Al Jazeera English debuts
posted at 4:31 pm on November 15, 2006 by Allahpundit
Share on Facebook | printer-friendly
You can watch live online, in low-rez, if you’re curious. No American cable provider has picked it up; CJ, for one, has said he’ll boycott any who do. Frankly, I’m curious — and salivating at the thought of how much material we’d harvest from it.
I might never have to write a text-only post again.
Danny Seaman, the head of Israel’s Government Press Office, keeps things in perspective:
Seaman said he found Al Jazeera in Arabic to be fairer to Israel than either CNN or the BBC, adding that the GPO had given the new English network every assistance in setting up here.
The Times of London was watching this morning when the network went on the air:
[B]ack to the main report. It was the misery in Gaza. Well, al-Jazeera is an Arab station, and Gaza is, as Tony Blair and many have said, the core grievance in the Middle East. And the report was as grim as the pictures: the reality of “life under sanctions, siege and shellings”. We saw pathetic scenes of children in hospitals, mothers weepers, smashed houses and the latest disaster — malnutrition caused by the international sanctions on Hamas…
For balance we then went straight to Jerusalem, and Jackie Rowland — yet another ex-BBC frontline reporter wooed over to the new channel — to hear how Israeli public opinion reacted to shelling from Gaza…
Then back to Gaza for an exclusive interview with Khaled Meshaal, a Hamas political leader, who said he had offered Israel a ceasefire which it had scorned…
And now came one of the stars — Rageh Omaar, the “scud stud” of the Iraq war, lured at reportedly great expense from the BBC. He was in Tehran to look at the impact of Tony Blair’s recent speech. There didn’t seem to be any. No one cared. But he found an excited professor to excoriate the West’s impudence for demanding Iranian help while maintaining sanctions and pressure…
I had no political quarrel with the coverage.
FYI, Meshaal isn’t “a” leader, he’s the leader. And he’s sufficiently dangerous that Israel attempted to assassinate him ten years ago and very nearly succeeded. Mossad agents traveled to Jordan and poisoned him, but were caught trying to escape; King Abdullah demanded that Bibi Netanyahu give Meshaal the antidote, but he refused until he was pressured into doing so. By Bill Clinton.
Now he’s doing propaganda for the jihad’s English-language megaphone.
Here’s some hard news churned out in recent days by the home office. Click the image to watch.
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
Comment pages:
“No political quarrel”????
The people in Gaza have been tortured by their “leaders” for decades so that they can be used as pawns again and again,and he has no quarrel with this?
bbz123 on November 15, 2006 at 4:42 PM
Obviously the Jews (a.k.a. the Joooooooooooooooos) allowed Al Jazeera English to begin broadcasting today. I just can’t figure out why.
Man! What are they up to?!
Rosetta on November 15, 2006 at 4:44 PM
I recently attended a lecture/q&a given by a rep. from al-jazeera english and he said that Israel was the only country in the Middle East where they’ve never been shut down.
CP on November 15, 2006 at 4:47 PM
I’m quite proud of Comcast Cable who refused to carry this–Good for them.
And their regular cable and broadband service is pretty great.
All we need to fuel the IslamoNazis among us is a steady stream of Al-Jihada 24/7 here in
the Great SatanAmerica.Jen the Neocon on November 15, 2006 at 4:49 PM
Who needs al-Jazeera when we have al-MSDNC and al-Reuters and al-A(with terrorists)P and al-CNN, etc. and so forth.
SouthernGent on November 15, 2006 at 4:54 PM
Talk about damning with faint praise.
steveegg on November 15, 2006 at 4:56 PM
That’s PMSDNC, al-Reuters and the Caliphate News Network.
steveegg on November 15, 2006 at 4:57 PM
Actually, I think this is a good thing.
What’s the difference between English al-J and MEMRI? Granted, MEMRI doesn’t incite, but they don’t need an English language channel to do that.
You can’t really watch what they’re saying if you don’t understand what their saying. I’ll take them head on in the marketplace of ideas.
Pablo on November 15, 2006 at 5:04 PM
“The Protocols of The Elders of Zion”
Impressive how the Joooooos can simultaneously be filthy apes and pigs -and- the evil puppet masters of the West.
infidel4life on November 15, 2006 at 5:16 PM
At least Olberdunce will have a soft landing when PMSDNCBC goes under.
Answered the question that nags the nutrooters.
JammieWearingFool on November 15, 2006 at 5:25 PM
We know where this propaganda emanates from. 2 or 3 cruise missles and we shut up the dirty diaper heads….
