Jordanian Media
Blasts Qatar, Al-Jazeera Over Defamatory TV Debate
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King
Abdullah II and his late father, King Hussein, were criticized
repeatedly during the debate
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AMMAN,
August 8 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Jordanian newspapers
blasted Qatar’s Al-Jazeera satellite TV channel Thursday,
August 8, after the government shut it down over a live debate
criticizing Jordan and the royal family for their Middle East
policies.
The
semi-official Al-Rai newspaper said there is an Israeli link to
the popular talk show ‘Al-Ittijah Al-Moakess’, [or, ‘The
Opposite Direction’], that was broadcast Tuesday, August 6, during
which participants lambasted Jordan and its rulers, Agence
France-Presse (AFP) reported.
“Uri
Drumi, the former advisor to Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin,
works as an adviser for Al-Jazeera and gets a hefty monthly
salary,” Al-Rai said, quoting diplomatic sources.
Drumi
“prepares a monthly plan for the channel’s political programs and
devoted the latest episode of Al-Ittijah Al-Moakess to attacking
Jordan,” the paper said.
Jordanian
newspapers were unanimous Thursday in pouring scorn on the rulers of
Qatar, accusing the small Gulf state of financing Al-Jazeera, many of
whose programs have been seen as offensive in several Arab capitals.
The
channel “was born to highlight the illiterate sheikh and became a
barracks for conspiracy” against the Arabs, the independent Al-Shahed
newspaper said in reference to Qatari ruler Sheikh Hamad bin
Khalifa al-Thani.
Al-Shahed
also ran a story saying that Sheikh Hamad recently told U.S.
Defense Minster Donald Rumsfeld that, unlike Jordan, Qatar is ready to
be a launch pad for a U.S. military strike on Iraq, AFP reported.
“If
(Jordan’s king) Abdullah is not ready, we are,” Hamad told
Rumsfeld in a telephone call, Al-Shahed quoted an unnamed
source as saying.
Al-Rai
also charged that Al-Jazeera reflects Qatari policies.
“It
is difficult to ignore the nature of the relations between Al-Jazeera
and the government that created it, no matter how hard its directors
try to reject this,” Al-Rai said in a front-page editorial.
“Qatar's
rulers and Al-Jazeera are very much mistaken if they believe that they
can market their lies and their provocations that easily,” the
newspaper said, pointing an accusing finger at Qatari Foreign Minister
Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem Al-Thani, who owns Al-Jazeera.
The
economic daily Al-Aswaq accused Al-Jazeera of being a
“suspect” channel whose aim is to “fuel strife, level
accusations and fake the truth.”
Jordanian
Information Minister Mohamad Adwan on Wednesday, August 7, revoked
Al-Jazeera's license, shut down its offices in Amman and banned its
four correspondents from working, accusing the channel of
“defamation” against Jordan.
“The
program went beyond all limits, all ethics of the profession,” Adwan
told AFP of Tuesday’s live debate, in which an Arab political
science professor from the University of California and a former
Jordanian MP sparred.
“It
was pure defamation against Jordan and the royal family. The mediator
of the program and some participants did not hesitate to use
insults,” said Adwan.
Professor
Assad Abu Khalil, the mediator of the program and some callers
criticized mainly Jordan’s eight-year-old peace treaty with Israel,
its policies towards the Palestinians and Iraq.
King
Abdullah II and his late father, King Hussein, were also criticized
repeatedly during the debate.
In
a statement to AFP from his Doha office, Al-Jazeera chief executive
Mohamed Jassem Al-Ali defended the station and argued it cannot censor
its program hosts.
“We
hope to fix this problem like we have in the past, in a way which
preserves the right of every party and to continue with our
professionalism,” Ali said.
Jordan
shut down Al-Jazeera's Amman bureau earlier in 1998 over a similar
broadcast. The ban was lifted six months later.
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