WikiLeaks may be breaking new ground to promote freedom of information by releasing leaked US diplomatic cables, but Arab governments have been resorting to old tricks to ensure that nothing too damaging reaches their subjects.
Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and Morocco have all tried to stem the flow of Wiki-revelations, whether the subject is corruption, authoritarianism or simply the embarrassment of having private exchanges with American interlocutors enter the public domain.
There is certainly an appetite for reading state secrets.
Stories about the business interests of the king of Morocco and the nepotism of the unpopular president of Tunisia – both countries normally attract little interest in Britain - generated heavy traffic on the Guardian website.
But Le Monde, whose Francophone audience cares far more about the Maghreb, found its print edition banned from Morocco.
Spain's El Pais, another of the five media partners in the WikiLeaks enterprise, was banned too. So was Al-Quds Al-Arabi, the independent London-based pan-Arab daily which has been following up on the stories from the start.
Elaph, a Saudi-run website, was mysteriously hacked when it ran a piece about King Abdullah's sensational calls on the US to attack Iran to destroy its nuclear programme.
Lebanon's Al-Akhbar , a leftist and pro-Hizbullah paper, pulled off quite a trick: it somehow obtained unauthorised leaks from the WikiLeaks cache, posting 250 US cables from eight Arab countries on its website – only to find that it was cyber-attacked (and replaced by a shimmering pink Saudi girl chat room) when it published one of two devastatingly frank documents about President Ben Ali of Tunisia, who reinforced his country's reputation as the most internet-unfriendly in the region. "This is a professional job," said publisher Hassan Khalil, "not the work of some geek sitting in his bedroom."
In Arab countries where the media is state-controlled and even privately owned outlets exercise self-censorship to stay within well-defined red lines, outright censorship is usually a last resort.
So in Egypt, for example, there was little coverage of WikiLeaked material about the presidential succession, the role of the army and Hosni Mubarak's hostility to Hamas – all highly sensitive issues, though the independent Al-Masry Al-Youm did run some cables that were passed on by Al-Akhbar in Beirut.
In Syria, where newspapers are state-controlled, and the only privately owned paper is owned by a wealthy and powerful regime crony, one official insisted there was nothing discomfiting in WikiLeaks because "what we say behind closed doors is exactly the same as what we advocate publicly".
That's true enough when it comes to fierce hostility to any criticism of Syria's domestic affairs and its support for the "resistance" in Lebanon and Palestine. But the cables did show President Bashar al-Assad bluntly denying all knowledge of Scud missile deliveries to Hezbollah in the face of what the Americans called "disturbing and weighty evidence to the contrary".
Pro-western Jordan escaped serious embarrassment but Yemen's government faced awkward questions in parliament about its private admission of lying about US air strikes against al-Qaida – as well as concern that President Ali Abdullah Saleh's fondness for whisky would give ammunition to his Islamist critics. No one knew quite what to make of a document showing he had asked the Saudi air force to target the HQ of a senior Yemeni army commander.
Overall, Arab reactions to the WikiLeaks flood have been a mixture of the dismissive and the fascinated.
Some wondered why there are so few damaging revelations about Israel – giving rise to at least one conspiracy theory about collusion between Julian Assange and Binyamin Netanyahu. Others were disgusted if not really surprised at evidence of double-talk by the leaders who are quoted in the cables.
In many cases, it is striking to see the contrast between well-informed, warts-and-all American assessments of the Arab autocracies and the limited efforts made by the US to promote democracy and human rights.
Standing back to survey the big picture as the WikiLeaks effect fades in the Middle East, there are two other striking conclusions: one is the enormous scale of the US effort to contain Iran and its friends. The other – related – one is the sheer intimacy of US links to Israel.
The much-remarked dearth of documents about the Palestinian issue reflects still relatively low US priorities, a lack of contact with Hamas-ruled Gaza, and ties with Israel that are conducted through secure defence and intelligence channels or directly with the White House.
The US embassy in Tel Aviv is an inadequate prism through which to view a genuinely special relationship. No wonder that Netanyahu, unlike many Arab leaders, hasn't been too bothered by what WikiLeaks told us.
Comments in chronological order (Total 38 comments)
17 December 2010 3:43PM
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17 December 2010 3:54PM
The article missed an important point. Tunisia, before blocking access to the Lebanese al-akhbar website has blocked access to Google App Engine (GAE) in order to block the website tunileaks.appspot.com which is publishing tens of "unauthorised leaks from the WikiLeaks".
