Killing, kidnap, fear and dangers
Despite its unprecedented character, the Arab press is covering the US-led invasion of Iraq and Iraqi resistance to it in a sober manner, reports Amina Elbendary
Unexpected developments in the American-led war on Iraq have taken most journalists and commentators by surprise, even in the Arab world, a surprise that has given way to euphoria and a feeling of dignity restored. While many Western commentators have accused the Arab media, in particular news channels such as Al-Jazeera, of exaggerating the odds in favour of the Iraqis, most Arab newspapers have been sober in their coverage of the war. For, just as the US has its Vietnam complex, so the Arab world has its 1967 complex. Most commentators are conscious of not repeating the kind of state-sponsored coverage of the June 1967 War which ended in defeat but was initially reported as victory.
Arab reporters are trying not to confuse their conviction that the American-led invasion of Iraq is illegitimate, and that Iraqi resistance is therefore an honourable defence of the nation, with their contention that the Iraqi president is a brutal dictator. Arab journalists, so far, seem determined not to make a hero out of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Nevertheless, a few are warning of what they see as the "exaggeration" of Arab television. Salah Al-Qaleb in the london-based Saudi daily Al- Sharq Al-Awsat, for example, has referred to what he calls a "June-like atmosphere" in exaggerating Iraqi resistance. "There is nothing to call for optimism and exaggeration," and Arab leaders should have been frank with the Iraqis that they can do nothing and that the only solution is Saddam Hussein's leaving Iraq, he wrote.
It is a view shared by others in Al-Sharq Al- Awsat, particularly the paper's editor-in-chief, Abdel-Rahman Al-Rashed, who criticises the Arab media for ignoring the discourse of the Iraqi opposition and for omitting stories such as reports of Iraqi forces shooting on civilians fleeing Basra, which might contradict the official view of Baghdad. He calls for reporting the other side of the conflict, something Al-Sharq Al-Awsat has indeed been doing, even going as far as carrying articles from American news services such as The New York Times and The Washington Post.
The paper has also carried features sympathetic to the coalition, such as a front-page photograph on 28 March showing an Iraqi pouring tea for an American officer near Basra, or more sensationally, its only photograph on the front page of 29 March showing an American doctor tending to the wounds of a fallen Iraqi soldier "near Baghdad".
It is not difficult to discern whose side most of the newspapers are on, however. The coalition forces are often referred to as al-ghuzat, the invaders, while Iraqi fighters are referred to as the "resistance" in terms echoing those used to describe Palestinian and Lebanese forces resisting Israeli occupation. This is a parallel invoked by many commentators, including Essam Noaman in the Lebanese daily Al-Safir. On 29 March, Noaman argued that there were only two choices left: "stopping the war and/or continuing the resistance".
In fact, it is the steadfastness of the resistance in Palestine and in Iraq that will ultimately erode the arrogance of both US and Israeli power, argued Selim Al-Huss in Al-Safir on 31 March. Such resistance, even were it to fail to prevent the occupation of Baghdad, could nevertheless lead to the emergence of a multi-polar world order, he concluded, one that could witness the rise of a German-French-Russian axis, as well as of a more prominent political role for China.
In the Arab world, as indeed in the West, observers have been surprised by the pace of the war. The fact that Iraq did not fall to the invaders in six days, in another reference to June 1967, or, indeed, six hours, as some had predicted, is in itself for many in the Arab world a victory of sorts. The main banner of the London-based daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi on 27 March, for example, refers to "hundreds of civilians martyred and wounded". The war "exposed the lie of a 'clean war'", the banners went on.
Al-Sharq Al-Awsat reports that American officials have said that American and Arab intelligence forces have failed to convince Iraqi military officials to defect. Coalition reports of an uprising in Basra were eventually denied, said Al-Quds Al-Arabi on 26 March, reporting that "rumours of an 'Intifada' in Basra denied" and "Basra faces a humanitarian crisis and continued American and British bombing." Even as late as 30 March, the London-based daily Al-Hayat ran a front-page story to the effect that "Basra is under control of Al-Ba'ath with no signs of an Intifada."
