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Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/09/INPR17F08T.DTL
West Bank TV Station Broadcasts Real News
[San Francisco Chronicle] Joel Brinkley - Wattan TV is a commercial, secular station broadcasting from Ramallah in the West Bank. The station's director, Muamar Orabi, says, "There is another land in Palestine, different from the one portrayed on other Arab TV stations. We like to focus on internal political news, cultural events, success stories." In other words, Orabi's station tries to make the case that Palestinians have a life apart from their interminable conflict with Israel. Wattan is now the most popular station in the West Bank and Gaza because it defies the Arab political orthodoxy that says every consideration of life is less important than the struggle against Israel. PA leader Mahmoud Abbas may put up a pleasant enough face to the West, but he is no more willing to take criticism than other Arab kings, dictators and potentates. A few months ago, when Wattan TV aired a piece on the corruption that is endemic to the Palestinian government, Orabi said, Abbas' agents arrested him along with several other staff members.