On January 16th 2015, The Ma’an News Agency published an article titled “For some Palestiniancartoonists. Religion is off limits”. The article reports on the responses of
Palestinian cartoonists to the events surrounding the terrorist attack at the
Charlie Hebdo Magazine at its Paris
headquarters on January 7th that left 12 dead and 11 injured. The
attack was orchestrated by two French Muslim brothers who claimed to be
religiously motivated to perform their attack to avenge the prophet Mohammed
whom the magazine often mocked alongside a variety of religious and political
leaders. The article focuses more
specifically on the attitudes of 3 Palestinian cartoonists (Mohammad Sabaaneh,
Ramzy Taweel, and Baha al Boukhari) towards both the terrorist attack and the
content of the Charlie Hebdo controversial issues. All three Palestinians
shared two main points of view;1) that the attack was a terrible tragedy and, 2) that while they defend free speech and
condemn the violence they do not agree with the content that Charlie Hebdo published
concerning the Prophet Mohammed. The first half of the article was concerned
with this disapproval of both the attack and the magazines issues.
The second
half of the article is separated by the bolded quote 'The pen and the smile' and
focuses on the reasons why the Palestinian cartoonists are upset and what they
think the response should have been. They believe that while free speech is
important, faith and religion is a touchy subject that should be avoided by any
aspect of mockery or satire. While some found it flat out offensive to depict
the Prophet Muhammad in that way, they all agreed that violence is and was not the
answer. Instead the Palestinian cartoonists believed that those offended should
let it go, shrug it off, or as Mohammad Sabaaneh put it “combat idea with idea,
cartoons with cartoons”. All 3 Palestinian cartoonists involved in this article
acted upon this last suggestion, each publishing their own cartoon response to
the events and circumstances surrounding the terrorist attack (Mohammad Sabaaneh, Baha al Boukhari, Ramzy Taweel)
The article summarized above was written by John Davison who is a
journalistic contributor to AFP news agency. From the style in which Davison
writes, one can presume that his point of view is disapproving of the religious
based cartoons produced by Charlie Hebdo and sympathetic towards the Palestinian
cartoonists. His point of view is not expressed blatantly but in the structure
of his writing and his narrow area of focus. First, Davison structures the article
in a way that portrays the Palestinian cartoonists in a positive protagonistic “fighting
the true fight the right way” kind of light. Each cartoonist is first quoted
saying something loving and positive and then only after is quoted mentioning a
critical aspect, a sugar coating technique. Second, the narrow minded nature of
the article is expressed in the first half of its title “For some Palestinian
Cartoonists”. The opinions of this article are based off of 3 cartoonists from Gaza responding to an
event involving Islamic extremism. The only reason this tiny demographics point
of view was chosen by the author was because while the majority of the cartoon industry
and world had overwhelming and complete support for Charlie Hebdo (Je Suis Charlie), these Palestinian cartoonists criticized the magazine even in the
wake of the tragedy. Besides the three cartoonists, Davison also mentions that
the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Mohammad Hussein criticized the Charlie Hebdo comic
calling it an insult to a third of the world. The four sources for this article
are all extremely one sided and form a specific niche of opinion. Thus Davison with
bias writes from the point of view that is both supportive of the Palestinian
cartoonists and critical of Charlie Hebdo.
Regardless of the authors’ point of view, the
sources used are all legitimate in the sense that the facts presented are
factual. All of sources are cartoonists from Palestine (illustrator
Mohammad Sabaaneh of the newspaper al-Hayat al-Jadida, free-lance Palestinian cartoonist
Ramzy Taweel, and the veteran illustrator Baha al Boukhari of the daily Al-Ayyam). The Ma’an News Agency that
posted the article is the largest independent media group in the West bank and Gaza strip. While Ma’an is
popular in Palestine
the company has been criticized for having an anti-Semitic tone. This tone was shown in the article when Davison mentions that it is
widely believed that the famous Palestinian cartoonist Naji al-Ali was
assassinated by Israel ’s
Mossad intelligence services. While this rumor of Israeli involvement exists
nothing has ever been proven with concern to who murdered al-Ali and therefore the
inclusion of the claim is suspicious.
On the other hand the article was originally published by AFP (Agence France‑Presse) which is one of the oldest
international news agencies in the world.
AFP has a respectable history of trustworthy journalism which gives the article
and its data legitimacy. In my opinion this articles legitimacy is not the problem
but the narrow minded viewpoint is what makes the article insufficient reading
for getting a well rounded understanding of the issue.
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