| FrontPageMag.com | By Robert Spencer | By Hugh Fitzgerald | Books | Jihad Watch | Islam 101 | Qur'an Blog | Raymond Ibrahim | Robert Spencer |  |
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Journalists covering the Middle East can be divided into seven groups:
1) Those who are afraid of Muslim threats, express or implied. Long before the Dadullah threats, journalists covering the Arab-Israeli dispute from Gaza or the West Bank were made well aware that they had better play ball; ditto those reporting from southern Lebanon recently.
2) Those who sympathize with the Arabs and Muslims and who, in turn, can be divided into the antisemites (who naturally have a higher representation among those involved in such coverage -- they even seek it out, naturally gravitate to it) and the anti-American brigade. Of course these two groups naturally reinforce, support, and overlap each other.
3) Those who know nothing about the history of Islam and the Middle East, and are easily swayed by what they see before them -- those aggrieved Arab or "Palestinian" faces and tales of woe. Knowing nothing of the history of the area, not merely the history of previous wars, but the actual demographic and castral history, knowing nothing of Islam, having no context whatever, they are easy prey for the Arab propagandists. Of course this group of the ignorant who remain willfully ignorant also includes some, but not all, of those in Groups #1 and #2.
4) Those who know very little but are willing, slowly, to begin to find out. This very small group may actually, over time, begin to realize the influence of Islam on the beliefs, attitudes, and atmospherics of those who grow up in societies suffused with Islam.
5) Those who constitute a subset of Group #4, and who are even able to begin to figure out the motivation for such islamochristians as Hanan Ashrawi and Naim Ateek.
6) Those who have in fact once been posted to the Middle East, and who begin to read, to study, to fill in all the gaps -- not linguistic gaps so much as gaps in their knowledge. These people may even go so far as to investigate Islam and the islamochristians who often share or reflect Islamic perspectives, and to begin, often after their tours of duty are over, to realize what it all means. This group is very small.
7) Those who understand perfectly the role of Islam as the defining feature of Muslim life, and who may in their reporting may actually do semi-justice or even justice to the Israeli attempt to justify Israel’s existence and actions. This attempt is often awkward, not well-explained, and imperfectly understood by most Israelis -- who, contrary to rumor, are not much cleverer in this regard than any population of Western Infidels anywhere else, though one keeps wanting to believe that in fact they do know more. Israelis themselves do not call, and do not recognize, that what they are facing is an implacable Lesser Jihad, a Lesser Jihad that is conducted by means of all the instruments of Jihad (and this is quite instructive for other Infidels, facing a similar problem from the Muslim presence in their midst). Some of those conducting Jihad are adherents of the Slow Jihad, wishing to use diplomacy and attempts to break America's support for Israel in the same way that support for Israel in Western Europe was broken, in order to force the Israelis ever back into ever-more vulnerable borders, without control of invasion routes, without control of the aquifers on which Israeli life depends, and put constantly on the defensive. Others conducting Jihad are adherents of the Fast Jihad -- no nonsense, no sweet and plausible words, not nearly as much about the "Palestinian people" and their "legimitate rights" and far more about Islam and the Arabs, and the outrage that Infidels, and yahudin at that, should be able to maintain their own sovereign state on territory once part of Dar al-Islam. Of course, in the end, whether Infidels live in Infidel states or territories called Israel, or Spain, or Sicily, or Bulgaria, or Greece or Rumania or most of the Balkans, or much of France and mainland Italy, they live in what rightly belongs to the Dar al-Islam. But since the entire world must submit to Islam, since Muslims must rule everywhere, Infidels who are relieved to think that their turn will come last, after those territories are recovered by the Muslims, should not be so relieved. It is entirely unclear, for example, that Spain will necessarily be the object of a Muslim takeover before France -- even if Al-Andalus should, theoretically, come first.
Do any journalists in the Western world know this? Does Tom Friedman, who, if he knows anything at all, is supposed to know about the Middle East? Isn't that what brought him fame, and that Pulitzer Prize, and that job as a columnist which someone of intelligence, knowledge, and wit could do so much with? Isn't that the subject that allows him, essentially, to charge business groups, eager to "understand" the world, and to derive that understanding from that Great Man Tom Friedman, some $40,000 per lecture? Does his colleague Nicholas Kristof know this? Kristof is so ostentatiously impassioned about "the tragedy of Darfur," but has not shown the slightest recognition of how the Arab assault on non-Arab Muslims fits into Islam, how it reveals so well the Arab supremacist ideology within Islam. Nor does Kristof give any signs of recognizing the role of Islam in the assault on Israel -- a country for which his want of sympathy and understanding is palpable, perhaps most when he chooses to lecture and hector Israel as to what it must and must not do.
