Iran's official news agency ran a scathing reaction Sunday to the US-funded Arabic-language television network Alhurra's coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on its first day of broadcasting.
In a report datelined the West Bank city of Hebron, IRNA described Alhurra's coverage of the bitter 40-month-old conflict as "scanty" and complained it was biased against the Palestinians.
It also said the Palestinians were facing a "holocaust" and said the new station would lose its avowed fight against anti-Americanism in the Middle East which it said was a result of America's "embrace of Jewish Nazism."
"On its first day, Alhurra devoted only a few sound-bites" of its broadcasts to the conflict, "including the ongoing construction by Israel of the gigantic apartheid wall," the IRNA report said, referring to a controversial separation barrier Israel is building along the West Bank.
"Moreover, next to nothing was said about the wall's devastating effects on Palestinians and the fact that it managed to reduce Palestinian population centers to virtual detention camps," it said.
Israel insists it needs the barrier to protect itself against Palestinian militant groups which launch deadly suicide attacks, but the Palestinians argue it is a "land grab" to pre-empt the borders of their promised future state.
Alhurra, which means "The Free One," started broadcasting across the Middle East on Saturday to compete with widely watched Arabic networks like Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya which Washington accuses of inflaming tensions in the region.
Its parent company, the US government's Broadcasting Board of Governors also said in launching the network, based outside Washington, that it was aiming to improve the image of the United States.
Alhurra launched its service with a program on efforts to calm the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including interviews with young people from both sides and former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright.