Yes, Michael Pugliese, internet addict knows how think tanks/marginal media outlets work. That's fantastic, I'm really glad for you. Most people don't, and its barely noted in the mainstream media (british, or US).
1) Yes there's a lot of racism in mass media in Arab countries, BUT ITS NOT ALL THERE IS. MEMRI deliberately selects ONLY the racist stuff. They do not translate the other stuff. I could select stuff from the British press to make it seem like everyone here hates America and is racist. Obviously that would be a distortion, but hey, all's fair in mainstream think tanks and media outlets.
2) There's some pretty nasty stuff in the Israeli media also. Not as bad as the worst of Arab media, but leaves a very bad taste, nonetheless.
3) MEMRI are really not that upront about where they come from (did you read the article, or just skim it)? If you dig you can work it out. Most people don't dig.
4) MEMRI's translation of the Saudi's poem (the suicide bomber one) may have been technically accurate, but still distorted the spirit of the poem. I don't know, but I've read stuff in several places that suggests that it was more decrying the Arab leaders for making suicide bombers the best hope. I don't speak Arabic, so I can't comment. However I know how poorly poetry typically translates.
-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-admin at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-admin at lbo-talk.org]On Behalf Of Michael Pugliese Sent: Monday, November 10, 2003 7:34 AM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Selective MEMRI
On Sun, 09 Nov 2003 22:56:58 -0800, Joseph Wanzala <jwanzala at hotmail.com> wrote:
> ?!?! how does this relate to my original post?
Ah, me be elliptical again.
With all the caveats (not Alexander Haig's, mind you!) that Mark Whittaker had there, I did not find his piece in the Guardian or Observer, all that damning about MEMRI. It was like all too much media criticism from the left that acts all outraged that mainstream think tanks and media outlets reinforce dominant perceptions and narrative tropes. MEMRI are upfront about where they are coming from, after all. And, Whittaker does say that no one questions their translations. If there wasn't so much truly repulsive anti-semitism in alot of the mass media in Arab countries, there would be less for MEMRI and groups like CAMERA (which is really ugly explicitly right-wing Zionist agit-prop) to use against Arabs.
Not as if Edward Said didn't condemn often in Al-Ahram, Arab anti- semites like whemn he condemned the Lebanese Writers Union who had scheduled a Holocaust Revisionist conference a few yrs. ago.