{"id":96989,"date":"2017-08-14T12:00:01","date_gmt":"2017-08-14T11:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=96989"},"modified":"2017-08-13T13:53:13","modified_gmt":"2017-08-13T12:53:13","slug":"if-youre-wondering-why-saudi-arabia-and-israel-have-united-against-al-jazeera-heres-the-answer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/08\/if-youre-wondering-why-saudi-arabia-and-israel-have-united-against-al-jazeera-heres-the-answer\/","title":{"rendered":"If You\u2019re Wondering Why Saudi Arabia and Israel Have United against Al-Jazeera, Here\u2019s the Answer"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are still honourable Israelis who demand a state for the Palestinians; there are well-educated Saudis who object to the crazed Wahabism upon which their kingdom is founded; there are millions of Americans, from sea to shining sea, who do not believe that Iran is their enemy nor Saudi Arabia their friend. But the problem today in both East and West is that our governments are not our friends.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

11 Aug 2017 – <\/em>When Qatar\u2019s Al Jazeera satellite channel has both the Saudis and the Israelis demanding its closure, it must be doing something right. To bring Saudi head-choppers and Israeli occupiers into alliance is, after all, something of an achievement.<\/p>\n

But don\u2019t get too romantic about this. When the wealthiest Saudis fall ill, they have been known to fly into Tel Aviv on their private jets for treatment in Israel\u2019s finest hospitals. And when Saudi and Israeli fighter-bombers take to the air, you can be sure they\u2019re going to bomb Shiites \u2013 in Yemen or Syria respectively \u2013 rather than Sunnis.<\/p>\n

And when King Salman \u2013 or rather Saudi Arabia\u2019s whizz-kid Crown Prince Mohammad \u2013 points the finger at Iran as the greatest threat to Gulf security, you can be sure that Bibi Netanyahu will be doing exactly and precisely the same thing, replacing \u201cGulf security\u201d, of course, with \u201cIsraeli security\u201d. But it\u2019s an odd business when the Saudis set the pace of media suppression only to be supported by that beacon of freedom, democracy, human rights and liberty known in song and legend as Israel, or the State of Israel or, as Bibi and his cabinet chums would have it, the Jewish State of Israel.<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s run briefly through the latest demonstration of Israeli tolerance towards the freedom of expression that all of us support, nurture, love, adore, regard as a cornerstone of our democracy, and so on, and so on, and so on. For this week, Ayoob Kara, the Israeli communications minister, revealed plans to take away the credentials of Al Jazeera\u2019s Israeli-based journalists, close its Jerusalem bureau and take the station\u2019s broadcasts from local cable and satellite providers.<\/p>\n

This, announced Ayoob Kara \u2013 an Israeli Druze (and thus an Arab Likud minister) who is a lifelong supporter of the colonisation by Jews of Israeli-occupied Arab land in the West Bank \u2013 would \u201cbring a situation that channels based in Israel will report objectively\u201d. In other words, threaten them. Bring them into line.<\/p>\n

Bibi Netanyahu long ago accused Al Jazeera of inciting violence in Jerusalem, especially in its reporting of the recent Jerusalem killings \u2013 but since just about every foreign journalist in and outside Israel who has dared to be critical of the state has at one time or another been accused of incitement as well as anti-Semitism and other lies, this is just par for the course.<\/p>\n

Personally, I have found Al Jazeera\u2019s reporting from Israel pretty pathetic, its fawning reverence for the state all too painfully illustrated when its Qatar anchorwoman expressed to an Israeli government spokesman live on air her channel\u2019s condolences on the death of Ariel Sharon, the monstrous Israeli ex-defence minister who was held responsible for the massacre of up to 1,700 Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camp massacres of 1982.<\/p>\n

Ayoob Kara, however, has actually taken his cue from his fellow Arabs. And he admits it. Israel had to take steps, he said, against \u201cmedia, which has been determined by almost all Arab countries to actually be a supporter of terror, and we know this for certain\u201d. So the Israelis, it appears, now receive lessons on media freedoms from \u201cArab countries\u201d. Not just the Saudis, of course, but from \u201calmost all Arab countries\u201d whose unfettered media \u2013 one thinks at once of the untrammelled liberal press of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Algeria and yes, \u201calmost\u201d the entire media of the Gulf \u2013 are bastions of truth-telling, hard-hitting opponents of authoritarian regimes, constitutionally protected from dictatorial abuse. Forgive the hollow laughter. But is this really how Israel wants to define itself?<\/p>\n

