New York Times' Backing Muslim Brotherhood; Hilary Clinton Plugs Al-Jazeera? This is Stranger than Satire!

By Barry Rubin

I have pointed out several times how the New York Times has been whitewashing the Muslim Brotherhood, including the publication of a terrible set of lies by Tariq Ramadan. Now, without having to my knowledge published a single piece pointing to the Muslim Brotherhood's radical Islamism, anti-Americanism, antisemitism, and terrorism, the Times published on February 10 still another op-ed by a Muslim Brotherhood leader in the newspaper. Once again we are told they are great, moderate guys.

Things have gone beyond anything I ever would have believed. With Secretary of State Hilary Clinton holding up al-Jazira as a role model for the American media, I think I've seen just about everything wrong being said and done. Is she aware of how al-Jazira slants the news? I still remember their reporting that the United States had used a nuclear weapon in Baghdad during the 2003 war.

Does she have any idea what goes on in the discussion shows, where a radical faces off against a moderate, the host sides with the radical, all the telephone callers side with the radical, and some make death threats against the moderate? When al-Jazira began it was staffed by radical Arab nationalists. At a certain point several years ago, as Qatar moved closer to Tehran, they were almost all replaced by Islamists.

In the "good old days" must of the American intellectual and sometimes governmental establishment sided with the Arab nationalists--including Yasir Arafat--against Israel. I at least could understand that. But now we see many of these people siding with revolutionary Islamists against both Israel and the Arab nationalists!

Nowadays the political line of the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times doesn't seem all that different from al-Jazira on many issues.

We have gone beyond all satire. What's next? Yusuf al-Qaradawi hosting Saturday Night Live? Mahmoud Ahmadinejad getting the Nobel Peace Prize?




Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His books include Islamic Fundamentalists in Egyptian Politics and The Muslim Brotherhood (Palgrave-Macmillan); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East, a study of Arab reform movements (Wiley). GLORIA Center site: http://www.gloria-center.org His blog, Rubin Reports, http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.