A sizeable amount of reporting on Egypt is very biased. It focuses on numerous ills in society that are misinterpreted and generalized. Arab-West Report provides two examples of this in Raymond Ibrahim’s ongoing crusade against Islam and MEMRI’s article that highlights the mudslinging between supporters of the current regime and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Raymond Ibrahim takes examples of violence of extremists who use Islamic arguments to justify their crimes and conveniently provides no information about the millions of Muslims who strongly oppose such violence. It is nothing short of disgusting to read his rants against Islam. See the critique of his writings here.
The de-legitimization campaigns between current regime supporters and Morsi supporters indeed takes place and they indeed use despicable anti-Semitic claims.
There is a multitude of problems Egyptians are facing. Egypt’s economy is in a very poor shape. Support is coming in from the Gulf States and this helps Egypt to continue paying subsidies on food and fuel and pay for the estimated 9 million government employees. Add to this a large percentage of unemployed or people engaged in small jobs to make a living. The number of Egyptians providing added value to the economy is much too small. This is where the real problems for Egypt lie.
Political fights have escalated in a media war in which just anything seems to be allowed. Who cares about the truth in this fight? This propaganda battle has also degraded the other to the extent that violence against the perceived enemy is justified. It is a vicious cycle that Egyptians must bring to an end, but finding a political compromise seems to be now further away than ever.
MEMRI is highlighting the mutual mudslinging that is now taking place. I would rather try to place this mudslinging in a wider context of a media war with violence that should end through efforts of finding a political solution. That means that all parties in Egypt, including the Muslim Brotherhood, should be willing to accept the will of the Egyptian people. Morsi certainly was an elected president, but the dissent against him should have led him to call for new presidential elections on June 30, 2013. That would have avoided the soft coup d’état we witnessed on July 3. The response to the soft coup d’état was resistance; sit-ins, media campaigns, deliberately risking deadly confrontations. Neither party, sadly, seems to have made much of an effort to seek a political compromise. Read more about MEMRI’s reporting here.
Cornelis Hulsman,
Editor-in-chief, Arab-West Report