One of the major international battles is fought in the media. Countries and establishments deftly exploit newspapers, radio and television to promote their strategic and tactical interests. A striking feature of the media coverage these days is that they mostly focus on the Middle East affairs. The US and Israel believe that media are as vital as F16s, Tomahawks, Apaches and guided missiles to establish their sway over the region.
Bombing a country or deploying tanks in a city in the region may require prior Congressional approval or have to pass through several official formalities. On the other hand, a premeditated leaking of some secret, intelligence report or an economic scam to the media would damage the enemy’s interests more effectively than the most devastating weapons.
The profound impact of the media on international relations has been brought to the fore far more forcefully following the Sept. 11 events. The media have been the most trusted ally in achieving several undeclared objectives. Gigantic and complex schemes affecting an entire region or the whole world have been implemented with the help of the media.
The United States is trying to change the public opinion in the Arab and Muslim world in its favor, destroy governments or destabilize the countries which it deems are its enemies and, perhaps, even to change the course of the region’s history. The US and its allies want to plunge the Middle East into a state of chaos in order to redraw the map of the region in their favor, and to install some stooges as rulers who can be controlled from outside. The US recently launched the Sawa radio station with an apparent aim of swaying the younger Arab generation to support US interests. It also aims at sidelining the major Arab-Israeli conflict as though it is an inconsequential issue. Its news bulletins focus on matters concerning White House and the Likud party of Israel. There are also attempts at distorting the news related to the Arab world.
The next step in the US media campaign to lure away the Arab youth will be an Arabic TV station. The US believes that it will influence the thinking style of the Arab and Muslim public. The station is apparently part of an American global communications apparatus. The earlier proposal was to set up a strategic influence office. The apparatus would, reportedly, use all possible methods to mislead the international public with one-sided opinion while painting a picture of Arabs and Muslims as evil.
Israel too has launched an Arabic TV station with the objective of influencing the Arab public opinion. The Zionist state believes that the station can, over a period of years, make the Likud’s expansionist agenda acceptable to the Arabs.
In a counter move, Iran has launched a David Radio in Hebrew with the aim of influencing the Jews in Israel. Israeli analysts fear that the station might succeed to influence the Israeli public more than their Arabic TV stations can.
The contribution of the Arab side to the international media war has rather been meager. Though Arabs own more than 70 satellite channels, which can cover the whole globe, in addition to hundreds of publications reaching nearly all major cities in the world, we are at the receiving end. We are always denying and disapproving and condemning, never making a worthwhile effort to influence world opinion. The Arab media succeed only in campaigns against themselves.
While the enemy media have been warping the international opinion with false information about us we are continuing our wake up calls to the Arab intellectuals to beware of the conspiracies around us.
11 August 2002
