Journalist discusses Middle East conflict

According to Khaled Toameh, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has been "going in the wrong direction ever since the peace process started."

Toameh, an award-winning Israeli-Arab journalist, spoke on Monday in Houston Hall's Hall of Flags about the situation in the Middle East. The talk was organized by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America and was just one in a series of 13 campus visits Toameh will be making this year.

Toameh is an Arab-Muslim with Palestinian roots who currently lives in Jerusalem. He has worked as a journalist for 27 years, writing for organizations such as The Wall Street Journal, NBC and the Palestine Liberation Organization. He now writes for The Jerusalem Post.

According to College freshman Josh Belfer, the Penn representative for CAMERA, Toameh's diverse background affords his viewpoint increased legitimacy.

Toameh emphasized that the peace process marked by the drawing up of the Oslo Accords has been a complete failure. He explained that there is no real Palestinian partner for Israel to negotiate with as a result of the divisions within Palestine, specifically those between Hamas and Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah in the West Bank area.

Consequently, Toameh said, change must occur on the Palestinian side. He said he believes forcing the involvement of Egypt in Gaza and Jordan in the West Bank to enforce law and order is the only way to induce this change.

Toameh also discussed the reasons for the radicalization of the Palestinian people, Hamas' electoral victory and the essential impossibility of Hamas changing its ideology.

He touched upon the dearth of media freedom in Palestine and the danger associated with his style of reporting.

"I am not pro-Israel or pro-Palestine," Toameh said. "I am fine working for any newspaper as long as it provides me with a free platform."

He criticized the sometimes ignorant reporting done by foreign journalists in the Middle East. News content worldwide regularly features stories written by reporters who are physically not on the scene, he said, which makes for poorly-researched stories.

Students responded enthusiastically to Toameh's ideas. Engineering freshman Aaron Roth said he read Toameh's articles in the English edition of The Jerusalem Post before attending the talk.

He said he really enjoyed hearing Toameh speak in person, adding that he demonstrated a "very good perception of the situation."

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