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Al-Jazeera Stokes Fires in the Middle East
17.7.2006
By Cliff Kincaid - July 16, 2006 |
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In
the same way that Al-Jazeera television has
complicated the prospect of a U.S. victory in Iraq,
the channel has dramatically increased the Islamic
terrorist threat to Israel, helping to produce the
conflagration we are now witnessing. The U.S. and
Israel will not be able to win this global war on
terrorism unless the role of Al-Jazeera in
radicalizing Arabs and Muslims throughout the world
is recognized and addressed.
In the U.S., Accuracy in Media is redoubling its
effort to keep the English-language Al-Jazeera out
of U.S. media markets. If Al-Jazeera International
is allowed to reach English-speaking Arabs and
Muslims in the U.S. with its incendiary messages, we
could see suicide bombings on the streets of America
and the development of more al-Qaeda cells plotting
9/11-type terrorist attacks. |
Cliff Kincaid is Editor of Accuracy in Media
Photo:AIM |
The
AIM "Terror Television" DVD shows the channel's
first managing director, while in Iraq, acting in
effect as an agent of the Saddam Hussein regime. Al-Jazeera's
Baghdad bureau has been closed since August 2004
because of its sympathetic coverage of terrorist
acts. The channel, however, is operating in the
Kurdish-ruled area of the north and still broadcasts
into Iraq. Indeed, it was reported last week that
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, during a visit
to Kurdistan, refused to entertain questions from
the Al-Jazeera correspondent, saying, "I told him
that I will not reply because we have position
against Al-Jazeera." Al-Maliki added, "I blame my
brothers in Kurdistan to allow Al-Jazeera to work
although it is banned from that because it incites
sectarianism day and night in Iraqi circles." This
statement reflects recognition that Al-Jazeera, like
al Qaeda, has been trying to spark a civil war in
Iraq.
In the broader Middle East, Al-Jazeera has been
doing whatever it can to thwart a reasonable
approach to a peace settlement. Despite a series of
unilateral Israeli concessions, Al-Jazeera has
provided what sympathetic observers call "intensive
coverage" of the Palestinian cause. That means that
its coverage has encouraged violence against Israel.
Its "reporters" openly refer to Palestinian suicide
bombers as "martyrs." Honest Reporting, a media
watchdog group, has documented how Al-Jazeera has
run inflammatory articles on its website referring
to President Bush giving the government of Israel a
"license to kill" and suicide bombers as
"self-sacrifice operations."
Al-Jazeera has played a clear role in the rise of
Hamas (the Islamic Resistance Movement) and its
Palestinian election victory in January. From the
start, Al-Jazeera has been accused of undermining
Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement in order to build up
Hamas. Arafat even temporarily closed down the Al-Jazeera
bureau in Ramallah after it aired an "unflattering
image" of him. Fatah supporters in May burned three
cars belonging to Al-Jazeera because the channel did
not cover an anti-Hamas demonstration in the city.
As part of its pro-Hamas bias, Al-Jazeera in March
broadcast a conference in Yemen where a supporter of
al Qaeda praised Palestinian suicide bombers and
called on the crowd to financially support Hamas.
Coverage of this event is available at the website
of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI),
which monitors the media in that part of the world.
Al-Jazeera in May aired a Hamas fundraising event in
Gaza, where a jacket worn by the "martyred" former
Hamas Chief Sheikh Salah Shehada was auctioned off.
Shehada, who was responsible for hundreds of attacks
on Israeli citizens and security forces, was killed
by Israel in 2002.
Stories bashing Israel have to compete with the
channel's well-documented bias against America. In
our DVD on "Terror Television," we show some film
footage of Al-Jazeera television staff in Ramallah
in an anti-American demonstration chanting "Down
with fascist America." Not embarrassed in the least
by its employees staging an anti-American protest,
the footage was aired on Al-Jazeera.
