English-language Al-Jazeera infiltrated

by **AlicetheCurious** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 3:15 pm

It sounds like the Project Mockingbird types will never allow English-language audiences to have access to information that isn't filtered and/or distorted. The Arabic Al-Jazeera is excellent, very professional and extremely informative. Their programs cover a very wide range of subjects and opinions, usually at a much higher intellectual level and in greater depth than I'm used to seeing in English. In contrast, CNN and BBC World often seem like they're designed for people suffering from ADD or who neither know, nor want to know, much about the world. I can only imagine the kind of pressure that must have been used on the Arab owners of Al Jazeera to allow Zionists to have the power to control content and coverage in the English-language website & satellite tv station... Very depressing news. <blockquote>Quote:<hr>Pro-Israeli editors seek to influence Al-Jazeera International English Satellite TV Khalid Amayreh, The Electronic Intifada, 15 September 2006 When the Qatar-based pan-Arab Al-Jazeera Satellite Television announced two years ago plans to launch Al-Jazeera International (AJI), many people around the world hoped the new satellite channel would provide a genuine alternative to the notoriously biased western media, which often operates under Zionist influence. The new channel, the launching of which has been postponed several times, will provide both regional and global perspective to a potential audience of hundreds of millions of English speakers. AJI is the world's first English-language news channel to be headquartered in the Middle East, with news management rotating around broadcasting centers in Athens, Doha, London, Washington, D.C., and Kuala Lumpur. AJI has already attracted a number of luminaries in the world of TV broadcasting, including such people as Sir David Frost and Riz Khan. However, it seems that disappointment may lie in wait for many of those who expected to see an international TV channel that is fair and objective and — especially — free from the usual Anglo-American (and Israeli) worldview. In fact, there are already ominous signs showing that pro-Israeli sympathizers, some of them with a background in the BBC, are exerting control on the editorial policies of the new channel, all under the rubric of professionalism and journalistic standards. This writer, who has been working for Aljazeera.net/English (which has now been incorporated into AJI) has discovered, by chance, efforts by some senior western editors at AJI to minimize and avoid as much as possible the publication of articles, especially news and feature stories, portraying Israel in a bad light or otherwise exposing Israeli occupation practices against the Palestinian people. This trend has become quite conspicuous lately. Aljazeera.net/English, for example, failed to report important newsworthy events from Israel, such as the admission by an Israeli military officer that the Israeli air force dropped over a million cluster bomblets on Lebanon during the recent war with Hizbullah. Similarly, a story quoting Eifi Eitam, head of a right-wing Israeli party, calling for the expulsion of Palestinians from the occupied territories, was left unreported, even after AJI was notified of the subject. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of similar examples, all showing that AJI is knowingly and deliberately avoiding serious coverage of the Palestinian plight, especially in its feature section which abounds with all kinds of stories covering various — and outlandish — subjects and events. Earlier this year, one of the pro-Israeli editors contemptuously rejected a human interest story on a Palestinian college student from al-Najah University in Nablus who lost her right eye to an Israeli rubber bullet while on her way home from campus. The senior editor, Vince Ryan, argued that the subject was not a priority and that Aljazeera.net/English would prepare a more comprehensive coverage of similar cases later. Of course, the promised coverage never materialized. Eventually, thanks to intensive pleading by this writer, the article was posted (see "Rubber Bullets menace West Bank", Aljazeera.net, 26 April 2006). Ryan apparently never forgave me my "audacity", as was evident from his subsequent behavior. In the third week of June this year, I submitted an article on Palestinian children and minors killed by the Israeli army and paramilitary Jewish settlers. The article was based on statistical information released by the Palestinian Ministry of Health. However, instead of thanking me for the article, Ryan, upon seeing it and without giving it a second thought, wrote to tell me that I was lying and that the information contained in the article was false. His vindictive and nervous tone was very telling and spoke volumes. Unable to reason with the man, who never accepted even a single proposal — and I submitted many — from a series of feature articles he dismissed as "anti-Israeli," I turned to Russell Merryman, Editor-in-Chief for Web and News Media services at AJI, who is probably the most pro-Israeli employee in AJI today. Instead of treating the matter professionally, Merryman launched a tirade against me, accusing me of lacking professionalism and violating al-Jazeera's professional ethics. He argued that employing terms such as "martyrs" — even within a quote — was unprofessional (most Arab media employ the term in reference to Palestinians killed by the Israeli army). The same man readily approves quotes by Israeli army spokespersons and Jewish leaders vilifying Palestinians as "terrorists, murderers and thugs." Finding he had no case against me, Merryman resorted to a red-herring, accusing me of creating confusion and turmoil at Aljazeera.net from the West Bank — from which I am barred from leaving by the