The aforementioned is an example of an antiquated, war-mongering, Christian cracker mentality, now out of vogue.
After all, besides granting the Jihadis an al Qaeda Bill Of Rights, we must also extend them 1st Amendment Rights (thanks to McCain, Warner, the Dems, the ACLU, et al).
mountainmanbob
mountainmanbob on November 15, 2006 at 5:34 PM
I’d love the oportunity to keep tabs on our enemies.
One Angry Christian on November 15, 2006 at 5:39 PM
Damnit!! I hope they learned a valuable lesson. Next time, use a poison that has NO KNOWN antidote! You can’t be pressured into giving something that you don’t have.
Just saying.
V5 on November 15, 2006 at 6:04 PM
Why go to CNN for jihad-propoganda when you can get it right from the source now? Sounds like an improvement to me.
I’m sick of second hand snuff films of dying soldiers. I want them first hand. Thank ya, very much!
lorien1973 on November 15, 2006 at 6:07 PM
any of our cable comapanies that hosts their $hit will be hounded out of existance….
retired on November 15, 2006 at 6:13 PM
But it might make Bryan’s and Robert’s episode contributions redundant. Who wants to hear jihadi propaganda reported by Americans when you can hear it directly from the jihadis themselves?
What’s the point of that? In a battle between Western liberalism and the rantings of jihadis, we win. I’d think that Charles Johnson of all people would be in favor of letting their propaganda be exposed to more Americans.
Mark Jaquith on November 15, 2006 at 6:19 PM
It’ll be interesting to note the differences when AJ-E and AJ-Arabic choose to cover the same story. I suspect that, as Afafat used to do, you’ll hear one thing in English, quite another in Arabic.
Don’t know how to test my theory, though. Free AJ-E access appears limited to 15 minute previews at a time. My Arabic is rusted all to hell, and personally, I don’t have much time to compare the two 24/7 channels.
MEMRI’s a great resource, of course. But they translate stuff after the fact, from archive tapes, right?
(Side note, I thought Watching America was affilated with MEMRI, but their “About Us” page now says:
“Watching America has no affiliation with, nor funding from, any organization or corporation. We intend to cover costs by running ads and receiving donations.
We invite you to change your homepage.”
Is that a new change… or was I mistaken all along? Anyone know? I’ve shot them an email out of sheer curiosity, and asking if they’ll be highlighting stuff from the new AJ-E.)
Kadnine on November 15, 2006 at 6:42 PM
That clip is precious.
Awarding Mother Theresa an “artificial hymen”? Bemoaning the democracy behind awarding the Nobel Prize to a gazillion Jews, who number 15 mil, but only 2 Chinese, who number 1.5 bil? Is this guy a Democrat? Affirmiative action in awarding prizes for science, economics and…waaaaaait for it…*PEACE*?
…how many Muslims are in line for the Peace Nobel this year, by the way? That Danish imam who “outed” the Mohammed cartoons, perhaps?
Bemoaning the “smarts DNA” make-up of Muslims? I think he’s onto something….
Puritan1648 on November 15, 2006 at 6:48 PM
One Angry Christian –
Me too. I checked out a Farsi course from the library, but I’m going to have to buy one, too many CDs missing. But we have CNN for terrorist propaganda, and we can keep tabs on them on the internet as well. I don’t want to pay for it, even peripherally, but I just tested my speed and it came in at 7.56 Mbps. I really do not want to give that up. I hope my principles aren’t tested on this one. :-)
Laura on November 15, 2006 at 7:27 PM
I dunno. I’m not sure rejecting Al Jazeera is the right thing. I think Glenn Beck just proved tonight that it’s a good thing for us to see and hear what those nut-jobs rant about on a daily basis. I’ve read many of the quotes and speeches that Beck featured on his special “Exposed: The Extremist Agenda” this evening, but it is different to SEE the clerics’ eyes bugging out, HEAR their voices shrieking hatred for us, and SEE the giant raving mobs shouting “Death to America” over and over and over and over and over… Ya gotta think a few more uneducated Americans would stop pressing for us to pull out of the middle east–and perhaps acknowledge that there actually IS a War on Terror–if they saw a little more of that kind of thing.
That’s assuming that the English version of Al Jazeera would actually show those scenes and translate them correctly.
aero on November 15, 2006 at 8:55 PM
Actually, we can get pro-terrorist propoganda fromm CNN.
Dave R. on November 16, 2006 at 5:15 PM
Comment pages: