Khaled Abu Toameh, an Israeli-Arab journalist and documentary maker came to speak on Wednesday night at the Rutgers College Graduate Student Lounge.
He lectured only for a short amount of time, and began by describing his start in journalism at the PLO’s newspaper. He explained that after he graduated from Hebrew University, it was an obvious choice to leave and go work for a “real” media outlet.
Much of what Toameh spoke about revolved around the lack of freedom of press within the Middle East. He explained that when people ask him how he can work for the Israeli press, he explains to them that to him, it doesn’t matter, since they merely publish what he writes without censoring it, unlike most of the press in the Middle East, which is controlled by dictatorial regimes.
He said he found it sad that there was no free Arab press in the Palestinian territories. He noted that there were many Palestinian journalists who work for the Israeli press, due to lack of an Arab alternative.
Toameh also made some political statements. He said the refusal by some governments to give money to the Hamas-led government is a good idea. However, he criticized the American and Israeli governments for funding and giving weapons to Fatah in order to undermine Hamas. He asked what kind of message that gives to people, when they’re asked to have free and fair elections and then results are disregarded because the conclusion isn’t liked.
Afterwards there was a question and answer session where students asked about journalism in the Middle East and Toameh’s opinion regarding issues from the past year’s Lebanon war to the renovations to the ramp leading to the Temple Mount. He also discussed the positive aspects to Al-Jazeera, that while it serves as a mouth piece for Muslim extremists, it also serves as an open forum to criticize corrupt governments in the Middle East.
Lana Raykin, one of the organizers of the event and a Rutgers Hasbara fellow, explained that she wanted to bring Khaled Abu Toameh because she wanted to show that there are Palestinians with moderate views. Mr. Toameh’s writings are often cited by Israel advocacy groups. Joshua Reback, the previous Hillel Israel Committee president, said that the talk was fairly general and may have merely comforted the crowd into thinking that at least some Palestinians have similar viewpoints. However, he said, he would have preferred to see a more diverse audience which could have engaged in more productive dialogue.
Khaled Abu Toameh is currently on a speaking tour for Hasbara Fellowships, a part of Aish HaTorah. The lecture was sponsored by the Rutgers Hillel, The Journalism department at Rutgers, and Caravan for Democracy. He currently writes regularly for the Jerusalem Post and U.S. News and World Report.