Here, Al-Jazeera continues to promote conspiracy
theories that Muslim terrorists were not really
behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Al-Jazeera
recently ran an article about a Los Angeles
conference that viewed the 9/11 terrorist attacks as
"an orchestrated U.S. attempt to incite world war."
One of the participants was identified as Webster
Tarpley, who wrote a book, 911 Synthetic Terror:
Made in USA. As the title implies, Tarpley insists
that the terrorist attacks on New York City and the
Pentagon were an example of "state-sponsored,
false-flag terrorism," undertaken by a faction of
the U.S. Government in order to "start the war of
civilizations." Tarpley is a long-time associate of
"anti-Zionist" and former Marxist activist Lyndon
LaRouche, who himself has appeared on Al-Jazeera.
Al-Jazeera knows this is a bunch of bunk because its
own reporter Yosri Fouda interviewed the al-Qaeda
architects of 9/11, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Ramzi
bin al-Shibh, and co-authored a book about it
entitled Masterminds of Terror. Peter Maass wrote a
fascinating story about Fouda's contacts with al
Qaeda in an article in the New York Times magazine
entitled "When Al Qaeda Calls." Ron Suskind's new
book, The One Percent Doctrine, takes the story one
step further, alleging that Fouda's information
about the possible locations of both al-Qaeda
operatives led to their ultimate capture. Suskind
claims the Emir of Qatar provided the information to
then-CIA director George Tenet.
Insisting that it "never communicated any
information that it has obtained to any political,
security or any other party whatsoever," Al-Jazeera
has rejected Suskind's claims as ridiculous and
baseless. The channel said it was "well known for
its editorial independence" and its "commitment to
protect the rights of sources." The implication, of
course, is that some of Al-Jazeera's "sources" are
terrorists or their agents. And this is part of the
problem we face as Al-Jazeera International, which
is financed by the same Arab government which
brought the world Al-Jazeera, prepares its launch.
Even if the Suskind story is true, the capture of
these al-Qaeda operatives cannot make up for the
murder of almost 3.000 Americans on 9/11, especially
because Qatar had links to al Qaeda and Khalid
Shaikh Mohammed before 9/11. Today, however, the
Wahhabi Muslim regime postures as a friend of the
U.S. and hosts American forces.
Al-Jazeera International is busy constructing its
new Washington, D.C. bureau on K Street in the
nation's capital. Employees say salaries and
benefits are good, but former ABC Nightline anchor
Ted Koppel, who interviewed for a job there, said he
would have nothing to do with it. The new channel
has put tremendous resources, including the
public-relations muscle of the British-based firm
Brown Lloyd James (BLJ), into a campaign to secure
carriage on American cable and satellite systems. So
far, AIM has stopped them.
Subscribers to our AIM Report are receiving copies
of postcards they can send to Michael Holtzman, BLJ
executive vice president. The cards say:
"You have a very tough job trying to sell Al-Jazeera
International, which is an offshoot of a channel
that was labeled the terrorist channel because of
its habit of airing al-Qaeda videos. One of its
correspondents was sentenced to seven years in
prison for being an agent of al Qaeda and another is
in prison at Guantanamo Bay. Its first managing
director was exposed as an agent of the Saddam
Hussein regime and appears in a captured video
singing the praises of Uday Hussein. The New York
Times reports that $1 billion is being spent on Al-Jazeera
International. How much of that is your firm
getting?"
BLJ should not be underestimated. The company boasts
that Holtzman, who is handling the Al-Jazeera
International account in the U.S., "managed the
successful global campaign on behalf of China's bid
to host the 2008 Olympic Games." The company website
says this "extraordinarily successful engagement"
was named "Campaign of the Year" by PR Week in 2001.
If the entry of Al-Jazeera International into U.S.
media markets becomes another "Campaign of the
Year," it is predictable and inevitable that
Americans will suffer and die because of it.
Cliff Kincaid is Editor of Accuracy in Media
aim org
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