MEMRI's extensive study Al-Jazeera Unmasked: Political Islam As A Media Arm Of The Qatari State, by Amb. Alberto M. Fernandez, published August 12, 2020, revealed that the channel serves the Qatari government and the Muslim Brotherhood.
This week, the U.S. Department of Justice ordered AJ+ – the digital media outlet owned by Al-Jazeera and based in the U.S. – to register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).
The September 14 letter from the Department of Justice, which was obtained by The New York Times and other news organizations, said that AJ+ "engages in 'political activities' on behalf of Qatar's government" and added: "Journalism designed to influence American perceptions of a domestic policy issue or a foreign nation's activities or its leadership qualifies as 'political activities' under the statutory definition."
According to The New York Times, a spokesman for the Department of Justice had "declined to confirm the letter's existence but said, referring to the group responsible for enforcing the foreign agents law, 'FARA Unit's enforcement activities are based on following the facts where they lead and the applicable law.'"
The full MEMRI study by Amb. Fernandez, published August 12, is below.
Al-Jazeera Unmasked: Political Islam As A Media Arm Of The Qatari State
By: Amb. Alberto M. Fernandez and Yotam Feldner*
Table Of Contents
Introduction
I. Al-Jazeera As A Platform For Global Jihad
II. Anti-U.S. And Anti-West Views
III. The Qaradawi Connection
IV. Antisemitism And Holocaust Denial
V. Coverage Supportive Of Anti-Israel Terrorist Groups
Conclusion
Appendix
Introduction
Launched in 1996, the Al-Jazeera network not only revolutionized pan-Arab broadcast media but also became a household name across the world in the aftermath of 9/11, when it aired exclusive interviews with Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. In the more than two decades that have passed, the Qatari TV channel has grown into a multi-channel, multi-language international operation.
Many may be aware of Al-Jazeera English, launched in 2006, or Al-Jazeera America, which existed from 2013 to 2016, but these are very different in content than the larger and original Al-Jazeera Arabic channel, which is the focus of this study.[1] Throughout this time, Al-Jazeera Arabic has faced various accusations, the most common of which is that the channel serves as a mouthpiece for the Muslim Brotherhood and as the single most significant platform for mainstreaming jihadi ideology. Al-Jazeera has also been accused of maintaining a polarizing editorial policy, which focuses on bashing Qatar's political and ideological rivals while ignoring the transgressions of Qatar's regional allies. In addition, Al-Jazeera has been accused of allowing misogynistic, homophobic, and antisemitic content.
The heads of Al-Jazeera have rejected all these accusations and have claimed that they abide by globally recognized criteria of objective reporting. Yet the channel's leaders have also tried to keep their relationship with the Qatari government vague. Al-Jazeera's Acting Director General Dr. Mustafa Souag has repeatedly claimed that the channel enjoys a complete editorial free hand. However, on various occasions, he acknowledged that Al-Jazeera's budget is almost completely bankrolled by the government of Qatar.
Dr. Mustafa Souag
"The state of Qatar does finance Al-Jazeera," Souag informed BBC Television,[2] although he refused to reveal the extent of the funding. "I am not allowed to tell you now the number," he told Hardtalk host Stephen Sackur. "What you need to know and what the public needs to know is that 90% maybe of our budget comes from the (Qatari) government. And that's enough for you. All the things you see are financed by the government, by the State of Qatar."
In another statement, Souag compared Al-Jazeera to the BBC, France 24, and DW, which are funded by Britain, France, and Germany respectively. "But it's exactly like them," he added. "We have complete editorial independence."[3]
But does Al-Jazeera have complete editorial independence? If it does, it has chosen to exercise it extremely selectively over the years. Al-Jazeera rarely reports anything about Qatar, and practically never about Qatar's internal affairs. Conversely, the struggle of the Palestinians in the West Bank, especially in Hamas-ruled Gaza, has been a major Al-Jazeera focus since the channel was launched. In recent years, the Qatari channel has been also focusing heavily on the human rights record of Qatar's Arab ideological and political rivals. Reports and discussions of human rights violations in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the UAE have been aired almost on a daily basis on the various TV channels of the Al-Jazeera network.