Well, yes it is, I suppose. For if an unwritten alliance really exists between Saudi Arabia and Israel, then all options \u2013 as US presidents and secretary Hillary Clinton used to say \u2013 are \u201con the table\u201d.<\/p>\n

Imprisonment without trial, extrajudicial executions, human rights abuses, corruption, military rule \u2013 let\u2019s say this at once: all these characteristics belong to \u201calmost all\u201d Sunni Muslim Arab nations \u2013 and to Israel in the lands it occupies. And as for being a \u201csupporter of terror\u201d (I quote Israeli minister Kara again), one must first ask why Sunni Gulf Arabs have exported their fighters \u2013 and their money \u2013 to the most vicious Sunni Islamists in the Middle East. And then ask why Israel has never bombed these same vile creatures \u2013 indeed, ask why Israel has given hospital treatment to wounded fighters from the Sunni al-Nusra \u2013 in other words, al-Qaeda, the perpetrators of 9\/11 \u2013 while attacking Shiite Hezbollah and Alawite (Shiite) led-Syria, and threatened to bombard Shiite Iran itself which is a project, I should add, of which Kara himself is all in favour.<\/p>\n

Nor must we forget that America\u2019s insane President and his weird regime is also part of the Saudi-Israeli anti-Shiite confederation. Trump\u2019s obscene $350bn arms sales to the Saudis, his fingering of Iran and his hatred of the world\u2019s press and television channels makes him an intimate part of the same alliance. Indeed, when you look at one of Trump\u2019s saner predecessors \u2013 George W Bush, who also hated Iran, kowtowed to the Saudis and actually talked to Tony Blair of bombing Al Jazeera\u2019s own headquarters in Qatar, he who made sure the wealthy bin Laden family were flown out of the States after 9\/11 \u2013 this American-Saudi-Israeli covenant has a comparatively long history.<\/p>\n

Being an irrational optimist, there\u2019s an innocent side of my scratched journalistic hide that still believes in education and wisdom and compassion. There are still honourable Israelis who demand a state for the Palestinians; there are well-educated Saudis who object to the crazed Wahhabism upon which their kingdom is founded; there are millions of Americans, from sea to shining sea, who do not believe that Iran is their enemy nor Saudi Arabia their friend. But the problem today in both East and West is that our governments are not our friends. They are our oppressors or masters, suppressors of the truth and allies of the unjust.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu wants to close down Al Jazeera\u2019s office in Jerusalem. Crown Prince Mohammad wants to close down Al Jazeera\u2019s office in Qatar. Bush actually did bomb Al Jazeera\u2019s offices in Kabul and Baghdad. Theresa May decided to hide a government report on funding \u201cterrorism\u201d, lest it upset the Saudis \u2013 which is precisely the same reason Blair closed down a UK police enquiry into alleged BAE-Saudi bribery 10 years earlier.<\/p>\n

And we wonder why we go to war in the Middle East. And we wonder why Sunni Isis exists, un-bombed by Israel, funded by Sunni Gulf Arabs, its fellow Sunni Salafists cosseted by our wretched presidents and prime ministers. I guess we better keep an eye on Al Jazeera \u2013 while it\u2019s still around.<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2013<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Robert Fisk is the multi-award winning Middle East correspondent of <\/em>The Independent, based in Beirut. He has lived in the Arab world for more than 40 years, covering Lebanon, five Israeli invasions, the Iran-Iraq war, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Algerian civil war, Saddam Hussein\u2019s invasion of Kuwait, the Bosnian and Kosovo wars, the American invasion and occupation of Iraq and the 2011 Arab revolutions.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 other-news.info<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are still honourable Israelis who demand a state for the Palestinians; there are well-educated Saudis who object to the crazed Wahabism upon which their kingdom is founded; there are millions of Americans, from sea to shining sea, who do not believe that Iran is their enemy nor Saudi Arabia their friend. But the problem today in both East and West is that our governments are not our friends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-focus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96989\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}