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Profs
Blame Pro-Israel Bias for Stereotyping Muslims
by Andrew Harrod
FrontPage Magazine
July 31, 2014
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Arabs and Muslims have an image problem in
media and entertainment as a result of a pro-Israel political
agenda. So claimed Edmund
Ghareeb and Jack
Shaheen, professors at American and New York Universities,
respectively, on June 11, 2014, before an audience of forty middle-aged
individuals at Washington, D.C. Jerusalem
Fund think tank.
Ghareeb and Shaheen's presentation, "Portraying Arabs: 30 Years
Later," commemorated their respective 1984
publications, Split
Vision: The Portrayal of Arabs in the American Media and The
TV Arab. Drawing upon personal experiences, Ghareeb decried
a "lack of balance" in Middle East news coverage in
Israel's favor, although groups such as CAMERA and Honest
Reporting routinely demonstrate the reverse. According
to Ghareeb, this allegedly biased media stereotyping "dehumanizes
a people" and "allows for the use of force" against Arabs.
As evidence for this dubious claim, Ghareeb relied upon equally
dubious sources such as Senator William Fulbright, who announced on
television in 1973 that "Israel
controls the United States Senate" and later became a registered
lobbyist for Saudi Arabia. Ghareeb also praised the reporting of
Peter
Jennings as an isolated example of balanced Middle East coverage
and labeled Orientalism author Edward Said an
"important figure" for writing, Covering
Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest
of the World. He then cited Muhammad
Hassanein Heikal, longtime editor of Egypt's semiofficial Al
Ahram newspaper and government minister under Egyptian dictator
Gamal Abdel Nasser, two individuals who inspired little confidence.
Shaheen began his presentation by recounting how, in
1974, his children told him about "bad Arabs on
television," prompting him to study Arabs and Muslims in
popular entertainment. For his interest in this subject, Shaheen claimed
he was "tagged the Arab professor" and had his
research dismissed as "not academic; it's propaganda."
A Rockford Files producer, meanwhile, allegedly
rejected his interview request with the statement, "I hate
Arabs."
Hollywood prejudice has now "spread its wings" from Arab
Muslims to Muslims in general. Shaheen claimed, noting in a subsequent
article on the event that "Islamophobia [has] joined
Arabophobia." He objected to headlines involving
"Islamist extremists" in stories where Islam is not a
factor, although he neglected to provide any examples. He did
concede that, when pertinent, religion "should be part of the
story."
Shaheen alleged that "people who have a political
agenda" play a significant role in creating such stereotypes, while
entertainment involving an "Israeli connection" is
"pervasive." Eight
seasons of the television crime show NCIS, he noted,
featured American intelligence cooperation with an Israeli Mossad
agent, not with a Palestinian or Yemeni agent. Yet despite CIA
cooperation with Palestinian and Yemeni agents, American ties with Israel
are clearly much stronger and mention of them in a TV show involving
spies simply reflects reality. Vaguely referenced "friends of
Israel" in the media are "much more influential,
powerful," than their opponents, Ghareeb added conspiratorially.
After the event, this reporter asked whether there was an analogy
with consistently negative portrayals of Germans, given their
authoritarian and aggressive past. Shaheen called this a
"totally different issue." He then
reiterated his 2002 Nightline comments that
Americans "were at war with a country" in the World Wars and
not with Islam's supposedly "lunatic fringe,
al-Qaeda." Yet decades-long conflict with various Islamic
terrorist organizations and dictatorial regimes is hardly a
"fringe" phenomenon.
Undeniably, Hollywood's dream factory and the media can stand
more realism, but Shaheen and Ghareeb's often cartoonish views condemning
a supposed pro-Israel political agenda offer little benefit. Substantial
evidence of anti-Israel media bias, however, does exist, and despite
Ghareeb and Shaheen's dubious sources and wishful thinking, art
does, in fact, imitate life when it depicts violence among
Arabs and other Muslims. Ignoring these facts in deference to the
professors' fantasies would be the real fiction.
Andrew E. Harrod is a freelance researcher and writer who holds a
PhD from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a JD from George
Washington University Law School. He is a fellow with the Lawfare Project;
follow him on twitter at @AEHarrod. He wrote this essay for Campus Watch, a project
of the Middle East Forum.
This
text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an
integral whole with complete and accurate information provided about its
author, date, place of publication, and original URL.
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