In a recent show, Al-Jazeera TV host Ahmed Taha complained that the son of a famous journalist received privileged treatment when quarantined due to potential COVID-19 exposure. "If a dog howls in Egypt, it becomes a news item on Al-Jazeera and the United Nations must intervene, but when it happens in any other country, it goes in one ear and out the other,"[4] answered Dr. Mac Sharkawy from D.C., who was a guest on the show.
Ali bin Samikh Al-Marri
This abundance of reports about human rights violations among Qatar's rivals is contrasted by complete silence about the human rights situation in Qatar itself. Qatar does have a National Human Rights Committee, which is headed by Dr. Ali bin Samikh Al-Marri – a frequent guest on Al-Jazeera TV. However, Dr. Al-Marri never discusses human rights violations by the Qatari government, and his only concern in recent years has been supposed violations of the human rights of Qataris by the Saudi- and UAE-imposed "blockade."
Ali Bin Fetais Al-Marri
Ali Bin Fetais Al-Marri, Qatar's attorney general, is also among a handful of Qatari officials who are interviewed on Al-Jazeera TV from time to time. In his interviews, AG Marri presents Qatar as a regional and even global leader in good governance and a paradise of judicial justice. In one 2016 interview, Al-Marri explained that former Qatari emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani – who came to power after staging a coup against his father in 1995 – and his son, the current emir Tamim, had established a "a law-abiding, institution-based state in the full sense of the word, with complete separation of authorities, and a completely independent judiciary... Qatar has become the least corrupt country in the Arab world, the country with the smallest number of incarcerated people in the world..."[5] Al-Jazeera TV host Ahmad Mansour did not seem entirely persuaded by this, but AG Marri was unfazed. The most important aspect is justice, he explained. Justice brings security and democracy, not the other way around. AG Marri, a staunch supporter of shari'a law, had asserted in a previous interview on the same Al-Jazeera TV show that equality before the law prevails in Qatar. When asked by Ahmad Mansour about the possibility of arresting someone from the ruling family, he said that "if Fatima, daughter of the Prophet, had stolen, I'd have chopped off her hand."[6]
At the end of the day, Al-Jazeera's much-touted independence looks, for the average Arabic speaking viewer, very much like Qatari foreign policy writ large: an overall Islamist subtext in content, sometimes subtle and often in your face, with an obvious predilection for supporting favored Islamist regimes from Bashir's Sudan to Hamas-ruled Gaza to AKP-controlled Ankara, and an avowed preference for the local branches of the Muslim Brotherhood organization in opposition to regional rulers anywhere else. But that is just the beginning.
The Appendix to this paper, compiled by MEMRI Research Fellow H. Miron, presents 136 MEMRI TV clips from Al-Jazeera, out of the 722 Al-Jazeera clips in the MEMRI archives, as well as 88 translations and seven analysis papers about Al-Jazeera from the MEMRI archives.
I. Al-Jazeera As A Platform For Global Jihad
It is perhaps not so surprising that Al-Jazeera would closely hew to Qatari foreign policy goals, given the financial relationship. But among the most significant accomplishments of Al-Jazeera in Arabic over the past two decades is its decisive role in mainstreaming Islamist and jihadi thought to a mass television audience. These ideologies, of course, predated the establishment of the Qatari broadcaster; they had been circulating openly or secretly for years. Some elements of these worldviews had been taught in schools and universities, including in most of the Gulf states, for years. And you could even find some of the same hardcore worldviews on religious broadcasters funded by countries like Saudi Arabia.
