DUBAI, 29 April — Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said here yesterday that the Arab countries must finance a global media campaign to explain their position on the Middle East conflict.
In his keynote speech to the Second Arab Media Summit, organized here by the Dubai Press Club, Moussa pleaded in favor of a united Arab information strategy. “We have to admit that the Arabs have not succeeded in fighting the denigration campaign against them following the Sept. 11 anti-US attacks,” Moussa told the hundreds of Arab and Western journalists attending the forum.
“We need to address the West with a new mentality and modern methods to counter this campaign. We have to adopt a unified strategy,” he said, stressing that Arab states had not invested enough in the field of information.
“Arab countries’ hesitation to take on the financial burden has so far been the main obstacle” to the setting up of such a strategy, the Arab League chief said in his speech.
Opening the two-day gathering, Dubai Crown Prince and United Arab Emirates Defense Minister Sheikh Mohammad ibn Rashed Al-Maktoum, urged participants to find news ways for “dialogue and cooperation between the Arab and Western media and thinkers.”
“No one can do away with preconceived notions and mistaken beliefs, but we can prevent them from overruling the voice of reason,” he said, referring to the unfair portrayal of Arabs and Muslims by Western media in the wake of the September attacks on the United States.
Moussa said the Arab world was passing through a dangerous period that requires a united stance from all Arab countries. He reaffirmed the right of the people of Palestine to resist occupation as long as the occupier remains in Arab lands, up to the line of June 4, 1967, and added that the Arab League and its members would never accept the position that resistance to occupation was terrorism.
Speaking about the vilification campaign being pursued by Israel against the Palestinian struggle, Moussa said Israel is portraying the intifada as a Bin Laden-type terrorist campaign.
“The situation has taken on a dangerous turn. The measures taken by the Israelis as seen in Jenin have been aimed at hiding the truth. Israel has marketed this portrayal effectively,” he said.
Moussa’s speech was followed by a debate on “How Western media views the Arab world and how it has changed since Sept. 11.”
French journalist-cum-diplomat Eric Rouleau, a household name in the Arab world, won the warmest applause for his “European perspective” of the bloody Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the French media’s handling of Sept. 11, not least when he spoke of the Palestinians’ right to resist the Israeli occupation, including through armed struggle.
He pointed out that 99 percent of Western academics and journalists do not read Arabic, do not know what is going on, but, as most educated Arab speakers understand English and French, they have a greater advantage.
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, on an unscheduled appearance, stole the show when he walked out after he came under criticism for his pro-Israel bias, with some picking up an admission in his address that as a columnist, he is “paid to have an opinion.”
“I will not sit here and listen to that garbage,” Friedman said.
The US journalist was later persuaded to return to the forum.
