Al-Jazeera: Arabic versus English (vol. 2)

Contrary to my last comparison of Al-Jazeera's Arabic and English pages, there are many differences between the two sites today. While Al-Jazeera English's interface template has remained the same, Al-Jazeera Arabic has changed a lot. Beyond the aesthetic changes, the content is very different as well.

The Arabic page's headlines were as follows: Great Wall of China is longer than Previously Thought; Abdul Aziz First Candidate to Run for Mauritania Elections; Ahmadinejad calls for significant changes in Washington.

The English page's headlines were: Israel Criticism Sparks UN Walkout; 'Last warning' for Sri Lanka's LTTE; Italy Takes in Stranded Migrants.

Although the main articles on each page were about the same subject - Iran at the United Nations - they had very different tones. The Al-Jazeera Arabic article was entitled Ahmadinejad Calls for Significant Changes in Washington and the English article was called Israel criticism sparks UN walkout. The Arabic article discussed Iran's role in the United Nations and proposals that Ahmadinejad introduced. The article also explained Iran's acceptance of the United State's new policy of dialogue toward Iran. "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad encouraged the new changes to U.S. foreign policy toward Tehran, but he explained that Tehran is waiting for tangible changes in the process. (أعرب الرئيس الإيراني محمود أحمدي نجاد عن ترحيبه بالتغييرات المستجدة على السياسة الخارجية للولايات المتحدة تجاه طهران لكنه عاد فأكد أن طهران تنتظر من واشنطن تغييرات عملية ملموسة، داعيا إلى إصلاح مجلس الأمن وإلغاء حق النقض.)."

The Arabic article continued by further explaining the practical changes Iran is looking for in talks with the United States. It also talked about Ahmadinejad's proposal to reform the UN Security Council because it "fails to achieve its goals of the preservation of international peace and security." The Arabic article contained only a brief mention of President Ahmadinejad's speech at the UN Racism Conference.

The English article focused entirely on Ahmadinejad's speech at the UN Racism Conference where he said Israel is a "racist government" and "The Iraqi people have suffered enormous losses ... wasn't the military action against Iraq planned by the Zionists ... in the US administration, in complicity with the arms manufacturing companies?". The article went on to describe the speech that some members applauded while others walked out on the rest of his speech. It also explained that there were a number of demonstrators who interrupted the speech.

It is very clear that the Arabic article was much more in depth. It discussed serious issues that have real and important consequences on a variety of levels. The article discussed substantive policy proposals, the important change in U.S. foreign policy, and Iran's reaction to those changes. On the other hand, the English article was very sensational. It did not contain substantive information of strategically important issues as the Arabic article did.

The pictures within the articles show this comparison as well. The Arabic article shows President Ahmadinejad with a serious face, appearing to be thinking in depth about something while listening to a translator. The English article shows Ahmadinejad with his finger in the air and his mouth open wide. In addition, the English article showed one of the demonstrators wearing a clown wig.

Why are the articles so different this time in contrast to my first comparison? Does it depend on the issue? - I will seek to answer these and other questions as I continue to examine the similarities and differences between Al-Jazeera Arabic and English.

Hamas et al. on Facebook

A number of surprising groups have utilized Facebook's networking tools:

Mujahideen is a global Facebook group with 189 members. The group type is classified under the common interest of Religion & Spirituality. The group communicates primarily in Arabic, but there are a few comments in English.

A comment posted in November, 2008: "Lets go Jihad brothers, lets die as Heroes in the name of Allah...I am ready to kill Jews and Hindus and Americans, are you?"

Another Facebook group called Mujahideen has 43 members. It is under the common interest of Beliefs & Causes. The group description says "Fight for God......" A group member from Trinidad and Tobago, Stuart Muhammad, has Osama bin Laden as his profile picture.

Apparently, the group is open to any Facebook member. Someone who is obviously not a supporter has joined and posted messages, pictures, and video against the group.

HEZBOLLAH resembles what I could see as an 'official' Hezbollah Facebook group. On its page is a history of Hezbollah and election information. It is affiliated with http://www.hezbollah.com/.

Interestingly there is a group called F*** Hezbollah that uses the same group image.

Some other 'anti' groups include Disarm hezbollah Now !, Down with Hezbollah, and anti-hezbollah which boasts over 2 thousand members.

HAMAS is a Facebook group with 204 members. It is a Religion and Spirituality group that communicates in both English and Arabic. One member posted, "Assalamualaikum, I come from Indonesia, how can i come to palestine for jihad?"

Al-Jazeera: Arabic versus English

A fellow classmate reported in her blog that “over 75% of the Middle East headlines on Al-Jazeera right now in some way glorify the Middle East and various Arab states.” This is not the same picture Marc Lynch portrayed in Voices of the New Arab Public. He described an al-Jazeera that was much more balanced and without glorification of or for anyone. So why is there such a disparity between his account and what currently appears on al-Jazeera’s web site?

