A constant and necessary interaction
 Safwat Kahlout

It is often forgotten that Palestinians and Israelis interact not only in their political and military struggle, but in all walks of life--commercial, educational and, not least, the media.

The Israeli media is very important to Palestinians. While the opposite also applies, it is less true. In both cases, the one side likes to follow the media of the other because, like in any place in the world, the media usually has ways of opening doors to political backrooms otherwise unseen. But with no Palestinian journalists allowed into Israel or granted Israeli press accreditation, the Hebrew press by default becomes more important to Palestinians than the Palestinian press to Israelis.

Of the dozens of professional associations throughout the Arab world, each comprising hundreds of experts in a particular field, the journalists' unions are considered to be militant, strong and influential. The professional associations for journalists all over the Arab world stay in close touch with one another, and all are united in maintaining a sweeping boycott of their Israeli colleagues.

Never has an Israeli journalist been allowed entry to the offices of journalists' associations in those Arab countries that are committed to peace treaties with Israel. Members of the unions are strongly advised to avoid visiting Israel. An interview by an Arab journalist, despite the boycott, with an Israeli political personality or public figure is greeted at best with disdain. A journalist from the Arab world who comes to Israel in a professional capacity is likely to be invited to explain himself back home at the union. If he cannot produce a convincing excuse, he could face a tribunal of fellow journalists. In the worst case--and this has happened a number of times--the outcome is expulsion in disgrace from the union, with unbearable professional and personal ramifications: anyone expelled after having been found "guilty" of "normalization with the enemy" will have difficulty finding work that suits his professional abilities and is liable to be ostracized socially.

From the Israeli standpoint this is strange. After all both sides--the journalist from an Arab country and the Israeli journalist--cover exactly the same areas, accompany the same processes and report on the same events. Frequently, the Israeli and the Arab journalist criticize some political figure at the center of a news event in nearly the same language. What could be better than to join hands in collegial cooperation? Such exchanges of information would nurture and enrich the article or report published the next day in the Israeli or Arab media.

I recall one instance in which a senior colleague from Cairo asked me to assist in getting her an interview with the prime minister of Israel. The exclusive interview was published as the lead story in the Egyptian paper and the colleague won praise for the achievement. Two days later, upon my arrival in Cairo, the colleague invited me to a festive luncheon at her home. The tables were laden with good food and the entire family gathered round to meet the guest, who hastened to apologize for the trouble the host had gone to. Then, like in the story of the emperor's new clothes, a young boy from the family revealed the sad side of the narrative: We really wanted, he said, to invite you to a fancy restaurant. But we feared that our appearance together with you in a public place would hurt the career of our relative. We knew that rumors would fly, and she would be invited to explain herself to the journalists union where she could be severely punished.

At another time I was again invited to a family event at the home of a colleague from the Arab world. When it ended we both hurried to a press conference with many participants. We left the colleague's home together, but were careful to drive to the same destination in separate taxis, lest we be caught having met. In yet another instance, I dared phone the editor of a popular Arab paper to request his comment on a scoop he had published. He terminated the conversation angrily, and the next day I read in his paper a prominent report on my "cheek" in having tried to contact the editor-in-chief.

This professional boycott, which is totally unacceptable from the Israeli standpoint, dictates a phenomenon of virtual cooperation within a closed circle. A group of Israeli journalists confronts a bigger group of Arab journalists, most of them veterans with professional reputations. Everyone knows everyone; everyone knows his colleague's professional capabilities. Every morning the work day begins with a meeting on the computer screen, with side A reading the publications of colleagues from side B. Long years' experience dealing with the region's political processes has taught side A, the Israeli, who on side B are the leading journalists with access to the decision-makers, those who get the scoops and exclusive reports. Of course on side B a mirror-image process takes place. Thus Ibrahim Hmeidi, who heads the al-Hayat desk in Damascus, is read by us eagerly. So are Fahed al-Fanek in Amman and the sensational reports by the editor of al-Usbua in Cairo.

One of my colleagues in the Arab world, with whom I have met at international conferences two or three times a years for many years, explained to me: "We serve a cause; we cannot cooperate professionally as long as the Arab conflict with Israel continues." On second thought he added that he also had to think about his professional future. If he were caught having contact with Israeli journalists he was liable to lose his senior position and permanent source of livelihood, along with the opportunity to cover events in Arab states that have no links with Israel. Tell me, he inquired, what would you do in my place?

Thus, for long years we have been quoting in the Israeli media our energetic colleagues from Cairo, Amman, Riyadh and Damascus, while they, for their part, gather information, articles, commentary and expert testimony from the Israeli media. To this day, the media throughout the Arab world devotes much more space to publications, translations, quotations and reports on events in Israel than its Israeli counterpart devotes to Arab issues. The thirst and curiosity in the Arab world to know our situation in Israel is insatiable.

