Exposing Arab Media’s Glorification of Terrorism and Incitement against Israel

Earlier this month, Shadi Martini a Syrian businessman and the prominent Saudi journalist Abdulaziz Alkhamis addressed the Knesset. Speaking about the ‘ very unique opportunity’ and ‘public enthusiasm’ about  the possibility of expanding the Abraham Accords normalization agreements.

Martini condemned Hamas Oct. 7^th attack and said it was “huge, huge tragedy, a massacre”,  adding he hopes for a ceasefire, the return of the hostages and allowing “the Palestinian people in Gaza to be able to go home and live peacefully”.  Alkhamis indicated that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is still interested to normalise ties with Israel but for that to happen Israel must commit “to coexistence”, arguing  the fate of Gazans “lies at the heart of the matter” for the rulers of Saudi Arabia.

Their speech was like a Déjà vu taking me to the enthusiasm and optimism it felt entering a huge conference hall, where I was invited to speak at the 2023 Arab-Israel-Africa Summit in Jerusalem entitled “Trusted Regional Partnerships at a Time of Shifting Alliances” hosted by the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs. The conference, was held in March 2023, and had representatives from over 20 countries in the Middle East and Africa including Iran, Sudan, Somalia and Mauritania, countries that do not have diplomatic ties with Israel. The participants talked about that our region was heading towards a new era, a New Middle East and were confident that Mecca-Jerusalem peace treaties is within reach. But failed to see the biggest elephant in the room: Arab Media and the exporting of Jew-Israel-hatred to the Arab-Muslim Street. That was the topic I wanted to address arguing that we will never have proper peace as long Arab media especially Al Jazeera (AJ) is not exposed and challenged over its relentless incitement and bias towards Israel and Jews in general. I was presumed as an worrywart and opted to talk about how Kurds and Iraqi Arabs view Israel.

Almost 7 months later, Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, committing unspeakable massacres against Israelis and we all witnessed the jubilations that followed. We saw a considerable section of Muslims in our region and in diaspora celebrating the slaughtering of the Jews, labelling Hamas heinous crimes for “Heroic beautiful resistance’.

So, lets not delude ourselves that we have now a “very unique opportunity” when Arab discourse has not seen drastic changes since 1948, especially on media, academy and societal levels. It’s a discourse imbed with falsehoods, historical distortions, dehumanization of Israel and extreme favourable of the Palestinian narrative. It’s Israel fault there is no peace between Israelis and Palestinians, overlooking decades-long  of daily incitement of Jew-hatred and the glorification of jihadism convincing millions of Arab and Muslim viewers that the killing of the Jew is the “highest level of martyrdom” to get rid of the “Zionist occupier”.

Before October 7, hundreds of thousands of Muslims visited Israel on a yearly basis. Yet, the majority of them opt out to speak about their visit. Their reluctance or rather fear, is due to their hostile surroundings. Visiting Israel is a major taboo and seen as a betrayal/sin. Arab Media, especially the mother-of-all incitement AJ, constantly tells its multi million viewers that Israel is ‘a brutal aggressor’, ‘a racist militarized society’ and Muslims in Israel face daily humiliation etc.

AJ is a multimedia empire that became one of the largest and most influential media outlets in the Middle East and around the world. Infiltering over 300 million households in more than 100 countries. It’s not a news provider but rather a tool to infiltrate, radicalise and influence mindsets. AJ is a group of network encompass different channels including AJ English, AJ documentaries and AJ+ the new subtle infiltration; a powerful digital arm, established in 2014 and has gained a phenomenal success on social media. AJ+ is aimed towards reaching the younger audience. It broadcast in Arabic, English, French and Spanish reaching a combined audience of over a hundred of millions. On it website, it proclaim promoting “public good”. In May 2019, AJ+ boosted about an “informative” video purportedly intended to educate Arabic-speaking viewers about the Holocaust. The so-called educational video was presented by the Palestinian journalist Muna Hawwa. The Promo-post which was deleted within hours of publishing due to an outrage for engaging in Holocaust denial. The Post reads:

“The gas chambers killed millions of Jews…and so the story goes. So what is the truth of the #Holocuast and how did the Zionist movement benefit from it?”

 Hawwa was suspended and an impression was given ‘she was gone’. But surprisingly, two years, she was back working for AJ channel. She was once again to present a new documentary portraying Hamas as ‘light after darkness’’.  The documentary “Occupation Architecture” was aired on the first anniversary of the Hamas terrorist attacks, a documentary that refer to Oct 7 as the “beginning of the end” of Zionism as the “dawn after the darkness”. On the morning of Oct 7^th Hawwa posted on her social media account the “Barrier of fear to the path of possibility has become a reality”. On March 2024, she rejected Israeli women were raped and tweeted  it’s a “Zionist propaganda” meant to “justify genocide” in Gaza.

The case of Hawwa demonstrate how deeply bias Arab media is against Israel. It’s coverage of Israel even lack the basic journalistic standards of integrity, accuracy and impartiality.  Opinion pieces and news reportages on Israel are characteristically biased. The style of reporting also differ significantly from reporting on none-Israel related story. The editorial guidance instruct journalists to employ emotionally charged words to influence their viewers to favour the Palestinian side. This even more evidential post-Oct 7, in where explicitly AJ has played a key role in depicting Israel as an aggressor while representing Hamas as the victim who fighting against the wicked evil ‘Zionist occupier’. AJ invite guests on-air justify and glorify October 7 and guests who advocate for the removal of Israeli Jews claiming they should go back to Poland and Ukraine. In regards to Israeli terror victims AJ refer to them as settlers or in best case scenario as ‘casualties’. While it has instructed its journalists to use the term Shahid (martyr) to describe every Palestinian death without differentiating between civilians and terrorists. It style guide instructs journalists and presenters alike to use the word “occupation” to label even the 1949 borders internationally recognized as the sovereign State of Israel. It constantly use the demonize derogatory term to describe the Israeli Army “occupation forces” and “baby killers”.

And ironically for peace to happen, Israel need to “commit to coexistence”. Israel has already a number of peace treaties with a number of Arab and Muslim countries. A peace that lack societal support and that is because the leadership in those countries did not prepare and encourage it people for peace with Israel, it’s a simple as that. In fact, I see the exact opposite, a 24/7 campaign of incitement against Israel on TV screens across the Arab-Muslim world. But of course, to much lesser degree in UAE, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, in where its leaders have long realised the danger Qatari media posed to them – a subtle infiltration and soft power to wage war and whip social unrest.

Before we can talk about the expansion of the Abraham Accords. We must confront and contra the hate narrative and refute falsehoods that been running unchecked for decades. Qatar’s continue support and funding of Islamist organizations including Hamas and it’s promotion of Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology are the key to understanding why October 7 happened and why antisemitism is on a pandemic level in some parts of the Arab-Muslim world.