On 29 March, Hazem Saghiya, writing in Al- Hayat, tried to explain why the south of Iraq had not risen up. The people of the south are patriotic, he explained, going back to the history of fighting British colonialism and the Iranians in the 1980s Iraq-Iran War. Another possible explanation was that they were scared: Iraqi resistance to the US-led invasion in the south is being organised by Ali Hassan Al-Majid, 'Chemical Ali', and the people of the south will not easily forget the tens of thousand killed by the regime, nor will they forget the oppression they have been subjected to.
While their trust in the Americans considerably waned after 1991, the population of southern Iraq could nevertheless be waiting on developments before rising up against the regime, Saghiya argued. Such an uprising might come after developments in the north, or in Baghdad, or with the arrival of the additional 120,000 soldiers. In the absence of information, either explanation, or a mixture of both, could be true. But, in either case not all supporters of the "liberation" are agents of Rumsfeld, any more than all supporters of "resistance" are agents of Ali Hassan Al- Majid, he wrote.
While there has been no debate surrounding 'human bombs' used in the Iraq war, most Arab newspapers quoting Iraqi ministers to the effect that they will use whatever means are available to defend themselves from attack, the debate on an appropriate nomenclature survives from the Palestinian Intifada. Some newspapers, notably Al-Hayat, refer to the 29 March attack as a "suicide" attack, while others, such as Al-Quds Al- Arabi and Al-Safir, called it a "martyrdom" attack. Al-Hayat's banner on 30 March announced that "Iraq surprised the Marines with a suicide operation carried out by an officer."
The West has concentrated on the Iraqi treatment of US and British POWs, and Western politicians have criticised the decision by the Arab media to broadcast pictures of captured coalition soldiers. This has spurred comment on the double standards employed by Western politicians, who are seen to invoke the Geneva Conventions only when it suits them. "As if all the massacres the American and British forces inflicted were in compliance with these agreements," protested the Syrian dailyTeshreen in its editorial on 30 March.
"Have the Allies forgotten what they did to retreating Iraqi forces on the 'highway of death' in February 1991? Has the US administration forgotten the insults and humiliation inflicted on many innocent people in the detention camps of Guantanamo Bay?" asked Abdel-Bari Utwan, editor-in-chief of Al-Quds Al-Arabi on 28 March. Ihab Besiso, writing in Al-Safir on 27 March, analysed this debate in terms of the media battle between the two sides.
Attacks on civilians are repeatedly referred to as "massacres" in the Arab press. While civilian casualties have not for the most been exaggerated, with figures supplied by the Iraqi regime and coalition forces being given, incidents of Iraqi "triumph" and coalition missteps are highlighted.
Thus, the banner of Al-Quds Al-Arabi on 1 April read, "Baghdad announces killing 54 troops from coalition forces." Arab newspapers have also not shied away from covering, in words and photos, the damage inflicted on civilians in the course of the war. Even Al-Sharq Al-Awsat's front page on 28 March featured a woman from Baghdad "describing the scene: it is like Doomsday." On 29 March, Al-Safir's front page announced, "Tens of martyrs in a new massacre in Baghdad, and the resistance is still fighting the invaders in the south," while Al-Hayat's banner read, "A new massacre in Baghdad".
On 1 April another front-page headline in Al- Quds Al-Arabi graphically read, "Cruise missiles tear into four children in Al-Amin neighbourhood." Photographs of the dead and injured, particularly children, abound in all newspapers, alongside photographs of coalition forces with their equipment. Al-Hayat's front-page photograph on Tuesday 1 April, for example, showed an elderly Iraqi woman sitting injured on the bridge at Al-Hindiya, which had fallen to American forces the day before. In the background, in the middle of the bridge, a corpse was lying, with, in the foreground, an American soldier standing relaxed and talking on a phone.
Photographs of Iraqis lamenting the destruction of their homes and buildings are painfully reminiscent of the inhumane damage inflicted on the Palestinians by Israeli occupation forces. The pictures could very well be from Palestine, all that would be needed would be a different caption. The parallel cannot be escaped.
