Category Archives: Al Jazeera

Will Al Jazeera keep Muslim Apostate Cenk Uygur after Current TV sale?

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After the sale of Current TV to Al Jazeera was announced earlier this year, Cenk Uygur, one of Current TV’s political pontificators, told POLITICO that he wouldn’t mind staying with the network when the dust settles:

Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks told POLITICO that unlike some of his Current TV colleagues, he’s open to staying with Al Jazeera America.

Cenk_Uygur

In theory, this should pose a problem for Uygur because Al Jazeera is essentially a media arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is extremely fundamentalist. Uygur, on the other hand, is a Muslim apostate by his own admission. In a 2008 op-ed by Uygur that appeared in the Huffington Post, he explained…

I am a fervent agnostic. I have argued vehemently against religion… Worse yet, I was born Muslim. I went to school in Turkey until I was eight (that will be translated as “attended a madrasa” by Fox “News” Channel).

Note how Uygur is not just an agnostic but a “fervent” one. This makes him a Muslim apostate, does it not? Assuming the Current TV sale to Al Jazeera goes through, what should we make of things if Uygur is retained? After all, it would mean that a fundamentalist Arab Muslim network will be prominently featuring a “fervent agnostic” who used to be a “Muslim”.

Perhaps the answer might lie in the teachings of a prominently featured Muslim Brotherhood scholar on Al Jazeera – Yusuf Al Qaradawi. Qaradawi is a “fervent” proponent of Muruna, an Islamic practice that is similar to taqiyya but is far more stealthy in nature.

On the other hand, if Uygur is let go, it will mean that Al Jazeera is being true to Islam instead of to Muruna. Then again, according to Qaradawi, Muruna is true to Islam.

Then again, consider that the “fervent apostate” Uygur, in 2010, mocked Oklahoma’s anti-Sharia legislation. Why on earth would a “fervent agnostic” come to the defense of Islam in Oklahoma?

Read more at Shoebat.com

Gore’s Al Jazeera Deal Now a Major Scandal

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20130103_al_gore_+_aljazeera_sale_2013_LARGEby CLIFF KINCAID:

While the lawsuit over the sale of Al Gore’s Current TV to Al Jazeera is making headlines, a close reading of the legal complaint provides additional evidence that a congressional investigation into the curious transaction is urgently needed and necessary.

The media executive who claims to have arranged the sale says the idea was to make the Terror TV channel “palatable to U.S. lawmakers,” a formulation that suggests foreign lobbying on Capitol Hill in order to protect the $500 million payoff to Gore and other owners and investors in Current TV.

The suit says that media executive John Terenzio also proposed smoothing things over with “pro-Israel factions, cable operators and, most importantly, the American public.”

The other controversial aspect of the deal, as noted by Fox News contributor Lisa Daftari, is that “Al Jazeera America” has announced plans for bureaus in eight cities, including Detroit, Michigan, and that “Detroit, Michigan is a large ex-pat community of Muslim-Americans where [Jihadist] sleeper cells have been detected.”

Detroit has been called the Arab capital of North America.

Because of the danger of inciting Arabs and Muslims into anti-American violence, Accuracy in Media has called on the House Homeland Security Committee, under the chairmanship of Texas Republican Michael McCaul, to investigate the sale and look at the evidence that the channel is a foreign terrorist entity that can be outlawed on U.S. soil. He has refused to do so.

The Al Gore lawsuit constitutes another reason why Congress has to investigate. If Al Gore had paid Terenzio for his services, as the suit alleges, it is likely that the nature of the deal and the private discussions that went into it would never have been made public. Now, however, all of this is on the public record and more damaging details, if Gore doesn’t settle the lawsuit, will almost certainly come out.

The revelations demonstrate how sensitive the deal was in the first place. Terenzio says one of his objectives was to develop “strategies to overcome Al Jazeera’s negative image and make Al Jazeera acceptable to American viewers.” Many members of the public associate Al Jazeera with the videos of Osama bin Laden, the architect of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America. Al Jazeera aired those videos, as well as interviews with bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders, and is today still regarded as the voice of the pro-terrorist Muslim Brotherhood.

In short, the plan was for a massive propaganda campaign to play down the channel’s ties to al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, and its financing by the pro-Jihadist Arab government of Qatar.
Read more: Family Security Matters 

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Competition Needed for Al Jazeera

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A voice for change? Or a voice for the Muslim Brotherhood?

By JanSuzanne Krasner

Vice President Al Gore’s sellout of Current TV to Qatar’s Al Jazeera is going to bring this Middle Eastern news giant into American homes, but it will be information ‘nuanced’ for the American public’s consumption. This state owned network was the media of choice for Osama Bin Laden, and continues to be the resources for Hamas and Hezbollah.

It seems that this single Middle Eastern offering for 40 million American cable subscribers needs some competition that will show Americans what Muslims in the Middle East (and maybe in a local mosque) are listening towithout the ‘nuances.’ One suggestion is the MEMRI TV Project One, an organization that monitors over 100 Arabic and Farsi TV channels round the clock.

Watch a recent 1:41 minute  video picked up by MEMRI that is truly an “eye-opener.” It is embedded below. The speaker is the Egyptian Cleric Abu Islam as he appeared on February 13, 2013 on Egypt’s Al-Omma TV in a “Swear to God the Almighty, I am not lying” speech on the emergence of Christianity from penis worship.

Cleric Abu Islam tells the viewers “that the Church worship originated in worship of the penis. This is documented in dozens of pictures. Let me tell you something…it’s indecent, but true. Take a look at a picture of Jesus and you’ll see a penis, right there (he strokes his right side)…Or is it on this side? (He points to his left side and back to the right side) Oh, it’s the right side…A penis, right here. There are many pictures like this. They worship it.”

The Cleric continues with claims about Christian women: “(Christian women) raise cats and dogs as a substitute for husbands. They train their dogs to play the husband. I swear to God, I am not lying. They buy dogs for this purpose. They train dogs to play the husband of them. Christian women do that.”

Watch this short video to see how followers of Islam are propagandized against Christians, not only Jews.

 

If people made these claims about Islam while in a European country with a large Muslim population (Denmark, France, Spain, Sweden and the UK come to mind), they would be arrested for a hate-crime against Muslims and Islam; and if in a Muslim country, they would be arrested for blasphemy and likely be beheaded. Islam is a one way street.

These religious and political leaders speak to their billions of followers just like this and the followers believe.

We must not allow our families to be indoctrinated with false pictures and “reality shows” of Muslim life that appear to be like American daily life without exposing the truth, at least in the name of fair and balanced news.

Source: American Thinker

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Al Jazeera Star: Death to Apostates

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Yusuf-al-Qaradawi 2By :

Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, host of a popular Al Jazeera television show and a highly influential Islamic cleric with a long history of poisonous views toward women, homosexuals and Jews, has now sanctioned the killing of those who leave Islam.

The 86-year-old Egyptian-born cleric, who has been called the spiritual and intellectual leader of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, aired his enlightened views on the deadly Islamic punishment for apostates on a recent broadcast of Shariah and Life — his long-running program that enjoys an estimated worldwide audience of 60 million viewers.

Qaradawi addressed his Al Jazeera viewers, quoting from a series of Koranic verses and hadiths, which read in part, “The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His apostle is that they should be murdered or crucified…Kill whomever changes his faith [from Islam]…”

Moreover, according to Qaradawi, Islam’s diligent use of executing apostates had served to ensure Islam’s survival since the 15th century, telling viewers that “If they had gotten rid of the apostasy punishment Islam wouldn’t exist today.”

Unfortunately, Qaradawi’s on-air fatwa carries some considerable weight given his standing as one of the most influential Sunni Muslim clerics in the world, prominence gained as host of Shariah and Life, founder of the popular website IslamOnline and author of over 100 books on Islam.

Yet, while Qaradawi has studiously over the years tried to posit himself as the tolerant face of Islam, his efforts have been belied by his long-standing endorsement of, among other things, wife beating, Palestinian suicide bombers, and the killing of homosexuals and Jews.

Read more at Front Page

Must-See Videos from the ‘Investigate Al Jazeera Now’ National Press Conference

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imagesCA9KZ10GWalid Shoebat:

Some might remember a letter sent by Cliff Kincaid of America’s Survival to the new House Homeland Security Committee chairman, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), demanding an investigation into the sale of CURRENT TV to Al-Jazeera by Al Gore and his partners. Walid was also a signatory to that letter. McCaul failed to respond to the letter prior to the Investigate Al Jazeera Now Press Conference, held at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on February 5th.

Here are videos of speakers at the event – Kincaid, Pamela Geller, and Jerry Kenney:

 

 

 

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Al Jazeera Likely Violating Multiple U.S. Laws

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imagesCA9KZ10GBy: James Simpson:

Excerpt:

Cliff Kincaid is holding a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, Tuesday, February 5th to bring these facts to public attention. Sharing the podium with him will be broadcaster Jerry Kenney, who has documented some of Al Jazeera’s alleged criminal activity. Noted Islamist fighter, Pam Geller, will also be in attendance. Pam scored a major victory against Islamic radicals in court by defending her right to post billboards highlighting Islamic terrorism at public transportation stops and other locations throughout the U.S.

Terrorist TV

A 2010 Supreme Court decision (Holder vs. The Humanitarian Law Project) holds that speech normally protected under the First Amendment can be a criminal act if directed by a terrorist organization. Al Jazeera seems to fit the bill. Kincaid and Kenney have documented Al Jazeera’s anti-American propaganda and its many terrorist connections. A few highlights:

  • The Emir of Qatar, who owns Aljazeera, recently donated 400 million dollars to Hamas, a State Department designated terrorist group.
  • Film footage of captured terrorists in Iraq shows they came to kill Americans because of Al Jazeera.
  • NBC News reporter Lisa Myers said: “Why do they go [to fight in Iraq]? Saudis captured in Iraq say it’s because of pictures on Arab television network Al-Jazeera.
  • CNN reports that a document found in bin Laden’s compound after his death referred to a meeting with the Al-Jazeera bureau chief in Pakistan.
  • The new film, “Zero Dark Thirty,” mentions that the courier who eventually led the CIA to bin Laden was located in Pakistan near an Al Jazeera office in order to get the terrorist leader’s videotapes to the channel for worldwide distribution.
  • 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed… was protected by the government of Qatar, which funds Al Jazeera.
  • Father of journalist Daniel Pearl, the journalist beheaded by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, says, “Al Jazeera is the main propaganda machine of the Muslim Brotherhood.”
  • French media openly report that Qatar is supporting the Mali terrorists
  • An Al Jazeera story, “Mali: The ‘gentle’ face of al-Qaeda,” reported that the terrorists “are playing the role of humanitarians” by providing food to local people.
  • Al Jazeera supports the radical Muslim and far-left campaign to free “Lady al Qaeda” Aafia Siddiqui, currently serving a life sentence for attempted murder and wife of 9/11 planner Ammar al-Baluchi,.
  • In the U.S., the movement to free Siddiqui includes Ramsey Clark, the Workers World Party (WWP) and the Party for Socialism and Liberation.
  • Al Jazeera reporter Tayseer Allouni, was convicted as an agent of al Qaeda.

Allowing an Al Jazeera propaganda mill to operate in the U.S. while our troops fight and die in the Global War on Terror is akin to having permitted Japanese radio propagandist “Tokyo Rose” or Nazi Germany’s “Lord Haw Haw” to broadcast from our shores during World War II.

Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) Violation

The State Department has identified Al Jazeera as a property of the Qatar government, adding that “[Qatar] exercised editorial and programmatic control of the channel through funding and selection of the station’s management.” As such, Al Jazeera must by law register as a foreign agent. It has not done so, nor has it disclosed its status when broadcasting, as required by FARA. Jerry Kenney submitted a complaint to the Holder Justice Department in October 2011 requesting they investigate these allegations. They responded that they would take it “under advisement,” but nothing has yet been done.

