A Note on Al-Hayat and Some Background

In my last post I quoted Juan Cole quoting Al-Hayat, and linked to the Al-Hayat website. After posting it occurred to me that this is an opportunity to do something I hope we will do regularly on this MEI blog: give the necessary background to those of you who may be new to the region or trying to learn more.

Obviously if someone quoted the Washington Post on something and then the Washington Times, the two papers' rather opposite political leanings would usually already be familiar to a US (or at least a Washington) reader. But Western newspapers, bloggers, and others regularly quote the Middle Eastern media without explaining the nature of the source, their political leanings, ownership, etc., which, obviously, are important in interpreting the content. I hope to fill in precisely that kind of background intelligence, when I can, in what we're trying to do here.

Al-Hayat ("Life" in Arabic) today is a London-based international Arab daily. It began life as a Beirut daily after World War II when it was founded by Kamel Mroue (pronounced Muh-ROE-wuh) , a Lebanese Shi'ite. Mroue was assassinated in 1966; the paper was run by his family until the Lebanese Civil War when it and its English sister-publication the Daily Star ceased publication. It was restarted in the 1980s by Kamel's son Jamil Mroue as an international Arab daily with satellite publication throughout the Arab world and in the West. It developed into one of the most intellectually challenging and politically diverse Arab dailies.

In 1990 the paper was purchased by Prince Khalid bin Sultan, son of the Saudi Defense Minister and best known in this country for commanding Saudi Forces in Desert Storm in 1991, and now Assistant Defense Minister for Military Affairs (translation: he runs the military). The purchase did not affect the overall editorial content of the paper although, of course, it doesn't generally criticize Saudi Arabia or praise the Kingdom's enemies. (It has also continued to have solid coverage of Lebanon, though the revived paper has been based in London since its reappearance.)

Al-Hayat's reporting is generally a lot more solid and a lot more reliable than many newspapers in the region, and is very professionally edited. It had at one time and may still have a Jerusalem bureau.

When I cite newspapers or other regional media in this blog, I hope to be able to occasionally offer this kind of introductory background.

A little personal full disclosure here since I've said positive things about the paper: back in the 1980s when Jamil Mroue was resurrecting Al-Hayat he also hoped to restart the Daily Star (though he didn't do so until the 90s I think). He offered me the job of Beirut City Editor. I didn't take it -- he made the offer just before the Marine Barracks bombing as I recall, or perhaps the US Embassy bombing. He didn't restart the Daily Star at that time, and Mroue no longer owns al-Hayat (though I think he still owns the Daily Star, whose website has apparently not been updated for two weeks, apparently due to some sort of legal action). Former MEI President Ned Walker wrote a column for a while for al-Hayat, and one or two of my pieces for the MEI website were picked up by the Daily Star, but I think any conflict of interest is fairly remote. The point is that al-Hayat is a highly respected paper, and that's not just my personal view.

Those of you who read Arabic certainly will already know al-Hayat, but for those who don't the Dar al-Hayat website does have an English language site. The Arabic site is here.

And yes, we'll have a links list and blogroll on this site soon, I hope.