Thursday, January 11, 2007

Radio Sawa - Again



Israel's latest Arab Minister, Ghaleb Majadle, in a screenshot of his profile on the Arabic language version website of the Israeli Knesset

Listening to Radio Sawa today, I was again reminded of the dire need for this American-owned Arabic language radio station in the Middle East. In a broadcast today (morning, Eastern Standard Time), the radio station reported the recent appointment of Ghaleb Majadle, a (Muslim) Arab member of the Knesset with the Labour party, to the position of Minister of Science, Culture and Sport. Sawa then described the border-line racist criticisms of the appointment by members of Avigdor Lieberman's "Israel Beitenu" party. However, rather than focusing exclusively on the statements of Lieberman's populists, the Radio Sawa article linked to the broadcast also printed the denunciations of the remarks made by members of the Labour party and by Mikhael Eitan of the Likud:

من جانبه أعرب النائب مايل إيتان من حزب الليكود المعارض عن رفضه لما وصفها بالتصريحات العنصرية وقال إنه لا يمكن أن يقبلها أي شخص مؤمن بالمساواة والديموقراطية.

[For his part, [Knesset] representative [Mikhael] Eitan from the opposition Likud Party rejected what he described as racist statements and said that they are unacceptable for anyone who believes in equality and democracy].

I'm sure that mainstream Arab news outlets, including al-Jazeera, will not even cover this event, or will focus only on the outrageous comments by the clowns of Israel Beitenu. A quick Google search that I ran for غالب مجادل (Ghaleb Majadle, the name of the Arab Minister) and a look at al-Jazeera's site actually revealed nothing.

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