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Wednesday, October 03, 2012

The Mona Eltahawy story everyone is missing

I have mostly stayed away from the silly story of two gigantic egos clashing underneath the streets of New York City, as Egyptian-American journalist Mona Eltahawy announced to the world her plans to vandalize a pro-Israel subway poster put up by blogger Pam Geller. Apparently Eltahawy believed that a poster that was clearly against jihadists was insulting to every Arab worldwide, which tells you a little about her mindset.

Perhaps the best commentary on the kerfuffle was written by Petra Marquardt-Bigman in two separate articles. Read them both.

There is one aspect of the story that no one seems to be talking about, though.

Eltahawy is a reporter. And she has done some important work in exposing the sickening sexism in the Arab world (even exposing people who she might call "savage.")

But journalists are not supposed to become stories. Moreover, they should never actively seek to become stories. Doing a stunt like Eltahawy did is anathema to real journalists  Any journalist that pulls a publicity stunt like Mona did should be branded as utterly unable to maintain even a pretense of objectivity.

In any sane world, Eltahawy's journalism career should be over.

The question is - is it? 

Or are adamantly anti-Israel positions consistent with the types of media Eltahawy usually writes for?