal positions.

However, he does shed some light on the underlying causes of his aversion for Al Jazeera, when he claims that “like the dark side of the pan-Arab world view,” it is an aggressive mix of anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism (strange how the two terms always go together). And there we find the real bone of contention. Actually, Al Jazeera, an Arab news medium reporting on events in the Arab world, would be hard-pressed to find much pro-Zionist sentiment in the region, a fact which eludes ­- or distresses ­- Ajami.

Thus, the real problem with Al Jazeera seems to be its reporting on the Arab-Israeli conflict which, for the likes of Ajami, is too pro-Arab and – shockingly - not pro-Zionist (the latter, one assumes, being what it takes to be considered “fair and responsible”). Should Al Jazeera not have repeated footage of Mohammed al-Durra’s death, which Ajami describes as “ceaseless” and signaling the arrival of a “new, sensational breed of Arab journalism?” Would limiting the exposure of Israeli excesses and Arab suffering make media fairer?

Al Jazeera’s coverage of the intifada is hard to swallow for Ajami and his likes. With no real arguments to back his claims, he resorts to unsupported generalizations such as “broadcasters have perfected a sly game, namely mimicking Western norms of journalistic fairness while pandering to pan-Arab sentiments.” In fact, Ajami calls the whole coverage of the intifada “horribly slanted.” By that, he must mean that too many Palestinians were seen dead (or dying), and too many Israeli soldiers were seen shooting. Not the other way around. To Ajami’s displeasure, Al Jazeera’s cameras show too much of the reality in the Occupied Territories, even if they also play images of Palestinian violence.

Ajami has no choice but to admit that Al Jazeera has given a voice to Israeli officials, but he laments that it simultaneously pressed on with “anti-Zionist” reportage; and this, he claims, contributed to further alienation between Israelis and Palestinians. According to Ajami, therefore, the main reason behind the problems with the peace process is Al Jazeera’s reporting, and certainly not the excessive brutality of Israeli occupation!

It takes Ajami more than 6,000 words to make a weak case against Al Jazeera, using few valid points but many misleading statements and half-truths, hoping to convince the readers who will never watch the station that “Al Jazeera’s virulent anti-American bias undercuts all its virtues. It is, in the final analysis, a dangerous force, and it should be treated as such by Washington.” How delightful to hear, at last, that an element of the Arab media is considered a force.

In effect, in its coverage of the intifada, and that of the war in Afghanistan, Al Jazeera has actually given a voice to every side in the conflict, and done nothing more than televise the images its reporters are seeing. Al Jazeera is not perfect, but neither are other television stations, newspapers or media networks anywhere in the world. It is fair to criticize any of them with valid arguments about professionalism and, naturally, bias. But Al Jazeera seems to be paying a heavy price simply for emanating from an Arab Muslim country.

Israeli media is not criticized for being “anti-Palestinian.” American media has its over-proportionate share of bias, and has introduced us to the art of sensationalism. But Al Jazeera is practically accused of extremism for only doing its job. In the end, is it just an Arabic CNN that the West really wants?