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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 23-Jul-2014
23-Jul-14 World View -- Al-Jazeera attacked by gunfire in Gaza

Web Log - July, 2014

23-Jul-14 World View -- Al-Jazeera attacked by gunfire in Gaza

Report: Israeli warplanes strike weapons arsenal in Sudan

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Al-Jazeera attacked by gunfire in Gaza, after Israel threatens expulsion
Al-Jazeera banned for extreme bias
Report: Israeli warplanes strike weapons arsenal in Sudan

Al-Jazeera attacked by gunfire in Gaza, after Israel threatens expulsion

Contentious al-Jazeera interviews on Monday with Hanan Ashrawi and Mark Regev

Contentious al-Jazeera interviews on Monday with Hanan Ashrawi and Mark Regev

The Al-Jazeera office in Gaza city was attacked with gunfire on Tuesday morning. No casualties were reported. The attack came in the midst of the continuing war between Gaza and Israel.

Al-Jazeera blamed the attack on Israel's foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman, who threatened on Monday to expel al-Jazeera from Israel. According to al-Jazeera:

"The foreign minister’s comments were a direct threat against us and appear to have been taken as a green light for the targeting of our journalists in Gaza. We hold the Israeli authorities fully responsible. They have put the lives of journalists in danger."

Al-Jazeera has already been banned in Egypt, which accused it of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, considered a terrorist organization by Egypt's government. Al-Jazeera is headquartered in Doha, and is funded by Qatar, which has openly split with Egypt over the Gaza war. Egypt has also jailed al-Jazeera journalists just for reporting news in Egypt. ( "24-Jun-14 World View -- Egypt's Kangaroo Court finds Al-Jazeera journalists guilty with no evidence")

Lieberman's statement indicates that Israel is also considering banning al-Jazeera, claiming that it's openly biased against Israel in the war with Gaza.

"Qatar has turned into a global problem. Al Jazeera is a central pillar of the propaganda apparatus of Hamas. ...
[Al-Jazeera] has abandoned even the perception of being a reliable news organization and broadcasts from Gaza and to the world anti-Israel incitement, lies, and encouragement to the terrorists."

There are several versions of al-Jazeera. The one I listened to until last year was al-Jazeera English. I've written about al-Jazeera's biases several times in the past. The interesting thing about al-Jazeera's biases is their attitudes towards the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. Hamas is tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, so al-Jazeera loves Hamas, and hates the Palestinian Authority. In fact, my perception has been that al-Jazeera hates the Palestinian Authority and Mahmoud Abbas even more than it hates Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu.

Al-Jazeera Arabic has been vitriolically anti-American since its founding in 1996, and it provided open support for Osama bin Laden following the 9/11/2001 attacks. Even in recent years, al-Jazeera Arabic has continued to promote "a jihad ideology."

Al-Jazeera banned for extreme bias

Starting in August of last year, al-Jazeera English was no longer available in the United States. Good ol' former VP Al Gore, the climate change saint, sold his defunct "Current TV" cable channel to Al-Jazeera for half a billion dollars, and that channel became "Al-Jazeera America" or AJAM.

Al-Jazeera America tries to emulate CNN by broadcasting the usual political stuff from Washington, with an American point of view, with far less anti-American and anti-Israeli vitriol than even Al-Jazeera English. However, this almost makes it irrelevant, since why would you want to hear about Washington from al-Jazeera, when you could hear about it from CNN, Fox, or MSNBC? That's probably why it's been doing poorly in the ratings, and has to lay people off. Al Gore really put one over on the Emir of Qatar, getting half a billion dollars for a defunct cable network.

I certainly agree that Al-Jazeera is a biased as people say it is, but they're really not any more biased than, say, NBC News. NBC News broadcasts what the Obama administration tells them to broadcast, and Al-Jazeera broadcasts what the Emir of Qatar tells them to broadcast. In both cases, there's a veneer of respectability and independence, but in both cases the biases are consistent.

So if you're like me and you want all points of view on the news, then the best time to listen to AJAM is during three particular hours of the day: At 6 am ET, 9 am ET, and 2 pm ET. During these hours, AJAM broadcasts the "Al-Jazeera News Hour" from al-Jazeera English, and so you get a lot more of the point of view of Hamas and the Palestinians during those time periods.

The 9 am ET hour on Monday was extremely contentious. The context was that Israeli warplanes had struck the Al-Aqsa hospital in Gaza City. They first interviewed Palestinian spokeswoman Hanan Ashrawi. She was permitted to talk for 5 or 10 minutes almost without interruption:

"Israel is engaged in war crimes. Israel is engaged in state terrorism. It is targeting and killing civilians. ...
"We've heard some really disturbing statements, not just from Netanyahu, but being repeated like a mantra from Obama and John Kerry, talking about Israel in a state of self-defense, or the Palestinians using their own children as human shields. ...
That kind of language is intensely racist. I'm amazed that they even dare make these statements. Not only do they target you and kill you, but they rob you of your humanity."

I don't know what "racism" has to do with this, but I assume she learned that technique from the Obama administration. I was wondering if she also thought that the Israelis were misogynistic and homophobic as well, while she was at it.

After Ashrawi spoke for several minutes, unchallenged and almost uninterrupted, the next interview was with Mark Regev, spokesman for Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The interview was something of a shouting match, with the interviewer repeatedly accusing Israel of targeting the al-Aqsa hospital, and Regev repeatedly saying that civilian targets are legal when they're being used by the enemy's "war machine."

By the end of the interview, both sides were furious and shouting. Regev was asked once again, "Do you apply that to a hospital full of patients? Yes or no?" and he responded:

"I'll ask you a question.
If your al-Jazeera cameramen could take pictures of Hamas rockets being launched from a hospital, then I'd be happy to answer questions like that. But they're not allowed to take pictures, because they know if they take pictures of rockets being fired from civilian areas, then they'll get into trouble with the local authorities.
Why is it that 2000 rockets have been fired on Israel, and you haven't got a single picture of a rocket being fired from an urban area?"

With that, the al-Jazeera interviewer responded: "We'll have to leave it there. Thanks so much, Mark Regev, spokesman for the Israeli prime minister." Al-Jazeera and Jerusalem Post

Report: Israeli warplanes strike weapons arsenal in Sudan

There are reports that Israeli warplanes on Friday struck a warehouse in Khartoum, Sudan, that was holding long-range missiles from Iran that were to be sent to Hamas in Gaza. Sudan admits that there was a big explosion, but denies that the warehouse contained weapons, and denied that Israel struck the warehouse. Israel has not commented.

As we reported yesterday in "22-Jul-14 World View -- Gaza war splits Arab states into competing alliances", Sudan is forming an alliance with Qatar, Turkey and Iran in support of Hamas in its war with Israel.

Two weeks ago, Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir was seen meeting with Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal in Qatar. In October 2012, Sudanese government blamed an Israeli airstrike for the explosion of a military factory in the southern suburbs of Khartoum. Jerusalem Post and Sudan Tribune

(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 23-Jul-14 World View -- Al-Jazeera attacked by gunfire in Gaza thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (23-Jul-2014) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 23-Jul-2014 23-Jul-14 World View -- Al-Jazeera attacked by gunfire in Gaza

Al-Jazeera attacked by gunfire in Gaza, after Israel threatens expulsion

Al-Jazeera banned for extreme bias

Report: Israeli warplanes strike weapons arsenal in Sudan

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 23-Jul-2014
23-Jul-14 World View -- Al-Jazeera attacked by gunfire in Gaza