WHERE IS THE ARAB OUTRAGE OVER DARFUR?
By Eran Tzidkiyahu
Jerusalem Post
March 18 2009
In recent years, a media revolution has been taking place in the
Arab world, so that the media now reflect to a great extent the
atmosphere of the Arab street as well as the consensus in the Arab
regimes. Criticism against the crimes committed by the Zionist occupier
in Palestine receives substantial resonance, whereas other horrors that
take place in the region get little coverage, especially when they are
the work of local players and not of Europeans, Americans or Jews. The
regional condemnation of Israel doesn’t reflect global humanitarian
standards but is reserved especially for the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict.
The criticism against Israel, by its volume and severity, overshadows
the coverage of the ongoing conflict in Darfur, for example, which in
the past few years has already claimed a quarter of a million victims
and created millions of refugees. The ethnic cleansing taking place
in Darfur is far worse than any other regional crisis and cannot be
compared to the Israeli-Palestinian political conflict, neither in
volume nor in essence.
The silence of the Arab media regarding the humanitarian side of
the conflict in Darfur is reinforced by the fact that Sudan is an
active member of the Arab League. Moreover, some voices in the local
press claim that the Western coverage of the Darfur crisis is part
of a Zionist-Western conspiracy to divert attention from Iraq and
Palestine and bring foreign involvement to Sudan to take control of
its natural resources.
In 2007 THE INTERNATIONAL Crisis Group and the American University in
Cairo held a workshop on media coverage of the Darfur crisis. The
participants – leading journalists and academics from the Arab
world – claimed that Arab media do not give enough attention to the
humanitarian disaster in Darfur, compared both to Western media and
to the attention that Arab media dedicate to other conflicts in the
Middle East. Their report argues that due to lack of resources, but
also lack of interest and racism, political aspects of the Darfur
crisis are generally given priority over humanitarian ones, their
coverage being shallow and inaccurate.
Criticism of Israel from the likes of Sudan, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey
and Syria appears loaded with hypocrisy when all of these countries
oppress minorities and bluntly violate human rights.
In Sudan, the Arab Janjaweed tribal militia is backed by president
Omar al-Bashir, himself accused by the International Criminal Court of
genocide. Immediately after his indictment by the ICC in July 2008,
the Arab League, many of whose members accuse Israel of war crimes,
issued a statement in support of the Sudanese president. Still, some
voices in the Arab world backed the ICC decision and condemned the
Arab League statements, among them that of Abd al-Rahman al-Rashed,
director-general of Al-Arabiya TV and former Al-Sharq al-Awsat editor.
THE ARAB WORLD was silent in the 1960s when Egypt used mustard gas in
northern Yemen, in the ’70s when Jordan killed Palestinians, in the
’80s when Syria massacred tens of thousands of its own citizens who
were supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, and in the ’90s when Saddam
Hussein slaughtered Kurds in the north and Shi’ites in the south of
Iraq. Severe discrimination is being practiced against ethnic and
religious minorities in countries throughout the Middle East.
Since Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan walked of on
camera at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Turkey has become the
flag-carrier for criticism against Israel in the Middle East. Turkey,
while accusing Israel of war crimes, cannot confront its own past
regarding the Armenian genocide and pressures academic and diplomatic
bodies to prevent any serious public debate on the subject. Today,
Turkey uses cultural and military oppression to deny the right of
the Kurdish minority to self-determination.
According to Reporters without Boundaries, the biggest challenge to
the freedom of press in the Middle East is the self-censorship that
reporters exert on sensitive issues. Due to these restrictions, the
Arab reporters channel their criticism toward Israel, which remains
the regional punching bag and the target of Arab and Muslim rage
against every illness in the world. Arab countries would certainly
benefit more from looking inward to their own societies’ problems.
ALL THESE EXAMPLES do not acquit Israel from criticism. Whether
Israel is conceived as a country fighting for its existence or as
an aggressive occupier, external criticism is a necessary factor in
balancing the conflict. An advanced dialogue is already taking place
within Israel itself, and many organizations enjoy their freedom to
harshly criticize the state. Similarly, crimes taking place in other
countries do not exempt the IDF from its obligation to seriously
investigate the reasons for the high number of civilian casualties
during the last operation in Gaza.
Nonetheless, the regional media should report proportionally, since
one-dimensional coverage of the conflict is misleading, demonizing
and creates intense hate toward Israel and the Jews in the Arab
street. This atmosphere will in turn make it difficult for the
moderate Arab states to explain to their people the peace initiatives
that they promote. While Arabs widely cover any Western or Israeli
aggression against Arabs or Muslims around the world, they ignore
Arabs or Muslims hurting other Arabs, Muslims or Africans. This gap
in coverage suggests that Arabs require much higher moral standards
from Israel and the West than from themselves.
Regional criticism against Israel must be made within international
relationships of proportional political and international
interests. Higher questions of morality and justice must be left
to philosophers, or to a just and balanced media that is ready
to criticize all sides without bias and in accordance to global
humanitarian standards.
The writer is a Legacy Heritage Fellow working on Jerusalem and a
MA student in the Middle East and Islamic studies department at the
Hebrew University.