Unauthorized Control of a Broadcast TV Station

Al Jazeera is currently broadcast on 28 noncommercial television stations in the U.S. According to Kenney, Al Jazeera cannot legally own a U.S. TV station license, but “may have unlawfully taken control of some public broadcast stations through an illegal affiliate agreement that forced them to carry the Aljazeera programming.” He filed a complaint with the FCC almost two years ago, but they have done nothing. Recall that FCC Commissioner Julius Genachowski is a longtime friend and Harvard classmate of President Obama. Genachowski’s ex-wife, Martha Raddatz, moderated the sole Vice Presidential debate last year. No influence there…

Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS)

According to its website:

CFIUS is an inter-agency committee authorized to review transactions that could result in control of a U.S. business by a foreign person (“covered transactions”), in order to determine the effect of such transactions on the national security of the United States.

Al Jazeera claims their purchase doesn’t require CFIUS review, but past foreign media purchases of much more benign import have come under CFIUS authority. It seems clear that Al Jazeera does fall firmly within CFIUS purview, but once again, the government has chosen inaction.

Read more at Red State

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Persecuting Partners: Murdoch’s Saudis Vs. Gore’s Qataris

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imagesCAQBUC44by Andrew Bostom:

Yesterday, highlighting a particularly egregious example of preening by Fox’s Bill O’Reilly, I reiterated my contention that Fox’s well-paid media personalities behave hypocritically when they ignore the morally cretinous Saudi/Rotana/Al-Risala dealings of their owner Rupert Murdoch, while lashing out at Al Gore’s sale of Current TV to Qatar’s Al-Jazeera English.

Let me preface this post by noting that I support the righteous effort of Cliff Kincaid/ Accuracy in Media demanding House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) convene hearings on the overall danger posed by Al-Jazeera’s broadcasting in America, including specific inquiries about the associations between Al-Jazeera, Al-Qaeda, and the government of Qatar. I find compelling Kincaid’s analogy between Al-Manar and Al-Jazeera, i.e., previously banning Al-Manar in the US because of its ties to the jihad terrorist organization Hezbollah, and now doing likewise with Al-Jazeera because of its support of Al-Qaeda. Indeed, to gauge Al-Jazeera’s continued grotesque supportive propaganda regarding Al-Qaeda, read this puff piece on the “gentle face” of Al-Qaeda’s butchers and thugs who recently overran Mali.

However, Fox’s shading of the civilizational jihad, due to its obeisance to Murdoch’s Saudi business partners (which includes, as but one of a myriad examples this intellectually and morally bankrupt attack on Michelle Bachmann for advocating an investigation of Muslim Brotherhood influence peddling), must also be confronted, particularly by conservatives.

The objective findings (hat tip Nina Shea; methodology here) in this World Watch List report just issued by Open Doors on global religious persecution of Christians, provides a ranked comparison of Murdoch’s Saudi Arabia (an “extreme” offender, and second worst overall to North Korea), and Gore’s Qatar (a “severe” offender, and 20th overall), noting also, that fully 10 of the 11 most egregious persecutors were Muslim nations.

Bottom line, lest we (and the Fox news personalities and loyal viewers) forget, Murdoch’s Saudi Arabia is still measurably worse than Gore’s Qatar. Details from the Open Doors report are reproduced below:

[Saudi Arabia, Rank 2; Extreme]: There is no provision for religious freedom in the constitution of this Islamic kingdom. All citizens must adhere to Islam and conversion to another religion is punishable by death. Public Christian worship is forbidden; worshippers risk imprisonment, lashing, deportation and torture. Evangelizing Muslims and distributing non-Muslim materials is illegal. Muslims who convert to Christianity risk honor killings, and foreign Christian workers have been exposed to abuse from employers.

[Qatar, Rank 20; Severe]: The state religion is conservative Islam and nearly all Qatari citizens are Sunni or Shia Muslims. Christian worship is only allowed in designated religious complexes, of which there are only two at the moment, which makes them easier to control and monitor. Many expat laborers are denied access to these complexes as they live too far away or are prevented from attending by employers. A Muslim who converts is considered an apostate and may face the death penalty. Foreign workers who evangelize non-Muslims are frequently deported.