Israeli occupation authorities! And after a brief email exchange, he told me I was fired. I have written more than 300 pieces for Al-Jazeera's English website, probably more than anybody else, and never encountered any problem with previous editors. Indeed, Merryman himself, after starting work with Al-Jazeera's English website in 2005, praised my professionalism and experience as a journalist. I don't know for sure why Merryman behaved the way he did. It is quite possible that he had been urged or cajoled by some of his Zionist friends to make sure that "anti-Israeli" articles were rejected. But I have my suspicions, which I am sure will be vindicated one day. It may be that he wanted to make AJI coverage of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict a carbon copy of that of the BBC where he had spent several years as producer, presenter and news editor. That would be a real disaster. Indeed, it was due to the BBC's cumulative coverage of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, at least in part, that a majority of British youths came to think that Palestinians were "the settlers" and Jews were the victims of the "Palestinian settler violence," as was revealed in a British opinion poll a few years ago. Yes, of course, it is important to be neutral and impartial when covering international conflicts. But it is even more important to be honest when dealing with asymmetrical conflicts where one side is occupied and oppressed and the other is the occupier and oppressor. Eventually, though somewhat belatedly, the Al-Jazeera administration became conscious, although I don't know to what extent, of the silent but real pro-Israeli lobby that was building-up quietly but steadily within AJI. This build-up had two main manifestations: neutralizing Palestinian correspondents from Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, and the intensive reliance on reports by American news agency, the Associated Press, viewed by many as 'Israel's ultimate news agency.' Needless to say, reports by this agency, whose Jerusalem offices are staffed by extremely pro-Israeli, Jewish-American zealots, never misses a chance to remind readers that Hamas was a terrorist organization and that Palestinian resistance fighters are actually terrorists. AP never ever remembers that timeless maxim that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter and that Israel itself is also viewed by hundreds of millions of people around the world as a terrorist state par excellence. Seeking to rectify the situation before it was too late, Al-Jazeera's top managers appointed, Ibrahim Hilal, an able Egyptian journalist, to make sure that AJI didn't drift too much away from the policies of the mother Arabic channel. Hilal, under instructions from Al-Jazeera General Manager, Waddah Khanfar, asked Merryman to reinstate me as correspondent in Palestine. Merryman complied but only begrudgingly. On 18 July, Merryman sent me a terse and condescending message, demanding that I apologize to him — I don't know for what — and warning that my performance would be closely monitored. He said he would commission me to write some pieces, but that he, and he alone, would decide when and how. He actually never asked me to write a single piece, despite the numerous newsworthy events taking place in Palestine. I did propose to him that I undertake some feature stories on the situation in Gaza, the power struggle between Hamas and Fatah and how Israel was barring Palestinians from accessing food and work. He wouldn't even reply to these messages. Last week, Merryman decided to change the rules governing the editorial policies of Aljazeera.net/English. The new rules make sure that "undesirable stories," e.g. stories that expose Israeli brutality and racism against the Palestinians, or those portraying Israel as a Nazi-like entity, wouldn't find their way to Aljazeera.net. Merryman has already put this policy into effect. For the past three or four months, not a single feature story about the Israeli persecution of Palestinians, which of late assumed nearly genocidal proportions, appeared on Al-Jazeera's English website. This is while the site abounds with all sorts of stories about outlandish subjects. Merryman claims he has received a full authorization from Al-Jazeera General Director Waddah Khanfar granting him full authority to decide what is posted on Al-Jazeera's English website. I have sought to communicate my concerns about this grave trend — now permeating through AJI — to Al-Jazeera's top officials, some of whom have openly voiced their frustration and exasperation in this regard. One official intimated to me that "Merryman views with utter contempt the way the Arabic channel is run." Another told me that "this man and his friends want to turn Al-Jazeera into another Fox News or even another Jerusalem Post." The latter is Israel's main right-wing English newspaper, and a mouthpiece for the Jewish settler movement. I am sure that this article will sign me off from Al-Jazeera. However, I am willing to sacrifice my own personal interest and lose the bulk of my income in the hope that al-Jazeera officials, particularly Chairman Hamad bin Thamer al-Thani and Managing Director Waddah Khanfar, will open their eyes and make sure that al-Jazeera International doesn't become a new weapon in the hands of the enemies of Arabs and Muslims. For God's sake, don't let them hijack Al-Jazeera under the disguise of journalistic ethics. Khalid Amayreh is a professional journalist and political analyst from Dura, 10 km. south west of Hebron in the West Bank. His writings appear frequently in Al-Ahram Weekly and Al-Jazeera. <a href="http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5735.shtml">electronicintifada.net/v2...5735.shtml</a> <hr></blockquote> Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=alicethecurious>AlicetheCurious</A> at: 9/21/06 2:20 pm

