Al Jazeera: The Useful Idiot

Like most Americans, I'm more than a little skeptical of Al-Jazeera. The objectivity of its reporting is prejudiced at best and complicitous and propagandizing at worst. CNN is conservative in comparison - that should be enough said. However, as Ali points out in his Free Iraqi blog, which is worth reading, Al-Jazeera has also had a very positive effect on democracy and freedom in the Middle East.

Although clearly offering propaganda value to anti-Americans and terrorists in the region, Al-Jazeera has also shown the Arab world the power of free and willful demonstrations against authority. While the intent of showing protests against the Coalition Provisional Authority and interim government in Iraq was to portray broad anti-Americanism, the effect was actually to promote democracy. And because the news station is so strident in its anti-Americanism, it has a lot of persuasion with Arabs. As Ali explains,

These days we hear every now and then about demonstrations almost everywhere in the Arab world. Excuse me, but this is far from usual! I haven't seen *any* demonstration against Saddam all my life and similarly I haven't heard of any in Syria or Saudi Arabia prior to the 9th of April. Most of us think it's what happened in Iraq that encouraged Arabs to demand more rights, but how could Arab citizens know the details of what's happening in Iraq if it wasn't for Al Jazeera and Al Arabyia?

Perhaps Al-Jazeera is also having an unintended effect on relations with Israelis. While any change in attitude on the subject of Arab-Israel relations will likely take a long time to come about, Al-Jazeera has at least begun dialogue. As Ali states,

Al Jazeera was the first Arab channel that host Israeli officials. Before that it seemed like you would go to hell if you talk to an Israeli citizen, not official! We heard all kind of sh*t about Israel before that but non from an Israeli source and Al Jazeera opened a door that most people thought you can't knock on.

In the short run, Al-Jazeera might well be inciting anti-Americanism. However, in the long-run, we might just look back and see all its inadvertant benefits to freedom and democracy.

Before the liberation we had to dig so deep to find other sources for the news. The official Arab TVs are horrible to the degree that made Al Jazeera when it started broadcasting mean for us what probably Fox News means for Republicans!

Rupert Murdoch would be proud - in this case, the niche market is actually almost 100% of the population.