No pretense of balance

How “balanced” can we expect Hamas’ new Al-Aqsa TV station to be? AFP talked to the station’s news manager:

The station's news editor admits openly that Al-Aqsa news is "oriented".
"We adapt news so that it is compatible with the culture, values of our people and Islam," added Ibrahim Daher….

Unsurprisingly for a channel named for the mosque compound that is at the centre of Palestinian claims to annexed east Jerusalem, the television eschews the neutral terminology aimed for by international news channels.

Instead it uses its own pejorative vocabulary for the Jewish state, whose right to exist it still denies.

"We don't say the Israeli defence minister, but the Zionist minister of war and terrorism. We don't call Ariel Sharon prime minister, we call him the war criminal," Daher explained.

Posted at 02:29 PM