NYC-Feature Story

Al Jazeera: On My Wavelength

By Orubba Almansouri

Most people find out what’s happening in the world through what they hear on the radio, read in newspapers, or see on TV or online. That’s one reason people have different opinions: They base their views on their favorite news source, but different news organizations give you different sides of the story.

When I watch TV news, I normally look at Al Jazeera, the most popular Arabic news channel. Al Jazeera is based in Doha, a city in Qatar, which is a country in the Middle East. (Its English version, Al Jazeera English, has a bureau in Washington, D.C.) Like many other Arabs, I prefer Al Jazeera to American news, because I feel that Al Jazeera is more truthful about war and violence in the Middle East. It is run by people who are from there and take Middle East wars more seriously than American news outlets do.

One Land, Two Names

Let’s take one example: the conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis. We might all know there’s a war in the land that surrounds the city of Jerusalem. If you look at maps of the world, you’ll see that this country is Israel, but to me and to most Arabs it will always be Palestine.

Palestine is a holy place for Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. In ancient times, both Jewish and Palestinian people lived there together. (Most of the non-Jewish population was made up of a people called the Palestinians.)

Almost 2,000 years ago, the Romans drove most Jews from the land, though some remained. About 1,400 years ago, Islam began with our Prophet Mohamed, may peace be upon him, and a majority of the land’s population became Muslim.

Around the turn of the 20th century, some Jews around the world formed a movement called Zionism and began settling in Palestine in growing numbers. Zionists, some of them persecuted in other countries, saw their return to Palestine as a Jewish rebirth.

In 1947, after the Holocaust, the United Nations recommended establishing an Arab state and a Jewish state side by side. By then there were about 600,000 Jews and 1.2 million Arabs in the land. Arab nations rejected the UN recommendation but the Jewish side accepted it, and in 1948 they declared an independent state called Israel.

Neighboring Arab states sent in troops, and war broke out. Israel won control of most of the land, though two areas called the West Bank and Gaza were claimed for Palestinian Arabs. Many Arabs fled Israel and wound up as refugees in the West Bank, Gaza, and neighboring Arab countries, where they and their descendants remain now.

What I See

For many reasons, fighting between Israelis and Palestinians is still going on today. On Al Jazeera, I see Palestinian schools, hospitals, and homes destroyed by Israeli bombs. I see thousands of hungry, homeless people living in the streets under tents when they used to have roofs over their heads. I see children who have lost their parents and parents who have lost their children.

From Al Jazeera, I also know that Israelis are building a wall that separates them from the Palestinians, but the Palestinians don’t approve because they don’t want to be fenced in and they believe the wall will leave Palestinians even less territory. Al Jazeera also shows how Palestinians are short on supplies because of their economy, which is in bad shape because of Israeli blockades and international sanctions, as well as internal corruption.

Do you know about these conditions? If not, it may be because the news you watch, read, or listen to is biased. The U.S. is a major ally of Israel, and this seems to affect what the U.S. media shows to the American people.

Unfair Fight

What you probably do hear about is Hamas, a Palestinian group that fights the Israelis; they sometimes commit suicide bombings and fire rockets into Israeli territory. Compared with the Israeli military, Hamas’ funding, weapons, and training are very weak. So, even though they are fighting against the Israelis, the number of Israelis they kill is far fewer than the number of Palestinians the Israelis kill. Yet American media rarely talks about the difference in power.

Last winter, one of the biggest crises yet happened in Gaza, beginning in late December and lasting three weeks. During that time, at least 1,100 Palestinians lost their lives and more than 4,000 were wounded. On the Israeli side, 13 people died. Many media outlets reported on this crisis, but the way the numbers were reported was sometimes misleading.

For example, the third paragraph of a CNN.com story that ran on January 4, 2009 stated, “The ground push has resulted in mounting casualties on both sides.” But you have to read the whole article carefully to figure out that the Palestinian death toll was already about 126 times greater than the Israeli death toll. Though the story was accompanied by pictures of wounded Palestinians, it downplayed the huge difference between the number of Israeli and Palestinian casualties.

This same story also described how Israel fired on 45 Hamas targets, but did not mention that, on the same day, Israel also struck civilian targets, including a mosque and ambulances. And according to CNN, the Israeli military said that “At least 30 rockets … were launched from Gaza into southern Israel on Sunday.” This CNN report creates the image of a great force fighting against the Israeli army as an equal. But watching Al Jazeera, you’ll see Palestinians instead as people trying to match the ocean with a bucket of water.

Say Something

In this way, the reports you read shape how you view a war. It is the job of all reporters to show the world the truth about what’s happening so people can actually do something about it.

I know that Al Jazeera and other Arabic news outlets have their own biases. For example, in a time line of the Gaza crisis published online, Al Jazeera does not mention that Hamas fired any rockets at Israel until December 30, but they fired some earlier. This makes Hamas look more passive than they were.

Any type of bias is bad, but I think the scale is important. Al Jazeera may leave out certain details, but when it reports on destruction in Gaza it uses pictures and videos that you can’t argue with. I never watch Al Jazeera without my eyes getting teary because of the images they show of Palestinians.

If everyone in America saw what is happening—saw those infants with bullets covering their bodies, saw people killed, beaten, and treated worse than animals—I bet that the American public would demand that Israel pull back, because there is no way people can have the heart to see what I see and not say something.

Write a letter in response to this story. If selected, your letter could be published in the next issue of NYC.