Palestine in the Egyptian Press: From al-Ahram to al-Ahali

401 Pages·2007·1.4 MB·English

by  Ghada Hashem Talhami

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Palestine in the
Egyptian Press
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Palestine in the
Egyptian Press
From Al-Ahram to Al-Ahali
Ghada Hashem Talhami
LEXINGTON BOOKS
A division of
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
Lanham •Boulder •New York •Toronto •Plymouth, UK
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LEXINGTON BOOKS
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Awholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
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Copyright © 2007 by Lexington Books
First paperback edition 2010
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission
of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The hardback edition of this book was previously cataloged by the Library of
Congress as follows:
Talhami, Ghada Hashem.
Palestine in the Egyptian press : from al-Ahram to al-Ahali / Ghada Hashem
Talhami.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Palestine—Press coverage—Egypt. 2. Palestinian Arabs—Press coverage—
Egypt. I. Title.
DS113.6.T35 2007
956.9405—dc22 2007013859
ISBN: 978-0-7391-1784-2 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN: 978-0-7391-1785-9 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN: 978-0-7391-5863-0 (electronic)
Printed in the United States of America
(cid:2)
™
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper
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“In reality, the emergence of the Zionist threat in the form of an Israeli
state at the edge of Sinai and along the Negev Desert was destined to …
make the Palestine question develop as one of the essential concerns of
the Egyptian National movement. By the early 1950s, this question be-
came one of the three sides of the triangular Egyptian movement after
those of complete decolonization and the Sudan question.”
—Awatef Abd al-Rahman,
Al-Sahafah al-Arabiyyah fi muwajahat al-ikhtiraq al-Sahyouni
(The Arab Press Confronts Zionist Penetration)
(Cairo: Dar al-Fikr al-Arabi, 1996), 159.
“Allow me to mention quickly the close relationship which exists be-
tween the Zionist enemy and the suspension of basic freedoms in Egypt.
Since 1948, the curse of Israel has been pursuing basic freedoms in Egypt.
The war against Israel became the ‘courage’ which is used by our rulers
to justify declaring emergency laws and extending them time and again.”
—Nabil al-Hilali, in Amina Rashid, ed.,
Al-Hurriyah al-fikriyah wa al-academiyah fi Misr
(Intellectual and Academic Freedom in Egypt)
(Cairo: Markaz al-Buhuth al-Arabiyyah, 2000), 142.
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Contents
Preface ix
1 Introduction: Opinion, Queen of the World 1
2 Opinion Journalism and the Beginning of
Egyptian Nationalism 25
3 The Press Defines the Liberal Phase 57
4 The Flowering and the Decline of the Private and Party Press 101
5 Nasser’s Palestinian Passion: Advocating with One Voice 161
6 Sadat Plays Circus Master to a Liberated Press 205
7 Mubarak, the Press, and the Consequences of Camp David 271
8 Heikal: AJournalist for Most Seasons 337
9 Conclusion: Palestine, Policy, and the Printed Word 347
Endnotes 351
Appendix Journal Titles in Translation 371
Bibliography 375
Index 381
About the Author 387
vii
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Preface
In the modern age, a state that inhibits the growth of a free press risks
being relegated to the margins of democratic development. Effectively,
it will be devoid of unfettered mechanisms to gauge the state of the na-
tion. As dictatorships, autocracies and oligarchies have discovered, the
absence of a free press also hampers the effort of the state to communicate
and mobilize. The uniqueness of the press is that it is capable of channel-
ing commands and information from the top down, as well as from the
bottom up. Modernizing states, as is the case of most Middle Eastern
countries today, find themselves constantly struggling against the de-
mands and articulations of the press as a self-appointed guardian of the
public interest. As a reflection of public opinion and sentiment, the press
can move people to action, withhold legitimacy from failed regimes, de-
mand the adoption of certain policies, or engage in a contestation of
power. What the press cannot be is a decorative and decorous institution.
In the Middle East, even the feminist press, which began by focusing on
manners, the home life, and the individual woman, emerged later on as
the voice of an ideologically consequential movement. Despite profes-
sional standards and requisite emphasis on newsgathering and informa-
tion, the press can never be totally neutral, especially in the current con-
ditions of the turbulent Middle East.
Egypt enjoys the longest familiarity with this institution in the Arab
World. As the first state in the Middle East to confront the military power
and advanced and enlightened civilization of revolutionary France,Egypt
had no choice but to seek national mobilization in order to escape perma-
nent defeat. Indeed, the birth of the Egyptian press accompanied the rise
ix