Arab World and Arab Media Comments
Arab's Justification of Acts of Violence
What usually, Arab heads of states, politicians, scholars, moderate leaders and reporters tell the American public, IS NOT what they tell their own people and state in the Arab media.
Most recently, the Arab media including AL AKHBAAR and Al AHRAM, two leading newspapers in Cairo presented a very "special" Arab point of view and scenario of the Sinai bombings. It is intriguing and amusing to learn how editorials in leading Arab publications interpret and explain terrorism and bombings caused by their compatriots. Publicly, and in English, the editorials appear to be siding with the United States, and encouraging perpetual peace with Israel. However, if we read the texts in Arabic, the whole story and whole intentions of the Arabs change drastically. According to AL AHRAM, the Sinai bombings presented Sharon with an opportunity to further marginalize the Palestinian cause. The Egyptian media reports that Sharon will exploit the bombings with relish. Furthermore, Arab editorials argue that Israel's Gaza rampage was not just a response to the firing of Qassam missiles. It does not mean that Arabs have to subscribe to claims that Israel needs no excuse for its actions.
Arab Media Commentaries: " You cannot impose a unilateral solution to a conflict without recourse to extraordinary levels of violence."
A verbatim translation of selected articles and comments in the Arab media goes like this: " The latest Israeli incursion into Gaza was not unrelated to the rudimentary weapon -- missile is perhaps too grand a term for these devices -- Gazans have developed to fight the situation into which they have been thrust, a situation, unprecedented in modern history, that essentially locks a million and a half people into a prison with two gates. Israeli violence in Gaza, in Jenin and Nablus, is structurally integral to the problems of disengagement -- you cannot impose a unilateral solution to a conflict without recourse to extraordinary levels of violence.
And this is alarming, for, despite all the peace efforts deployed by Israel to bring peace to the region, Arab media, constantly undermines those efforts and Israel's intentions and the possibility of peace negotiations with Arab countries, particularly Syria. The October's general message conveyed by the Arab Media in Egypt, Syria, Sudan, Yemen and Lebanon as published on the very front page of their leading publications goes like this: "Unlike the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon where a sovereign state claimed control and responsibility on the evacuated areas, the issue in Gaza is not just one of unilateral withdrawal, but of redeployment on conditions Israel believes will consolidate its control over areas of the West Bank. It hopes to control Gaza with less friction from the outside and annex parts of the West Bank while at the same time improving its international standing and alleviating international pressures to engage in a settlement process Israel neither wants nor can engage in given its current leadership and the state of public opinion."
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