http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=Local_News&subsection=Qatar+News&month=December2006&file=Local_News200612108827.xml

Al Jazeera challenge prompts call for Jewish television channel
Web posted at: 12/10/2006 8:8:27
Source ::: The Peninsula
DOHA • A prominent Israeli newspaper, The Jerusalem Post, in an article appeared recently, has called for establishment of an international Jewish satellite channel, to counter the challenge posed by the newly launched English channel of Al Jazeera.

The paper urged Jews across the world to take the initiative to launch the channel, which it felt, will contribute to the “historic achievements of Jews in this century,” reported Al Sharq daily yesterday.

The Jews have been losing the ideological war, due to their failure to promote their case on the media front, said the Israeli paper.

The impact of electronic media has led to negligence of truth and focus on civilian casualties. It was the major factor behind changing international public opinion against the Jewish. The launch of Al Jazeera English will accelerate this opinion shift, it added.

An Israeli committee had said that the English version of Al Jazeera will impact American and European public opinion more than BBC and CNN. It is a fact that the Al Jazeera English has reached more than 80m households in the West and it is time to stop wishful thinking, the paper warned the Jews.

It felt that those who are interested in Middle East issues will now turn to Al Jazeera English due to various reasons, mainly out of curiosity. They are keen to know more about the Arab situation and they would be cheated by the openness claimed by the channel. On some occasions, it gives an opportunity for opposite views: for instance, the interviews it had done with Israeli leaders like Shimon Peres.

Waleed Al Omri, director of the Al Jazeera Office in Palestine was a graduate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the paper noted.

The Al Jazeera English had successfully attracted prominent newsreaders and journalists from the West including David Frost from BBC and Dave Marash from ABC, who is a Jew. The latter has been cooperating with powers working against Israel but still he insisted that Al Jazeera was not against the Jewish and it would give an opportunity for Israelis to express their opinion.

If we take into consideration the history of Al Jazeera channel, the new channel will also give publicity to Al Qaeda tapes and propagate anti-Semitism, the Israeli paper was quoted as saying.

The new channel will ignore Holocaust and give a chance for those who support suicide bombings to air their views. It has the potential to create a new hatred against the Jews worldwide and will certainly promote the lie that terrorism and fundamentalism will disappear with the disappearance of Israel, said the paper.

The article came to the conclusion that the only solution to the challenge is establishment of an international TV channel that can express the Jewish viewpoint, "which will be balanced on Israel and Jewish issues."

The paper noted that several efforts made by individuals in the past in this regard had failed due to lack of financial resources.

Now with the launch of Al Jazeera English, it is time to reconsider the project. “We have a number of Jewish multi-billionaires, more than anytime in history, who are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to support Jewish groups which are trying to protect the rights of Jews,” the paper said.