But it is Al-Jazeera, ostensibly a news channel, that took these ideologies from the peripheries to a height of prominence and respect that they had not achieved before. It was an editorial decision consciously taken and maintained through the years. Even before 9/11, Al-Jazeera's flagship commentary program built up Bin Laden as an Arab and Muslim leader deserving of emulation, a worthy alternative to those in power in the region. In July 2001, an Al-Jazeera host lauded him as "the slender Bin Laden who has made the greatest power in history shudder at the sound of his name."[7] The contrast is explicitly and repeatedly made between the selflessness and nobility of the Saudi Al-Qaeda leader and the utter fecklessness of Arab regimes, including his own country. As if praising bin Laden were not enough, the program's host took a lengthy live listener's call from one Suleiman Abu Gheith, the official Al-Qaeda spokesman.[8]
Osama bin Laden and Suleiman Abu Gheith
Some would say that Al-Jazeera should be given the benefit of the doubt for its broadcasts of the unedited statements of Osama bin Laden from October 2001 to 2006. Bin Laden was a major news story after the attacks in the U.S. Some observers might, for example, insist that we should not hold Al-Jazeera accountable for interviews such as the one with Al-Qaeda Shura Council leader Abu Hafs Al-Mauritani in December 2001, where he propagated the notion that Al-Qaeda had nothing to do with 9/11 – but that if it had, it would have been entirely within its rights to do so.[9] All media outlets have, at one time or another, had an embarrassing or misleading guest on the air. But to do so repeatedly is not happenstance but policy. At what point does aggressive news coverage descend into barely disguised advocacy for an extremist discourse?
Abu Hafs Al-Mauritani
Even in February 2002, Al-Jazeera would select guests – again, a conscious and deliberate editorial decision – promoting the view that Al-Qaeda had nothing to do with 9/11 (it was the Jews), and that bin Laden was a noble figure who promoted all the right causes.[10]
One thing is certain: For years, jihadi leaders were extremely grateful for Al-Jazeera's coverage, and saw it as positive and helpful to their cause. In 2011, the late Yemeni-American sheikh Anwar Al-Awlaki, one of the most important Al-Qaeda propagandists who continues to influence susceptible audiences years after his death, lauded, on one of the principal jihadi online forums, the work of Al-Jazeera (and WikiLeaks).[11] Al-Awlaki was particularly appreciative of the network's reporters covering the wars in Afghanistan and Yemen.
Anwar Al-Awlaki
Al-Jazeera's highlighting of jihadi discourse and the full and sympathetic airing of their ideology continued long after those initial years of enthusiasm. Al-Jazeera not only highlighted bin Laden, but also, while bin Laden was still alive, his deputy Dr. Ayman Al-Zawahiri.[12]
As the years passed, Al-Jazeera, like Qatar's foreign policy, was more sympathetic to Al-Qaeda than to ISIS, especially when the two organizations clashed. The channel embraced Al-Qaeda much more closely, focusing on all the grievances that supposedly "justified" its terrorism. With ISIS, there would eventually be a sense of "this is not real Islam; they have distorted Islam," especially when all of its atrocities became public. But the channel has occasionally given a platform to people who voiced support for ISIS.
A fascinating example of how the network continued to provide oxygen to extremism is the evolution of, to many, an obscure figure, Nuri Al-Muradi, identified as a former spokesman for the Iraqi Communist Party. In June 2006, an Al-Jazeera talk show featured a long and fulsome eulogy by Al-Muradi for the commander of Al-Qaeda in Iraq (soon to be the Islamic State of Iraq), Abu Mu'sab Al-Zarqawi.[13]
Nine years later, in May 2015, we see the same obscure "Iraqi politician based in Sweden" Nuri Al-Muradi praising and giving his support to ISIS, as he is asked to explain why an online Al-Jazeera "poll" showed 81% support for the victories of ISIS in Iraq and Syria.[14] Only a few months earlier, Al-Jazeera had featured another talking head, "an Islamic scholar," pledging his loyalty to the Islamic State's Caliph Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi live on the air.[15] These were all conscious editorial choices made by the network, not necessarily driven by the demands of the news cycle.