Last week, Tunisia also banned posterous.com blogging platform after the publishing of many cables and a pdf files containing tens of leaked cables from the US embassy in Tunis.
for more info about Tunileaks see:
- Foreign Policy Magazine
- The Next Web.
- Global Voices
Best
17 December 2010 3:59PM
The world's weathly elite have been caught!!!... And now they are trying to hide it!!.. shame shame
In reality they care very little about their religions, their countries or their people.. their one and only concern is money, and all that it can bring them...
The Wikileaks cables are just connecting all the dots!!!..
17 December 2010 4:12PM
"Egypt, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and Morocco"...
Interesting... Its Arab "moderate" dictatorships and kingdoms together with their main sponsor - USA are the ones who fight the flow of information to the masses.
Nothing new for those who can think independently.... but may open eyes to some who had any illusions before.
"In many cases it is striking to see the contrast between well-informed, warts-and-all American assessments of the Arab autocracies and the limited efforts made by the US to promote democracy and human rights."
Striking ... but well known to all who wanted to know.
17 December 2010 4:23PM
I am, for one, very much interested in putting the spotlight on a Saudi Arabia - the most reactionary messianic promoter of Islamic extremism in the world. This regime has money and backing of the West. The same West which is up to its nose mired in the "Great World Ward On Terror" which exactly plays into SA hands.
I wonder if there where ever any analogy in history.
17 December 2010 4:45PM
Ah, the same "wise" and "moderate" Arabs regimes that neoconservatives like to quote when they want to bomb Iran.
17 December 2010 4:45PM
"somehow obtained unauthorised leaks from the WikiLeaks cache"
Really is this true?
17 December 2010 5:04PM
it is likely that they obtained it from wikileaks. Wikileaks is on the record as stating that in order to speed up the leaking process they will work with news organizations throughout the world to publish country specific leaks.
17 December 2010 5:05PM
Your paranoid comments about US-Israeli relationship in the last few paragraphs demonstrates clearly that there is no such thing as total transparency with the conspiracy theorists.
If everything is open and transparent, there must be a hidden reason why it is.
There must be a cure for such a disease. But I hope not because I think it makes life that much more interesting.
17 December 2010 5:23PM
Not to mention the Saudi Royal hooker and blow parties.
17 December 2010 5:41PM
One thing that wikileaks has exposed is the very close, if secret, ties that Israel has to Saudi Arabia and the UAE. So much for Israel being alone in a sea of enemies - they have close ties with half the Middle East...
17 December 2010 6:28PM
Takriz has been publishing, relaying and mirroring all wikileaks material for a long time even before op. cablegates. We were able to channel relevant information on print, email etc. to bypass censorship as we've been doing for 10 years plus. We're as well conducting operations to leak internal tunisian documents. All in all we're supportative of WL and find all the Israel hoax that's been used today by some dictators like Ben Ali to cut trust on WL very weak and not significant to the situation in Tunisia and the Maghreb in general. What's funny though is that all the big 'democracies' care less about what's happening in the Maghreb and provide 0 support for independents with high values like our group because we're pseudonymous.
17 December 2010 6:42PM
Hi,
If Julian Assange come from New Zealand, his web site should have been called Kiwileaks.I refer to Morocco, a country i know well. Most of the leaks about that country have already been told by the local newspapiers.
If you want to know about any arab country... just ask the people in the street. you wil learn more than what wikileaks has leaked.
17 December 2010 7:06PM
The "conspiracy theory about collusion between Julian Assange and Binyamin Netanyahu" is more interesting than just looking at the untranslated Arabic page would suggest. The article is by Leah Abramovitch, an Israeli investigative journalist; the site is a Syrian secular exile paper hosted in the west; and in the article she claims that Assange's ex no. 2, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, told her that Assange had met Israeli officials in Switzerland and made a deal to suppress Israel-related material. Now, this may very well be completely untrue, but if so, then either Domscheit-Berg is lying, which is a matter of some concern, or Abramovitch is lying, in which case one wonders why.
17 December 2010 9:13PM
Israel is a remarkably transparent society. Nobody finds it necessary to keep secrets. Ergo, there are apparently no secrets to be revealed.
How disappointing for the those who lust after Israel's blood.
17 December 2010 9:24PM
FergusQuadro:
Giggle.
Could we have Mordechai Vanunu's response to your post here, please?
No? Ummmm... why was that, again?
17 December 2010 10:57PM
FergusQuadro
"Israel is a remarkably transparent society. Nobody finds it necessary to keep secrets. Ergo, there are apparently no secrets to be revealed.
