GAZA STRIP: In praise of Al Jazeera

Say what you will about Al Jazeera, but the landmark Arab satellite news channel has absolutely led the pack in conveying the realities of the ongoing Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip.

In both its original Arabic and fledgling English-language versions, Jazeera has blanketed the story, bringing real-time images that it's likely most American viewers will never see.

Last night, when desperate Palestinians traded gunfire with Egyptian border police and attempted to break through the border wall and escape, Jazeera was there live from both sides of the border. Its reporters also were standing alongside Israeli tanks as they massed outside of Gaza in preparation for a potential land invasion.

Here's just one example of the work being produced by two intrepid correspondents in Gaza, Ayman Mohyeldin and Sherine Tadros. Be warned: The images here are far more graphic than U.S. news channels show.

One of the hidden realities of the Western media's coverage of Gaza is that most correspondents live in Jerusalem and only occasionally visit Gaza, once a month or so, for specific stories. What that means in the current conflict is that many of us were caught out of position when the Israeli air campaign began on Saturday.

Since then, Israel has shut down the border crossing into Gaza, citing security concerns -- effectively shutting out most of the Western press corps and forcing us to rely on local journalists in Gaza to serve as our eyes and ears.

But Jazeera already had a permanent position in Gaza, and its correspondents continue to risk their lives to crisscross the territory, bringing the most comprehensive coverage of the conflict available.

There's another crucial distinction between Jazeera and the Western press. The channel doesn't shield its viewers from the horrors of war.

An old friend of mine from Boston arrived in Jerusalem for a visit on Friday. The first time she saw Jazeera English's footage of casualties in a Gaza City hospital, she was shocked. She simply never had seen such graphic images.

Now here's the really weird part. Jazeera International, the English-language channel that launched in November 2006, isn't available on the vast majority of America's cable systems.  Nearly all cable operators in the U.S. refused to offer the channel to its viewers. As of July of this year, the channel was offered by just a handful of cable companies, including a small cable provider in Burlington, Vt.

I'll leave it up to our readers to debate just why, in a capitalist system based on the idea of free speech, most American viewers aren't even offered the option of paying extra to watch Al Jazeera in English.

I urge you to check out Jazeera's YouTube site.  The channel has also recently partnered with Livestation to provide broadband streaming through your computer.

If you're impressed by what you see, call your cable provider and ask why you can't subscribe.

--Ashraf Khalil in Jerusalem

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Comments

[Transsylvania Phoenix]

Congratulations. Your article is a masterful piece of taqiya, brother Ashraf Khalil.

[Cog]

"Say what you will about Al Jazeera"

I will say that I read daily transcripts of the channel for 6 months after the start of the Iraq war. One reporter wants to throw a shoe at Bush, well I want to throw a shoe at Al Jazeera for their horrible mark on modern journalism. They served as a public relations front for terrorists, bringing suicide bombing and beheading videos into the arab mainstream, and they constantly spread rumors and blatant falsehoods on air to the arab public.

I tried to keep a running count, but at one point I stopped after 76 straight anti-American quotes from interviews with the supposed "Iraqi public". In reality, they were thinly vieled staged interviews. Al Jazeera used staged interviews to spread rumors and fear. Almost every segment they would quote a member of the Iraqi public making charges of koran desecrations, rapes or unprovoked military attacks on civilians. None of which was followed up on by subsequent reporting, none of which was proven by any other media, none of which was ever retracted. Al Jazeera anchors even joked on air about attacks on Iraqis who worked with the coalition. They compared them to nazi collaborators.

"Say what you will about Al Jazeera"

I will say that Al Jazeera had as much to do with the problems in Iraq as the mismanagement of the war by Bush and Rumsfeld. The Iraqi backlash against Al Jazeera from the public and the government, and Al Jazeera's own shift in reporting bear that out.

[Jose Gomez]

Hey, I know. How about FOX News having a show dedicated only to showing Israelis cowering in bunkers, children crying and traumatized along with clips of blood and wet beds, comingled with a few funerals of dead Jews and kids who have lost limbs from Palestinian rockets, without discussing anything else? Would you call that great reporting, Ashraf? Wait, let me guess ... no you wouldn't ... and we all know why. It's called bias, and has no room in legitimate journalism, but then again political bias has ruined the integrity of this profession, and you are proof of it if you really think reporting-purposely-to-enflame-anger is good journalism.

I think the reason why al-Jazeera is not readily available in the USA is because it doesn't meet the standards of journalistic integrity and uses its resources ONLY to further its socio-political goals rather than report the facts.

[Danica]

These events are tragic and terrible. But so is what is happening in Africa, Burma, etc. Many of these problems stem from western imperialism, which has morphed in our modern age into the rule of multinational corporations and their interests.

