Is Al Jazeera Welcome In Maine?
General Henry Knox, a Revolutionary War hero and U.S. Secretary of War in the country’s early days, was no stranger to political controversy. But the museum established at Montpelier, his home in Thomaston, seems like an unlikely site for an ideological flap generated by the attention of a national right-wing media watchdog.
The General Henry Knox Museum is a private non-profit organization. It holds an annual fundraising gala that includes a guest speaker, dinner and reception. This year’s event is scheduled for July 28 at the Strand Theatre in Rockland and will feature a talk by Abderrahim Foukara, the Washington bureau chief of Al Jazeera. Before working for the Arab-owned network, Foukara earned his journalistic chops at, among other news organizations, the BBC World Service and WGBH in Boston. He’s widely respected as an expert on the Middle East.
So what’s the big deal?
Accuracy In Media, a conservative news-coverage critic, caught wind of the event. AIM posted a piece on its Web site claiming the Knox museum was “honoring a representative of Al-Jazeera, the channel associated with various terrorist organizations.”
That prompted much blathering on the As Maine Goes Web site (“General Knox must be turning in his grave at the very thought of this”), along with threats of a boycott aimed at the business headed by the president of the Knox museum’s board.
If Accuracy In Media had lived up to its name, it wouldn’t have claimed the Maine institution was “honoring” Foukara. Nothing in any press materials from the museum mentions any honor. It appears he’s been hired to give a speech, although my efforts to confirm that with Ellen Dyer, the executive director of Montpelier, and Greg Dufour, the president, went nowhere, since neither returned my phone calls. [Correction: Dyer has since informed me via email that Foukara is not being paid for his speech.]
As for Al Jazeera’s terrorist ties, there’s been plenty of speculation about that, much of it generated by AIM, but little of it backed up by more credible sources. A few employees of the network have been arrested for alleged involvement with al Qaeda, but the organization itself hasn’t been cited for terrorist activities by U.S. law enforcement agencies.
Of more concern from a journalistic standpoint is Al Jazeera’s link to the government of Qatar, which owns the network and sometimes appears to interfere in its coverage, a problem that isn’t uncommon at government-funded news outlets around the world.
Al Diamon can be emailed at aldiamon@herniahill.net.
The views expressed on this Web site are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily represent the views of Down East Enterprise or its employees.
Ignorance...
al Jazeera is recognized throughout the world as a high quality news organization. It's obvious that these right-wing attack organizations are simply parroting distortions from other right-wing attack organizations with out having actually watched one second of this news organization's superb coverage of world events. al Jazeera is disliked by pretty much all the governments in power in the middle east including, but not limited to the Saudi regime, Israel, the second Bush administration and every dictatorship, former and current in that part of the world. Telling the truth tends to upset those in power and if this is the reaction al Jazeera evokes from governments the world over AND political groups in this country too ignorant to even bother to sample the thing they are screaming about, then more power to 'em.
Update
After this piece was posted, Knox museum executive director Ellen Dyer called to tell me she was emailing me a statement. Dyer refused to answer questions. Here's her statement:
"The Museum is proceeding with its talk by Dr. Abderrahim Foukara, Washington Bureau chief for Al-Jazeera news agency, as an expert and topical keynote speaker.
"Dr. Foukara is a well respected journalist who has interviewed elected officials at the highest levels of governments around the world, including those in the U.S. Government. His credentials include reporting for BBC World Service, BBC International and WGBH Boston. Dr. Foukara is a contributor to NPR, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, and CNN, among others.
"In his talk Dr. Foukara will discuss recent events in the Arab world. The so-called Arab Spring has raised hopes of greater freedom, stability and rule of law in the Arab world, thus helping the Arabs re-invent the way they view themselves and the world around them. But will such hopes ultimately bloom into positive change in Arab-US relations or are those relations condemned to remain rocky regardless of whether the Arab Spring ultimately blooms or withers?"
Al Diamon