It seems that common ground may actually exist between Hamas, the terrorists and newly-elected leaders of the Palestinian Authority, and the administration of President Bush, as Hamas now finds itself facing an antagonistic domestic media.
Never mind the icy winds blowing from the West. The Hamas government’s toughest detractors have popped up at home, criticizing the Islamic militant rulers in Palestinian newspaper cartoons, TV commentaries and radio talk shows.
Most of the Palestinian media are loyal to the Fatah Party, defeated in January parliament elections, and Hamas is getting increasingly upset about the unflattering coverage. Such friction between the government and the media is rare for the Arab world.
The Hamas government has proven an easy target. It’s broke and internationally isolated because of its refusal to moderate its hard-line views, and has been unable to pay the salaries of tens of thousands of government employees.
Hamas remains defiant, claiming it’ll be able to govern without Western aid by persuading Arab and Muslim countries to step in – an assertion ridiculed in the Palestinian media.
A cartoon in the Al Ayyam daily lampooned Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, who told a rally Palestinians would rather live on bread with olives, hyssop and salt than bow to Western demands. The cartoon showed a Palestinian with an empty shopping basket standing before bank cash machines labeled olives, salt and hyssop. He called his wife and, waving his bank card, asked what she wanted for dinner.
Bassem Abu Somayeh, head of the Palestinian Broadcasting Corp., wrote in a recent newspaper commentary that the Hamas government must step down.
And on the private Hurriyeh radio station, commentator Muafaq Mattar suggested sarcastically that Hamas officials who headed to Iran to plead for money bring back Iranian caviar.
“The Palestinian media is clearly biased against Hamas,” complained Mahmoud Ramahi of Hamas, secretary-general of the Palestinian parliament. “What they are doing is not monitoring or criticizing. What they are doing is inciting against Hamas, in the interest of Fatah.”
Pro-Fatah journalists say they are giving equal treatment to all politicians and that Hamas is simply frustrated because it cannot control the media.
“It’s only because they (Hamas) can’t impose their agenda on us, they say we are inciting,” said Mohammed al-Dawoudi, a senior official in the Broadcasting Corp., which runs the Voice of Palestine radio, Palestine TV and the official Wafa news agency.
For now, Fatah and its moderate leader, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, seem to have the upper hand – in part because Abbas took control of the Broadcasting Corp. by decree after the election.
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“The Palestinian media is dominated by Fatah and the main writers are either Fatah or leftists, so it is natural to see the media opposing Hamas,” said Nashat al-Aqtash, a communications professor at Bir Zeit University. “The Palestinian media is now launching a campaign against the Hamas government.”
Ramahi, the Hamas politician, said he no longer grants interviews to the Voice of Palestine morning news show. “The presenters are biased against us,” he said. “They talk to us in order to trap us, bringing someone from Fatah afterward to criticize us without giving us a chance to respond.”
Like Bush, Hamas does have some friendly elements in the media. Unfortunately, whether by fear or shared perceived enemies, Hamas would seem to have a greater chance of improving its coverage. I have little faith in a very large portion of the American media to actually realize where our enemies truly reside in the time remaining for the Bush administration. Or any time soon after that.