Well, there could be any number of reasons. Nevertheless, it would be interesting to look at al-Jazeera’s news coverage over time to determine how it has changed since the beginning of the Iraq war, when Lynch says al-Jazeera was extraordinarily self-conscious and very critical of its own coverage (and when most of its leaders were former BBC journalists). It would also be important to recognize the difference between al-Jazeera English and al-Jazeera’s traditional Arabic site.

I will attempt to compare and contrast the content on al-Jazeera’s Arabic site with its English counterpart at least once a week until the end of this semester.

Today, there are no articles that glorify Arab states or the Middle East on either of al-Jazeera’s pages. The earthquake in Italy was the most salient topic on both the English and Arabic sites. The only difference in coverage is that the English site is reporting that 90 Italians have died because of the earthquake and the Arabic site is reporting that 150 have died. Headlines following this first topic were the same on both sites: a Baghdad car bombing and President Obama’s trip to Turkey. The headlines appear to be very similar and arranged in the same order, so perhaps peaking into one of the articles will reveal some contrasts.

Coverage of President Obama’s trip to Turkey:

First of all, the article from the English page quotes an al-Jazeera correspondent quoting President Obama: “[President Obama] talked about the contribution of the Islamic faith in the life of American Muslims and then he personalized that message by saying 'I know because I am one of them'. It was a message that reached out to many today.” Clearly, President Obama is not a Muslim. This was bad incredibly bad reporting. Beyond that rather large mistake, the articles on both sites are quite similar. They heavily cover President Obama’s speech to Turkey’s parliament, which included discussions on Armenia, U.S. relations with Muslims and Islamic countries, and Iraq. Along with pictures, both sites also briefly discussed the demonstrations that occurred in protest of President Obama’s visit. The only difference worth mentioning is that al-Jazeera English did not not cover any mention of Turkey’s ambition to become a member of the European Union but the al-Jazeera Arabic article did.

I am quite surprised with how similar the coverage is between the two articles. Here are some excerpts: “Obama sought to strike a balance over the issue of the massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in 1915, a sensitive issue which has poisoned ties between the two allies before.” – From al-Jazeera English and:

وبخصوص قضية الأرمن أبدى أوباما استعداد بلاده لحل الخلاف بين أرمينيا وتركيا وتشجيع الأخيرة على المضي قدما في المحادثات الخاصة بالموضوع

– From al-Jazeera Arabic which (roughly) translates as: On the issue of Armenia, Obama is ready to resolve the conflict between Armenians and Turkey and to encourage Turkey to proceed in talks.

Israel PR is Censorship

Israel's invasion of Gaza that began in December 2008 resulted in the death of over 1,400 Palestinians and 5,000 wounded (of which a majority were civilians). At the time, I was unaware of Israel's PR tactics, both in Israel and in the West.

As James Zogby explained, Israel was able to define the terms surrounding the debate over the invasion. One of Israel's talking points (which was repeated over and over) was that the war began as a result of Hamas's December 19th actions that ignored the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel. However, it was Israel that initially broke the ceasefire agreements a month before Hamas. By defining the starting point of the war, Israel was able to create the appearance that it had the higher ground and reason for aggression against the Palestinians. In reality, Israel broke the agreement a number of times, as Max Kantar explains, and ignored the fact that Hamas did not initially launch any rockets into Israel (in addition to limiting the ability of other groups to conduct rocket launches out of Gaza).

Furthermore, Israel conducted a 'Soft War' in the United States. Hasbara, Israel's PR machine which means 'explanation' in Hebrew, was sent to both Europe and the U.S. to explain Israel's justification for the Gaza invasion. Mel Frykberg of the Middle East Times explains, "Several pro-Israeli public relations organizations also work for Hasbara and are involved in intensive letter-writing and talk-back radio call campaigns aimed at challenging any views critical of Tel Aviv. The Israeli Consulate in New York embarked on a 'website mission' several days ago to "fight search results showing images of war-torn Gaza" when the word "Israel" was typed in a Google search." Israel tried to get Google to remove "distressing images" (Google refused). Just as Palestinians often present pictures to invoke sympathy, Israel attempted to "flood" the Internet with pictures on sites such as Wikipedia to conjure support for a peaceful Israel, appearing as the sole victim in the conflict. Mel explains, "Some 3,500 volunteers, including prominent media names, were recruited around the clock to respond in real-time to online criticism of Israel and to "help counter misinformation about the situation.""

Israel's PR program is one of the most elaborate and comprehensive state systems of disseminating propaganda. In my opinion, this is a form of censorship because it prevents citizens (of not just Israel) from seeing all sides of the debate -- it attempts to suppress the truth. By altering the content of sites such as Wikipedia or attempting to deny web-users specific search results, Israel is censoring voices and material in order to control our ability to fully understand and comprehend the events surrounding the Gaza invasion.

