A Republican operative distributed information claiming that Al-Jazeera has published an article attacking Senator Rick Santorum and endorsing his opponent Bob Casey. This was NOT true. The article in question was NOT from the official website of the Al-Jazeera channel. The official Al-Jazeera website is www.aljazeera.net The article in question came from www.aljazeerah.info which is not associated with the channel. The misleading information was picked up by various bloggers as well as the Santorum campaign, causing them all enormous embarrassment. Al Kamen of the Washington Post covered the error, saying, “Small problem. It wasn’t the Middle East-based news network — which has no ‘h’ on al-Jazeera — but rather a site based in Dalton, Ga. A Santorum spokeswoman said that didn’t matter.”
It does and should matter. And it would have been proper to admit the error.   ”Rick Santorum has reached a new low in gutter politics by trying to ridiculously link Bob Casey to terrorists,” Casey spokesman Larry Smar told the Philadelphia Inquirer. The paper quoted Santorum’s spokeswoman, Virginia Davis, as saying it doesn’t make a difference. “We thought we should share these kind of sentiments,” she said.
She should just admit they got it wrong. If they don’t, they will be greeted with skepticism when and if they bring real issues to the attention of the public, such as Casey’s receipt of $5000 from the world government lobby.Â
We have been writing about Al-Jazeera for quite some time and AIM has launched this web site with information about the channel and its expansion in the U.S. What Santorum should do is join our effort to keep the English-language Al-Jazeera International out of the U.S. media market. He recently gave a speech blasting Islamic fascist terrorists. Now he should target their propaganda outlets, such as the real Al-Jazeera.  Â
Posted: August 2, 2006 at 4:42 pm
Several Al-Jazeera “journalists” have been arrested and interrogated in connection with the terrorist attacks on IsraelÂ
Israeli authorities have accused Al-Jazeera of airing film footage disclosing the site of the deadly Katyusha attack in Haifa, in order to assist Hezbollah. Broadcasting the exact location of the Hezbollah rocket attacks is reported to help the terror group refine targeting for future attacks.
Reporters Without Borders says the station acknowledges that Israeli authorities ordered Al-Jazeera reporter Elias Karram and his crew “to keep away from an oil refinery located on the waterfront.”
Al-Jazeeea claims its bureau chief, Walid Al-Omari, in the custody of Israel police, “has been interrogated for more than four hours, in a rather violent manner.”
It sounds like the Israelis believe Al-Jazeera has been doing more for the terrorists than just help them locate targets. Â
Our latest column examines how Al-Jazeera has stoked the fires of conflict in the Middle East.
With this kind of record, do we want Al-Jazeera International in U.S. media markets?
Posted: July 17, 2006 at 1:25 pm
In the strange but true department, Aljazeera “has rejected the claim by an American author that it leaked information that led to the capture of alleged leading al-Qaeda figures.” On the other hand, a group called Friends of Al-Jazeera seems to be accepting a claim, made by the same author, that the U.S. deliberately bombed Al-Jazeera’s offices.
So how reliable is this author, Ron Suskind?
Al-Jazeera says that Suskind, author of The One Percent Doctrine, “told CNN that information about the hiding places of alleged al-Qaida figures, Khalid Sheikh Mohamed and Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, obtained by Aljazeera in 2002, was leaked to Qatari officials. Suskind said the information was communicated to the Emir of Qatar, who communicated it to US officials.”
In a press release, “Aljazeera described Suskind’s claim as ridiculous and baseless.” Aljazeera said it was “well known for its editorial independence” and its “commitment to protect the rights of sources”.
The “rights” of sources? Does that mean it did have or has sources in al Qaeda?
Regarding the claim that the U.S. deliberately bombed Al-Jazeeera, CNN analyst David Ensor told Wolf Blitzer that, “…all I can tell you is that I’ve talked to several former very senior CIA officials, and they say none of them heard anything about a plan to bomb Al Jazeera, and none of them ever were aware that the U.S. government had done that deliberately.”
