This article originally appeared on Israel National News.
Yes, Charlie Hebdo published crude, offensive, insensitive cartoons ridiculing Muslims and Muhammed. This link will show you a huge selection of their past covers and every reasonable person can understand why they would be upsetting to Muslims. Many pundits who have pointed out that while they certainly had the right to publish and even the right offend, it is understandable that a lot of people were upset by their work.
Perhaps nowhere is this more the case than in the Arab media. Arab papers are full of complaints about the nature of Charlie Hebdo’s work. Al Jazeera’s English’s executive producer Salah-Aldeen Khadr sent an email where he wrote:
Defending freedom of expression in the face of oppression is one thing; insisting on the right to be obnoxious and offensive just because you can is infantile.
Doha-based reporter Mohamed Vall went even further:
“What Charlie Hebdo did was not free speech it was an abuse of free speech in my opinion, go back to the cartoons and have a look at them! It’s not [sic] about what the drawing said, it was about how they said it.”
Finally, an Al Jazeera reporter Omar Al Saleh made sure his message was heard loud and clear:
First i condemn the brutal killing. But I AM NOT CHARLIE.
JOURNALISM IS NOT A CRIME
INSULTISM IS NOT JOURNALISM
AND NOT DOING JOURNALISM PROPERLY IS CRIME
Really? All “Insultism” or just that which insults Muslims? Because as a Jew living in Israel, I am sick to death of seeing cartoons of hook-nosed, baby killing Jews in the Arab press. I am sick of seeing Muslim “scholars” on Arab television referring to Jews as Pigs and Monkeys. I am tired of the “documentaries” denying the Holocaust that are a staple of broadcast media throughout the Arab world.
Al Jazeera, where have all your condemnations on Anti-Semitism been?
Here is what Al Jazeera ended up broadcasting. An entire show with a variety of experts all saying the same thing: Journalists should be careful not to offend.
Can anyone show me a single example, a single editorial on Al Jezeera or any other Arab media that condemns the depiction of Jews?
Check out the many examples of naked anti-Semitism that have been catalogued by groups like MEMRI or PMW.
Why is the first picture below acceptable but the second one is not?
You can’t have it both ways. If you believe that offending based on religion is out of bounds for journalists, then you need to apply that standard everywhere. Because otherwise you are not acting based on principle. You are acting based on cowardice.
Just because we don’t believe in murdering journalists, doesn’t make anti-Semitism ok.
Image: CC BY-NC flickr/paloetic
