What perception does the west have about Muslims, and how do Palestinians think the western countries feel about Islam? What impression did the last election results in Palestine make in Britain? These are some of the topics the videoconference held on Tuesday, 21 March 2006 between An-Najah National University and the University of Cardiff aimed to debate. The video conference was organized by the British Council Office in Nablus. During more than 90 minutes, teachers, students and journalists of both sides debated about the image of Islam and the Palestinian conflict and its relation with the current media coverage. With the purpose of fostering an understanding of the feelings the current situation raises on both sides and to get some clues about how to improve the access of western journalists to accurate information.
In relation to this last point, the problems international journalists face when approaching Palestinian government sources was pointed out, who consequently have access only to the Israeli point of view. In addition to this, the difficulty in getting the Palestinian people’s opinion about current affairs due to their isolation because of checkpoints, travelling prohibitions and so on, leads to a lack of reflection of the majority’s voice in western media. Therefore international journalists are struggling to hear Palestinian stories and their point of view on what’s happening. This shortage of the Palestinian’s view point in western media easily turns into a one-sided reflection of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that moreover affects the image of Islam and terrorism in the West.
However, as Dr. Farid Abu Duheer, teacher in the Journalism Department of An-Najah National University, indicated, foreign journalists often stay in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv and produce their news from there. As a result, he said “they have a different perception because they cover it from the distance, not in the field”, thus “not accurately reflecting the situation”. On the other hand, as some students of Cardiff University said, there’s a general fear by western journalists of facing troubles while reporting from Palestinian territories, while Israel provides good conditions for journalists, making them feel safe.
Dr. Abdeljawad Abdeljawad, teacher from An-Najah’s Journalism Department, stressed the importance of international journalists coming to Palestinian territories despite the potential difficulties they will have to face here, in order to gain first-hand knowledge of the situation and work as eye-witnesses rather than on external sources. If this, however, is difficult or sometimes not possible, “at least they should not rely on Israeli sources and be critical in their reports”. “They can come to us, but we can’t go to them”, he concludes.
Another problem journalists have to face is the eagerness of today’s media for news and pictures that focus on war, clashes and military conflicts, something that not only reflects Palestinians as radicals and militants, but also does not take into account the other part of the story, the majority of peoples feelings.
When asked by Alaa Yousef, Coordinator of the Youth Exchange Program at An-Najah’s Public Relations Department, if Hamas activities and ideology was seen as Al Qaeda’s, students and teacher’s of Cardiff University agreed that generally speaking, western media give a bad image of Hamas and do not give this political party a chance to let them show what they can do. But still, in their opinion Hamas was usually not perceived as Al-Qaeda. The bad image of Hamas in the west raises many concerns among Palestinians, who criticise the fact that despite the transparency of the last elections, western countries do not accept Hamas’s raise to power, and so the people’s will. ”The west says: we want democracy, but only the one we like”. On this topic an engineering student at An-Najah summarizes his feelings, and he adds: “Why else, if an Islamic party wins the elections, they don’t like it?” A student of the English Department adds: