What happened in Iraq on Saturday?

You all know where to go to get the best update on what happened in the Iraqi provincial elections on Saturday, right?  Juan Cole, obviously.  He’s so good.

Arab media on the American elections

From the Angry Arab News Service:

Did you notice: Saudi media are exhibiting clearer preference for Sen. McCain. Why should that surprise you? It is has to do with many reasons including sexism and racism in the royal family. Join me in calling on King `Abdullah to release his slaves.

I can’t imagine why that would be really, unless it simply is the sexism and racism of the Saudis. Maybe they feel like McCain represents something familiar, they know whom they will be dealing with, whereas Obama or Hillary are somehow new and scary. An interesting observation, though.

Problem Set

Haaretz quotes Ehud Olmert responding to statements from the EU‘s Slovenian presidency and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon this way:

In response to criticism from abroad that Israel is using excessive force in Gaza and killing civilians, Olmert said at the meeting: “Israel is defending its residents in the South, and with all due respect, nothing will prevent it from defending them, and no one has a right to preach to us for acting in self-defense.”
(It’s at the bottom of the story.)

While Al Jazeera quotes Olmert this way:

Ehud Olmert, Israel’s prime minister, said: “Nothing will prevent us from continuing activities to defend our residents. No one has the right to preach morals to the state of Israel for taking elementary steps of self-defence.”

(It’s in this story.)

The quotes are essentially the same and it’s probably just a matter of translation, though Haaretz includes “with all due respect” and Al Jazeera adds “morals.” But since I happened to be reading the two stories simultaneously, my eye caught the discrepancy.

Does this represent: a) the imperfection of language? b) the innate bias of the media? Or c) the multiple realities created by the pluralization of communication in our postmodern society?

I don’t know. But it’s something to think about.

al Tuesday al Super

An Election ’08 update from the Middle East.