rael argued that “Hezbollah does not need satellites or agents since Al Jazeera is assuming all those roles combined. (1) . As the war came to an end, Israeli officials started to talk about failures, omissions, and called for investigations. While the Israeli media took the war as a manifesta- tion of a political and military defeat, Al Jazeera’s live coverage had a critical role in shaping that stance through live and detailed field report- ing. This war brought down Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s government, causing him another defeat and taking the Arab-Israeli conflict to an- other level. Equally, because of this war, so many Israeli and Arab cer- tainties about the strategic balance in this long conflict tumbled down. Al Jazeera’s way of dealing with Israel on the one hand, and Arab governments on the other, along with its success in achieving what Arab armies had failed to accomplish in decades, attracted academics’ attention and made them reassess its role and impact. Leon Barkho, Professor of Media and Communication, believes Al Jazeera exceeded both BBC and CNN in covering news from the Middle East, particular- ly its coverage of the Palestinian issue. To Barkho, Al Jazeera has be- come one of the three most influential media institutions worldwide (2) . Its relatively late arrival in the media scene allowed it to benefit from the experience of the other two global channels. It then added its own experience and capitalised on the special relationship it built with its audience and the region to which most of its coverage is dedicated. The second important aspect of Al Jazeera’s coverage of this issue involved “the Palestinian Papers”. Through those leaked documents, Al Jazeera managed to unveil secret Israeli-Palestinian talks. It was the biggest leak ever at the time, with 1,684 secret documents covering more than ten years of negotiations. And Al Jazeera became party to the Palestinian settlement through the gates of ‘political investigative media’. Most of ‘al - Hasad’ news bulletin (the channel’s flagship news programme) of 25 th January 2011 was dedicated to discussing the scoop on the secret talks and field coordination between Israel and the Pales- tinian authority. Parts of these negotiations concerned the Palestinian
(1) Walid Al Omari, “Al Jazeera in the 6th Israeli War”, Journal of Palestinian Studies , (2006), pp. 113-118.
(2) Barkho, Unpacking the Discursive and Social Link , p. 22.
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