More free speech in Israeli and Palestinian than US media

By Ray Hanania
Published in the Jerusalem Post Jan. 20, 2010

The United States may be the world's most powerful nation, but I think Americans might be afraid of Israel. I know many of the politicians are.

Take the recent case of Jared Malsin, a Jew with US citizenship who covers the Palestinian territories from Bethlehem at the Palestinian news agency, Maan. Malsin took a trip to Prague last week and upon his return, was arrested and taken into custody by Israeli authorities at Ben-Gurion Airport. He was deported to New York yesterday.

During his interrogation and week-long detention, Israeli police took time to look him up on the Internet and read through his writings, which were largely critical of Israel. It's a fascinating story whenever a journalist is detained and jailed by any government. But did anyone in the US care or come to his defense?

Why would they, you might ask?

Well, last year, freelance American journalist Roxana Saberi was arrested by Iranian officials and charged with espionage. There wasn't one politician, candidate or elected official in the US who didn't come to her defense and demand her release.

Months later in March, two Asian-American journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, were arrested and charged with espionage by the North Korean government. The response from the US was powerful and loud. Everyone, including President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, issued statements denouncing the arrests and demanding the release of the journalists.

SO WHY the near-total silence from American leaders and muted coverage in the American press now over the arrest and detention of Malsin?In both cases, the mainstream American news media reported on their status almost daily, sometimes as their lead stories.

It is a testament to the confidence of Israel's media that they, more than anyone else, have written and followed the Malsin story. In fact, if it wasn't for the Israeli media and the Maan News Agency, few others would be covering the story.

The Palestinian press is much like any media, including Israel's. Some, like the Maan News Agency, are professional journalists. Others, who I will leave unnamed, are not. The issue isn't Malsin's arrest as a journalist by a government, but rather that issues like these are frequently turned into political tools to bash Israel.

There is no doubt in my mind that the Israeli government was wrong in detaining Malsin, keeping him in custody for a week and then deporting him. His rights were seriously restricted.

Malsin is the victim of bad government policy. His arrest undermines principles of freedom and justice Israel claims it represents, though most Israeli media uphold journalistic principles by reporting on the incident.

It's the American mainstream media and its government officials who disappoint me the most, however. While the Israeli media sees this as a story about a government agency violating free speech, the American media and the elected officials in the US view it as a reason to bash Israel.

In a way, that puts the mainstream American press and American politicians in the same boat with those Palestinian and Arab media which see the issue not as one of principle but as an opportunity to attack Israel.

Malsin's arrest and deportation is not about whether Israel is a good or bad country. It's not about whether or not the Israeli government is fair or unjust when it comes to Palestinian rights. It is, though, about a government agency that has violated a journalist's rights and in so doing, compromised Israel's image as a free nation.

One of Malsin's colleagues told me that while there are restrictions that keep most Israeli journalists from entering and covering the West Bank, and most Palestinian journalists from entering and covering Israel, for the most part, Malsin was allowed to travel almost everywhere to get his story, until this incident.

You may not agree with his views, or maybe you do. That isn't nor should it be the issue.

But there is one thing for sure. Most of the Israeli and Palestinian media did a better job of covering his case than the mainstream news media in America, the country that claims to set the bar for the rest of the world when it comes to free speech.

Have the mainstream American media and American officials failed in doing their jobs, or are they just afraid to get on Israel's bad side?

Whatever the reason, many in the Israeli and Palestinian press are keeping the story on the front burner in a way that helps guarantee that Malsin's journalistic rights will eventually be protected, while putting the "free media" in America to shame.


The writer is a Palestinian American columnist, Chicago radio talk show host and coordinator of the National Arab American Journalists Association.

Arab journalists suffer oppression because Arab Journalism groups fail to work together

Arab journalists suffer oppression because Arab Journalism groups fail to work together

By Ray Hanania

Jared Malsin, an English editor at the Maan News Agency in Bethlehem, was arrested and jailed by Israeli border police this week for the high crime of "criticizing Israel." The journalist is sitting in a jail cell awaiting a kangaroo court hearing before an Israeli judge. And there is nothing Arab Journalists can do about it, mainly because they spend more time fighting among themselves than they do networking and creating one, single, strong voice.

Maan, which is constantly under siege from israeli authorities and operating under Israel's brutal repression of palestinian voices in the occupied West Bank town of Bethlehem, is fighting to spread the word and get support.

But the challenge they face is not of their own doing. The problem has to do with the fact that most journalism associations, especially those organized by Arabs, do not work together. Maybe it's rivalry. Maybe it's politics. Maybe it's about jealousy. Maybe it's just that the presidents-for-life at the various groups just don't like each other.

And who suffers? Journalists like Jared Malsin.

In the United States, Arabs have 10 journalism associations. None of them will work together. Almost all of them insist on being "the" organization, when in fact none of them are really anything of significance.

Working together or networking doesn't mean an organization has to lose its identity nor lose it's influence. It CAN mean just linking together the way we link pages on the Internet. But that means showcasing another organization and American Arab organizations -- not just the Arab journalism groups -- don't like to do that.

Maybe it is a cultural thing?

Because the same thing happens in the Middle East.

Arab World Journalists are arrogant and look down on American Arab journalists, even though journalism in the United States, despite the political bias towards Israel, is more professional and more powerful than anything written in the Middle East. In fact, much of the arrogance has to do with a cultural flaw in the world of Arab journalists. If you don't speak and write in Arabic, you are NOT an Arab! That's the corrupted attitude of how Arab World journalism operates.

The truth is that the Arab World media that writes only in Arabic is doing the Arab people, and especially the Palestinian people, a huge disservice. In fact, it might be a moral crime. The Western audience doesn't read, hear or understand anything published in the Arab World media in Arabic and therefore the Arab World media in Arabic is not influential and marginalized.