Nuri Al-Muradi
Apologists for Al-Jazeera would note the appearance on the channel of voices of critics of ISIS and occasionally even U.S. officials (I was one of them on more than one occasion), but the net result was the elevation of unabashed and unashamed ISIS-supporting voices to the same level of the critics. In such cases, what you have done is to normalize the dimensions of the discourse far beyond what it would have been otherwise – especially given the fact that while in those years ISIS had a massive online media army, it never had a satellite broadcast network.
Given that the interventions by these ISIS (or Al-Qaeda) acolytes is clothed in the language of political Islam, this is not even "leveling the playing field" between terrorist supporters and critics, but tilting it towards those using jihadspeak and getting a respectful hearing before a massive audience that would not ordinarily been able to access extremist content so easily and safely.
Going on a jihadi website in the years after 9/11 would carry a risk for ordinary citizens in the Arab world. But hearing and seeing extremist arguments within the context of a popular news channel was much more secure. And this extremist discourse would seem even more seductive when the ground has already been prepared by repeated Islamist and populist arguments about what is wrong with the world and with the powers that be in the region.
Tayseer Alouni
The way Al-Jazeera works when it comes to extremists was explained to me in 2015 in a very direct way by the man who was at that time the news network's director, Yasir Abu Hilala. Al-Jazeera had recently scored a media coup at the time, being the first network to ever interview the reclusive (until then) Abu Muhammad Al-Joulani, the head of the Nusra Front, Al-Qaeda's branch in Syria. Al-Joulani was first interviewed in December 2013 by Tayseer Alouni, an Al-Jazeera journalist of Syrian origin who had served seven years in a Spanish prison (2005-2012) after being convicted of being a financial courier for Al-Qaeda.
Al-Jazeera host Ahmad Mansour
In late May and early June 2015, Al-Jazeera broadcast an even longer and more detailed two-part interview with Al-Joulani, conducted by Ahmad Mansour, the notorious Egyptian Islamist Al-Jazeera reporter. Abu Hilala defended doing the interview, noting that any network in the world would have jumped at the chance of such an exclusive. Perhaps. This interview was actually reminiscent of Al-Jazeera's previous airing of the bin Laden tapes, complete and without editorial reservation.
Was Al-Joulani newsworthy? Of course. But Western news channels, for example, do not air the complete manifestos of high-school shooters and white supremacists just because they're newsworthy. Indeed, the view of counterterrorism exports today is that white supremacist manifestos "have no place being broadcast on television news."[16] More remarkable than deciding to do this particular Al-Jazeera interview was the editorial decision-making process on how it was done and what questions were asked.
Abu Muhammad Al-Joulani
The interview in question was less an interview than a lengthy informercial or recruiting video for Al-Joulani, with Mansour lobbing softball questions and gushing about the safety of "liberated" Nusra Front held territory.[17] The interview also soft-pedaled Nusra's ties with Al-Qaeda, and, indeed, its old ties with the Islamic State of Iraq (it was Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi that chose Al-Joulani to head his organization's Syrian branch before the April 2013 between the two Jihadist groups).
One of Al-Joulani's boasts was his description of the forced conversion of Syrian Druze villagers under his group's control, an event that openly pleased Mansour. Al-Joulani also expressed his satisfaction at the state of Syria's Christians "who are not like the Coptic Christians of Egypt" and that as long as they paid the jizya poll tax demanded by Islamic law, they would be unharmed in a future shari'a-based Islamic regime in Syria.