The first convoys of humanitarian aid were covered differently in the Arab press. Under the headline, "The citizens [of Safwan] praised Saddam when the camera turned towards them," Al- Sharq Al-Awsat on 27 March emphasised the friendly feelings between the Kuwaitis leading the convoy and Iraqi citizens in Safwan, as well as the gratitude the Iraqis felt for the Kuwaitis. Iraqis were also keen, the paper tells us, to use Kuwaiti cellular phones to call relatives in other towns: Al-Hayat carried the story on page five of its 29 March issue, based on wire reports carrying quotations from coalition and Iraqi sources, but none from Iraqi civilians. The accompanying photo showed a smiling Iraqi boy carrying his share of food supplies. Neither report mentioned that the Sir Galahad, brining in British humanitarian aid, was also carrying ammunition for the coalition.
The reported Saudi initiative to stop the war also found echoes in the Arab press, notably in Al- Sharq Al-Awsat's editorial on 27 March, which called on Arab and international forces to find ways to stop the war. Developments in the war, the editorial said, and especially the existence of urban and Ba'ath Party militias, had meant that it was now going to be impossible to avoid hitting civilian targets, incurring severe casualties.
Conflicting reports of citizens attempting to flee the south also appeared. On 28 March, Al- Sharq Al-Awsat carried a story on the "thousands" of citizens of Basra fleeing their city out of thirst and seeking refuge in areas under British control. Al-Hayat's correspondent, Soliman Nimr, now in southern Basra, reported on 1 April, however, that citizens were moving in and out of the city. But "Basra is thirsty, and its reserves are decreasing, and the battle has begun to isolate it from the centre," ran the headline.
Scenarios for the post-war government of Iraq also had their fair share of coverage, with most commentators apprehensive at the prospect of prolonged American occupation of Iraq. Al-Sharq Al- Awsat's editorial on 28 March praised talk, following the Bush-Blair summit, of the UN handling humanitarian aid and a coalition military government enforcing law and order, to be followed by a civilian Iraqi authority that would gradually assume responsibility. "It is wrong and dangerous for the coalition forces to impose military rule on Iraq for a long time. The Iraqi people, if given a chance, would be capable of developing a new elected authority," stated the editorial.
The Israeli connection to the war on Iraq also received its share of coverage, especially with the news that Garner, known for his contacts with hard-line Israelis, will be named as governor of Iraq. On 30 March, Al-Hayat reported that "the coalition is working in western Iraq to defend Israel away from the media's inspection." Writing in Al-Sharq Al-Awsat on 28 March, Ahmed Abbas Saleh argued that the real reasons behind the war were "securing Israeli hegemony over the region".
Mohamed Al-Ashhab, writing in Al-Hayat on 30 March, finds a lot in common between America's war on Iraq and Israel's war on the Palestinians. Just as the Palestinians are not responsible for the Holocaust, but have been made to pay the price of it, so the Iraqis, who are not responsible for 11 September, are paying its price. Both powers, the US and Israel, have justified their behaviour as "self-defence" and no one dares criticise them, he said.
On 26 March, Al-Quds Al-Arabi reported that clerics in Yemen had announced that aiding the Americans and the British was religiously forbidden. It also quoted a senior Shi'a cleric in Qom to the effect that anyone killed defending his land, his dignity and his home was a martyr. On 29 March, Al-Hayat reported that Friday sermons throughout the Arab world had "called for Jihad and resistance".
As anti-war protests and demonstrations continued throughout the Arab world during the second week of war, newspapers continued to carry stories about demonstrations in Arab countries. Thousands of Syrians took to the streets against the war, with Al-Quds Al-Arabi reporting that thousands of Algerians were also signing up to join the resistance in Iraq. Reports of the release of anti-war demonstrators detained in Cairo were followed by news of the authorities allowing rallies that had the approval of the security forces, announced Al-Hayat on 30 March.
Kuwaitis, and Qataris, have been under attack in many Arab newspapers for housing coalition military bases, from which most the US-led invasion has taken place. This was clear in articles such as Al-Quds Al-Arabi's editorial on 26 March, which rebuked Kuwait for "playing with the fire of the aggression".