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Posted: June 23, 2006 at 7:55 am
Hugh Miles,author of an interesting book about Al-Jazeera, is now defending the network against charges that it is closely tied to terrorists. In Foreign Policy, he writes, “After all, when Al Jazeera offers its estimated 50 million viewers exclusive interviews of Osama bin Laden, it’s easy to confuse access with endorsement. And when a journalist who conducts those interviews is jailed for collaboration with al Qaeda, as Tayssir Alouni was in a Spanish court last year, the line between impartial observer and impassioned supporter is certainly blurred.”
Blurred? Impassioned supporter? Collaboration? Alouni was convicted of being an agent of al Qaeda and charged with being involved with those who planned the 9/11 attacks on America. And his conviction has been upheld by the Spanish Supreme Court.
Is that the best that defenders of Al-Jazeera can do? If so, the Al-Jazeera International spin-off is in deep trouble.
Posted: June 14, 2006 at 10:48 pm
Walid Phares reports that, “Reacting to the killing of Abu Mus’ab al Zarqawi in Iraq, pro-Jihadi commentators on al Jazeera rushed to assert that the ‘death of Zarqawi won’t weaken al Qaida but will actually unify the organization.’” Read more here.
Meanwhile, Stratfor reports that, “Jordanian police cut the feed of a live broadcast by Arabic-language news station Al Jazeera from the home of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s sister in Zarqa, Jordan, on June 8. In the broadcast, al-Zarqawi’s brother-in-law, Abu Qudama, praised the slain al Qaeda in Iraq leader, saying, ‘If he had lived in a European country, the president would have kissed his feet.’”
Posted: June 9, 2006 at 8:18 am
Rupert Murdoch, owner of the conservative Fox News Channel, is providing Al-Jazeera access to the British media market. And he has already signed a deal to allow Al-Jazeera International access to the British media market. Â
But will the discovery of an al Qaeda-inspired cell in Canada hurt Al-Jazeera International’s campaign to get into U.S. and Western media markets?
It is fascinating to note that the cell was discovered just days after Mullah Dadullah, a Taliban commander, appeared on al-Jazeera television warning Canada that its military presence in Kandahar “makes Canadians a target,” as the Ottawa Citizen reported. You can read a transcript of his remarks at MEMRI.
Taliban official on Al-Jazeera.
CIA veteran John Brennan is quoted in the Baltimore Sun as saying that the case of the Muslim terrorists in Canada serves as a reminder that “there are a number of extremists who are in North America-both in the United States and Canada.” Henry “Hank” Crumpton, the State Department’s counterterrorism chief, says the U.S. ”needs to improve its efforts to counter propaganda on the Internet.”Â
It stands to reason that we can start this counterattack by keeping enemy propaganda out of our airwaves. That means keeping Al-Jazeera International (AJI) out of U.S. and Western media markets. But get this: “AJI has already signed with satellite distributor BSkyB, which is partly owned by FOXNews.com’s parent company, News Corporation.” This was reported by Foxnews.com BSkyB is a British satellite system.
In the U.S., Al-Jazeera is available through the DISH satellite network, owned by Echostar. AJI is still looking for a U.S. carrier.
Will Murdoch come through for them?
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Posted: June 6, 2006 at 6:52 pm
In a major development casting doubt on the “independence” of the “new” Al-Jazeera International (AJI) from the “old” Al-Jazeera, it is being reported that Sheikh Hamad al-Thani, “the royal owner of al-Jazeera,” has elevated Waddah Khanfar, the Arabic channel’s managing director, “to the position of director general” of AJI.
“This put him in overall charge of AJI,” reports Faisal Bodi, described as a leading commentator on Muslim affairs.
He reports, “Behind the scenes, a battle has been raging for the soul of AJI that only now looks like being settled.” That is, settled in favor of the old personnel who made Al-Jazeera into a front for terrorists.
The “soul” of Al-JAzeera International, in other words, has been captured by the same people who gave us the pro-terrorist Al-Jazeera. Â
There’s more: Bodi reports, “More moves to reassert Arab influence over a wayward AJI followed. In another humiliating rebuke, [Nigel] Parsons [the AJI managing editor] Â was forced to bring in Ibrahim Hilal, the former chief editor of the Arabic channel, as his deputy.”