I'm ready to swear that if you wake up one of our Arab colleagues in the middle of the night, he will rattle off without hesitation the names of 20 Israeli journalists on whose reports he relies with eyes closed. But when that same journalist runs into an Israeli colleague, he will make sure to turn his back and keep a safe distance.- Published 14/6/2007 © bitterlemons-international.org

Smadar Perry is Middle East editor of the daily Yediot Aharonot.

The media, by nature, is limited by both language and its relationship to power. These confines do not by any means apply solely to the media of this region. But examining them here is another window into how Hebrew-speakers and Arabs view the world.

The day Pope John Paul II passed away, the popular Hebrew daily Maariv blared "The Pope died" and in smaller letters: "The Christian world cries". Another front-page headline announced that the Holocaust museum Yad Vashem was considering naming the church leader one of the Righteous among the Nations. The article was a navel-gazing report on how the pope had altered the Catholic church's relationship to Israel. Despite being written from the Vatican, it did little to illuminate the pope's wider role in the context of church history. Further, the language used seemed to lump all Christian denominations together. The article was about the pope, but it said a lot more about Israel.

In the Hebrew media, so many Israelis are actors in a specific Israeli drama: Arab citizens are renamed the "minority"; Ethiopian Israelis are shown most often as criminals and unpolished new immigrants; Russians are mobsters and so on. The press's analysis about Palestinians is nearly always siphoned through security sources or translated media clips rather than real live contact.

There is a reason for this. Many of the Israeli journalists who report on Palestinian affairs come from a security background where they have learned Arabic. Once they become journalists, the "way things work" seems to restrict these reporters to cultivating sources either among security personnel or with average Palestinians--the system and personal views don't appear to allow both at the same time. The result is that even within the media, military rationale and Palestinian voices are rarely juxtaposed against one another.

Studies show that Palestinian citizens of Israel, many of them fluent in both Hebrew and Arabic, resoundingly choose self-produced Arabic media as their source for news. They choose the press in which they are present, and have a role other than the "minority".

Why then, do Palestinians in the occupied territories comment that Israel Radio's Arabic news service is more trustworthy than their own media? The Israeli media is perceived as more likely than locally-run Arabic radio stations to know how many Palestinians were arrested in nightly raids, for example. One suspects this is a function of both language and power: when an announcer offers information in Arabic that originates close to the web of controls that govern Palestinian life, that is seen as trustworthy media.

That belief is visible in the press, too. Last week, the Palestinian newspaper Al Quds led its front page with a near-translation from Haaretz describing Israeli settlement policies in Jerusalem's Old City. In few other contexts can one imagine a daily newspaper reprinting a story, maps and all, from another daily published only kilometers away.

In a very real way, as the international Arabic media has expanded, the Palestinian media has grown more meager. The new satellite stations have plucked the best Palestinian reporters and editors for their widely-watched programming. Print journalists reporting daily events to international employers easily make two or three times the salary they would writing their own stories in the local press.

This brain drain has an impact. Copy editors at Palestinian dailies complain that reporters often leave out the usual "who, what, where and when", forcing them to become the true but unnamed authors. Palestinian newspapers are filled with near-press releases, a problem that was starkly illustrated when a Palestinian English daily tried to employ the same techniques. Without the elegance of Arabic to hide behind, articles were stripped down to simple context-less announcements by officials. And who are these officials? Despite the formal entrance of Hamas into the government, the various "bodies" that issue news statements on the political situation remain dominated by Fateh and the factions of the PLO.

One sees how the Palestinian press is also limited by language and its proximity to power. The establishment this year by Hamas of the daily newspaper Filistin is a break with the past, as the movement trains its own journalists and mainstreams sympathetic voices.

Very seldom do the Hebrew and Arabic medias engage each other. Maan in Bethlehem publishes a Hebrew edition of its news website. The news agency believes the service is mostly used by journalists. Periodically, Israeli anchors host Hebrew-speaking Palestinian journalists on their shows. I do not recall ever seeing or hearing a Jewish Israeli reporter on a Palestinian news program; Arabic satellite TV is a stark contrast, however.

But the creeping influence of separation is difficult to ignore. Very few Palestinian journalists in the West Bank and Gaza are given permits allowing access to Israel. For long periods at a time Israeli journalists, including Arab-Israelis, have been blocked by the state from entering the Gaza Strip. And all this week, Israel's Hebrew-language satellite channels have been scrambled in the West Bank--likely from interference from Israel's hovering spy drones.

The vastness of the gap is even audible in a third language. 93.6 Ram FM, an English radio station sponsored by a South African, has offices in Ramallah and Jerusalem and has hired both Palestinian and Israeli reporters. The station has struggled to draft a style guide that isn't a touchstone of controversy ("barrier", "militants", "occupation forces"--any journalist or translator working here knows these challenges well). One of the South African DJs appears often to be wrestling with the boundaries of what is too raunchy for this conservative region, or how to discuss Israeli holidays in a manner that isn't insensitive to Palestinian listeners. When experiences are so different, it is really hard to have a common conversation.-Published 14/6/2007 © bitterlemons-international.org

Charmaine Seitz is former administrative editor of the bitterlemons family of online publications and writes frequently on politics and religion.