Personally, I don’t feel it will be ‘fair to us’, nor it will be fair to ‘them’.

Aljazeera is facing a lot of oppositions from cable companies in Europe and America. They fear that it will be like the Arabic Aljazeera. I’m afraid that they will compromise something (if they haven’t yet) to get the green light to broadcast.

Having said that, I’m not saying that from my experience with them that they are pro western version of the story, however, looking at where their staff comes from and the experience they gained all these years at CNN and BBC, they have to ‘learn to unlearn’ what they are carrying from there.

If we look at the management, last year when we meet Aljazeera English managers, it was a disaster for them when they failed to answer these all questions about which side they are going to present and what language they will use, i.e. are they going to call resistance as terrorists? What are they going to name martyrs as? etc…

I believe that putting Khanfar at the head of the organization has either of two things:

1. Either they want him to make sure that Aljazeera English is going to be like the Arabic one, or

2. They intend to scurfy him later and putting the blame on him for failing to make it like the Arabic one (when facing Arab), while minimizing the effect of the English one on the west and keeping it acceptable for West.

All in all, I don’t think this project will ever succeed, but I hope it will.

I think the real issue that Khalid has raised is that the English version of AlJazeera is going to be another pro-Western media outlet, especially given who they have hired as senior staff and the way they are treating Palestinian stories.

What feeling did you get from the English staff you met in your trip? Do you think they are up to the challenge of being fair to us? Do you think that the Arab side has control over it all?

I’ll make sure to link to these soon. Thanks!

The Question of Palestine (Vintage) by Edward W. Said – or anything else by Said

Fateful Triangle, Updated Edition: The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians (South End Press Classics Series) by Noam Chomsky – Will open your eyes to how deep the U.S. is in all this

Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question by Edward Said and Christopher Hitchens (Paperback – Sep 13, 2001) – Takes Joan Peters and the lies that are spun by Zionists about the Palestinians and the formation of Israel to task

Occupied Voices: Stories of Everyday Life from the Second Intifada by Wendy Pearlman (Paperback – May 2003) – Real voices of real Palestinians on their daily lives

Why Did You Leave the Horse Alone? by Mahmoud Darwish and Jeffrey Sacks (Paperback – Feb 1, 2006) – or anything else by Darwish

Palestine: A Guide by Mariam Shahin and George Baramki Azar – finally, a guide to visiting Palestine, written by Palestinians

I Saw Ramallah by Mourid Barghouti, Edward W. Said, and Ahdaf Soueif (Paperback – May 13, 2003) – One of the most well written accounts of returning to Palestine after exile in 1967)

Also can be found here:
http://bloggernews.net/2006/09/pro-israeli-editors-seek-to-influence.html

and here:
http://umkahlil.blogspot.com/2006/09/pro-israeli-editors-seek-to-influence.html

Following that, the letter circulated many mailing lists, including:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Media/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-News/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/efreepalestine/

and few more…

It was published in one of the pro-Palestine mailing lists that I’m a member of. I will dig around and post the link shortly.

And thanks for the note about Amazon. It turns the same crap google ads did before.
They are removed now and I will try to replace them with some selected authors. How about Edward W. Said?

Also, you should know that your links to Amazon.com are listing Joan Peters’ “From Time Immemorial” and Alan Dershowitz’s “A Case for Israel”.

Not sure you want to help promote these libelous books.