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Congress Must hold Hearings into the Al Jazeera Deal

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20130103_al_gore_+_aljazeera_sale_2013_LARGE

by CLIFF  KINCAID

If Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) lets  the Al Jazeera-Al Gore deal go through without scrutiny, then every broadcast  entity or communications facility in America is ripe for the plucking by any of  our nation’s enemies and adversaries.

For those who haven’t been paying attention lately, the government of Qatar  has announced a deal through Al Jazeera with former Democratic Vice President Al  Gore for his Current TV cable channel, in order to transform it into an arm of  its Jihadist or “Terror TV” network, once known as a mouthpiece for mass  murderer Osama bin Laden. They are planning to call it “Al Jazeera America,”  when the oil money for the transaction is coming from abroad. This is part and  parcel of the deception, which is designed to make it appear as though Al  Jazeera is as American as apple pie and simply has a foreign-sounding name.

To be sure, the deal was not technically announced by Qatar, a Middle Eastern  dictatorship where freedom of the press is not permitted. Instead, Al Jazeera  made the announcement. But that is part of the deception. Al Jazeera is an arm  of the Qatar regime and is not in any sense of the term an “independent” news  organization. It is government-funded with “advertising” from such entities as  Qatar Airways, the national airline partly owned by the regime. Qatar and Al  Jazeera are one and the same.

The purpose of this transaction is to soften the American people up for more  Middle East revolution, including within the borders of the U.S. Dr. Judea  Pearl, the father of slain journalist Daniel Pearl, supports an  investigation of the deal and says, “Al Jazeera weaves the ideological  structure and combustible angers from which Jihadi recruits eventually  emerge.”

Qatar postures as a friend of the United   States and hosts a U.S military  base. But Qatar also served as the base for anti-American and anti-Semitic  “cleric” Yusef al-Qaradawi before he returned to Egypt to help consolidate the  Muslim Brotherhood revolution there. Al-Qaradawi is a leading television  personality on Al Jazeera.

You may have missed the news that Qatar just extended another $2.5  billion in economic aid for Egypt, following a gift of $400 million that the  emir of Qatar made to the terrorist group Hamas.

Al Gore and his partners, including Joel Hyatt, got more than that-$500  million, according to reports. Whether or not that is an accurate figure, any  amount is a drop in the bucket to the emir, who is worth billions of dollars and  lives in opulence.

By the way, Muslim Brotherhood leader and president of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi,  just told  CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that he wants the release of the Blind Sheikh, sentenced  to life in prison for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York City. This  first terrorist attack on the World  Trade Center killed six people and injured  over 1,000 others.

Dr. Pearl calls Al Jazeera ”the main propaganda machine” of the pro-terrorist  Muslim Brotherhood. It is no surprise, therefore, that Qatar would underwrite  the Egyptian regime and Hamas, and that the Obama Administration would voice no  public objection to the sale of Current TV to Al Jazeera.

However, there is no reason to believe this sale is legal. The circumstances  surrounding the sale clearly require Congressional hearings and this is where  the Republican House of Representatives and its new chairman of Homeland  Security, Rep. Michael McCaul, come in.

If ever there was a time for Congress to take action, this is it. This is not  a time to let the Obama Administration take the lead, since it has already  approved the questionable deal, which fattens the coffers of two prominent  Democrats.

There are many things about this deal that stink and which require an  investigation by McCaul’s committee.

First, there are unresolved complaints to the Federal Communications  Commission (FCC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) about Al Jazeera’s  operations in the U.S. Jerry Kenney of Kenney Broadcasting has asked that the  DOJ enforce the law by requiring that foreign propaganda pumped into American  homes by Al Jazeera be labeled as such. He says, “Why is it that if I buy a pair  of tennis shoes made in China, it has to be labeled made in China? But foreign  propaganda which is being aired in the U.S. is not being labeled as foreign  propaganda, with its country of origin, in violation of the law? I want to know  what I am getting. If you know who has produced something, you look at it  differently.”

Secondly, it appears that Al Jazeera has evaded the law requiring federal  approval for foreign investments in America that have national security  implications.

