Al Jazeera AKA "Bin Laden Central"

Israel & Palestine Forum

Here are some excerpts from a lengthy analysis of Al Jezeera by the Arab intellectual Fouad Ajami. The link to the entire article appears at the bottom. Since Al Jezeera is frequently used here as a source for "facts" - I think its appropriate to know where much of the Arab world is getting its information regarding Al Qeada and Israel/Palestine.

"Al-Jazeera, which claims a global audience of 35 million Arabic-speaking viewers, may not officially be the Osama bin Laden Channel—but he is clearly its star, as I learned during an extended viewing of the station's programming in October. The channel's graphics assign him a lead role: there is bin Laden seating on a mat, his submachine gun on his lap; there is bin Laden on horseback in Afghanistan, the brave knight of the Arab world. A huge, glamorous poster of bin Laden's silhouette hangs in the background of the main studio set at Al-Jazeera's headquarters in Doha, the capital of Qatar.

On Al-Jazeera (which means "the Peninsula"), the Hollywoodization of news is indulged with an abandon that would make the Fox News Channel blush. The channel's promos are particularly shameless. One clip juxtaposes a scowling George Bush with a poised, almost dreamy bin Laden; between them is an image of the World Trade Center engulfed in flames. Another promo opens with a glittering shot of the Dome of the Rock. What follows is a feverish montage: a crowd of Israeli settlers dance with unfurled flags, an Israeli soldier fires his rifle, a group of Palestinians display Israeli bullet shells, a Palestinian woman wails, a wounded Arab child lies on a bed. In the climactic image, Palestinian boys carry a banner decrying the shame of the Arab world's silence.

Compared with other Arab media outlets, Al-Jazeera may be more independent—but it is also more inflammatory. For the dark side of the pan-Arab worldview is an aggressive mix of anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism, and these hostilities drive the station's coverage, whether it is reporting on the upheaval in the West Bank or on the American raids on Kandahar. Although Al-Jazeera has sometimes been hailed in the West for being an autonomous Arabic news outlet, it would be a mistake to call it a fair or responsible one. Day in and day out, Al-Jazeera deliberately fans the flames of Muslim outrage.

Consider how Al-Jazeera covered the second intifada, which erupted in September 2000. The story was a godsend for the station; masked Palestinian boys aiming slingshots and stones at Israeli soldiers made for constantly compelling television. The station's coverage of the crisis barely feigned neutrality. The men and women who reported from Israel and Gaza kept careful count of the "martyrs." The channel's policy was firm: Palestinians who fell to Israeli gunfire were martyrs; Israelis killed by Palestinians were Israelis killed by Palestinians. Al-Jazeera's reporters exalted the "children of the stones," giving them the same amount of coverage that MSNBC gave to Monica Lewinsky. The station played and replayed the heart-rending footage of 12-year-old Muhammed al-Durra, who was shot in Gaza and died in his father's arms. The images' ceaseless repetition signaled the arrival of a new, sensational breed of Arab journalism. Even some Palestinians questioned the opportunistic way Al-Jazeera handled the tragic incident. But the channel savored the publicity and the controversy all the same.

Since Sept. 11, I discovered, Al-Jazeera has become only more incendiary. The channel's seething dispatches from the "streets of Kabul" or the "streets of Baghdad" emphasize anti-American feeling. The channel's numerous call-in shows welcomes viewers to express opinions that in the United States would be considered hate speech. And, of course, there is the matter of Al-Jazeera's "exclusive" bin Laden videotapes. On Oct. 7, Al-Jazeera broadcast a chilling message from bin Laden that al-Qaeda had delivered to its Kabul bureau. Dressed in a camouflage jacket over a traditional thoub, bin Laden spoke in ornate Arabic, claiming that the terror attacks of Sept. 11 should be applauded by Muslims. It was a riveting performance-one that was repeated on Nov. 3, when another bin Laden speech aired in full on the station. And just over a week ago [Nov. 8, 2001], Al-Jazeera broadcast a third al-Qaeda tape, this one showcasing the military skills of four young men who were said to be bin Laden's own sons.

