[Institute for Contemporary Affairs-Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs] Zvi Mazel - In 1996, the Emir of Qatar established the Al Jazeera satellite channel which is today the most viewed station in the Arab world with an estimated audience of some 60 million. There was never any doubt about the station's political orientation. Al Jazeera launched scathing attacks on Israel during the Second Intifada and went on to incendiary broadcasts against the U.S. at the time of the Afghanistan conflict and over Iraq. During the Second Lebanon War in 2006, Al Jazeera behaved as a Hizbullah spokesman. During the Gaza war, a senior Al Jazeera reporter stationed himself at Shifa Hospital, from where he broadcast a stream of carefully selected horror pictures. Al Jazeera has become a weapon in the hands of an ambitious emir who may be driven by the Muslim Brothers and who is threatening the stability of the Middle East. With the Muslim Brothers increasingly aligned in recent years with Iran, by repeatedly attacking the Sunni Arab regimes and inciting against them, Al Jazeera is serving as an important instrument for Tehran and its effort to undermine their internal stability. The writer, who served as Israel's Ambassador to Romania, Egypt, and Sweden, currently directs the Jerusalem Center's Arabic-language website - infoelarab.org.
2009-05-15 06:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive