Thursday, January 25, 2007

al-'Arabiyya

I tuned into Saudi-owned Arab satellite TV station al-'Arabiyya on the internet about an hour ago to watch some Lebanon-related news to find out that they were screening an Israeli documentary about Palestinian prisoners in Israel. The documentary has long interviews with a female Islamic Jihad activist who smiles broadly as she talks about the suicide bombing on the Jerusalem Sbarro, even after she is told that it killed 8 children. The documentary focuses on different Palestinian prisoners, affiliated with Hamas and Fateh and their political views. It's quite a fascinating story, but the fact that this documentary, which includes scenes of Israeli prison guards and Palestinian prisoners shaking hands and getting along, is being aired on an Arab satellite station is very significant. I've been impressed by previous broadcasts on al-'Arabiyya that dealt with terrorism and jihadism in a very critical manner, but this was a very big surprise.

2 comments:

Amos said...

I watched a lot of it yesterday, but when was it made? Did they film it while the prisoners' document was in the news? The interviews with various long-time Fatah security prisoners are pretty interesting.

J. said...

I don't remember when the prisoners' document was making the news. It was filmed around the time of the Palestinian elections, because part of it dealt with Hamas's accession to power.