Al-Ahram Weekly On-line   Al-Ahram Weekly On-line
26 Oct. - 1 Nov. 2000
Issue No. 505
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Horror in your sitting room

By Amira Howeidy

As the Arab summit concluded its first day on Saturday, the Egyptian Satellite Channel (ESC) broadcast a movie starring Omar Sharif and Faten Hamama that was not on the original programme schedule. Sharif plays the role of Ahmed, an Egyptian fighter who launches military operations against Israel following the occupation of the major part of Palestine in 1948. Hamama, who plays the role of a Palestinian girl with whom he falls in love, frequently refers to the Deir Yassin massacre carried out by the late Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin's Irgun gang against Palestinian villagers. At the end, the two lovers are reunited after Ahmed blows up an Israeli military camp.

Very few Egyptian viewers would remember that this film was screened in the past. But these days, every Arab TV station seems to be digging up every Pan-Arab, pro-Palestinian, nationalist film, documentary and song they have in their archives and broadcasting them. News channels such as the Qatari Al-Jezira and Abu Dhabi channel of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have basically reported on little other than the Intifada and the bloody violence unleashed by the Israeli armed forces and settlers against Palestinians. If one misses an event on Al-Jezira, one can easily turn to Kuwait TV, Bahrain TV, the Lebanese private channels LBC and Future, MBC, ANN or Dubai.

For the past three weeks, images of Israeli soldiers aiming or firing at stone-throwing Palestinian demonstrators, of funerals of the shuhadaa' (martyrs), of the Dome of the Rock, of sobbing old Palestinian women, of Mohamed Al-Dorra and many more dominated the Arab TV screens. The images poignantly whipped up Arab nationalist sentiment from the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf.

Next were tens of thousands of Arabs going out in demonstrations in almost every Arab city in North Africa, the Middle East and the Gulf. Arab communities and their supporters in various European and American cities also joined the anti-Israeli protests. In Morocco alone, some 1.5 million people staged a protest march in Casablanca. Through the TV screens, the angry slogans shouted by the demonstrators and the angry expressions on their faces invaded our homes. One was tempted to go out and join the crowds.

In a region where demonstrations are usually suppressed promptly by riot police, or even the military for that matter, the fact that the "masses" went out and expressed their anger meant that the Arab governments allowed, perhaps grudgingly, this to take place. Whether or not the satellite channels deliberately sought to play the role of the catalyst in mobilising Arab public opinion is debatable. But the simple fact remains that these channels do not operate independently. With the exception of the Lebanese LBC (run by former Phalangists) and Future TV (owned by Prime Minister-designate Rafik El-Harriri) and the ANN (financed by Rifaat Al-Assad, brother of the late Syrian president Hafez Al-Assad), all the Arab satellite channels are owned and funded by Arab governments. The question that imposes itself: where is all this leading to? Or rather, what did the Arab governments -- via their channels -- want?

For viewers who were flooded by zealous, nationalist and martial songs especially from Future TV -- which replaced its sleek marine-blue logo with the Palestinian flag resting on stones -- the misleading message was war. The mobilisation gained momentum after Hizbullah captured three Israeli soldiers from the occupied Chebaa Farms.

On Friday, 13 October, a number of satellite channels joined Abu Dhabi TV in a Solidarity Day, which they dubbed 'Le-ajloki ya Qodsu' (For you, Jerusalem), the name being the theme of a famous Fairuz song. That particular Friday witnessed live coverage of the events in the occupied territories rising to a climax. There were also many prominent guest speakers, nationalist songs and, more importantly, the event managed to raise $24 million for the Palestinian cause.

A general sentiment of "we must do something" prevailed. As part of the Solidarity event, a live interview with Egyptian actor Nur El-Sherif and Syrian cinema director Mustafa Al-Aqqad focused on "our image in the West". While El-Sherif argued that the mobilisation by TV stations is necessary for alerting the people and reviving their national sentiments, all for the good cause of supporting the Palestinians, Al-Aqqad struck a different note. "All this [sensational] drumming up of national zeal isn't very effective and it just makes us look bad in the Western media. As we saw, the poignancy of the Al-Dorra footage was immediately replaced in the West by the lynching of two Israeli soldiers, leaving no space for sympathy with the Arabs," he said. "We just appeared as a bunch of terrorist Islamists in their eyes while, of course, we know that the issue isn't the concern of Muslims alone. Are there not Arab Christians who object to Israel's actions? Why don't we ever see the cross when we broadcast our message? I would like to see how the Christian West will react to that," added Al-Aqqad.

The role played by TV in the past three weeks continued to trigger debate. Hassan Satti, a Sudanese intellectual, published an article in the London-based Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper on Monday under the title "Will the TV defeat Arab leaders... and how?" He argued that despite the effect the live footage of the events had on average people, it was not enough to cause a shift in the position of Arab diplomacy. "It is true that Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi used TV [in a live interview with Al-Jezira channel] to promote his anti-Arab summit views... but the issue here isn't the repercussions of that interview, but the fact that TV has become a party to the conflict itself," he said. This role, he suggested, must be better defined, and sharply. Satti added, "We must know that the battleground is Washington although the battle is with Israel." He pointed out that the live coverage of the demonstrations and the Arab anger was a message to the "decision-makers in Washington... who, after all, have American minds that believe in the importance of TV and are affected by it."

But Arab channels, and Egyptian ones in particular, seem to have a long way to go before such effective media lobbying is achieved. Egypt's state-run TV was ambivalent in its broadcasting policy for the past three weeks, depending on the diplomatic climate. Egyptian television lagged 24 hours behind the other TV stations before it broadcast the Al-Dorra footage. Then it picked up quickly and went as far as to refer to "occupied Palestine" and not to the "occupied territories" -- the term it previously used. Moreover, nationalist songs like El-Helm El-Arabi (Arab dream) and Watani Habibi, El-Watan El-Akbar (My beloved homeland, my great homeland) were regularly broadcast every other hour. As the Sharm Al-Sheikh summit prepared to convene, the mobilisation curve went down. When the summit appeared to have failed and as Cairo prepared for the Arab summit, the curve seemed to climb up again. An Egyptian TV source readily admited that "the political climate was taken into consideration as to what should, or shouldn't be broadcast".

The Arab summit is over and a final communiqué was issued, drawing mixed reactions. It remains to be seen how the outcome of this diplomatic effort will resonate on TV.

Related stories:
Bursts of passion
Intifada in focus
States of emergency
Producing the body (count)
Tempered anger at the summit
Composing the consensus
The electronic Intifada
Horror in your sitting room
Variations on a theme
The big freeze
Solidarity days
'A valid fear'
Meet the press
Also see Focus on Intifada 19 - 25 October 2000

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