Hamas's You Tube and a Jihad Mascot

Our discussion in class today regarding Middle Eastern youth is a topic whose importance is not always obvious. As our professor explained the situation—there is a huge percentage of unemployed and bored youth throughout the region—its potential ramifications became very apparent. Perhaps Hamas has picked up on this . In addition to its television station al-Aqsa TV, which plays to an older audience, Hamas has introduced PAL Tube to attract younger audiences.

But Pal Tube isn't Hamas's only attempt to attract a young audience: meet Nassur.

He is the newest addition to al-Aqsa's children's station. Appearing on the show, he proudly announces, "I have come today to the Gaza Strip... God willing, I will be one of the mujahideen, one of the fighters. I will join the ranks of the ‘Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, and I will wage Jihad among them and carry a gun. Do you know why?... to defend the children of Palestine."

Wow.

Comparison: Representation in Arab and American Television (and the need for further research)

After diving into Lynch's Voices of the New Arabic Public once again, it occurred to me that al-Jazeera often includes representatives from the United States in its debates -- not only on foreign policy relating to the U.S. but on domestic, "Arab" issues as well. These representatives come in the form of U.S. government officials, MENA scholars, Middle Eastern Americans as well as others. The opinions expressed by these Americans vary widely and provide an array of Western perspectives to the vast Middle Eastern audience.

This doesn't occur nearly as often in American debate and news shows. Beyond the occasional visit by an Arab or Muslim who supports U.S. policy, their voices are seldom heard. Some are expressed, as was Bandar bin Sultan's ("Bandar Bush" as some know him) on Larry King Live, pushing rhetoric that seemed published by the Bush administration; but it isn't often that a real voice from the region is represented in the United States. The only other voices from the Arab or Muslim worlds are those of radicals who don't represent the general population.

Although I have formed my opinion on the matter -- that too few Middle Eastern representatives are made visible on American television -- systematic analysis to represent this would be interesting and useful. One could conduct content analysis to compare the number and content of appearances on American television by Middle Easterners (Arabs, Persians, Muslims, Christians...) and vice-versa. (This need not be limited to the Middle East but to other regions of the world as well). This would not only provide insight into which region provides better representation but could also be expressed by individual shows. This is the kind of research that could provide an objective and empirical look at the comparisons between American and Middle Eastern media.

The Middle East unsafe?

The explosion in a Cairo bazaar on Sunday promted discussions by students about the possibility of becoming involved in such an attack while studying abroad. Everywhere you look in the media--on the front page of a newspaper, in the attention grabbing sound bites of a television news broadcast, or listening to the hasty conclusions of a radio megalomaniac--one would assume that the Middle East is more dangerous than a prison without guards. As Chris Elliot, an international travel consultant, explains, "All you have to do is turn on your TV to find disturbing images of anti-American protests in the region, and it would be easy to assume that any country in that part of the world would present a danger to Western visitors." However, the truth is that, even for Americans, Cairo and most places in the Middle East are much safer than many U.S. cities.

Our nations capital is a great place to start. Depending on the crime, Washington, D.C. is 100 to 1,000 times more dangerous than Cairo. There are more murders a year in Washington than there are throughout the entire country of Egypt (Washington has already had 19 murders this year). The most likely crime to be a victim of in Cairo is pick-pocketing.

In addition to just cities, one would be safer in the Middle East than in the U.S. The total crime rate per-capita in the U.S. is 80.0645 per 1,000 people, which ranks 8th in the world! The closest MENA contender is Tunisia, which is ranked 40th, with 12.5634 crimes per 1,000 people. The United States witnessed over 16 thousand murders last year compared to Tunisia, which saw only 119. That comes to .042802 murders per 1,000 people in the U.S. and .0112159 per 1,000 people in Tunisia. In sum total and per-capita, murder occurres much more often in the United States. Many factors need to be examined in addition to data, but they do point to many interesting facts.

Most Americans (who are not Middle East scholars) would be surprised by these statistics. As a result of the media, which in turn reinforces consumer stereotypes and government propagation, the Middle East is looked at with fear and as a place to be avoided. These are the same stereotypes and ignorance that feed citizens with misconceptions who then support incompetent, erratic, and ineffective policies.

Iran Satellite Launch

To compare coverage of Iran's rocket launch on February 2nd, I examined reports from the New York Times and Al-Jazeera Engish. The New York times article was very extensive and included input from many experts (from Middle East experts to ballistics experts). It explained the story from many different angles, giving credit to Iran for accomplishing a feat, which few countries have done: "In the face of world opposition and sanctions, Iran has joined a very exclusive club."

