How Images of Death Became Must-See TV

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Critics of al-Jazeera, including American officials, accuse it of bias. They say the channel's gratuitous repetition of the death pageant crudely stokes Arab anger and ignores the losses suffered by the other side. Al-Jazeera covers the Israeli victims of Palestinian attacks with live coverage and news bulletins, but not always with personalizing details. However, those aren't details that viewers necessarily want; they feel al-Jazeera needn't go out of its way to humanize Israeli suffering, when, in their view, Palestinians receive no such treatment on American or Israeli TV and are instead demonized as terrorists akin to Osama bin Laden.

The ceaseless carnage at times is too much even for veteran viewers like Hassenein at Cafe Shahine. "Sometimes I tell them to change the channel," he says. "I figure, we pray at home, what more can we do? But we always change it back."