Israel Matzav

Arab News: 'India Bans Arab TV Channels Under Pressure From Israel'

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this.

The Arab News, Saudi Arabia's English-language daily, is reporting that India has banned Arab television stations from the country 'under pressure from Israel' (why else?).

Nabila Al-Bassam, a Saudi businesswoman on a trip to Bombay, told Arab News how she became exasperated at not being able to watch Arab channels at Bombay’s leading five-star Oberoi Hotel. When she took up the issue with the hotel manager, she was told that Arab television channels had been banned across India.

A perplexed Al-Bassam then sent an SMS to Arab News Editor in Chief Khaled Almaeena to verify whether this was indeed the case. “Oberoi Hotel tells me that the government of India has banned all Arab TV channels. Why? I hate watching CNN and BBC,” she wrote to Almaeena.

Talking to Arab News, Oberoi Hotel Manager Mohit Nirula did allude to the fact that a ban was in place. “The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has laid down certain rules. It is our duty to abide by and follow the rules of the country,” he told this correspondent.

Minister of Information and Broadcasting Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi was busy in Parliament and was unavailable for comment on the issue. However, a ministry official explained why the Indian government decided to enforce the ban. The official highlighted that India enjoys close and cordial relations with Israel and the US more than any of the Arab governments.

According to another source within the government, the ban is a clear sign to all governments in the Middle East that the Israeli, American and British governments carry far more influence in India than any of the Arab governments.

Several senior Indian journalists explained that the ban was an indication that India had succumbed to Israeli pressure rather than American.

“The whole exercise is to browbeat Arabs and show them as terrorists. The government is subscribing to the absurd argument that channels like Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya promote hatred and encourage terrorism,” they said.

...

The banning of Arabic channels is a federal government decision, done under what senior Indian journalists claim to be intense pressure from the Israeli, American and British governments.

If this story is true at all, you can bet that the terror attacks that killed 200 people in Mumbai on July 11 and that were not perpetrated by Hindus had nothing to do with it.

/sarc

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:04 PM