Egypt's Al Jazeera Bans Shows Channel's Key Role

Reuters ^ | January 30, 2011 | Staff

[lbryce]

Egypt's decision on Sunday to close the offices of Al Jazeera illustrates the leading role the Arabic broadcaster has taken in reporting unprecedented popular revolts against Arab rulers.

Egypt has often harassed the Qatar-based channel since it started in 1996, setting off a revolution in Arab media in the face of state-controlled information, but it had never before tried to shut down its operations completely.

The channel led coverage of a Tunisian uprising that toppled Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali earlier this month, even though it was already banned from the North African country.

Then, sensing that Tunisia's example would set off copycat movements elsewhere, the channel charted mobilisation in Egypt that led to huge protests in the past week demanding the end of President Hosni Mubarak's rule.

"Al Jazeera saw the gravity of the situation (in Tunisia and Egypt)," said Shadi Hamid of Doha's Brookings Institute. "They saw it was going to be big before other people did and that it would stand as one of the historic moments in Arab history."

Arab governments have often closed the offices of the channel, which helped put tiny Gulf state Qatar on the map and boosted its status as a leader of regional diplomacy.

A major oil and gas power, Qatar employs vast resources to back the channel. This month it released a stack of secret documents revealing embarrassing Palestinian Authority concessions to Israel in peace talks.

A leaked U.S. diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks in December said U.S. diplomats saw Al Jazeera as a "bargaining tool" used by Qatar in its foreign policy. Emad Gad of the Al Ahram Strategic and Political Studies Center said the effort to smother Al Jazeera was the last effort of a dying authoritarian system to control events in the traditional heavy-handed manner.

[lbryce]

First of all, you've got to hand it to those astute Egyptians, finally figuring out that Mubarak was in fact a stooge of the Israelis, a Zionist agent all this time, whose real name was revealed as Irving Judah Mubarahberg.

You've got to take satisfaction in knowing Al-Jazeera has always served as a destabilizing force within countries they've reported from, today being banned in Egypt, as well as it was in Iraq during the war. Several years ago Al Jazzera tried making inroads in the US with little success, having realized they just couldn't compete with CNN, MSNBC as MSM's premier dispenser of propaganda, un-American view of the world.

[lbryce]

Yes, you called it correctly. The purpose of releasing the documents I believe was part of Al-Jazeera’s a agenda to delegitimize the Palestinian Authority, destroy their credibility, while boosting the terror group Hamas in Gaza.

[Electric Graffiti]

You're spot on.....a couple a days ago I was watching Aljezeera through CNBC. Nearly every guest they had on supported the uprisings, some formerly worked for Mubarack. What I found interesting is they were all dropping the name ElBaradei.

ElBaradei to US: Take Egypt's Mubarak off life support[Sunday evening from Cairo's Tahrir Square] <----I thought this piece of sh!t was in jail

More info on ElBaradei:

Dr. Yasser Najib Abdel Mabboud, has accused Dr. Mohamed El Baradei, former Director General of International Atomic Energy Agency and a candidate in the Egyptian presidential elections, of covertly receiving over $7 million from Iran’s regime as support for ‘political reform in Egypt’.

Source

[PapaBear3625]

In their earlier days, they also featured this logo:

The shark eating the fish, the fish of course being the ancient logo for Christianity.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks lbryce. If only there were some kind of thousand-word summation that wasn't a thousand words long...

[lbryce]

That's the very point of the adage. Imagery has the capacity to convey reality, sentiments that words are inherently incapable of . That's probably because seventy percent of the way the brain processes information is visual.

I sent this message to express my appreciation to you for being the only Freeper to ever, always thank me for posting the links that I do, the gratitude going full circle.

And so, Thank you, SunkenCiv!

[SunkenCiv]

Hey, it’s my pleasure! That pic would be scary if my threshold hadn’t been going up since 1972.

[Jeremys Iron]

Sheesh. Don't they ever get tired of the "eviljewvampirebloodsucker" thing?

[Berlin_Freeper]

Al Jazeera is BBC.

[AdmSmith]

The reason that Al Jazeera was closed in Egypt is, according to Egyptian sources, that they are working together with Hamas.

[SunkenCiv]

• Egypt's Al Jazeera Bans Shows Channel's Key Role
• Al Jazeera English: Live Stream

[SunkenCiv]

They probably work with Falafel too.