Kesher Talk

American Muslim Council threatens Jewish journalist: Forward reporter Eli Kintisch had a nasty run-in with the AMC recently, as he describes it in the American Prospect Online:

On Friday, June 28, I attended the annual convention of the American Muslim Council (AMC) , an organization with which I have a pretty good professional relationship. I was there covering a story about Muslims in American politics. But when I attended a panel called "American Muslims in the Media," Abdurahman Alamoudi, a former executive director of the group, approached me and asked if I wanted to talk about the story outside.

Out in the foyer, I interviewed him, as I have in the past, and then thanked him and returned to the session. At the time, members of the 100-plus in attendance were asking questions at the microphone; one was saying something about September 11 and the question of who was behind the attacks. Before I had a chance to sit down, Alamoudi approached me again.

"It is not good for your health that you are here," he told me suddenly. I was confused. Was he threatening me? He repeated what he said, and I felt immediately intimidated. It was clear he was worried about what the audience members were saying at the microphone, and about how I would report on their comments. "They are not aware that you are here," he explained.

"We have a small problem with the Forward," he added when we had gotten back out to the foyer, explaining that in his opinion the paper had given the AMC unfair coverage in the past. When I told him I thought I had seen another reporter inside, he went inside to check, then returned to say he didn't know of any other reporters there. (Actually, the four panelists on the stage were journalists themselves, including Joyce Davis of Knight Ridder and Barbara Ferguson of the Arab News.)

Alamoudi went on to explain that if I wanted, he would "get up and tell them that a reporter from the Forward" was there. Given his first comment about my "health" and the possibility that he would somehow incite the crowd against me, I decided to leave.

On Monday, Alamoudi backtracked. "We've been burned [in the past,]" he said, adding that "out of goodwill " it was required that the people in the room knew the media was present, "especially the Jewish media."

Could you imagine, I asked him, the outrage that would have followed if an official at a Jewish organization had kicked a reporter from an Arab paper out of an event? He apologized, saying he retracted any comment that I may have found threatening. "Sometimes people flare up," he told me, referring to the crowd. "I just wanted to protect us, the council, and you from that."

... Alamoudi may have been inclined to muzzle me because he's "been burned" in the past himself. In 2000, he told a Washington rally that "we are all supporters of Hamas." He added that he supported Hizbollah. Alamoudi says that he supports Hamas for its humanitarian efforts. In 1995 in The Washington Post, however, he defended Hamas leader Abu Marzook as "a moderate man on many issues. If you see him, he is like a child." American authorities deported Marzook to Jordan in 1997 after an American judge found probable cause that he had he had helped plan 10 terrorist attacks against Israeli targets.

I wish my run-in with Alamoudi, mentioned in this week's Weekly Standard, was an isolated case. But for all of my good relationships with officials at Arab-American organizations, Arab reporters and Arab diplomats, many members of the "other side" in town won't speak to me. Some Arab reporters in town are unwilling to meet a Jewish reporter, and I've never gotten my calls returned from Saudi, Syrian or Iranian diplomats here.

And yet, after all this crap, Kintisch still remains lost without a clue. He discusses the freedom of America, where journalists can attend anything they want. Then he contrasts that with the lack of media freedom in the Arab world:

The same cannot be said, sadly, of the Arab and Muslim world. According to international watchdog Freedom House, 11 of the 14 countries in the Middle East are "not free" with regards to the media. (The Washington Post reported recently that the Syrian government allows a satirical play in Damascus to poke fun at the regime -- as long as it refrains from mentioning the name of President/Dictator Bashar Assad.)

Ding ding ding! Kintisch, do you suppose that, just maybe, these Middle Eastern nations are "not free" in any respect?

Or do ordinary people not matter, only journalists?

posted by Howard @ 7/19/2002 09:04:33 AM