Role of the Media

Tim Llewellyn was the BBC’s Middle East correspondent twice from 1976 - 1982 and from 1987 - 1992. Based in Beirut and Cyprus, Llewellyn covered the Lebanese civil war, the Iranian Revolution, the Tanker Wars, the first Palestinian intifada, and the first Gulf War. He was one of the first foreign correspondents to enter the camps of Sabra and Shatila after the massacres there by Phalangist Forces under the auspices of the Israeli army in September 1982. In this interview, exclusive to the Electronic Intifada, Llewellyn talks candidly about the BBC, and the pressures that organization and its correspondents are under, when reporting from the Middle East.

Two innocent Palestinians were killed by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) on 12 January 2005. Although they were the latest in a long line of Palestinian victims, and from a tiny village near Ramallah, they made headlines all over the world. They were the first Palestinians to be assassinated by the IOF since the election of Mahmoud Abbas, which had taken place just three days before. The so-called ‘period of restraint’ had come to an abrupt end with the killings. For this reason, the assassinations were portrayed by the commercial media as a necessary response to two violent militants who had opened fire at Israeli soldiers. However, eyewitnesses on the ground report an entirely different story.

With Arafat gone, the television screens of America are filled with “Middle East experts” who tell us that it was Arafat who was the obstacle to peace and that a new dawn is now upon us. Last night on Hardball with Chris Matthews, the host and caption team couldn’t even pronounce or spell the name of guest Palestinian Legislative Council member Hanan Ashrawi, repeatedly referring to her as Ashwari. Commentary from the guests was similarly insightful. Today, MSNBC’s Lester Holt continued the Ashwari mangling and “Terrorism expert” Harvey Kushner ludicrously claimed an Arafat/Al-Qaida link. Switch the channel, no real difference. It was the kind of Middle East coverage that got Bush reelected.

In Britain, the recent publication of Glasgow University Media Group’s book ‘Bad News from Israel’ has again highlighted the depth of ignorance around the Israel-Palestine conflict and the media’s inadequacies in providing vital historical and legal context within its news coverage. Looking beyond the realm of TV news to media coverage of the conflict as a whole, it is no surprise that the likes of News International’s Times, or the Daily Telegraph with its explicit pro-Israel editorial policy, would be unwilling to address the ideological issues that lie at the heart of the conflict, but what some might find surprising is that this ideological void also exists within the supposedly liberal/centre-left press such as the Guardian and Independent. Benjamin Counsell makes the case, Guardian comment editor and columnist Seumas Milne responds.

The Economist has a way with cover art. In early 2001, the magazine lampooned George W. Bush’s first transatlantic trip with a cover photo of Neil Armstrong walking on the moon: “Bush goes to Europe,” the caption read. Intellectual, witty and harmless, it was the Monty-Python-meets-MI6 humor that characterizes a magazine that’s above the vainglory of bylines. Last week’s cover showing a photo of Ariel Sharon with an olive branch in his mouth—“Israel’s unlikely dove”—had a different resonance. What was mildly amusing for Economist readers was a cheap shot to Palestinians: Israel’s mass destruction of olive groves is a frustration tactic that Israel has used to displace Palestinians for the past 56 years.

“The book is based on a very long research study centered on public knowledge (from Europe and the US). We found that everybody in our sample had watched news on the conflict; they had memories of it, they could describe events they had seen. However, what we found was that, overwhelmingly, very few people understood the origins, the causes of the conflict.” Greg Philo, author of Bad News From Israel, explains in an interview with the Palestine Report his troubling research findings regarding media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the U.S. and the U.K.

The “terrorist” charges against Shahawar Matin Siraj and James El Shafay of New York are nothing short of illegal entrapment. Regardless of what happens from this point on, their futures are ruined. Ironic that Siraj, a 21-year-old Pakistani immigrant who works longer hours than President Bush, in addition to attending night school, came to America for freedom and opportunity. His crime, as spelled out clearly in the complaint filed against him last weekend, was his “hatred of America.” In the coming days, the tabloid press will demonize Siraj and El Shafay, , while the moderate New York Times will dance around the digestible semantics of “Other” and the “anti-Americanist” template of Other’s mindset.