Israeli Arabs Attack Al Jazeera Crew
Following the assault on an Al Jazeera crew in the Arab-Israeli town of Sakhnin, Shlomi Eldar wonders why the Qatari news network is considered as the “bad guy” when it comes to Syria.
An Al Jazeera camera crew was attacked [March 30] when it went to the town of Sakhnin to cover the Land Day events there. The assailants, supporters of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, threw water bottles and other objects at them, causing some injuries. The justification for the attack was the claim that the network has been broadcasting spurious accounts of what is happening in Syria. They felt that its coverage of the uprising there is biased and one-sided.
This outbreak of violence against journalists didn’t end with the attack on Al Jazeera, either. The assailants went on to attack another crew, this one from Israel’s Channel 1, for the same reason: the media’s perceived support for the anti-Assad insurgents. In that second incident, one of the crew members was struck in the head and required treatment at the local clinic.
What happened in Sakhnin raises an important question: Why is Al Jazeera generating so much anger among Israeli Arabs, and more generally, among some sectors in the Arab world? Could the network’s coverage of events in Syria and the Arab Spring really be considered biased?
I was first exposed to the ire that some have toward the most popular and influential network in the Arab world over a decade ago, while working on a documentary film in Iraq. We were two Israelis, a director and a cameraman, along with two escorts from Kurdistan. The four of us spent two weeks roaming the cities of Iraq with our camera, documenting how the country was left divided and bleeding after the fall of Saddam’s reign of terror.