by * » Thu Sep 21, 2006 5:33 pm

<a href="http://www.radicalleft.net/blog/_archives/2006/9/3/2279386.html">Those Who Are Most Successfully Brainwashed Don't Know It...Welcome to America</a>

by **AlicetheCurious** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 4:25 am

1 tal, when I tried to activate your link, I got the message, "You are not authorized to view this page." Can you think of any explanation other than my own paranoid instinctive reaction? In any case, could you cut and paste the thing you wanted us to see?

by **Uncle Scam** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 8:35 am

access from <a href="http://p216.ezboard.com/frigorousintuitionfrm10.showmessage?topicid=6197.topic">p216.ezboard.com/frigorou...6197.topic</a> has been denied

by **snowlion2** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 9:02 am

Go <a href="http://www.radicalleft.net/blog">here</a> then use the calendar to click on 9/3. No paranoia necessary....I don't think ;-) On edit: Ok, that didn't work either. I'll just go back and cut/paste Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=snowlion2>snowlion2</A> at: 9/22/06 7:04 am

by **snowlion2** » Fri Sep 22, 2006 9:15 am

<a href="http://www.radicalleft.net/blog/_archives/2006/9/3/2279386.html">www.radicalleft.net/blog/...79386.html</a> It is ironic that the people who think they are the most free are the most controlled people on earth. It is equally odd that those who think they are part of the greatest democracy the world has ever known do not participate in a democracy at all; nor do they recognize one when they see it. These facts attest to how thoroughly the American people have been propagandized by the corporate media. A controlled people have no will of their own. They believe what they are told, and they do what their government tells them to do. They have little intellectual curiosity about the world and rarely, if ever, question authority, much less challenge it. They have little or no knowledge of their nation’s history, and are a frightened and timid people that have no conception of reality. None are more effectively enslaved than those who think they are free. Americans are slaves to a corrupt system that preys upon them and tells them how well they are treated. As America’s fifty-first state—Zionist Israel influences American foreign policy nearly as much as the corporations that run the government. On Capital Hill the Zionist lobby rivals the power of even the wealthiest corporations. The Pentagon, in particular, is heavily influenced by Zionists, and chief among them are Paul Wolfowitz, Elliott Abrams, Richard Perle and Michael Rubin. The combination of Zionism and corporate Plutocracy is a particularly deadly and violent one; a perfect storm that has gathered over the Middle East and rained corpses upon the land in a cyclone of savage violence without end. The evidence visibly demonstrates that both the American and Israeli governments are savage terrorist states. I make a clear distinction between the people and their respective governments; although the people must bear some of the responsibility for what their governments do. Recent reports from Amnesty International make clear that both nations deliberately target civilians and civilian infrastructure—including roads and bridges, water sanitation facilities, electrical generating stations, ambulances transporting the wounded to hospitals, rescue workers recovering the dead, and even women and children seeking refuge in bomb shelters. Other humanitarian NGOs have uncovered similar findings. Not only are such events an abomination, they are acts of extreme cowardice; the work of madmen intoxicated by transitory power in pursuit of private wealth. The Israeli and American governments have little regard for life, or human freedoms. Both thoroughly propagandize their own people and call themselves democracies. They are known to kidnap, imprison, torture, and assassinate their foes without due process. Both possess nuclear arsenals capable of destroying the world many times over. The world surely remembers that America is the only nation to hold human life in such low regard as to actually deploy the atomic bomb on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, even with Japan’s eminent surrender at hand. These governments are guilty of the same war crimes that the Nazi leadership was executed for after World War Two. They have histories of ethnic cleansing and genocide. The blood of innocent people runs warm on their hands, and they continually thirst for more. It is clear that neither America nor Israel is interested in a negotiated peace in the Middle East. Both governments intend to force capitalism upon the region by systematically invading and occupying the Arab states. Their stated intent is to denationalize the immense natural wealth of the region, and turn it over to private corporations; to force the Islamic Arab states to join the World Trade Organization, and to accept capitalism as the new religious order. Some kind of Middle East Free Trade Agreement will likely be brokered at gun point, and the corporate fire sale will commence. Similar plans exist for other parts of the world. Forget what the talking heads on the television tell you, and ignore the idiocy spewed forth by conservative talk show hosts; America’s Middle East policy has nothing to do with threats stemming from the development of nuclear arsenals, or imaginary terrorist plots to maim and kill, as reported in the corporate media. Such claims are useful propaganda, shameless promotions created to deceive a gullible people into believing there is an eminent threat to their freedoms that must be dealt with militarily. None of it is true. The invasion and occupation of Iraq was foretold in a document titled, “Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century.” This paper was authored some six years ago by Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and a host of neocon luminaries who are always clamoring for war. It provides the blue print for what is to come, but it is conveniently ignored by the corporate media. If the neocons and their Zionist allies succeed, Iran will also be invaded and occupied, followed by Lebanon and Syria. Other states will follow, insuring that America