Posted on January 8, 2009 - by Calvin L. Smith

Thoughts on the World Media and the Gaza War

Throughout a severe bout of flu for a week (real flu, you understand, not just a cold or so-called “man flu”), lying in bed or on the sofa under 25 blankets shivering and wallowing in self-pity, cough syrup and co-codamol, I’ve had the luxury of being able to follow the present Gaza war via numerous news networks and websites. Many of you kow I’m a news-junkie anyway. Every morning I read the websites of a dozen or so UK and international newspapers before, to the utter misery of my children, coming downstairs and rapidly but continually flicking like a machine-gun through BBC, Sky, CNN (occasionally), Fox (even more occasionally), Euro News, Al-Jazeera and others (even Russia Today, France 24, CCTV and the Indian NDTV network are not immune from my attention from time to time). I admit I’m a sad news anorak who goes cold turkey without a constant diet of news, and sometimes I even slip out for a drive to listen to BBC Five Live in the car when I am trying to give up the hard stuff. I’ve tried the medical, prescriptive stuff (free local newspapers) designed to wean me off the habit, but to no avail. This past week I’ve expanded my diet to include Press TV (coming out of Teheran, the heroine or crystal-meth of news channels) and websites such as Al Arabiya.

Getting as wide a story as possible is useful. Not only might it arm you with additional facts not always presented  by your usual news provider, it also helps one to understand how different parts of the world view an issue or event. As usual (and with important exceptions) Europe takes a fairly anti-Israel line along intellectual grounds. Interestingly, though, the Arab world is divided between those who dislike Israel but accept her existence as a reality (and increasingly, as a bulwark against the Iran-Hamas-Hizbollah-Syria Shi’ite axis), and those whose rhetoric is truly shocking in its hatred of the Jewish state. 

Al Jazeera is worth mentioning at this stage. Like other Middle East outlets it demonstrates a very strong bias against Israel. Yet it is useful in that it allows Arabs in the region occasionally to hear Israeli voices and arguments often denied to them by authoritarian regimes and despots who have always sought to demonise Israel to mask their own domestic failings towards their people. That is not to say some news outlets in the region are not tools of their government. When the Iranian authorities recently closed a newspaper for expressing some sympathy with Israel over why it went to war in Gaza, it leads me to view the Iranian news channel as nothing more than a government propaganda tool purporting to offer an alternative view, but actually to the exclusion of all others.

As stated earlier, there are those in the Middle East who dislike Israel but hate Hamas much more. But it is truly astounding to see how some Arab commentators do not even try to hide their visceral loathing of the Jewish state. The juxtaposing of Israel with Nazi Germany during the present crisis has been plentiful and constant. Of course, there is no comparison, which leads us to reach one of several conclusions: 1) Violent rhetoric is the order of the day in the Middle East, 2) Such commentators are anti-Semitic, seeking to demonise Israel  by comparing her with Nazi Germany, or 3) (and more sinisterly) such commentators exhibit the Holocaust-denying nature so rampant in parts of the Middle East.

Extensive news surfing also demonstrates just how censored Western news actually is. Some channels outside the West show the horrors of war in all its brutality. I do understand how this is often done to demonise Israel and inflame Muslim opinion when Israel goes to war (though, to be fair, a report some weeks back on Al Jazeera dwelt upon some of the unspeakable atrocities of the Taleban). But the propaganda and political value of sensitive images and footage to one side, I do believe we have sanitised war reporting in the West to the extent that we can shake our heads and tut-tut without fully engaging with the destructive nature of war. Compare this with that iconic footage of a South Vietnamese officer shooting a captured suspected Vietcong in the head at close range, which starkly brought home the reality of such brutality. Propaganda abuse aside, war footage makes us think seriously about war. I am not a pacifist – I believe war is justified from time to time – but raw war footage does make us engage seriously with what war does to people. Within an Islamist culture, of course, such violent footage can do the complete opposite, as attested by the use of gory videos of beheadings of ‘infidels’ and other atrocities as a tool to radicalise young Muslim men.

Finally, my news surfing yielded an interesting piece of analysis by the Middle East expert Daniel Pipes, an Islamic specialist who is fluent in Arabic. His article discusses alternative solutions to a proposed two-state Middle East solution, a single state federation, or the notion of Palestinian cantons within a Greater Israel. Instead, he postulates the possibility of an alternative to a Palestinian nation, namely, returning Gaza to Egypt and much of the West Bank to Jordan, citing the cultural, historical and even linguistic differences between both Palestinian entities. After all, they seem unable to make peace with each other (much less Israel). Whether he is right or not, it was an interesting article well worth reading, especially how in Israel there are so many alternatives to a two-state solution bandied about by everyday Israelis. Politically it might be quite a fresh way forward, though of course theologically for some Christians it is unacceptable. I have views on this but thought I would see what you think before nailing my colours to that particular mast.

Back to my paracetamol, blankets and tissues…