Daily Times

Donald Trump has learned a hard lesson this week. Britain the poodle is only soft and cuddly until someone somewhere tries to snatch away its biscuits. And when that happens, no amount of putting the kettle on will resolve the matter. The lapdog has bite.

At least that was the message given by the UK broadcasting regulator — Ofcom — when it shot down charges of anti-Semitism, amongst others, that had been levelled against Al Jazeera English. At the heart of the controversy was a four-part series aired back in January of this year called The Lobby, which focuses on the country’s pro-Israel advocacy groups. The programme discloses in no uncertain terms the Israel embassy’s covert campaign to influence British democracy. To such an extent that even BoJo the Foreign Secretary was prompted to inform Parliament, in a rather brilliant display of his mastery of the science of deduction, that the ‘diplomatic’ cover was well and truly blown. Mr Holmes may or may not be shaking in his boots.

Yet the lesson for Israel and the US is this: the Brits don’t mind whose democracy is trampled underfoot as long as it’s not theirs. The Israeli mistake was to have its ambassador caught on camera as suggesting ways to ‘take down’ pro-Palestine MPs, such as the British Foreign Office Minister Sir Alan Duncan, who bitterly opposes Jewish settlements in land that isn’t theirs. It’s not hard to imagine what happened once Al Jazeera broadcast its damning footage. There were immediate cries of anti-Semitism, infringement of privacy, unfair treatment, unfair editing and bias. And Ofcom cleared the Doha-based satellite network on each and every single one of these charges.

The Lobby discloses in no uncertain terms the Israel embassy’s covert campaign to influence the British government. To such an extent that even BoJo the Foreign Secretary was prompted to inform Parliament, in a rather brilliant display of his mastery of the science of deduction, that the ‘diplomatic’ cover was well and truly blown

This represents a well-deserved victory for the channel, especially given the Saudi-led, US- and Israeli-backed relentless campaign to have Qatar diplomatically isolated as well as choked on trade for recognising Hamas as a legitimate Palestinian partner for peace. Central to this aggressive crusade has been the demand that Doha take Al Jazeera off the air.

Yet this is more than a vicious assault on media freedom. This time it’s political and the political is very much personal. Or put another way, the network has ruffled Israeli feathers and those of Arab regimes alike for daring to bring unbiased criticism of their ruling elites directly into the living rooms of their respective citizenries. Thus what began as a bit of a novelty for the Jewish state in terms of having its officials given airtime and access to the distinct populations of the Middle East has ultimately begun to lose its shine. This was, perhaps, to be expected.

From the beginning, Al Jazeera’s original Arab network — while recognised by many in Israel as affording the Jewish state untold opportunity to put its perspective across unfiltered — has had to fend off baseless accusations of being the unofficial communications arm of Al Qaeda. All because its journalists interviewed Bin Laden when they had a chance. Yet we don’t hear CNN’s Peter Bergen labelled a terrorist sympathiser. He not only interviewed the late Al Qaeda chief — he is also said to be the only foreign journalist granted access to Bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound.

Today, charges against Al Jazeera extend beyond Al Qaeda to the Islamic State, Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. Thus Israel has jumped on to the Gulf bandwagon to show appreciation for the moves orchestrated by its BFF in the region, Saudi Arabia. Yet even if we are to momentarily entertain such indictments we must call out the preposterousness of trying to place Iran, an independent nation state that is the birthplace of one of the world’s oldest civilisations, on equal footing with non-state actors such as ISIS. Similarly, we must be equally vocal as we question that if Al Jazeera is, indeed, the de facto media wing of such terrorist groups — why is Trump wasting time on a troop surge in Afghanistan and scape-goating Pakistan?

Surely he has been threatening the wrong region all along?

The writer is the Deputy Managing Editor, Daily Times. She can be reached at mirandahusain@me.com and tweets @humeiwei

Published in Daily Times, October 11^th 2017.