Those are the "journalists" -- the mere reporters who never learned to report on anything except what is in front of their noses, and which they could not, and cannot, make sense of, for they know so little, are so uneducated. While they have all the time in the world, they prefer to deliver those lectures than to sit at home and read a bit, and begin to comprehend that world that they presume to have opinions about, that they dare to instruct us about.
Posted by Hugh at September 7, 2006 8:41 AM
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There are several books that deal with the intimidation of journalists by the PLO and with the bias of journalists. A few names of authors may be helpful:
Barbara Newman [who testifies to the murder of Sean Toolan, a fellow journalist in Lebanon and the good fellowship with the PLO at the Commodore Hotel in Beirut]
Zeev Chafetz
Stephen Karetzky
Julian Landau [ed. of an anthology]
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at September 7, 2006 10:52 AM
Based on coverage, by the likes of the Associated Press, the New York Times, Reuters, the BBC, etc., of the Iran nuclear "negotiations" and the war of Hezbollah and Lebanon against Israel, I would emphasize that in category (2) there is an extraordinarily large number of journalists who are literally agents for the enemy. Not just anti-American and pro-Muslim. Literally working for the other side, and probably paid for it.
It strikes me as extraordinary and unprecedented in history that the West has, along with globalization, mass immigration, and multiculturalism, actually turned over custody of knowledge about the non-Western world to representatives of that world, most particularly regarding the Muslim world. Similarly, we do things like sending Muslims as ambassador to a Muslim country - who proceed to represent Islam to us, not us to Islam. We are abnegating ourselves.
Posted by: SF at September 7, 2006 1:09 PM
As we move down Hugh's taxonomic adumbration, from #1 onwards, the numbers of actual representatives must dwindle to near zero.
Posted by: remote_control at September 7, 2006 3:31 PM
The post above raises a very good point: Hugh's typology, while superb, covers mostly Western journalists. However, recently the media have begun to employ large numbers of locals in their coverage of the Middle East. Adnan Hajj, a journalist fired by Reuters for blatant fabrication of photos, was no American. It would be beyond naive to believe that all these local Arabic-speaking journalists can miraculously stay impartial in their coverage. Adnan Hajj did not alter the photos to give them a pro-Israeli spin, quite the opposite. Of course, locals possess many advantages over expatriates; most importantly, they can communicate easier with their compatriots, not only because they speak the language, but also because they are not perceived as outsiders. The downside is reporting skewed in the direction of local public opinion.
THere is still, however, one key component that must be in place for the biased coverage to pour out of the media the way it does now: a breakdown of editorial oversight. Regardless of the journalist's prejudices, he can always be trained to produce neutral and informed reporting if there are good editors watching him and if he wants to keep his job. But if the editors fall into categories 1)-3), they will blink at even the most unsophisticated, in-your-face lies coming from their local employees. Like Adnan Hajj.
Posted by: Liggett at September 7, 2006 3:43 PM
What consternates me Hugh are those Israeli's, those refusenik soldiers and peacenik Israeli's..that protest any defensive manuever by Israel..I can't comprehend them, they live next to muslims who attack them with rockets and suicide belts daily..if anyone should understand the muslim mind it would be they, but thse Israeli Jews go so far as advocate for and militate for the muslims.
Don't they teach their own people anything in Israeli schools? How can anyone think of condemning wayward, ignorant westerners when Israel itself has problems with it's own citizens.. people who should know better, and in fact some of them even demand a one state solution (and I don't mean Israeli Arabs either).
Posted by: Nariz at September 7, 2006 10:18 PM
"...What consternates me Hugh are those Israeli's, those refusenik soldiers and peacenik Israeli's..that protest any defensive manuever by Israel..I can't comprehend them, they live next to muslims who attack them with rockets and suicide belts daily..if anyone should understand the muslim mind it would be they, but thse Israeli Jews go so far as advocate for and militate for the muslims."
As much as I agree... let's be frank.
The entire world, including the US and Europe has leaned utterly upon Israel to make a deal, any deal, and to give way, any way, to make it appear that they all will be looked upon favorably, as if.... there wasn't an Islamic hatred of everyone, and Israel selling itself out would solve anything.