How disappointing for the those who lust after Israel's blood"
how ridiculous to imply that israel has no secrets,
shall we start w/ the truth about its nuclear weapons ???
18 December 2010 1:08AM
redmeat
17 December 2010 5:23PM
Not to mention the Saudi Royal hooker and blow parties.
Didn't we see that already in the 1985 movie St. Elmo's Fire when the character Jules needs to be "rescued" from a coke party held at a swanky hotel by Saudi royal businessmen?
18 December 2010 3:52AM
Mr. Richard Perle is not only the enemy of the US, he is the biggest enemy of Israel. Iran is nothing like the little thing that Saddam Hussein had in Iraq. If Israel ever attempts to strike Iran, all hell will break loose in the Middle East. This time, Israel will never have a chance to recover and will reach its end. And it will all be the doing of Richard Perle, a devout Zionist and an Israeli subject.
18 December 2010 5:21AM
its like that in the US too we are limited here we have to goto this site to get leaks and there trying to pass laws like china has now to filter the Internet the people are slowly waking up but i hope its not to late
18 December 2010 6:09AM
larsp
17 December 2010 10:57PM
Precisely. How much of a secret is it if even you know about them.
18 December 2010 6:17AM
Israeli subject? Nope. The implication that Zionism is a religion is very interesting but hardly relevant.
18 December 2010 10:54AM
Revealing leaks...I wonder where Al-Jazeera features in all this?
18 December 2010 11:32AM
Uhh...no. It's nothing like this in the US. There have been no newspapers banned, there's nothing blocked on our home internet and I'm quite certain there's no China-like filtration system being considered nor would it withstand any sort of legal challenge. Get a sense of perspective.
18 December 2010 2:35PM
What nonsense is written about Israel by this reporter
1. The obvious reason that there have been no shocks in wikileaks about Israel is because the country has one of the highest par capta number of foreign correspondents visiting and writing about it for the last 30 years ...... for those who doubt this note the regularity of articles inthe guardian........any chance for dirt on natanyahu, settlers of liberman is hot newsandthe hamas and abbas are also good entertainment.
2. Israeli society and its media in particular is very varied, interrogative and opinionated ....much more than britain relating to national security matters ... eg the haaretz is well written but very anti natanyahu and the right wing , the jerusalem post is more centre and the israel today is pro natanyahu there are also papers linked to the religious parties communists and arab citizens with their own built in bias the tv stations are basically left to centre in their biases.
3. The politicians in the knesset in general love to run and tell all the gossip to their favourite newspaper and in return get a favourable press ....so the critical wikileaks comment on natanyahu (isnt reliable to keep his word) is met by a shrug of the shoulders although it is a serious critism.
18 December 2010 2:46PM
sanfran douglas
your comment on vannunu PROVES the point about the transparency of Israeli society ..few secrets are hermetically kept...... who doesnt know about the pictures that vannunnu claims to have wanted published ..............vannunnu is openly living in Israel ( and occassionally making a scene)....... all be it under court orders as a traitor who passed on state secrets.
18 December 2010 6:13PM
I just did a Google News search for Daniel Domscheit-Berg, and although he has spoken to a number of news sources since Dec 6, when the Lia Abramovitch article appeared, he has neither repeated nor denied making the allegation about Assange meeting Israeli officials in Switzerland and agreeing to suppress Israeli-related material. No one has asked him about it, either. That in itself is odd. If he never made this allegation, and Abramovitch made it up, I would have expected him to deny having made it, and if he did make the allegation, I would have expected him to repeat it.
18 December 2010 9:43PM
It is so tiresome to have these simplistic and/or false comments posted again and again re Israel, e.g. CAPLAN and FergusQuadro. I will just comment on one of the falsehood: the determined pacifist Mordechai Vanunu is not living 'openly' in Israel at all., despite having served an 18 year sentence for revealing details of Israel's secret nuclear weapons programme. Since his release from prison in 2004 he is under constant surveillance, and is subject to the following 'court orders' Caplan tosses in:
* he shall not be able to have contacts with citizens of other countries but Israel
* he shall not use phones
* he shall not own cellullar phones
* he shall not have access to the Internet
* he shall not approach or enter embassies and consulates
* he shall not come within 500 metres of any international border crossing
* he shall not visit any port of entry and airport
* he shall not leave the State of Israel
Last Sunday Vanunu was supposed to receive the prestigious Carl-von-Ossietzky Medal in Berlin but although many requests were made by the International League of Human Rights and other important individuals and political and human rights groups, Israel did not even bother to answer the requests. They intend to punish him for the rest of his life.