Yet, even in Kuwaiti newspapers there has been an attempt to differentiate between the Iraqi leadership and the Iraqi people and to highlight the age-old ties that bind both peoples together. Similarly, the op-ed pages of Al-Hayat carried articles by Kuwaitis Hamed Al-Hamud and Youssef Abdel-Hamid Al-Jassem analysing Kuwaiti-Iraqi relations and defending the Kuwaiti stance on Monday 31 March. The attack of the Kuwaitis in much of the Arab press could account for the defensive, even apologetic tones, found in the front page of the Kuwaiti daily Al- Qabas on 28 March, quoting the Kuwaiti prime minister's office to the effect that attacks on Kuwait by some in the Arab media questioning the country's Arab and national commitments were "irresponsible".
Earlier in the same week, Al-Quds Al-Arabi and Al-Hayat also reported on the tension between Syria and Egypt following demonstrations in Damascus denouncing Egypt's official position on the war.
Rumsfeld and Powell's threats to Syria and Iran received a lot of coverage. "Syria considers Rumsfeld's accusations an attempt to cover up US strikes on civilians in Iraq," said Al-Hayat of 30 March, quoting a senior Syrian official in the Foreign Ministry to the effect that Rumsfeld was trying to "cover up" for the US's failure to secure a quick and clean victory by accusing others of aiding Iraq.
Many other Arab papers also adopted this analysis, explaining Rumsfeld's attack as an attempt on the part of the US administration to divert blame. This line was echoed in Al-Safir's lead article on 29 March: "It is apparent that the American administration, in a state of confusion because of 'unexpected' Iraqi resistance, and its loss of its bet of popular uprisings against the Iraqi regime in the south following the entrance of invading forces into Iraqi lands, now seeks to put the blame for the failure of its military plans on an unreceptive regional environment."
Dawoud Al-Shuryan, writing in the same issue of Al-Hayat, disagreed with this analysis, however. Rumsfeld's threat to Damascus and Tehran was related to the honourable behaviour of Iraq's Shi'a in the course of the current war, he said, adding that Washington was worried that the situation would escalate and that Islamic resistance parties would start urban warfare. Rumsfeld's warning, Al-Shuryan said, pointed to American fears that Syria and Iran would give in to popular pressure and open their borders to volunteers wishing to take part in popular resistance.
Furthermore, he said, threatening Syria exposed the denials of American officials that they were not seeking to divide the region as false, thereby affirming that the war was in Israel's interests, weakening Syria and abandoning the Palestinians. Meanwhile, Al-Safir's banner on Tuesday 1 April announced that "Syria affirms it has chosen to defend the Iraqi people and international legitimacy, and Washington says Syria is responsible for its choices and Israel considers it the next target."
Earlier in the week, preceding the remarks by Donald Rumsfeld followed by Colin Powell at the AIPAC conference, President Bashar Al- Assad's interview with Al-Safir on 27 March made the headlines and was also carried by the two Syrian dailiesTeshreen and Al-Thawra. Assad emphasised that the war was not a passing storm, to which Arabs must bend, but "a scheme that threatens all Arabs".
Many in the Arab press have lamented what they consider to be the demise of the UN. Since the US went ahead with the war despite the lack of UN approval, many see the war as illegitimate, an opinion echoed in the editorial of the Jordanian daily Al-Dustour on 31 March. Such blatant violation of international legitimacy on the part of the US will only encourage 'rogue states' to ignore all international resolutions, finding a precedent in the behaviour of the US, the newspaper said. This will be particularly true of Israel, argued the paper's editorial, which has been ignoring international resolutions for over 50 years.
In general, the Arab press has been making efforts to offer different angles on the conflict, redressing the imbalance they feel characterises Western coverage of the war. While Arab reporters are not officially "embedded" with the Iraqi forces, many try to cover news from the Iraqi point of view, with others being embedded with the coalition forces.
The task attempted by the latter category of reporter has been particularly difficult. In Al-Hayat of 31 March, Soliman Nimr, writing from "southern Iraq", offered a telling account of the dangers facing such reporters: "Killing, kidnap, pillaging... fear and dangers".
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 3 - 9 April 2003 (Issue No. 632)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/632/sc9.htm