Read more: Family Security Matters

If you would like to express your opinion on conducting hearings into this  curious transaction, the Committee on Homeland Security can be reached at  202-226-8417.

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing EditorCliff  Kincaid is Editor of Accuracy in Media. He can be contacted at cliff.kincaid@aim.org.

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Is Saudi prince steering News Corp. coverage?

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Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal (center) with the Supreme Advisory Board of Al Risala TV

Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal (center) with the “Supreme Advisory Board” of Al Risala TV in December 2012. The board includes Muslim Brotherhood figure and al Qaeda-linked financier Omar Abdullah Naseef (to the left of Alwaleed, I believe), at whose home this photo was taken. The occasion was Al Risala’s receipt of an award for excellence. Part-owner Rupert Murdoch was not in attendance.

By Diana West at WND:

Ever since Al Gore sold Current TV to Al Jazeera, the network founded and funded by the oil-rich emirate of Qatar, the former vice president has drawn continuous fire in conservative media. Fox News, the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal, for example, have all castigated Gore, a man of the left and leading avatar of “global warming,” for such hypocrisies as timing the deal to avoid lefty tax hikes and bagging $100 million in greenhouse-gas money.

These same news outlets share something else in common: They all belong to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. That means they also belong to Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal.

Alwaleed owns the largest chunk of News Corp. stock outside the Murdoch family. Shortly after his purchase of 5.5 percent of News Corp. voting shares in 2005, Alwaleed gave a speech that made it clear just what he had bought. As noted in The (U.K.) Guardian, Alwaleed told an audience in Dubai that it took just one phone call to Rupert Murdoch – “speaking not as a shareholder but as a viewer,” Alwaleed said – to get the Fox News crawl reporting “Muslim riots” in France changed to “civil riots.”

This didn’t make the “Muslim” riots go away, but Alwaleed managed to fog our perception of them. With a phone call, the Saudi prince eliminated the peculiarly Islamic character of the unprecedented French street violence for both the viewers at home and, more significantly, for the journalists behind the scenes. When little owner doesn’t want “Muslim” rioting identified and big owner agrees, it sets a marker for employees. Alwaleed’s stake, by the way, is now 7 percent.

We can only speculate on what other acts of influence this nephew of the Saudi dictator might have since imposed on Fox News and other News Corp. properties. (I have long argued that News Corp. should register as a foreign agent, due to the stock owned by a senior member of the Saudi ruling dynasty.) Alwaleed hasn’t shared any other editorial exploits with the public. But that opening act of eliminating key information from News Corp.’s coverage of Islamic news might well have set a pattern of omission.

Recently, such a pattern of omission in News Corp.’s coverage of the Gore-Al Jazeera deal seems evident. I say “seems,” because I can’t be entirely certain that I haven’t missed something in my research. But judging from online searches of news stories and audio transcripts, two salient points are missing from at least the main body of News Corp.’s coverage.

One is reference to the noticeable alignment of Al Jazeera with the Muslim Brotherhood, the global Islamic movement whose motto is, “The Quran is our law; jihad is our way; dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.” The second (with an exception noted below) is reference to Al Jazeera’s superstar host and ideological lodestar, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a leading Muslim Brotherhood figure. The influence of al-Qaradawi at the network and in Qatar – where, according to Freedom House’s 2012 press report, it is against the law for journalists to criticize the Qatari government, the ruling family or Islam – can hardly be overestimated.

Strange omission? This relationship between the Qatari-controlled network and the Muslim Brotherhood organization has been observed for years. Back in 2007, for example, Steven Stalinsky reported in the New York Sun that various Arab commentators referred to Al Jazeera as “the Muslim Brotherhood channel” and the like. What’s more, reference to the relationship appears at least in passing in coverage of the Gore deal at mainstream media sites such as USA Today and the Seattle Times. More discussion is available at some conservative outlets, including Rush Limbaugh and The Blaze. (Searches at Breitbart and the Washington Examiner, like News Corp. sites, yielded nothing on these same points. Call it, perhaps, “the Fox effect.”)