Al-Joulani used the opportunity of the interview to call on the Muslim Brotherhood in the Arab world to take up arms against various regimes, including the one in Egypt.[18] The striking thing was not that the interview was done, but how it was framed, from the softball questions to the gushing commentary. This was not tough hard news reporting, but rather blatant advocacy for what was still at the time a branch of Al-Qaeda, airbrushed for Al-Jazeera's viewers.[19] Furthermore, according to Syrian jihad experts, the May-June 2015 interviews took place at precisely the same time that Qatar was trying to present a "moderate" face for the Nusra Front to the outside world. According to Charles Lister, an order to moderate the public face had come to Al-Joulani from Al-Qaeda leader Al-Zawahiri himself. What a coincidence that two full hours of Al-Joulani airtime advanced an important Qatari foreign policy goal![20]
The Al-Joulani interview was five years ago. But Al-Jazeera's advocacy for violent Islamism continues to this day. Only recently, a June 2020 documentary on the channel about the 1992 assassination of Egyptian liberal scholar Farag Foda featured a full and sympathetic hearing – for his Islamist killers and their justification for his murder.[21]
II. Anti-U.S. And Anti-West Views
As its acting director general has said, Al-Jazeera has "complete editorial independence" while it enjoys complete Qatari funding. So, another good question would be: What does Al-Jazeera say when it comes to foreign policy focusing on the West? Particularly, what is its editorial stance when it comes to the U.S.?
Here we must admit an ongoing double standard in Arab media that goes beyond Al-Jazeera. The media of some Arab regimes, even those with close security cooperation with the U.S., is often replete with anti-U.S. content. This is not only because of certain popular issues that these American allies may seek to hype, such as the cause of Palestine, but because regimes sometimes use media as a tool to shape local public opinion, indulging in hate speech and conspiracy theories far beyond a mere disagreement with unpopular American policy objectives. Keeping the masses angry at the distant Americans instead of the nearby regime has a certain utility.
Qatar would be one of those helpful countries, with its important American airbase, that can and does play a double game. Historically, the Qatari channel just tended to go further than some other channels in the region in trying to burnish those anti-U.S. credentials in order to inoculate the regime from potential criticism coming from Islamist or Arab Nationalist quarters.
Anis Al-Naqqash
On Al-Jazeera in 2004, you might see an actual terrorist like Anis Al-Naqqash, convicted in a French court in 1980 for terrorism, eloquently exposing this supposed double standard of Arab regimes (leaving Qatar out, of course), praising Al-Qaeda (even though Al-Naqqash was a partisan for Iranian Shi'ite terrorism) and calling for terrorist strikes on Arab oil facilities that may help the U.S.[22] Such a two-faced double standard seemed to rely on American blindness towards what was being said on air, or on the Americans somehow being content to trade a daily campaign of public defamation for the greater utility of basing rights in the Gulf.[23]
Editorial independence means deciding what to cover and what not to cover. For Al-Jazeera, this has meant elevating events that left to themselves, marginal or even non-existent to the level of live coverage. For example, in 2005, Al-Jazeera covered an "anti-terrorism" conference in Damascus condemning, of course, the "terrorism" of Israel and the U.S. But again, the discourse was much more than criticism of the Americans and the "Zionist enemy."[24] It was mainstreaming a much broader, more existential hatred, and promoting actual disinformation. Here, for example, you learned that there were "two Israeli armed brigades" in Baghdad helping the Americans, that the "American version" of 9/11 is to be doubted, and that President George W. Bush's grandfather wrote a book insulting Islam.[25]
Shaykh Sadeq Abdullah Abd Al-Majed
In 2007, as the crisis in the Sudanese region of Darfur generated headlines, you could learn from watching an interview on Al-Jazeera with Shaykh Sadeq Abdullah Abd Al-Majed, a Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood leader, that the Americans – allied with Jews and Masons – were behind the conflict.[26] A second interview, this time with Ahmad Haroun, a high-profile Sudanese government official, on Darfur a week later would inform you that the Americans were indeed behind events in Darfur, as a way of overthrowing the Islamist government in Sudan.[27] Such language was not limited to Sudanese officials interviewed by Al-Jazeera itself. Ahmad Mansour in 2005 "connected the dots" from Palestine to South Sudan to Darfur and Iraq as examples of an aggressive Western agenda against the Arab and Muslim world.[28]
Ahmad Haroun
Incitement against the U.S. on Al-Jazeera through the years has not been limited to numerous examples of disinformation or hate speech, but to actual calls for terrorism inside it. When Al-Jazeera gave full coverage to a 2009 speech by prominent Kuwaiti Islamist academic and politician Dr. Abdullah Al-Nafisi, within the context of fighting in Gaza, he not only presented criticism of U.S. foreign policy, not only indulged in Jew hatred, but also promoted the idea of terrorism inside the U.S. either through anthrax or by targeting nuclear power plants.[29] Al-Nafisi topped off his speech by praising the Taliban's Mullah Omar and describing those whom America calls terrorists as "the most God-fearing, honorable, best people in the world."[30]
Abdullah Al-Nafisi
While Al-Nafisi is a fairly well-known figure, this was not breaking news or a high-profile speech by a government official. It was a conscious and deliberate editorial decision to elevate a particular type of discourse by focusing on a specific event and speaker. This one incident is particularly interesting because it included a little bit of the many strands of the types of narratives Al-Jazeera encouraged: support for "resistance" groups and for Al-Qaeda and Hamas, antisemitism, criticism of U.S. foreign policy, and incitement against both the Americans and against moderates in Arab regimes.
