Sarkozy Versus de Villepin: Saudi Arabia Versus Qatar: Al-Arabiyya versus AlJazeera. It is astonishing, or not really, how different the coverage of the French disturbances on Al-Arabiyya versus AlJazeera. It will be years before we know the price (political and economic) that Saudi Arabia paid to the US after Sep. 11. It is very clear that Saudi media (and foreign policy) are utilized to serve US economic, political, and cultural interests. This is one of the conspiracies that I see before my eyes. I have received a lot of communication about a covert US-Saudi support for Sarkozy (the French Interior Minister) especially that US detests his rival, de Villepin not only because of his role in (early) opposition to US war in Iraq. (Of course, now France does not dare say a word about the Iraq war because Chirac is busy finding the killers of Hariri). I have not posted on that because I have not obtained any data or evidence. Al-Arabiyya has been covering the disturbances purely from the standpoint of Sarkozy: that there are no real causes, and that the "thugs" were purely being violent for violence sake. Al-Arabiyya had to even remind viewers regularly that the two teens who died were not chased by the French police. As if it is all about the two poor teens in isolation of any context. Al-Jazeera, on the other hand, covers the events from the perspective of uderlying causes. The suburb where the riots started suffers from an unemployment rate of more than 25%, which is around the unemployment rate of NY during the Great Depression. As you know, Muslim French representatives refused to meet with Sarkozy for his thuggish language, and met with de Villepin instead. In other news, Sarkozy said today that Zarqawi and his followers in Ramadi started the riots. It is not clear whether Saddam's deputy `Izzat Ad-Duri is also linked to the riots.