Al-Jazeera in English, Part II

"I say to Iraqis, whoever cannot slaughter [a sheep] … should take an American soldier and slaughter him."

— Abd Al-Karim Abd Al-Razzaq, Al-Jazeera, November 22, 2005

On November 25, 2005, Al-Jazeera covered an anti-American demonstration of enraged people cursing America and President Bush.

"Down with fascist America!" "Bush is a criminal! … He should collapse and be trampled on!" "Al-Jazeera … exposed Bush and his despicability!" the crowd chanted. Such scenes are not uncommon in the Middle East — but in this case, the demonstrators were Al-Jazeera staff in Ramallah.

Other employees of the network — which, at the last minute, has changed its name to Al-Jazeera English — hold the distinction of being jailed at Guantanamo Bay and around the world for their connections with terror organizations. In an Al Qaeda Internet news broadcast last year, an anchor even expressed solidarity with his jailed "brother," who works for the network.

In a June 25 Op-Ed for the Washington Post, "Al-Jazeera, as American as Apple Pie," the executive producer of programming for Al-Jazeera English, Joanne Levine, said many Americans unfairly view Al-Jazeera as "terrorist TV" or "Osama bin Laden's network." Those who work for AJE face "prejudice" from Americans, she said, and she praised the network for having the "courage to tell it how it is."

Members of AJE staff have been making the rounds in the press to spin the positive aspects of the channel, even hiring a former Clinton administration figure who served as a consultant to the State Department, Michael Holtzman, to handle its public relations efforts.

A former "Nightline" correspondent, David Marash, discussed the "intellectual integrity" of the new channel in an April 3 column for the New York Daily News, "Why I Joined Al-Jazeera." And the managing director of AJE, Nigel Parsons, called critics of the channel "hypocrites." "How you see something … depends very much on where you're sitting," he said in the March 26 edition of the New York Times.

The esteemed BBC host David Frost, who is currently working for AJE, has stated in multiple interviews that the West's perception of the channel is incorrect. "Obviously, we all suffer from the handicap of not being able to sit there and watch in Arabic," he told the Washington Post in October 2005.

Some of the most vocal anti-American world leaders have already embraced AJE. When the launch of the station was first announced, a British member of Parliament, George Galloway, appeared on Al-Jazeera to give his endorsement.

President Chavez of Venezuela visited the station's studios in Qatar on August 4. "Whenever I meet an Al-Jazeera reporter, I feel like giving him an interview," Mr. Chavez said. "Allow me to say to the Al-Jazeera staff that I am amazed by them," he added. "It is an honor for me to be here … in these studios, and among these … brothers in Al-Jazeera. … You are an example and a model of honor, bravery, and the fight for justice. You are committed to the code of journalistic work … and the distortion of the truth, despite all the pressure."

One Al-Jazeera broadcast that Messrs. Galloway and Chavez would likely have enjoyed was a February mock trial of President Bush, Prime Minister Blair, and Prime Minister Sharon. The trial, which the channel covered extensively, was sponsored by a group of influential Arab leaders. "This is not a mock trial. This is a trial in absentia," the head of the tribunal and a former Malaysian president, Mahathir Muhammad, told Al-Jazeera.

The deputy secretary-general of the Union of Arab Lawyers and a member of the Egyptian Parliament, Abd Al-Azim Al-Maghrabi, said the trial was created to challenge "America's right to subjugate humanity … as an absolute dictator that has the right to annihilate whoever strives for freedom."

In an October 31 article on Al-Jazeera's Web site, the director-general of AJE, Wadah Khanfar, described the channel as being the "voice of the voiceless." But do such voices include notable Arab figures who call for attacks against America, such as the head of the Egyptian Labor Party, Magdi Ahmad Hussein, who called for the bombing of Los Angeles? What about Al-Jazeera's daily broadcasts of footage of American soldiers in Iraq being killed, which air as the channel's hosts visibly strive to hide the smirks on their faces?

A platform for such hatred should not be welcomed, and certainly not from an office located a few blocks from the White House.

Mr. Stalinsky is the executive director of the Middle East Media Research Institute.