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With tens of Arabic TV channels to choose from, I’ve narrowed my viewing to just two — Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya. Why? Because those have evolved into our Arab world’s trusted flagship networks offering comprehensive reporting and balanced viewpoints. So when a few of my friends called me to suggest I watch a rerun on of one of Hassan Moawad’s Noqtat Nitham (A Point of Order) on Alarabiya.net I didn’t hesitate.
On this occasion, Moawad’s guest was the Egyptian-American founder and president of Arabs for Israel, Nonie Darwish (born Nahed Mustafa Hafez Darwish), who is believed to have written two books with the controversial titles Now they call me an Infidel: Why I renounced jihad for America, Israel and the war on terror and Cruel and usual punishment: The terrifying global implications of Islamic law.
I use the phrase ‘believed to have written’ purposefully because after seeing her shambolic performance on the show, it’s hard to imagine that she’s authored anything with the possible exception of hate-screeds designed to incite die-hard Islamophobes.
Her latest effort is called The devil we don’t know: the dark side of revolutions in the Middle East, penned around the thesis that all Middle East revolutions have been failures since the end of the Ottoman empire. She likens the Arab Spring to what she calls Egypt’s failed 1952 revolution even though that was a popularly-backed military coup — and she erroneously characterises Jamal Abdul Nasser, Hafez Al Assad and Muammar Gaddafi as Islamists.
I didn’t expect to agree with Darwish’s opinions. Nevertheless, I was looking forward to a lively discussion between two knowledgeable individuals. I was impressed by Moawad’s hard-hitting professionalism, but was astonished at Darwish’s sheer ignorance about Islam and Middle East politics.
Anti-Islamic propaganda
The disparity between the debating skills of the host and his guest was akin to Einstein attempting to discuss his Theory of Relativity with Bugs Bunny. As she jiggled her hands about, squirmed in her seat, flicked through her notes in desperation or gazed in the air clutching for answers I might have felt sorry for her if it were not for the baseless anti-Islamic propaganda she was spouting.
Okay, she may have converted to Christianity after moving to the US, but whatever the colour of her passport, Arab blood will always flow through her veins. Her father Mustafa Hafez, an officer in the Egyptian army, was the victim of a targeted killing by Israeli soldiers in 1956 — and was referred to by president Nasser as a “shahid” (martyr).
That man who gave his life for his country would be turning in his grave if he knew that his own flesh-and-blood was going around exonerating his murderers because “the fidayeen were killing Israelis”.
“Your father was one of those fidayeen, does that mean your father was a terrorist,” asked Moawad? She fumbled for a reply before announcing her feeble definition of a terrorist — a person who straps something around their body!
Darwish blasted the youth in Tahrir Square for not demanding separation of religion and state or insisting upon the removal of Article 2 of the constitution that states legislation should conform to the principles of Sharia. But when she was questioned why she neglects to criticise the Jewish state on similar grounds, she was stumped.
Criticism of Israel doesn’t feature in this lady’s manual. In a 2009 interview she regretted that “acts of goodwill and decency by Israel are never mentioned in the media”.
When she was asked what she thought of Terry Jones, the Texas preacher who burned the Quran, she actually equated that heinous act with the burning of the US flag which is the way some Muslims (and others) vent their political frustrations.
Lack of information
She was equally confused about the people behind the ousting of Hosni Mubarak for which she credited the Muslim Brotherhood, forgetting that just a few minutes earlier she had acknowledged that the youth spearheaded the uprising.
She clearly has a bee in her bonnet against Sharia claiming that if Egyptians demand Sharia they should not expect democracy and freedom. There was one moment of levity. She said she’s visited two mosques in the US that advocated an Islamic White House and says British Muslims are out to convert the monarchy to Islam which, according to Ms. Darwish, explains why Islamophobia is rampant in the West.
Illogical self-publicists shouldn’t be given a platform; they merely waste the viewers’ time and, ultimately, undermine the credibility of the network. Salman Rushdie’s book Satanic Verses received little critical acclaim but became a best-seller following the Ayatollah Khomeini’s death sentence fatwa that fattened the author’s pocket.
Darwish is a self-hating non-entity who relishes stomping on her roots. She could be a Mormon, a scientologist or even a Moonie as far as I’m concerned.
There’s an Arabic tale that says it all. When a man called Hanoun, who had a reputation for being useless, converted to Islam, people around said ‘Hanoun didn’t enhance Islam and neither did he damage Christianity’.
I could say the same about Darwish who’s no loss to Islam and no credit to Christianity. She’s no asset to Al Arabiya either. I hope that Moawad grabs a large black marker and crosses her off his guest list.
Khalaf Al Habtoor is a businessman and chairman of Al Habtoor Group.
