Aljazeera news director: Media shirking duty on Palestinian developments

Aljazeera News Director Waddah Khanfar acknowledged that most of Arab media and television channels have proved little efficient to reflect the realities in the world of Islam, not least Palestine.

"In my opinion, there is a news vacuum regarding the Palestinian issue," he told Qodsna reporter Wednesday.

"News coverage is not enough. We must also analyze and examine the Palestinian developments," he added.

"The problem is that the Palestinian issue has undergone daily developments. This would make the audience fed up. We must renovate the issue by analysis and examination of the details," he encouraged.

Asked why the Aljazeera network keeps ties with the Israeli officials, the director general said that the knowledge about the enemy's opinion would help the Muslim media to consolidate their position.

"Interviews with Israeli officials never means normalization of ties and I don't think any one would read the interviews as that," he added.

"Israelis too has criticized us. In the recent war against Lebanon they refused to allow our reporters to operate," he added.

Asked about Aljazeera news policies about the Palestinian issue, Khanfar said the TV Network has provided its staff with news guidelines, called "professional media attitude manual," the main aim of which to teach the staff to cover news material responsibly.

"Our editorial policy recognizes the Palestinian dead as martyrs. It is unfortunate that many giant media do not observe the idea," he added.