Bodi adds: “The Arab fightback didn’t stop there. The network also obliged AJI staff to attend political orientation classes. The lessons, given by Mustafa Alani of the Gulf Research Council, were intended to combat Eurocentrism by attempting to coach journalists to see the world through Arab eyes.”
Under these circumstances, how long will someone like Dave Marash, formerly of ABC’s Nightline, stay with AJI?
It is looking, more and more, like AJI is just what we have been warning about. Marash ought to resign immediately.
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. He has responded with a rearguard action to protect AJI from becoming a pale imitation of its western rivals.
Posted: June 2, 2006 at 12:31 pm
We’ve heard repeatedly that the English-language Al-Jazeera will be different than the Arabic Al-Jazeera. Well, World Screen.com reports that Ibrahim Helal has been appointed deputy managing director of news and programs at Al Jazeera International. Who’s he? Helal is a former editor-in-chief at Al Jazeera’s Arabic-language channel.
He went on the air on CNN after 9/11 when an Osama bin Laden tape found its way to Al-Jazeera via the channel’s Kabul, Afghanistan, bureau. CNN’s Jeanne Meserve reported, “On the 20-minute tape, bin Laden does not deny that his organization was responsible for the September 11 attacks in the United States.” Â
The Kabul bureau of Al-Jazeera was run by Tasir Alouni, later convicted of being an agent of al Qaeda.
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Posted: June 1, 2006 at 5:13 pm
The AIM film, “Terror Television: The Rise of Al-Jazeera and the Hate America Media,” has been vindicated by the new American face of Al-Jazera International. After insisting I had told lies during our debate on the Fox News Channel Dayside program, Dave Marash of Al-Jazeera International now says that what I said was true, or at least partly or mostly true. As reported by Josh Gerstein of the New York Sun, “Mr. Marash told The New York Sun last week that he has not seen Mr. Kincaid’s film, but accepts that some of the assertions in it are true. ‘There is some factual basis to some of the charges in the movie,’ Mr. Marash said.”
All of the assertions in the film are backed up by evidence, including films and documents.
The AIM film looks at terrorists or suspected terrorists who have worked for Al-Jazeera. It also shows the first managing director of Al-JAzeera, who functioned as an agent of the Saddam Hussein regime. When I cited these cases on Fox, Marash said my charges and information were false. Now he’s singing a different tune, admitting that in the latter case, “There was a fairly high executive who was revealed on evidenced developed in Baghdad after the fall that he had an unhealthy relationship with Saddam and Uday. They fired him the next day.”
In fact, however, when Al Jazeera replaced Mohammed Jassem al-Ali, the New York Times reported that the network denied the move was related to charges that it had been infiltrated by Iraqi intelligence and said that he would remain on the board. The BBC reported much the same thing.
Wire services reported that, ”Al-Jazeera enjoyed a special status in pre-war Iraq, being allowed to work independently of the information ministry, which strictly controlled foreign media.”
Gerstein added, ”Mr. Marash also conceded that the network may have played a role in the decisions of some in the Arab world to attack Americans.” That is another point we make in our film.
 Thank you, Dave, for confirming what’s in our film. So why are you going to work for an Al-Jazeera spinoff?
Posted: May 30, 2006 at 1:27 pm
“There are absolutely offers on the table right now from cable operators.” This is what a spokesman for Al-Jazeera International says about entering the U.S. media market. He adds, “They have a number of different options – cable, satellite, streaming video, Internet phone service – and need to decide how they want to enter the U.S. market.”
If this is the case, then we must redouble our efforts to keep it out. We have to find out who these “cable operators” are and get the facts about this terrorist-front into their hands.
The Al-Jazeera spokesman, incidentally, is Michael Holtzman of the public relations firm, Brown Lloyd James. He claims the delay in launching Al-Jazeera International is entirely due to technical problems.
Does anybody really believe that?
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Posted: May 25, 2006 at 12:41 pm