Caplan clearly considers the pacifist Vanunu a traitor. Rather like Sarah Palin in regard to Assange.
19 December 2010 3:16AM
@CAPLAN: Do you have any idea how much you sound just like a "good German" and how bitterly ironic that is?
Israel's behavior WRT Vanunu (and the complicity of the western "democracies" in that behavior) is utterly morally reprehensible. It is indefensible--and to attempt to defend it is to forfeit any claim to seriousness among serious people.
19 December 2010 6:44AM
FergusQuadro,
I can understand that you are pro-Israel,however,I really wonder why you come out with statements such as
I ask you why the hyperbole?
19 December 2010 4:41PM
1.Vanunnu signed A BINDING DOCUMENT that he would not reveal state secrets AS A CONDITION OF HIS OBTAINING WORK IN DIMONA. He is no pacifist because he served in a COMBAT unit in the Israeli army ( perhaps even killed people as a soldier) and when it suited him got a job in nuclear plant that is generally suspected since 1960 to have elements that are not totally civilian.
2. He openly tried and succedded in revealing state secrets FOR MONEY.
3. He is thus a disloyal citizen and a traitor in deed as well as in word
Perhaps in other countries at war spies are given free access to internet , phones,borders crossings and are allowed to recieve medals for their crimes PERHAPS THEY ALSO GET RICE CRISPIES ,TOFFEE APPLES AND A TRIP TO THE CIRCUS EVERY MONTH.... however in other countries they are shot.
I suggest that vanunnu is being treated too leniently however you are free to disagree ... remember lord haw haw and how Britain hung him after the war and all he did was speak on the radio without giving AWAY ANY SECRETS.
19 December 2010 5:27PM
Regarding the comment that vannunu is not living openly in Israel ..note that he is not in jail and as ILLUNINATIONS 1000 has noted has the ability to have contact with the7,000,000 other citizens of Israel face to face...... sorry that that is not enough for him.
19 December 2010 5:41PM
Ian Black is half right when it comes to saudi arabia: elaph website was/is blocked... but not for its reporting of wikileaks as mentioned in this article. I am writing my comments right now, from riyadh, on this topic while doing my daily run of the guardian's latest coverage of wikileaks.
19 December 2010 7:38PM
FergusQuadro
"Israel is a remarkably transparent society. Nobody finds it necessary to keep secrets. Ergo, there are apparently no secrets to be revealed.
Faking foreign nationals' passports and offing political opponents in hotels,sure israel is a bastion of democracy and freedom!!
19 December 2010 7:53PM
kaldek
do you know why elaph was blocked?
20 December 2010 6:16AM
FergusQuadro
. Couldn't be further from the truth.
Israeli style "transparency": Bill to Suppress Information about Serious Breaches of International Law"
Fact is that Israel is an extremely secretive society. This is why groups such as Breaking the Silence emerged. The authorities tried to silence these Israeli soldiers exposing Israeli crimes against the Palestinians.
The Israeli secrecy culture is demonstrated in the lengthy battle by Gisha to force Israel to reveal 'that the blockade of Gaza is state policy intended to inflict collective punishment, not to bolster Israeli “security”': Putting the Palestinians on a Diet
Israel is littered with torturing centres many are in the middle of cities and towns, but for years there was hardly little exposure of their dark secretes. For example, torture and abuse of Palestinians were routinely carried out in the Russian Compound in the centre of Jerusalem. I met a few of its victims, including a 13 yrs old girl.
Israel is a remarkably NOT transparent society, which is why the identity of those buried in the mass grave at Jacob's Daughters Bridge and the circumstances in which they died [subsequent to the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon] have never been exposed.
20 December 2010 6:32AM
Julian Assang committed same crime as JESUS CHRIST,unfortunately he is going to be CRUCIFIED by same forces.JULIAN is going to be new CHE...LONG LIVE JULIAN...
20 December 2010 10:37AM
Wikileaks splashed out on Sunday with twelve cables from Tel Aviv, all classified 'Secret' except for one which was 'Secret/Noforn'. Still nothing from 2006, a year otherwise full of cables. This reinforces Domscheit-Berg's reported allegation that Assange agreed to suppress cables relating to the 2006 ‘Second Lebanon War’. Also note that the series ends before the beginning of the 2009/10 Gaza incursion. There have been two previous cables released dating from Dec 2009, but they are also pre the Gaza incursion.