Given the rise of Muslim Brotherhood parties in the revolutions of the so-called Arab Spring – undeviatingly cheered on by Al Jazeera – the network’s Muslim Brotherhood connection, which extends to Al Jazeera’s sponsors inside the Qatari ruling family, is a crucial point to miss. Especially when it seems to be missed across the board.

The same goes for failing to mention Al Jazeera’s leading personality, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, in the Gore deal coverage. This longtime “spiritual guide” of the Muslim Brotherhood hosts one of Al Jazeera’s most popular shows, “Shariah and Life.” Among other poisonous pronouncements, al-Qaradawi has called for Americans in Iraq and Israelis everywhere to be targeted by terrorists (“martyrs”) who would then find a place in Islamic paradise. Given Al Gore’s refusal to sell his network to Glenn Beck’s The Blaze TV due to political differences, Muslim Brother Al-Qaradawi and his Shariah ideology become highly relevant. Then again, maybe one man’s news story is just another man’s clipping on the cutting-room floor.

Meanwhile, the one story I found in News Corp. coverage of the Gore deal that mentions al-Qaradawi – a column by Gordon Crovitz – neglected to note al-Qaradawi’s place in the Muslim Brotherhood. Particularly given current events, this is a little like forgetting to mention that Hermann Goring was in the Nazi Party.

Could normal editorial discretion or plain ignorance be at work here? I suppose so. Still, there is that tie-in between News Corp. and the House of Saud to consider, a partnership I find more troubling than Gore’s deal with the Qatari emirate. Not only does Alwaleed own a stake in News Corp., Murdoch owns an even more substantial stake (18.97 percent) in Alwaleed’s Arabic media company Rotana.

Within the Alwaleed-Murdoch-Rotana galaxy is a 24-hour-Islamic outlet called Al Risala, which Alwaleed founded in 2006. The channel’s director and popular “tele-Islamist” is Tareq Al-Suwaidan, widely reported to be a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Kuwait. The station’s “Supreme Advisory Committee” includes Abdullah Omar Naseef, who, according to former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy, is “a major Muslim Brotherhood figure” involved in the financing of al-Qaida.

Al Risala, then, would seem to fit right into the Al Jazeera-Qaradawi-Muslim-Brotherhood lineup.

We know Alwaleed has influenced Fox editorial matters before. Could that Alwaleed influence – even his very presence – account for why News Corp. hasn’t hit harder on the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaradawi angles of the Gore-Jazeera deal?

I don’t know, but I wonder. Don’t you?

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Call for Congressional Hearings into Al Jazeera as a Homeland Security Threat

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stop al JazeeraBy Pamela Geller:

I am honored to fight alongside Cliff Kincaid in beating back the jihadist media machine that is buying whole dangerous access to the American news consuming public. I am honored to be a primary signatory of this letter to Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Michael McCaul,  requesting that the House Homeland Security Committee convene hearings into the national security threat posed by Al Jazeera on American soil.

This is an ongoing battle. I spoke to this grave threat at a press conference with Cliff Kincaid on Al Jazeera back in April 2011. Watch the video here. More here and our AlJazeera conference videos and materials here. We have just begun to fight. Stay tuned.

Download Ltr2Chairman-McCaul_Al-Jazeera

January 9, 2013

The Honorable Michael McCaul Chairman, Committee on Homeland Security U.S. House of Representatives H2-176 Ford House Office Building

Dear Chairman McCaul:

We respectfully request that the House Homeland Security Committee convene hearings into the national security threat posed by Al Jazeera on American soil. The announcement that the Qatar-funded enemy propaganda channel, which has functioned as a voice for al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, has taken over an existing U.S.-based cable TV channel, Current TV, must be examined by the Congress.

Dr. Judea Pearl, father of slain journalist Daniel Pearl, has informed us, in regard to this controversy, “I support your call to investigate the impact of this transaction.” His statement reads as follows:

“A decade of watching over its programs has left me no doubt: Al Jazeera is the main propaganda machine of the Muslim Brotherhood. Posing as a benign alternative communication medium, Al Jazeera choreographs a world stage in which the West is a perennial villain, Hamas is the ultimate role model, and entire societies are dehumanized to a lower form of life, stripped of any mark of dignity or empathy. While refraining from explicit incitement to violence, Al Jazeera weaves the ideological structure and combustible angers from which Jihadi recruits eventually emerge.”