and Israel remain in a state of perpetual war for the next hundred years. Preemptive strikes are the modus operandi. The plan calls for permanent military bases throughout the region, and the U.S. is already constructing fourteen permanent bases in Iraq. America has no intentions of leaving until the last drop of oil runs dry, and Iraq’s natural wealth has been privatized. The larger purpose of the American-Israeli Middle East policy is to force capitalism onto the region. If they are successful, the occupied territories will fall under virtual martial law, and virtual U.S-Israeli rule. The dollar will become the currency, and every Arab state will be forced to join the WTO, and to comply with its laws. Membership in the WTO effectively renders a nation’s Constitution and its laws null and void. WTO membership is a key element in the new world order envisioned by the world’s wealthiest people. The independent Arab states will be coerced into accepting loans from the IMF and the World Bank. A key feature of these loans is that they require the state to open its borders to private ownership and foreign investors (privatization). That is what occurred in Iraq when the Bremer orders were issued. A puppet government is installed to lend the appearance of legitimacy to the process. Some kind of Middle East Free Trade Agreement will likely be brokered at gun point; the inhabitants will eventually lose their cultural identity and become westernized. Imagine downtown Baghdad with a McDonalds at every corner, and Wal-Mart Super Centers all around. This is the New World Order envisioned by George Herbert Walker Bush—corporate governance by the world’s wealthiest individuals. For everyone else it will be a world-sized gulag with all the accoutrements of a concentration camp. Western capitalists break into a cold sweat when they think about the money to be made. They see private wealth in the form of the Middle East’s immense oil reserves, cheap exploitable labor, and the millions of new consumers that capitalism demands. Any nation that resists corporate globalization will be labeled ‘terrorist states,’ and subjected to military invasion. The imperial invaders will declare that these states are developing nuclear weapons and present an eminent threat to the U.S and its allies. The corporate media will report that we are bringing democracy to the Middle East. All of this should sound hauntingly familiar. Once the groundwork is laid, the invasion of Dick Cheney’s Halliburton, Bechtel, Lockheed Martin, and all of the corporations that are plundering Iraq can begin in earnest. Some 150 American corporations are already reaping billions in stolen Iraqi wealth. That is just the beginning. The masters of war are promoting their agenda of corporate globalization by equating the resistance to free trade with terrorism. As all things Bush, this is just marketing hype and brazen lies—pure propaganda. By linking resistance to free trade to terrorism in the public mind, the perpetrators expect to market future wars and more occupations to the people who will be required to carry them out. Speaking truth in America is becoming tantamount to an act of sedition, or terror. We already know what happens to terrorists in Bush World. Acting as America’s fifty-first state, Israel’s elite will also reap the economic spoils of war, and expand its power throughout the region. She will then be in position to police the territory, and to put down insurrections with weapons made in the USA. Much of the world already knows that democracy and capitalism are an oxymoron. As we can see (if we are willing to look), capitalism and free trade oppresses human freedoms, rather than foster them. Do the people of Iraq feel liberated? Their country is being divvied out to corporate predators, while America holds a gun to their heads. When will we remove our blinders and see with clear eyes? Every atrocity that America and her allies accuse their enemies of committing, they have themselves committed. Will we ever remove our blinders and see with clear eyes? There will never be peace as long as capitalism thrives and men without souls occupy human flesh. Nations will be carpet bombed, and millions of innocent people will suffer and die horribly. The corporate CEOs and their share holders view this as a small price for others to pay, so long as they profit. In an article published in The New Yorker this week, Seymour Hersch exposed the Pentagon’s covert plot to invade Iran. The corporatocracy considers Iran as the crown jewel of the Middle East. What the Plutocrats did not count on, however, was the fierce resistance the occupying forces have encountered in Iraq, where nothing has gone according to plan. Beyond the green zone there is no part of the country that is safe. The world’s most powerful military cannot defeat the building guerilla resistance that continues to grow and intensify. In Lebanon, the world’s second strongest military was unable to defeat Hezbollah and its antiquated weaponry. While these are viewed as ominous signs for the New World Order, they are an indication that there may be justice in this world after all. The fierce resistance to occupation by the Palestinians on the West and Bank and the Gaza Strip, the spirited defiance to occupation in Iraq, and the repulsion of the Israeli military from Lebanon are cause for hope. They are victories for the people against their oppressors. Apart from the aggressors, the world recognizes the right of all peoples to resist foreign occupation and to determine their own fate. It is a moral duty. There is hope in resistance. Someone once said, “Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.” In their unfathomable hubris, both the Israeli and the American governments have seriously underestimated the spiritual strength and determination of the freedom fighters resisting corporate globalization. They will never stop fighting until the occupiers have been driven out, as occupying armies always are. The invaders can kill the majority of the population with their sophisticated weaponry, but those who remain will expel them, as the Vietnamese expelled the U.S. from Viet Nam. History has taught us these lessons again and again, but we Americans do not know history; nor do we want to know it.