And while we have mentioned in passing the Al-Jazeera early years giving maximum exposure to Al-Qaeda leaders before and immediately after 9/11, a decade after that terrorist attack Al-Jazeera would still feature a columnist calling the event an American and Israeli plot.[31] It takes a lot of gall for a news organization that promoted and covered Al-Qaeda and its justification for those attacks to also continually give space through the years to 9/11 "truthers" such as Al-Jazeera op-ed writer Nawaf Al-Zarou.[32] The Amman-based Palestinian Al-Zarou not only blamed the 9/11 attack on Israelis – years after Al-Qaeda took credit for it – but also has a long history of disseminating anti-Semitic blood libel propaganda in Arabic media outlets.[33]
Dr. Muhammad Al-Malkawi
Still another example of Al-Jazeera seemingly elevating the voices of not just newsworthy but marginal extremists comes in the network's coverage of the noisy, dangerous but generally regarded Hizb Al-Tahrir. Such coverage again would seem to want to send a very specific ideological message, promoting a Caliphate, hatred of the West, and hardcore Islamist rule. Al-Jazeera's broadcast of Dr. Muhammad Al-Malkawi, founder of Hizb Al-Tahrir in Chicago, promoting these themes in July 2013 came less than a year before a real "Islamic State" would announce that it had re-established the Caliphate. Al-Malkawi's discourse combined hatred of the West and contempt for secularists in the region with the longing for a perfect Islamic state.[34]
III. The Qaradawi Connection
Much of the Al-Jazeera persona is closely identified with certain prominent on-air personalities who promote certain values and stances in sync with the overall editorial line. This makes sense, as choosing and promoting certain figures is a sure way of strengthening a news outlet's brand. Ahmad Mansour, Ghassan bin Jidou, and Faisal Al-Qassim have all been high-profile examples of the Al-Jazeera brand personified. An even more vivid example of this is an elderly Egyptian cleric who will forever be identified with Al-Jazeera and with Qatar.
The toxic mix of religion, politics, and societal criticism focused against the West and the U.S. that we see is not a bug but a feature on Al-Jazeera. It is also not limited to covering breaking news or the choice of guests on chat shows, but to others closely identified with and employed by the network. One of the major proponents of this poisonous stew is a religious leader intimately associated with both the Al-Jazeera project early on and with official Qatari ambitions – that is, the Egyptian-born Qatari cleric Yousef Al-Qaradawi, who for many years had his own popular religious program on the network, Sharia and Life.
Al-Jazeera was launched November 1, 1996 and Al-Qaradawi began on Al-Jazeera later that month.[35] A Muslim Brotherhood activist from his youth, imprisoned by both King Farouk and Nasser in Egypt, Al-Qaradawi first went to Qatar in 1961 and has been influential there for decades, founding its Sharia Faculty in 1977. He has been widely honored, and not just by Qatar, receiving the 1994 King Faisal Award for Islamic Studies from Saudi Arabia.[36] The Saudis are, of course, now strongly opposed to Al-Qaradawi and all his works.
