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Thursday, June 17, 2010

Israel blamed for jamming Arabic World Cup matches

Arabs are still upset over the problems with the Al Jazeera broadcast of the opening day of the World Cup, especially over Egypt's Nilesat satellite network, as well as continued problems during a Tuesday match.

Some Egyptians and Palestinian Arabs are accusing Israel, of course, for jamming the signal. From the Al Quds al Arabi article it appears that there is no evidence whatsoever for this charge, except for the conviction that they have that Israel wants to drive a wedge between different Arab countries and, apparently, jamming the World Cup would get Egypt and Qatar upset at each other.

While most officials are making these accusations by saying "we cannot rule out the possibility that Israel is behind the jamming, " Egyptian MP Mohsen Radi, who is also a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, made the accusation against Israel jamming the broadcasts explicitly.

Out of sheer spite, apparently.