He brought back a few colorful pictures from Mecca, from the Great Mosque, from Mount Arafat, from pilgrims. And he didn’t fail to bring himself into the picture from time to time, on site, authentically, exclusively. The Israeli TV broadcaster Kanal 13 proudly presented the recordings of its reporter Gil Tamary and great fanfare on Monday evening. After all, he was the first Israeli journalist to visit the place in Saudi Arabia that is sacred to Muslims. The problem: Visiting Mecca is forbidden by law for non-Muslims. So it’s no wonder that the recordings have now provoked quite a bit of trouble.
Actually, Tamary’s trip to Saudi Arabia alone was a sensation. Because the kingdom has no relationship with the Jewish state, there is usually no visiting traffic. But Tamary and two other Israeli journalists had been given special permission for the visit of US President Joe Biden, who flew directly from Israel to Saudi Arabia last Friday. Tamary not only used this to report on Biden, but also to have a Saudi driver take him to the city that was forbidden to him.
He was aware of what he was doing and praised himself for the scoop. “This city is closed to any non-Muslim, it’s practically impossible to get in,” he lets his viewers know. “But I managed to find the right person who took the risk to take me on this journey.”
“It’s like walking into a synagogue and reading from the Torah”
He himself may have felt like a daring explorer, perhaps following in the footsteps of British adventurer Richard Francis Burton, who smuggled his way to the Kaaba disguised as a Muslim pilgrim in the 19th century. But under the hashtag “A Jew in the Shrine” it caused a lot of excitement in the here and now.
A Saudi blogger named Mohammed Saud, who in the past has attracted attention for his pro-Israel statements, now complained about ignorance, arrogance and a disregard for Islam. “It’s like walking into a synagogue and reading from the Torah,” he said – and he also received encouragement from Israelis. Issawi Frej, who heads the Ministry for Regional Cooperation as a Muslim, spoke up from the Israeli government. He railed against “irresponsible stupidity” for quota reasons and warned that this could jeopardize the normalization of relations with Saudi Arabia that Israel so desperately wants.
In any case, the friendship between peoples that was just emerging around Biden’s visit certainly did not solidify all of this, especially since the broadcaster, after initial criticism, still insisted that this was an “important journalistic achievement”. In the end, Kanal 13 and Tamary managed to come up with an apology. “It was not intended to hurt Muslims’ feelings,” it said. Minister Frej gave the broadcaster a tip to take with him. For the next report from Mecca they should simply send a Muslim reporter.