Why do the Israelis perpetrate the same crimes they themselves were victim to? Is it that the generation that remembers personally the holocaust is dying out, leaving behind vicious youngsters with a thirst for power untempered by historical lessons? They obviously know that they can carry out acts which would have the US and Britain denouncing them as terrorists were they any other nation. Why are the US and Britain so indebted to the Israelis that they will let them get away with murder? Sure, they created this situation, but to not only give free reign but also to continue to arm the Israelis? It just doesn't seem to make sense unless there is some hidden agenda, the usual being money and power (against the islamic world)...

[Shehab]

I am deeply saddened today , I have been viewing many of the photos of deaths which has been showing up in light of all the bombs that Israel (the terrorist state of the middle east) has been dropping on innocent civilians. Israel is not targeting Hamas.. They are targeting the whole Palestinian population ,Ehud Barak ( defence minister of Israel) said it best "we are prepared to fight till the bitter end" A bitter end it shall be Barak, for the women,children,and men of the Gaza Strip for your acts of genocide, that you and your bastard army is commiting against innocent people. Your Aim is to kill off all Palestinians. If Israel had it their way they would kill anyone who isnt Israeli or Israeli supporter. That means all of the middle east, the people in the european union that want Israel to stop, the demonstrators all around the world that see Israel for what it really is, A TERRORIST STATE THAT IS FUNDED BY AMERICA TO KILL THE ARAB WORLD. As a Proud Egyptian, I want to say I love my people, Not just Egyptians but all my arab brothers,sisters,mothers,and fathers. We are a very proud people and that is both our strongest and weakest trait that we have, I ask this of all our people, We NEED to unite, UNITE so that when Someone attacks one of us they attack all of us because that is what they are doing to us now. Israel is attack the people in the Gaza Strip. I ask my arab world are you going to stand by when your family member is being attacked by a bully!!

Please wake up my People, Forget about fighting ourselves anymore, we must fight now and take a stand to say to the world we are not going to stand idly by and let innocent people be killed. We have the power to make Israel stop, if only we unite, Unite, UNITE!!!

[Bix]

Why? Because of fear. The US is a democracy and if the people ever found out what their politicians actually do with the mandate they are given the game would be up... Fear of information, it's that simple. Or at least it has been. The monopoly on information is being broken by new media and the latest election is a clear sign of this.

[Ethiopian]

I watch BBC, Al jazeer, CNN. I think it is very importnt to have diffirent point of view. It is unofrtunate that for US citizens, news sources ar filtered for them.

While many reporters are from the wes for Al jazeera , there was strong propoganda gainst Al jazeera network as a biassed. Ironically Israelis can watch, and the Israeli pfficials line up to reach 130 million of al jazeera viewers. Yesterday Livni was on Al jazeera

[Lydia]

I love reading about posts like these.

By the way I was watching MSNBC not too long ago and they were showing images from Al-Jazeera tv. The company's logo was poorly blocked and I could see half of it. I waited for the news anchor to say the footage source was from Al-Jazeera but it was never acknowledged.

Whenever one network uses footage from another it is always clearly marked but this time they just used it.

But imagine if a major American news network admitted it uses footage by a company named Al-Jazeera? That would never fly here. Sadly, most Americans see anything having to do with Muslims, the Middle East, and other races in general as being "bad" or not good enough. This mind set needs to change and hopefully with time it will.

[Gary Rosen]

Why do I need to check out Al Jazeera? I already read the LA Times mideast coverage

[allen]

Where are the Gandhi’s and Dr. Martin Luther Kings of the Middle East? Has tit-for-tat violence ever brought about lasting social change? The impression left is that Middle East is dominated by a culture of violence and hate.
In the west violence in that part of the world comes across as business as usual. I am sad
Not to see Palestinian area’s flourishing with Arab oil money to create jobs, education, culture, and exportable products (other than rockets). If one really wanted social change they would use peaceful means to do it. Gaza could be an oasis on the Mediterranean competing with Israel. Don’t Arabs have good things to offer the world in the form of education, food and culture etc…? It’s difficult to tune in to a people that seem bent on violence and destruction. It seems as long as Arabs can keep the focus on Israel, then they will always have a scapegoat for their corruption and incompetency’s. Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm trying to learn.

[John Verghese]

It sure was good, but going by the past coverage, I am sorry, but I just can't believe anything that has Al- whatever tagged to its name. After all the killings these people cover, I think they would do a lot more good by providing the details to people who can act against these people. All they are achieving is a greater level of stress for the public, nothing more. Maybe I am wrong in my thinking, I hope I am.

http://freeforensictips.blogspot.com/2008/12/post-traumatic-stress-disorder.html