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Al Jazeera: Qatar's secret
weapon?
By N Janardhan
DUBAI
- It is the "CNN of the Arab world" for many people in
the Middle East, but governments in the region are
beginning to feel that the Qatar-based Al Jazeera
television channel is a severe headache.
With at
least 35 million viewers in the Arab world and
elsewhere, Al Jazeera has gained prominence for its
exclusives on Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda as well as
open debates on taboo subjects, in contrast to the
region's mostly censored media.
However, it has
also contributed to tension between countries by airing
liberal and critical programs on Arab politics and
regimes in the region. The latest row involves Jordan,
Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
The government of Jordan
closed the Qatar-based satellite news channel's office
there last week and recalled its ambassador for
consultation, saying that Al Jazeera was provoking
"sedition" through a broadcast that portrayed the
kingdom's rulers as "puppets of the United States and
Israel".
The reference was to a show "Al Ittijah
Al Moakess" (Opposite Direction) - in which the
participants criticized Jordan and the royal family's
Middle East policies.
The participants on the
show challenged the basis of the 1994 Jordanian-Israeli
peace treaty and slammed Jordan's policies toward the
Palestinians and Iraq, blasting King Abdullah and his
late father King Hussein as "liars" and "agents" of
Israel's secret service and the United States Central
Intelligence Agency, accusations that are almost never
made on record.
Jordan's Information Minister
Mohammed Adwan's angry reaction was immediate, "This
station has exceeded all professional and moral values
in dealing with many national issues," the official news
agency Petra said.
Accusing Al Jazeera of "cheap
tactics", Moasher said that the issue "is not one of
freedom of speech but of voluntary falsification of the
noble history of Jordan and its Hashemite leadership".
The Jordanian press accused Al Jazeera of
cosying up to Israel and suggested that the Qatari
leaders were ready to help the United States attack
Iraq, unlike Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
This
implication follows recent reports that the United
States is likely to use Doha as a military base in the
Gulf in its bid to topple Saddam Hussein, after Amman
and Riyadh refused to cooperate.
The Jordan
Times said in a report that Qatar was "defaming Arab
countries through Al Jazeera to cover up for its trade
links with Israel and its military agreements with the
United States. This television channel is a lion with
the Arabs and a lamb with Qatar." It argued that
Jazeera, "which insists on its impartiality, refrains
from covering controversial Qatari domestic politics".
Political analyst and Gulf Today editor P V
Vivekanand says that the spat could well be a fallout of
last year's resolution of the row between Qatar and
Bahrain over the Hawar islands, which both claimed for
their potential as a tourist destination.
"Qatar
was peeved at the Arab backing that Manama received in
the Hawar legal case, finally settled in favor of
Bahrain with the involvement of the International Court
of Justice. Unable to vent its anger in any other form,
Doha used Jazeera," Vivekanand said in an interview.
But it is not just Jordan that is irked by
Jazeera. Relations between Saudi Arabia and Qatar also
plunged to a new low in July over programs aired by the
channel that was seen as an affront to the Saudi royal
family.
In a talk show aired by Jazeera in the
last week of June, Saudi dissidents blasted the royal
family. The channel also telecast a documentary about
the founder of Saudi Arabia, the late King Abdulaziz,
which Riyadh considered insulting.
The Gulf
Cooperation Council (GCC) has also complained about
Jazeera's coverage, arguing that it is violating a GCC
code of conduct that bans cross-border media attacks.
Qatar has admitted that Al Jazeera is a
"perpetual headache" but insists that it would not close
the channel, which is also a major advertisement for the
royal family's "liberal outlook in a region dominated by
conservative thinking".
"Yes, there is
resentment, but there is a misunderstanding. We need to
open a dialogue to sort it out since we are one [Gulf
Arab] family and share the same destiny," Qatari Foreign
Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr Al Thani said
in a statement after the diplomatic row. He cited
freedom of the press in his defense of Al Jazeera.
While Doha claims that Jazeera is an
independent, private sector channel, many Arabs believe
that it is a government mouthpiece that can be used as
needed.
Qatari officials liken their
relationship with the channel to what the British
Broadcasting Corp enjoys with the British government,
but it is a well-known fact that Qatari Foreign Minister
Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr Al Thani owns 35
percent of the channel and is a cousin of the Qatari
emir.
Launched five years ago and sustained by a
US$137 million grant from the Qatari emir, the satellite
television channel is now charging up to $20,000 per
minute of footage of bin Laden-related tapes.
Hanan Ragheb, a researcher in the department of
communications at Al Ain University, feels that the
reactions from Amman and Riyadh are symptomatic of the
limited tolerance levels that the region's governments
have.
"There is no media censorship as long as
the target is an enemy of the government as well, like
it is with Israel. But the rules of the game swiftly
change when the regime and its leadership comes under
scrutiny. Having got used to little or no political
opposition, the regimes eye even the lowest decibel of
dissent with suspicion, even if it were constructive
criticism," Ragheb said in an interview.
"In the
Middle East, any opinion has to confirm with the
official view. It cannot emerge from the masses or
through the media, but should be handed down from the
regime. That's the tradition on which the system
survives and thrives," he added.
(Inter Press
Service)
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