Julian Assange On Al Jazeera For the Second time

Julian Assange was the guest of Al Jazeera’s “Without Borders” for the second time , Ahmed Mansour traveled again to interview him on air for one hour. Mansour did not ask Assange any question about his rape case in the show and may be this is why Julian was more friendly to him. This was the first real Wikileaks related serious interview Assange has made since his release from jail ,most of his interviews after the jail was about his case in Sweden and what he thinks about Women !!

You can watch the interview after the break

Julian Assange on Al Jazeera for the second time

Assange spoke about the Wikileaks and answered the questions many Arabs asked especially about Israel. You may have read or heard that Assange had signed a contract with the Israeli government to avoid any negative mention to Israel , well Julian has denied this totally. Assange did not sign an agreement with anyone. He also stated that only 1% has been published so far about Israel in Wikileaks and that there are more controversial  details about the Lebanon July 2006 war to be revealed in the coming cables.

Assange accused indirectly Wikileaks’ media partners in the west like the guardian and NY Times of being selective when it comes to the cables from the Middle East. In fact he went a little bit far unexpectedly when he said that the NY Times does not publish the cables about Israel because of certain minority in New York aka the Jewish lobby there.

Knowing that he is on Al Jazeera wise Assange said that the proposal of Prince of Qatar to close Al Jazeera for year to solve the Palestinian conflict was joke “from his point of view” but the Guardian had a different opinion . Assange was very diplomatic about Qatar and how balanced it is in its relations with the Americans and Iranians ..etc stating the example of Saderat bank of Iran incident in Qatar. (There is cable that shows the U.S forced Qatar not to open more Iranian banks in the country , still wise Qataris are opening new branches for Saderat bank of Iran.)

Of course he did not speak about the cable that says Al Jazeera was a blackmail tool used by Qatar but he mentioned that among the unpublished cables , one that is speaking  about how the United States created a rival channel in Dubai to destroy Al Jazeera and yet failed miserably. There is no doubt that he is speaking about Al Arabiya.

Concerning Egypt , well Ahmed Mansour’s info is outdated because there are more cables about Egypt than nine with more details the average Mohamed in the street does not know about especially regarding army .Assange promised us with more cables after all Egypt is the biggest and most influential country in the region. “Did you know that Assange lived for some time in Cairo !!?? I wonder what he had done in our city !!?”

By the way why does Ahmed Mansour think that exposing our Arab rulers’ corruption is nothing !!?? What else is important !!? Also I was glad that Assange reminded him that in the end these are diplomatic cables not intelligence cables.

Assange wants other media partners from all over the world to contribute in the Wikileaks especially from the Arab world but choosing a media partner now could be difficult process .. etc. Honestly I do not understand how the Wikileaks will choose its media partners in the Arab world . I knew that Lebanese Al Akhbar correspondent once attended a press conference for Assange and may be from there he managed to open a channel with Wikileaks boys and girls.

By the way I read that there is a Norwegian newspaper that won the leak of all leaks , is that true !!?

I hope Al Jazeera to air the interview online without Arabic translation so the foreign non Arab viewer can see it too.  Mansour promised us with another episode with our favorite Aussie again soon.

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