|
CNN Founder Accuses Israel of Terror
 |
| Turner: “The
Palestinians are fighting with human suicide bombers, that’s
all they have.”
|
OCCUPIED
JERUSALEM, June 18 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – In an
exclusive interview with British daily newspaper, The Guardian, the
billionaire founder of CNN accused
Israel
Tuesday, June 18,
of engaging in “terrorism” against the Palestinian people.
“Aren’t
the Israelis and the Palestinians both terrorizing each other?”
Turner, vice-chairman of AOL Time Warner, which owns CNN, asked, in
comments the Guardian described as threatening “to lead to a further
decline in the news network’s already poor relations with the Jewish
state.”
“It
looks to me like they’re both doing it,” he added. “When the
Brits retaliated for the… Nazis bombing
London
by bombing
Berlin
, weren’t you
both terrorizing each other?”
“The
rich and the powerful, they don’t need to resort to terrorism… The
Palestinians are fighting with human suicide bombers, that’s all
they have. The Israelis ... they’ve got one of the most powerful
military machines in the world. The Palestinians have nothing. So who
are the terrorists? I would make a case that both sides are involved
in terrorism.”
Hawkish
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s government condemned Monday
night, June 17, Turner’s remarks, calling them “stupid,” the
Guardian reported.
The
newspaper reported that Andrea Levin, director of the American
pro-Israeli media watchdog Camera, called the comments a
“reprehensible” attempt to “blur the line between perpetrator
and victim.”
Spokesman
for the Israeli government, Daniel Seaman, said: “My only advice to
Ted Turner is if people assume you are stupid, it is just best to keep
your mouth shut rather than open your mouth and confirm everyone in
that view.”
The
founder of CNN, Ted Turner is also one of the world’s richest men,
and in 1997 became the world’s most magnanimous philanthropist when
he donated $1 billion to the United Nations.
A
senior minister in Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s cabinet
said he welcomed Turner’s comments, the Guardian reported.
“I
feel it reflects a more consistent approach,” said Ghassan Khatib,
Arafat’s newly appointed labor minister and former director of the
Jerusalem Media and
Communications
Center
.
“One
of the problems in trying to reduce the violence has been the focus of
so much international attention on Israeli rather than Palestinian
civilian deaths, although four times as many Palestinians have been
killed,” Khatib said.
The
newspaper pointed out that many Palestinians complain just as bitterly
of a pro-Israeli bias in CNN’s coverage - mocking it as the
“Zionist News Network” - as
Israel
complains of a
pro-Palestinian one.
An
increasingly widespread perception of bias on the part of CNN among
some Israelis and
U.S.
supporters of
Israel
has prompted
several boycotts by pressure groups, urging viewers to switch to
Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News channel, the Guardian said.
In
a telephone interview three months ago with CNN’s Christiane
Amanpour, Arafat hung up after accusing Amanpour of anti-Palestinian
bias. “You are covering with these questions the terrorist
activities of the Israeli occupation and the Israeli crimes,” he
said.
“Be
quiet. Be fair. Thank you, bye-bye.”
|
