Israel comedy tour

The most important thing I've learned during my standup comedy tour through Israel is how censored the American people are and how people in Israel, Palestine and the rest of the Middle East have a much broader understanding of the issues.

"Americans are the most educated people in the world but the least educated in the world. They can’t tell the difference between a Palestinian and a Pakistani; an Iranian and an Indian; and, a good president and a moron."

Tough humor that gets loads of laughs with Israeli and Palestinian audiences, but a sad commentary on the tragedy of the American people.

Surprisingly, the most enlightening media I've discovered is one that should be in American homes, if only to offer some diversity. Al-Jazeera English began broadcasting last year, but it was immediately censored and blocked from American distribution.

The only way to view it is through satellite dish distribution or through a web-based Internet broadcast for about $8 a month. Or, when you come to Israel, Palestine and the Middle East.

Al-Jazeera is the butt of many jokes by my Israeli friends, and for good reason. During our last tour in January, an al-Jazeera TV crew arrived to cover the show but left before the first performer finished.

Why would an Arabic language news station stay to cover the only Palestinian comedian performing with Israelis in the world?

I’ve always thought al-Jazeera was driven by biases myself, because that is all I have heard about the Arabic-language program; my Arabic is not that great so I couldn’t judge it for myself.

But then I turned on cable TV at the Ambassador Hotel in east Jerusalem and discovered al-Jazeera English.

I couldn’t believe it. Al-Jazeera English is so unlike what we have been told about the Arabic-language sister station, where I know some of the reporters embrace the Arabic cultural anger that dooms their professionalism.

But the English sister-station is by far the best news operation in the world.

At odds with all sides

No wonder President Bush, the butt of my joke above, worked so hard to prevent any American cable system from carrying the English-language Arab news satellite coverage. It was a political decision, and an example of how the media and free speech in America are really not as free as Americans like to claim.

The Arab media, generally, is probably the most censored and restrictive, according to many media watchdog organizations. But so is the American media. Not surprisingly, the Israeli media has a wider and more open debate than their American supporters.

Al-Jazeera English, like Arab World moderates, finds itself at odds with all sides. It is criticized by the pro-Arab activists because they show the other side, like interviews with Israelis from all political spectrums. And, they get criticized by the anti-Arab and pro-Israel activists as being "anti-Semitic" and "a voice of terrorism."

Yet, I was glued to the al-Jazeera English broadcasts. (In fairness, I will point out that I freelance, for free, video blog commentaries to all media, and al-Jazeera English is one of the stations that pick them up.)

But watching the station for the very first time, I discovered so much information and facts are denied to the poor Americans, who bury their heads in the sand and up their own self-righteous hypocrisies.

For example, here is what I watched:

There was a lively debate on a program called "Inside Iraq" featuring Brad Blakeman, a right-wing former senior adviser to the White House, and Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the left-wing Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC.

Blakeman basically lied through his teeth arguing that the 125,000 private security contractors and mercenaries working in Iraq were brought there by the Iraqi government.

Actually, the armed privateers were brought there by Iraq’s former Occupation Commander Paul Bremer, and by Bush before Iraq had its post-Saddam Hussein government.

Bennis made that point but, like most Arab spokespeople, fell into a typical argumentative hysteria reflecting their inability to take criticism.

Blakeman recognized how easy it is to provoke untrained and unprofessional spokespeople, like those representing the Arab world, and he accused Bennis of being a supporter of the murdered dictator Saddam Hussein, which lit her fuse and sent her off on an ugly screaming rage on TV.

Arabs and their left-wing activists have never understood that how you present yourself is just as important as the truth of your arguments.

Weapons of mass distortion

Still, you would never see even that kind of open, no-holds barred debate on Iraq in any United States media. The American media doesn't allow open criticism of American policy to reach the "tipping point."

Al-Jazeera English also broadcast a video of the former Iraqi judge who was supposed to be objective in adjudicating the Saddam Hussein trial, which turned into a murder.

The video showed the judge dancing around on the shoulders of his Kurdish extremist pals, with Saddam Hussein’s body laying on the ground nearby wrapped in a white sheet, his neck bleeding as if it were slit after his death.

There was an interview with the spokesman for an extremist anti-Arab website, interviews with many critics of Palestinian policies, violence and confrontations with the Israelis.

And there was an eye-opener about how Islamic extremists, operating under the shadow of the Hamas terrorist organization, are threatening Palestinian women with death if they continue to work as journalists and reporters on Palestinian TV.

Islamicists believe women have no rights, treat them like property and constantly abuse and brutalize them. The reporters said they didn't fear the Islamic extremists, which is courageous. The one female Palestinian reporter I watched is my hero.

Al-Jazeera also had interviews with Israeli leaders, from the moderates like Shimon Peres, to the extremists, like Benjamin Netanyahu, who helped bring the Oslo peace process to a crashing end.

The truth is al-Jazeera English is more objective than other media.

The tragedy is that when a media denies audiences like Americans the ability to hear all sides - from one extreme to another - the media is basically saying Americans are not smart enough to make up their own minds with all the facts on their own.

So the media picks and chooses what the poor, naïve American public can see and hear.

God forbid that the American people might wake up one day and realize that all of the principles they have championed as standards of democracy and world freedom have in fact just been cleverly disguised lies, like the lies about the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that have cost more than 3,600 American lives.

You might call this problem the American media's of mass distortion.

Ray Hanania is an award-winning Palestinian American journalist based in Chicago. Hanania provides occasional, unpaid VideoBlog commentaries for al-Jazeera English. He can be reached at www.hanania.com.