It also addressed the major security concerns from many different perspectives. It included differing views suchs as, "Iran’s development of a space launch vehicle establishes the technical basis from which Iran could develop long-range ballistic missile systems," to, "the step represented no immediate military threat and no reason to rush the deployment of antimissile arms in Europe." The NYT article also included some detailed and technical information about the rocket as well as a brief history of Iran's rocket program.

On the contrary, Al-Jazeera's article was very short, not detailed, and was based on a single theme: fear. It did not mention the significance of Iran's actual technological accomplishment and gave no detail on the rocket or how advanced it was. The only perspective it gave on the security concerns was that the United States is very fearful of Iran's development.

It is true that the United States does not want Iran to have a more powerful rocket with warhead-carrying capabilities. However, the Al-Jazeera article missed the opinion of many that Iran is still far from posing a direct threat the United States and that it is still very limited in its abilities to threaten the West in general. Overall, the Al-Jazeera article was not very informative and was unprofessional. One would expect a more complete analysis, particularly from a news source in the region with as much clout as Al-Jazeera.

The George Mitchell Appointment

Media coverage of the George Mitchell appointment as special U.S. envoy to the Middle East has been remarkably similar in Western and MENA media, almost giddy. Al-Jazeera says, "Mitchell is by far the most high-profile, skilled negotiator to tackle the US role in the Middle East since Henry Kissinger." ABC news argued that Mitchell is the best person suited for the job. Others, such as Gamal Abdel Gawad, a senior political analyst in Cairo, share this sentiment: "You can't believe the change. People are beginning to entertain the idea of the U.S. as a force of good, not evil."

The message is clear; now its time for substance. One of only a few MENA reporters who are hesitant, Kareem Fathi of Kuwait T.V. asked, "Where is the policy? Is it just words?" It's still early to ask for momentous change but things need to start happening before the message of the U.S. as a friend gets stale. Al-Jazeera's appreciation for Obama's attention to Muslims and the Middle East will not last forever. As it reports, although President Obama has shown a priority to the Middle East, Americans are more concerned with the economy, not foreign policy. Obama must make the change he speaks of tangible or the hope of his message will be lost.

Obama interview with Al-Arabiya

For his first official interview as President, Barack Obama chose to send a clear message to the broad Muslim world: Americans are not your enemy. This has had great reception in the Middle East. Many see his words as distinctly different from his predecessor, President George W. Bush. They want someone in the White House who not only listens to their concerns but who also cares about them. Some see Obama as someone who will do both.

After initially casting Obama's words off as rhetoric and a continuation of the previous administration, Hamas officials said, "In the last couple of days there have been a lot of statements [from Obama], some of them very positive, and choosing this George Mitchell as an envoy, I think there are some positive things we have to count."

However not everyone is totally satisfied with Obama's appearance. A few Western media outlets (Associated press, Reuters) have covered expressed criticism of Obama for selecting Al-Arabiya to conduct the interview. The company, owned by a Saudi businessman with strong ties to the U.S., is the same (and only) Middle Eastern media outlet that President Bush gave interviews to.

Although there were some critics, a majority of the coverage and responses to the interview have been positive, both from Western and MENA perspectives. It is yet unclear how successful this administration's policies will be (and what exactly they are), but Western and MENA media have had an optimistic tone.

Food for thought: Al-Jazeera did not mention a single word about the Al-Arabiya broadcast on-air or on its web site.

Obama Inauguration

Coverage of the Inauguration of Barack Obama was generally well received by both of these Israeli and Lebanese publications. Although hopes are high throughout the Middle East, many are hesitant to be optimistic until they see real change in the way of U.S. foreign policy to the region.

Media, Perception, and Change

Over the past six years, Middle East public opinion polls of the United States have revealed that there is little faith in its policy and leadership. But with the inauguration of Barack Obama and an entire new ideology in Washington, hope in the Middle East has risen to bring great expectations from the new administration. Will President Obama make peace in the Middle East a priority of his foreign policy? How will the Arab world respond to proposed solutions?

Perception of the U.S. will be largely influenced by media. In addition to the traditional news sources with which we are all familiar, including Middle East mass media still in its infancy, the World Wide Web has come to replace the consumption-oriented news cycle with a more selective and interactive experience. This new medium has and will continue to exert a large influence on public perception and opinion. Will SMS messaging grow to have a real impact on Arab publics--as it did for a short while in Egypt--or will it become another lost opportunity? Will blogs, email, and trans-regional news services promote an engaged civil society? Or will governments and radicals prevent this potential force from providing meaningful change?

As both the United States and the Middle East shape and react to the evolution of the way information is shared, it is the goal of this blog to comparitavely analyze the types and content of Middle Eastern and American news and information as the U.S.-Arab relationship evolves in the 21st century.