But they are legends in their own minds, of course.

How do we change that?

1 - All Arab journalism organizations in the Middle East and in the West such as the United States, should network together. Put aside their differences -- Journalism is NOT about politics or activism, but about professional journalism principles of objectivity.

2 - The Arab World media should expand their operations to include mirror English web sites and even sections in their all-Arabic pages with English translations.

3 - Arab American and Western Arab groups should insure they also provide both English and Arabic sections.

Setting aside politics is going to be tough because Arab World journalism did not arise out of the need for free speech, but rather out of the long term activism to fight political oppression in places like Israel and also in other Arab countries like Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States.

In the meantime, everyday an Arab journalist like Jared Malsin is detained, harassed and intimidated by Israel or another government agency including in the Arab World.

And until Arab Journalists decide to set aside their political rivalries and focus first and foremost on professional journalism reporting in both Arabic and English, Jared Malsin won't be the last.

Click to Read the National Arab American Journalism Association release on Maslin.

Click to read the recent update by Maan (Ma'an) News Agency's update on Maslin.

-- Ray Hanania

http://www.naaja-us.com/

http://naaja-us.ning.com/

The truth about the "Don Imus" Affair: It's not about race but about the unfair of "free speech"

The truth about the "Don Imus Affair"
By Ray Hanania

The Don Imus controversy is not really about the limits of free speech as some are contending, but rather about the discrepancies in how "freedoms" such as free speech are tolerated for some in America but not for others.

These discrepancies are based not on merit but solely on the basis of race, stereotypes and a mainstream society of plagued by the ugliness of America’s unbalanced racial realities.

I enjoyed seeing the Don Imus empire collapse in such utter humiliation. Why? Well, I am Arab American who is most often mistaken for a Muslim.

I disliked Don Imus passionately and am celebrating in his demise. I’d like to see a handful of other American media bigots tumble down along the same ugly path including anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bigots like Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and others like them.

But is the issue curtailing free speech? No. Because free speech is more free for some than it is for others in America.

Those who have enjoyed free speech as unrestrained and as viciously as Imus has, deserve to be judged by a tougher standard of morality.

Those who come from communities who are excluded from the mainstream media, denied equal rights of expression not just in principle but more because of the practice of media exclusion have more flexibility in how they may express themselves.

The freer you have been to disparage people who do not have the same ability to respond to the attacks, the less your right of free speech, in my opinion.

The more you have been a victim of hate speech, the more you have the right of flexibility in what you can say.

Imus and others like him have made sport of Arabs and Muslims, blaming an entire race and religion for the actions of a few fanatics. The horrors of today’s terrorism has been used to rip away the Constitutional protections from a race of people, I believe because they were never popular in this country to begin with.

Most Americans hated Arabs and Muslims long before 19 Saudi Arabian hijackers commandeered four airplanes and crashed them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.

Should Imus have been fired for the three words he uttered. As an Arab American who watched and listened helplessly as Imus ranted, slandered, insulted and defamed Arabs and Muslims relentlessly, never giving us the opportunity to respond.

Am I glad he is fired? Absolutely. Was it fair? No.

But fairness has nothing to do with this not because I say so, but because Imus rose to fame on the basis of an unfair system anyway.

In other words Imus rose in popularity to host one of the nation’s premier syndicated radio shows that was also broadcast on an important and high profile Cable Network because 2.5 million people cheered on his rants against Arabs and a select few others in America, mostly Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Arabs, Muslims and even some Jews.

He rose not because of talent, but because his message of hatred, disguised as "satire," defended wrongly as humor, was popular among a growing class of Americans who look down on other ethnic groups. Imus was not popular because minorities loved him. Imus was popular because Whites in mainstream America loved him.

Therefore, his fall from the pinnacle of that mountain of discrimination is justified to be brought down not on the merits of whether what he said was right or wrong, but because just as 2.5 million people can elevate him to popular radio and TV host status, 10 million mostly minorities, Blacks, Asians and Hispanics, and Arabs, have the right to bring him down.

Defenders of Don Imus offer the ridiculous contention that he is the victim of free speech hypocrisy.

Imus merely said in one moment what some African American hip-hop artists, comedians and other entertainers say all the time, endlessly.

But the difference is that Imus directed his comments against individuals of another race. The African American members of a basketball team.

The Black rappers and hip-hop artists are saying things are that considered distasteful to many Americans, but they are almost always speaking about their own experiences of the environments in which they have lived.

There are whores in this world and the fact is they come in all colors and races and religions. If rap artists of one race, African American or even White, want to write lyrics that address that reality of their lives and experience, they have every right to do so even if someone, a majority of Americans, find their comments distasteful.

They can use the term "hos" because it is about what they see around them. Don Imus was not talking about himself, his experience or even trying to make a social statement about the relevance of "whores" in American society when he described 8 African American basketball players as "nappy haired hos."

He made the comments because that is how White Don Imus viewed eight Black women playing basketball who had tattoos and looked "tough."

There is a difference when you laugh at some one, as racist do, or laugh with someone, as true comedians and satirists do all the time. Black comedians joke about their stereotypes and they have every right to do so.

Don Imus, a White man, has no right to lampoon the stereotypes of Black people.

White people are not under the foot of a new more sophisticated form of racism. Blacks and other minorities are.

At the very bottom of the hatred that is the foundation of some in American, sit Arabs and Muslims. As heavy as the burden is upon our heads, we can find the room to celebrate in the demise of Don Imus, and we will do so with gusto!

(Ray Hanania is an award winning Palestinian American columnist, author and standup comedian. He can be reached at www.hanania.com.)