PLO lashes out at Al-Jazeera over conflict coverage

PLO lashes out at Al-Jazeera over conflict coverage

Sun Jun 17, 3:48 AM ET

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070617/wl_mideast_afp/mideastunrestpalestinianmediajazeera_070617074831

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AFP) - A senior Palestinian official on Sunday accused pan-Arab Al-Jazeera television of favoring Hamas in its coverage of the battles between the Islamists and rival Fatah.

"Al-Jazeera is an accomplice in the crimes committed by the (Hamas) militias... against our people," Yasser Abed Rabbo, secretary general of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, told Palestinian radio.

"It has become a mouthpiece for these militias and has remained silent about their crimes," said the close ally of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, the leader of Fatah.

Abed Rabbo accused the Qatar-based satellite channel of "encouraging the putschists' crimes by covering these extreme terrorists and not covering their crimes."

He said the popular international broadcaster has given wide coverage to "isolated acts" committed by Fatah loyalists against Hamas in the West Bank and "marginal" coverage "to the atrocious crimes committed in the Gaza Strip."

No immediate reaction from the broadcaster was available.

Hamas fighters routed the pro-Fatah security services in Gaza early Friday after a week of vicious street battles, which saw Fatah loyalists being lynched in the streets and thrown to their deaths from high-rise buildings.

Reprisal attacks against Hamas in the Fatah stronghold of West Bank have seen Hamas-linked organizations torched and ransacked and members of the movement seized in the Israeli-occupied territory.