Posted on 05/21/2007 6:53:35 AM PDT by Ziva
Two New Jersey Congressmen have expressed outrage that Alhurra, a US-funded Arabic-language television network in the Middle East created to counter the propaganda of media such as Al Jazeera, has broadcast live, hour-long interviews with terrorist leaders and sympathetically viewed Holocaust deniers.
Representatives Steven Rothman, a Democrat, and Frank LoBiondo, a Republican, have called for, among other remedies, the immediate resignation of Larry Register, Alhurra’s non-Arab speaking news director.
To make Alhurra more accountable so that terrorists never again take over the station’s broadcasts, Mr. Rothman, a long-standing member of the House Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, has requested funding so that all Alhurra broadcasts can be streamed live online every day with English translations.
"No sane person thinks that allowing terrorists to spout off live and unedited on media programs that are intended to promote the US’s image abroad is in our country’s best interests," said Mr. Rothman.
Created for America
Created in February 2004, Alhurra was founded as a key component of US diplomacy to the Arab world. With three separate feeds via satellite to Europe, Arab nations, and Iraq, Alhurra was developed to showcase the American political process and report on issues that are often overlooked by other Arab media, such as human-rights abuses and government corruption.
Instead, according to investigative reporter Joel Mowbray, writing for the Wall Street Journal, Alhurra, which operates with an annual, tax-payer funded budget of more than $70 million, has been broadcasting reports and feature pieces that feed the antisemitic, anti-Israel, and anti-American attitudes and beliefs already prominent throughout the Middle East.
According to Mr. Mowbray, before Mr. Register arrived, Alhurra’s Lebanese-born Muslim news director, Nouafac Harb, had been making attempts to show Arab viewers the reality of the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel was interviewed on the network, and a program about the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz was aired.
Things changed when Mr. Register arrived. A former producer at CNN, Mr. Register was hired by Alhurra last November. During his few months with the station, he has allowed sympathetic coverage of the Holocaust denial conference in Tehran last December; a portrayal of the rogue, anti-Zionist hareidi Neturei Karta as mainstream Orthodox Jews who, Alhurra says, number more than one million; and detailed interviews with terrorist leaders such as Hezbollah’s Sheikh Hasan Nasrallah.
Bullets for Israel
On December 7, a speech by Mr. Nasrallah was carried by Alhurra in its entirety, about 68 minutes. At one point in the speech, Mr. Nasrallah was interrupted by gunmen behind him who were firing in the air. Mr. Nasrallah chided them, saying, "The only place where bullets should be is the chest of the enemies of Lebanon: the Israeli enemy."
After the speech, Alhurra carried a 13-minute phone interview with Wael Abou Faour, a member of Lebanon’s governing coalition, who accused Mr. Nasrallah of not being sufficiently anti-US and anti-Israel.
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