What's more, Al-Jazeera is a crafty operation. In covering the Intifada, its broadcasters perfected a sly game—namely, mimicking Western norms of journalistic fairness while pandering to pan-Arab sentiments. In a seemingly open-minded act, Al-Jazeera broke with a widespread taboo of the Arab news media and interviewed Israeli journalists and officials, including Ehud Barak and Shimon Peres. Yet at the same time, it pressed on with unrelenting anti-Zionist reportage that contributed to further alienation between Israelis and Palestinians. What this means is that no matter how many Americans show up on Al-Jazeera, the station will pursue its own oppositional agenda. Al-Jazeera's reporters see themselves as "anti-imperialists." These men and women are convinced that the rulers of the Arab world have given in to American might; these are broadcasters who play to an Arab gallery whose political bitterness they share—and feel. In their eyes, it is an unjust, aggressive war they are covering in Afghanistan. Watching Al-Jazeera makes all of this distressingly clear.

No matter how hard we try, we cannot beat Al-Jazeera at its own game. But one thing is sure: there is no need to reward a channel that has made a name for itself through stridency and anti-Americanism. There is a war on the battlefield, and that is America's to win. But the repair of the Arab political condition—and the weaning of the Arab world away from radicalism—is a burden, and a task, for the Arabs themselves. The only thing America can do is make sure that it never gives this radicalism—and its satellite channel—a helping hand."

http://www.tbsjournal.com/Archives/Spring02/ajami.html

- woolfe

This is tantamount to brainwashing. It's what Arabs are taught their entire lives from birth. Instead of pointing to the countless atrocities they commit against one another, they inflame anti Western sentiment among their people such as you've mentioned above.

I simply believe they will never stop. Israel and the US will always be blamed for something. The US catches hell because of their hypocrisies in the Israeli/Palestinian region.

At any rate, I am not surprised as all I've seen from Al Jazeera is much of the same.

Yes, the scary thing is that elsewhere in the article, Ajami mentions that Al Jazeera is probably less biased than most other major Arab news outlets.

Moderate Muslims will tell you that there is no such thing as free thought in the Islamic world, particularly the Arab-Islamic world. Everything is basically party line, from news broadcasts to political speeches to even children's programming. That is the key and crux of the entire problem, the tension between the west and the Islamic world. It is impossible to have a common understanding with someone whose perception of reality is so far off from actual events. Heck, if I lived in one of those countries and believed everything I was told, I might support Hamas and Al Qaeda too.

- woolfe

Al Jazera backs Iraqi insurgents and fundamentalist. They claim unbiased reporting. If you believe that, you also believe Ssaddam had no WMD.
How else can they get video and photos of them attacking Iraqis and coalition fighters?

It amazes me how American Media can continue to show close up and intimate videos of the enemy attacking our own troops. No outrage about that I see.

A good post, woolfe. Quite frankly, this surprises me. It is a shame. I have read many unbiased articles on the Al-Jazeera website, which have been posted on this forum before.

Media accused of Iraq bias
By Roshan Muhammed Salih

Monday 28 June 2004, 3:41 Makka Time, 0:41 GMT

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/rdonlyres/05D7943D-1055-4851-8447-5F94CC8AD26B/41350/7651FD8F335D49F89C376330B428FB2F.jpg
The media is accused of swallowing the military line

During the US siege of the Iraqi town of Falluja in April, a journalist reporting from the city claimed the international media was telling the world the wrong story.

American occupation forces said they had entered the town to flush out a small number of "Saddam loyalists" and "terrorists" after four US security contractors were killed and mutilated.

But Rahul Mahajan, an anti-war activist who was one of the few independent reporters inside the battered city, rejected the official version of events which the world's media was reporting as fact.