Details are sketchy, but it is reported that Current TV was owned by former Democratic Vice President Al Gore and Joel Hyatt and that the reported purchase price was $500 million, with $100 million of that going to Mr. Gore personally.

These issues present themselves:

  • What is the nature of the contract between Al-Jazeera and Current TV owners Al Gore and Joel Hyatt, and the cable and satellite providers implicated in the deal?
  • Why did Mr. Gore and Mr. Hyatt reportedly bypass the prospect of selling the cable TV property to an American citizen and media personality, Glenn Beck, in preference for a foreign entity owned by an Arab government?
  • What federal rules or laws are in place to guard against foreign acquisition of American media organizations? Should they be strengthened? Should this deal be approved or examined by the federal government?

The House Homeland Security Committee is the appropriate and necessary vehicle for this inquiry because it was specifically established in part to “better protect the American people against a possible terrorist attack.”

There is a clear and present danger in American cable and satellite providers  accepting carriage of Al Jazeera. In a statement made available on February 23, 2011, Dr. Pearl said,“Al Jazeera’s popularity and general acceptance in the West has emboldened its management to take an even harder anti-Western stance. Their glorification of child-killer Samir Kuntar, and their leaking of the so called Al-Jazeera Palestine Papers in January of 2011, aimed to destroy the credibility of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and to end all hopes for [a] negotiated Mideast settlement are two of many steps attesting [to] their aims and tactics.”

In the case of Samir Kuntar, a released terrorist who had smashed the head of a four-year-old girl with his rifle butt in 1979 after killing her father before her eyes, Al Jazeera not only covered but helped sponsor an August 2008 birthday party for him. Kuntar had been released by Israel in exchange for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers, who were kidnapped by Hezbollah in 2006.

Clearly, Al Jazeera is unlike any other foreign “news’ operation. However, there are some some striking similarities to Al Manar television, a satellite television station affiliated with Hezbollah in Beirut, Lebanon, which has been officially labeled a terrorist entity by the U.S Government and banned from the United States.

 

Does the treatment of Al Manar serve as a template for how to deal with Al Jazeera’s presence on American soil? Obama Administration officials should be asked to explain what differences, if any, they perceive there to be between Al Manar and Al Jazeera.

One admitted difference is that Qatar, which finances Al Jazeera, is a government, not an officially-designated terrorist organization. Still, the regime supports terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah and is viewed by some as a state sponsor of terrorism. In the case before us, we believe Congress should examine whether Al Jazeera itself functions as a terrorist entity and not just a diplomatic tool of the Qatar regime.

The relationship between Qatar and Al Jazeera and the Muslim Brotherhood also requires attention. We note that Ikhwanweb, the official English website of the Muslim Brotherhood, has referred to Al Jazeera as “the greatest Arab media organization.”

The U.S. State Department designates Hamas as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization” and states that it “was formed in late 1987 as an outgrowth of the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.”

Dr. Judea Pearl has commented in the past — and has reiterated here —that Al Jazeera is the voice of the Muslim Brotherhood. That voice has a real name and face – Yusef Al-Qaradawi, the Al-Jazeera TV personality who has stated, among other things, that Hitler was divine punishment for the misdeeds of the Jews; that the Holocaust was exaggerated; that he desires to end his life in the service of Jihad by visiting Israel and throwing a bomb, becoming a“martyr” in the process; and that the U.S. will collapse if it doesn’t end its“unjust ways.”

The immediate danger that must be addressed is that Al Jazeera’s influence over potential Muslim extremists could inspire home-grown Jihadists to commit terrorist acts against Americans. We already have evidence that the words and images on Al Jazeera have inspired foreign terrorists to kill Americans in places such as Iraq. The captured terrorists have said so on film in a documentary produced by Accuracy in Media.

Read the rest at Atlas Shrugs