The UN, is actively working to destroy Israel, as is the EU. That is the blunt fact.
Now- for 20 yrs, the Israel's have been desperate for peace, and the left, has taken the money's and the force of all the aforementioned states push, and they of the appeasement mentality, demand a 'switzerland' style state under the guise of winning the helping hands of the world. They smite themselves, they brand themselves and give the arabs the outrageous belief that they, the arabs are right, and the Israeli's are willing to lower themselves any which way, to make peace.
It goes much further. In 93' Shulamit Aloni, then minister of education, I think, as a leftist, removed all the concentration camp photo's from school textbooks, and showed only fairly healthy looking laborers when referencing the holocaust, she, wanting to 'end the obsession with the holocaust and victimhood'
Now... we have 15 yrs later, achmaninejad, with his holocaust denial, and his direct plan to create another, and the idioitic appeasers, of Olmert, Peres, Peretz, Livny, and Kadima- who stand for nothing but surrender of land, as the detritus of 20 yrs of appeasement.
But before we all forget- we, all the nations- who should have supported the strength and purpose of Israel, forced all these changes- dispite all the denials from us.
Look at Condi Rice, demanding Israel surrender land, surrender Gaza, surrender more after the surrender of Gaza, look at the creation of a denuded Israeli sovereignty- and now- we have Islamic terrorism worldwide, and worldwide virtual denial. Look at how we forced Israel to be kind and sweet to Lebanon after being attacked and demanding with the French, their capitualtion to a hudna. One that has been utterly broken by the UN, by Lebanon, by the .... US.
And we all sit back and ask, 'How could Israeli citizens support all those who attack it?'
Well, after Lebanon, most do not at all anymore. Just the leftist sociopaths, the very small hatefreaks who get to roam the Universities there, and the media there, the same way they do in Europe and the US.
Hopefully the Olmert government will fall, and the
strength of the Jewish people will be re-engaged as it always is... when it is attacked. And maybe, we will shout for our nations to leave Israel the hell alone, if we don't have the brains to really help her in her lonely battle.
at September 7, 2006 11:34 PM
This is one of Fitzgerald's best essays, however brief. Less is more.
Ranks right up there with his essay several months ago about the collapse of higher education (ideology).
Media is at the core of this disaster (Marshall McLuhan).
* 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 *
I need to contribute to JihadWatch.org again. It's been a few months and that's too long a time.
Posted by: Alarmed Pig Farmer at September 8, 2006 8:09 AM
Ariel, a truly great man, made some serious mistakes in his last years. Conceding the Gaza Strip was one; annointing Olmert as his successor was another.
Even still, based on his whole career, Ariel Sharon still stands as the one person that all anti-Dhimmis should look to for guidance.
May he rest in peace. Shalom, Ariel.
Posted by: Alarmed Pig Farmer at September 8, 2006 8:21 AM
"Ariel, a truly great man, made some serious mistakes in his last years. Conceding the Gaza Strip was one; annointing Olmert as his successor was another.
Even still, based on his whole career, Ariel Sharon still stands as the one person that all anti-Dhimmis should look to for guidance."
-- from a posting above
This tribute to Ariel Sharon, who undid as a political figure whatever good he might have done as a military one, is misplaced. He was a brave soldier, the leader of Unit 101, and performed well, in some cases spectacularly well, in all the military wars he served in.
But that was all not merely balanced, but far outweighted, by his complete indifference to, lack of understanding of, Islam, and his belief that he, as that "great military leader, etc." could "make the compromises" -- that is, the crazed and self-defeating unilateral withdrawals, the one in Gaza, the others planned and now made the policy, and apparently still the policy, merely delayed, of that awful construct, Kadima, and that cloudy-headed heir to Sharon, Olmert.
Yes, "Nil nisi bonum etc." should in many cases be observed, but not in all. And technically, Sharon is not yet dead, and therefore not entitled to such solicitude reserved for the fully dead. But even if he were dead, one would not wish to permit such a tribute to remain unanswered, not when lives of the still living have been damaged, and continue to be damaged, by the folly of this man, and the folly of those who, complacently telling themselves "Arik knows what he is doing" or "Arik won't let us down" or "let's trust Arik" proceed to walk, slowly and determinedly, right off first one cliff, and some apparently are prepared to walk off the second, cliff, into a much deeper abyss.
Posted by: Hugh at September 8, 2006 8:55 AM
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