The truth is rather different, he said. The Falluja resistance was not a small group of isolated "extremists" repudiated by the majority of the town's population.

Rather, Falluja had been in revolt against occupation since last year when US troops opened fire on a group of 100 to 200 peaceful protesters, killing 15.

Like other independent journalists and media professionals, Mahajan says many of the big western broadcasters and newspapers are failing to tell the world what is really happening in Iraq.

They allege that major media players, such as CNN and the BBC, rely too heavily on official occupation authority sources at the expense of Iraqi opinion.

So much so that the line between objective journalism and partiality is often blurred.

Iraq reports

Opponents of the US-led invasion of Iraq claim recent revelations and several pieces of research prove that western media has slipped off the journalistic fence when it comes to reporting on Iraq.

A few weeks ago, the New York Times's ombudsman said the paper had been used in a "cunning campaign" by those who wanted the world to believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

David Okrent reported that some of the paper's stories in the run up to last year's war pushed the Pentagon line so aggressively "you could almost sense epaulets sprouting on the shoulders of editors".

And your response to allegations of bias at Al Jazeera is what TWBR?

The fact about western coverage of the Iraq war is that is was overly positive at the outset. Now the coverage is very anti-Bush, anti-Iraq. You can hardly find a pro-Bush piece anywhere in a western newspaper these days.

I think it's a hoot that Al Jazeera, of all organizations, accuses the wesern media of bias. We don't need Al Jazeera to do that, because we criticize ourselves for it all the time. Even the media has criticized ITS OWN coverage of the war, with the NY Times printing an editorial saying that they were sloppy in not being more critical about Bush's claims of WMD's prior to the war. Find me a single article in ANY Arab publication that criticizes its own spouting of the party line and I'll take notice. Al Jazeera should be examining its own coverage before examining the coverage of others. Journalists have a responsibility to be objective - that means cleaning your own house before you try to clean the houses of others.

In the west, we have a phenomenon called "self-criticism." Its unheard in the Arab world, a bizarre and alien concept. It's why we criticize our own media, and its why Israelis and AMericans criticize their own government. Our media is far from perfect, but for the most part, it TRIES to be objective. The same cannot be said of Arab media.

- woolfe

The Al'Jazeera that he describes is not the Al'Jazeera that i see, i really dont care what your boyfriend Fouad Ajami has to say, i've seen how Al'Jazeera works and how they report the incidents.

Yep, Al Jazeera is reporting it just like it is......

Oh cut us all a break here TW. If they were reporting actual events as they are, you would cease to use them as one of your "credible" sources.

What exactly is the great fuss about?

Al-Jazeera is Arab news - it's bound to have a slight bias. TWBR is right for giving a link to the news on their perspective.

Then he gives the link to Ha'aretz, an Israeli paper who I applaud for its honest reporting.

Then he gives the Washington Post..so it's the story from the Zionist side.

Then there's the BBC..more interesting. For a while now, everyone has thought it is biased against Israel.

But in the JC (British Jewish paper, Jewish Chronicle) a study that made the front page, into the entire BBC reporting structure, has provided damning evidence to show in fact BBC is pro-Israel. They constantly allot more time to interviewing Zionists, and pro-Israel reporters.

They also rarely let Palestinians be interviewed on TV.


So..Al-Jazeera has a bias..so what? Every news/paper has a bias!

I dont really care what people have to say about Al'Jazeera, when we have news sources like CNN, FOX, and BBC, how dare people critize Al'Jazeera?

There is no Arab party line, there is the truth, and this Arab has found himself in the lost side.

Dont talk about the Arab nature, ok?

I don't think he has to speak of "Arab nature". You're a shinning example that speaks clearly for itself.

As for biased news reporting, Al Jazeera is no contest. Sure the news agencies you posted may be biased but nothing close to the rhetoric of Al Jazeera. You're just one Arab in the millions in the M.E. that agrees with them because of it.

What else is new?