Arab media on Hamas: in pictures

How is the Arab media covering the Hamas victory?  Well, it's too early for any columnists to write about yet, so nothing to report there.  I thought some pictures might be more interesting, anyway.

I've just been watching an incredibly interesting program on al-Jazeera.  They convened a panel discussion in Ramallah of eight prominent Palestinian academics, journalists, and politicians representing almost every political trend to talk about the implications of the Hamas victory.

The moderator asked questions, as did various commentators out of the studio and from other locations such as Gaza.  The panel had a large studio audience, and a number of Palestinians had the chance to pose their own questions (and often make their own little speeches).

Meanwhile, on the Saudi-owned al-Arabiya, they were showing a fascinating report on the foreign travels of Saudi King Abdullah.   Riveting. 

I'm sure they had lots of coverage of Palestine today, but this is what was on when I went looking to compose this post. [UPDATE:  in fact, in all fairness, after finishing the post I went back to al-Arabiya and they are now running news coverage of the Palestinian elections.  Not a panel discussion giving voice to a range of observers and ordinary Palestinians, but not a blackout either.  UPDATE 2:  and to be even more fair, don't miss Mohammed's comment below about al-Arabiya's show Palestine Votes a few days ago, and al-Jazeera's current riveting Haykel program about Nasser eating a cheese sandwich.]

This morning, I watched Bush's press conference live on al-Jazeera.  When I was watching it, I thought that the translation wasn't as good as normal - but then, when I saw a recording of it in English, I realized that Bush seemed to be in unusually bad form today and it probably wasn't the translator's fault.   What was funny - and almost certainly was NOT done by al-Jazeera on purpose, was that for the first part of the press conference there was a big camera dangling in front of Bush's face.  Deconstruct as you wish.

Finally, this cartoon ran in al-Quds al-Arabi, which is generally the most "Arabist" of the major Arab dailies:

"The Democracy Intifada".   Lots of ways to interpret that image!

Comments

[Mohammed]

alarabiya ran a show few days ago titled:"palestine votes"
they had a panel with one representative from each list and they were asked questions, and then each one had a chance to ask the other representatives questions.

ah... aljazeera now is running heikal talking about the young nasser before the revolution spending time at his place, how his place looked like ( one bedroom...etc) and that nasser asked for a cheese sandwich, how was the sandwich made, and how nasser felt during eating the sandwich... argh.

[the aardvark]

Ouch! I really wish I had seen that al-Arabiya show, it sounds great. The juxtaposition between that al-Jazeera event and the al-Arabiya coverage of His Custodianness was pretty striking at that particular moment, but I assumed that AA had done a better job at other times...

I cringe to think that I was actually excited when Haykal signed up with al-Jazeera.. it's one of the few shows now that makes me actively turn the station off. That face.. the cheese sandwiches... shudder.

[MNPundit]

Actually the camera thing was I think, an NBC problem as on MSNBC and NBC you were forced to see the dangling camera throughout the first part of the speech while on the other networks (ABC/CBS etc.) they positioned their own cameras accordingly to avoid shooting it.

Funny as hell. First time I've watched a Bush speech since the presidential debates, usually I just wait for the transcript due to my visceral anti-Bush reaction.

[Jay C]

"...Bush seemed to be in unusually bad form today and it probably wasn't the translator's fault."

C'mon AA: look who we're dealing with: even when Bush's speeches are translated into English, they don;t always make sense!

But seriously: your loyal reader base (well, me, anyway) hope you'll keep up the good work giving us some sort of idea of how the Arab world and Arab media (two differnt thing, we know) deal with the Hamas election win: so far (Thursday pm in the US) the reaction has been mostly from the blogosphere: and that, a depressing mix of hah-hah Bush-bashing from the left, and "good: now the Israelis can really kick ass" from the right. Sad.

[Sean-Paul KElley]

Democracy intifada is brilliant. Great post, Mark. Shukran.

[Nur al-Cubicle]

The win by Hamas is not surprising...here are a handful of headline from Le Monde over the last few months that confirm today's scenario:

6 January 2006. Rivalry among Fatah factions disintegrates the Palestinian Authority.

22 December 2005 The Road Map is mired down.

11 November 2005. After Arafat, Year One. Mission impossible.

30 September 2005. Hamas earned its popularity during the Second Intifada while Fatah was discredited by ineffectiveness and corruption.

16 September 2005. George Bush and Ariel Sharon agree to freeze the Road Map after the evacuation from Gaza

8 September 2005 Mussa Arafat, former Security Chief, assassinated.

29 August 2005: 8500 settlers abandon the Gaza Strip, 12,000 illegally settle on the West Bank.

06 May 2005. Washington’s insistence on disarming Hamas actually serves the cause of the militants. Meanwhile, Fatah’s bad image will cost them most of their seats in the legislative elections.

[Graham Fuller]

Hi Marc,
Great coverage as always. But just one small bone to pick with you on Hamas as about to be "the first Islamist party to come to power democratically..." Actually I think Turkey qualifies first in this regard. Granted the AK party (Justice and Development) is very moderate (politics in Turkey are pretty moderate anyway compared to many other places we know) and they don't claim they're Islamist (not good for your political health in Turkey), but the leadership all comes out of a clear Islamist background. They simply call themselves "Conservative democrats" concerned, among other things, with "tradition." But the Turkish military and orthodox Kemalists are suspcious as hell of them.

So I think Turkey deserves credit for this first political breakthrough, one that Washington has had to deal with. But Washington has now lost its virginity with Islamists in Turkey. This test will, of course, be much sterner, for all. There is no arguing about how Islamist Hamas is. Will be fascinating to watch.

[Talasim]

:)

[Andy]

Seeing as you're in Doha, Prof. Lynch -- is there really a feeling of "surprise" as we are told here?

Did Abbas and Fatah truly believe that the U.S. was in touch enough to secure them a majority?

.... will yr Doha conf. be webcast???