Hamas TV

BBC News Online reports that the Palestinian group Hamas is launching a TV station to spread the organisation's message. Broadcasting from Gaza, the group aims to expand the TV operation significantly and hopes to enter satellite broadcasting.

The station is named al-Aqsa after the mosque in Jerusalem, and the channel plans to air programmes on political and social ideas drawn from the Qura'n.

This development is another milestone in the rise of Hamas as a political force, not just a militant one. The group is now strong enough to pose a major challenge to the ruling Fatah political party in the parliamentary election campaign.

Apparently the station will run for a trial period of 3-6 months.

The BBC reports that Fathi Hamad, a Hamas leader, said "The aim of this step is to establish Islamic culture and an ideological, scientific and political vision that is in tandem with the spirit of Islam, and to spread information about important issues."

Apparently the first broadcast on Sunday aired a half-hour reading of the Muslim holy book, but Hamas hopes to broadcast news and documentary programmes on the station in the coming months.

The operation will also present Hamas' interpretation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

This illustrates the oxymoronic simultaneous rejection of everything Western by political and religious Islam, but acceptance of the advances of Western technology to support the cause, attracted and repelled by the West at the same time.

Source
BBC News Online: Hamas launches TV station in Gaza