Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on August 28, 2013

By Shoshana Bryen

Al-Jazeera is breaking in with something we think is unique, and are confident, with our guts and some research, that the American people are looking for, according to its Americas president Kate OBrian. If she is claiming guts and research are among the qualities sought by American viewers, she may be right, although what puts Al-Jazeera uniquely in a position to provide either is unclear. In a Time.com article, Al-Jazeera political analyst Marwan Bishara worried that it would become too American, with too many American accents and watered down journalism hardly the stuff of unique guts.

The real concern for American viewers is not the quality of the product on the screen, but rather two mostly hidden issues: the government behind the network, and the difference between Al-Jazeeras Arabic and English versions.

To Americans, Al-Jazeera purports to be the equivalent of CNN or Fox or MSNBC an independent purveyor of news. Yes, Americans know that most media leans left and a little bit of it leans right, but the networks themselves are generally free of government manipulation. Al-Jazeera, however, is a wholly owned arm of the Government of Qatar. The State Department describes Qatar as an hereditary constitutional monarchy governed by the ruling Al Thani family in consultation with a council of ministers, an appointed advisory council, and an elected municipal council. (In other words, a dictatorship, and the switch from the elder Al Thani last month to his son this month may be no change at all.)

This is not CNN, but Pravda; not Fox, but Izvestia. When Americans watched Soviet propaganda masquerading as news during the Cold War, they were aware of its source and aware of its biases toward communism and against free markets and free systems. The British government openly and proudly owns the BBC, and while the corporations mandate is to provide impartial public service broadcasting, viewers know what theyre measuring against.

What should viewers know about Qatar that might impact how Al-Jazeera covers news?

First, Qatar is a supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood. The elder Emir was the first head of state to visit Hamas, the Palestinian offshoot of the Brotherhood and an entry on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations. While there, he offered Hamas $450 million. Separately, Qatar announced a $1 billion Heritage Fund to protect the Arabic and Islamic heritage of Jerusalem. Apparently there is no Jewish heritage in the city needing protection. Qatar funded Libyan rebels, many of whom were al Qaeda-related and who followed battle in Libya with the war in Mali. Qatar, in conjunction with Brotherhood-leaning Turkey, has spent $1-3 billion on Syrian rebels, with concerns that some part of more than 70 plane-loads of Qatari-supplied weapons found their way into the hands of the al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat al Nusra as well as Muslim Brotherhood forces.

Crucially, during the Egyptian upheaval, Al-Jazeera has been understood to be on the Brotherhoods side against the al-Sisi government. In July, 22 Al-Jazeera Cairo staff members quit, accusing the station of airing lies and misleading viewers. Former anchor Karem Mahmoud said there was biased coverage and the management in Doha provokes sedition among the Egyptian people and has an agenda against Egypt and other Arab countries. He added that the channels management instructed the staff to favor the Brotherhood.

To make its own preferred political point, Al-Jazeera has stooped to the sort of phony journalism that has characterized coverage of supposed Hamas injuries in Gaza. On Tuesday, Al-Jazeera ran a clip of a Morsi supporter with a bandage around his head and a blood-soaked compress on his stomach. The patient, however, forgot to let the local medic in on the scam, and as the bloody gauze is taken away and the bloody shirt lifted to treat the wound, there simply is no wound. The patient then lifts his leg and shoves the attendant away, irritated. The clip has more than 2.2 million hits on YouTube.

The second problem is that Al-Jazeera in English is not Al-Jazeera in Arabic. Historian Harold Rhode explains:

See original here:
Beware Al-Jazeera Coming to America

Category: Jewish American Heritage Month
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