by **AlicetheCurious** » Sat Sep 23, 2006 7:13 am

Cool.

by **StarmanSkye** » Sat Sep 23, 2006 12:37 pm

Thanks fer the Heads uP! Alice -- tho the implications are too-commonly distressing. And Yeah, ever'body, I'm Ba-Ack! Beaucoup stuff to do, goin' on, thangs happenin -- But I can't stay away too long from my fave Discussion Group. Great to see hard-headed critical thankin' g'win on. My Fatalistic Optimism is hypereinvigor-juvenated every time I tune in here. And yeah, I 'missed ya' all the last two weeks, BUSY runnin' around and new projects, PLUS my c'mputer's been down for refit/reformat debugging & much-needed big gig/pipeline upgrade (back home, where my roomate computer tech is STILL trying to find time to get my c'mputer up-n-running; -- I'm now in Ohiosville courtesy of Conytinental's wings for a coupla weeks visiting family & whatnot, before I drive my Bluebird west to S. Oregon/Home -- just for a personal peek into my typically private life). WoW! I've missed a lot ... tho a LOT's Same Old/Same Old (Told You So! and SEE Spot Run. Run Dawg, RUN RUN RUN!!!) Keep the Shiny Side Up and yer Inner Light Beaming Bright, y'all Radical Anti-Authoritarian Freethinking Guys -n- Gals ... (YOU know the schtick) Peace and Light, Walk in Beauty. Starman

English-language Al-Jazeera infiltrated

English-language Al-Jazeera infiltrated

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