Today in Camera: Analysis Misses Forest, May not Even See the Trees
Here is the article from AFP that is in question:
Egypt’s Islamist president-elect, Mohammed Mursi, has pledged to strengthen ties with Iran to build a “strategic balance in the region,” according to an interview excerpt given by Iran’s Fars news agency on Monday.
“Part of my agenda is the development of ties between Iran and Egypt that will create a strategic balance in the region,” Mursi, who comes from Egypt’s long-repressed Muslim Brotherhood, was quoted as saying.
Fars, which is close to Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards, said the full interview would be published later.
It said Mursi spoke with a Fars reporter in Cairo on Sunday before results were released giving him victory in the election to be Egypt’s next president.
Although Mursi resigned from the Muslim Brotherhood to take the top job, Israel is wary of his election, fearing his Islamist record could jeopardize its three-decade peace deal with its huge neighbor.
Any tie-up between Egypt and Iran would alarm Israel and its ally the United States.
Iran’s foreign ministry on Sunday welcomed Mursi’s triumph. Its message made no mention, however, of Iran and Egypt resuming diplomatic ties that have been cut since 1980, the year after Cairo signed its peace agreement with Tel Aviv.
Iran’s clerical leadership contends that the Arab Spring that toppled veteran Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak and other longtime U.S. allies in the Arab world last year was inspired by its own 1979 Islamic revolution.
Although Iran’s predominant faith is Shiite Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood adheres to the Sunni branch of Islam, Tehran has been reaching out to the organization in Egypt in recent months.
Iran’s armed forces chief of staff, General Hassan Firouzabadi, on Monday was quoted by IRNA echoing the Muslim Brotherhood’s rejection of moves by Egypt’s military to dissolve the Islamist-led parliament and to give itself greater say over government policy and the constitution.
“The actions of the military council in Egypt, which considers itself to be selected by Mubarak, lack legal validity and political legitimacy,” Firouzabadi said.
Camera’s analysis focuses on the paragraph in bold. The problem? The article refers to Israel’s capital as Tel Aviv instead of Jerusalem. Implied, there are nefarious anti-Israel fumes at AFP.
Now, as real life has it, Tel Aviv seems to have a pretty darned good reputation right now, as opposed to Israel the nation, and the ongoing battle over Jerusalem. Is the AFP doing Israel a favor or are they stirring up anti-Israel sentiment? It’s not clear. What is clear is that the AFP is actually focusing on a much larger and more significant issue of a possible alliance between Egypt and Iran. And the AFP could make a very reasonable case that they were trying to do so and avoid the very distractions that Camera is pointing out.
Once again, if one’s goal is to make people aware of the linguistic techniques of manipulation, it would be a good strategy not to employ the very techniques one wishes would vanish.