Al-Qaradawi
The naturalized Qatari cleric has commented (on Al-Jazeera) on almost everything, including his conditional condoning of the killing of American hostage Nick Berg by Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi[37] or his positive views on Hitler against the Jews. Allah, he said, imposed Hitler upon the Jews to punish them, he said – and, "Allah willing, the next time" this happens it "will be at the hand of the believers."[38] A political observer's thorough search will turn up some statements by Al-Qaradawi that may be marginally helpful against some elements of Salafi-jihadism, but the overall thrust is towards mainstreaming jihadi discourse in general, with minor caveats here and there.[39]
The cleric's view of America is almost as hostile as it is of Jews. Three years after the worst terrorist attack in history, Al-Qaradawi would identify American culture – including cowboy movies – and Judaism as the principal instigators of violence in the world. And where did he make such a remarkable statement? On his popular primetime program on religion on Al-Jazeera.[40]
Al-Qaradawi's views are multi-faceted and extensive, and should certainly not be simplified, but here is a trusted establishment figure in official Doha circles projecting a Muslim Brotherhood view of the world, including of America and the West, on supposedly "independent" Al-Jazeera, to a large regional audience. The cleric's broadcasts, and his controversial views, on a range of subjects from suicide bombings to homosexuality, are an overt, above-the-ground version of what is Al-Jazeera's usual Islamist sub-text coloring news and commentary across the network.[41]
Al-Qaradawi's prominent presence over the years on the channel has served as a bellwether for the station's editorial line: Like Al-Jazeera itself, the Al-Qaradawi who praised Hizbullah in Lebanon's fighting Israel in 2006 would condemn it seven years later for fighting in Syria. Like the network, Al-Qaradawi demonstrated a certain flexibility and pragmatism within the context of an overall Islamist worldview that can sometimes be mistaken for tolerance. That is why Al-Jazeera has provided a safe space for amplifying Muslim Brotherhood, Salafi, and Salafi-jihadi voices – both Al-Qaeda and ISIS, the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, and even the Shi'ite Hizbullah and Iran – at different times. There is great diversity here on many issues within the broad context of contending Islamic ideologies – but less when it comes to negative views of America and the West. They may fight each other, but all these groups are hostile to the West – some much more than others – and all trend in one direction against the U.S., depending on the specific time, topic and place.
Qatari religious official Ahmad Al-Farjabi
Although Al-Qaradhawi left Al-Jazeera a few years ago, apparently due to health reasons, his spirit of intolerance is still omnipresent in the channel's religious broadcasting. It would have been fascinating to know, for example, from this Qatari religious official on the channel in May 2020 exactly which Western psychologists said that beating certain women was "inevitable," and how he knows that "some women need to be beaten."[42]
IV. Antisemitism And Holocaust Denial
Because the toxic discourse at Al-Jazeera is often multi-faceted, support for jihad, anti-U.S. sentiment, and antisemitic language are often combined, as we have already seen in this report.
Ali Muhieddin Al-Qardaghi
Whatever the campaign, there always seemed to be space for Jew hatred. In 2006, Al-Jazeera played a major role in stoking the violence over cartoons mocking the Prophet Muhammad that appeared in a 2005 Danish newspaper. Among the channel's extensive content about this issue at the time was footage dragging Jews into the controversy, as an Iraqi cleric on Al-Jazeera blamed President Bush and the Jews for the crisis. Qatar University lecturer Ali Muhieddin Al-Qaradaghi told the channel that the controversy had been intentionally triggered by Jews to transfer Western bigotry from Jews onto Muslims by offending and provoking the latter.[43]
Egyptian publisher Muhammad Madbuli
Also in 2006, Al-Jazeera featured a gushing, positive interview with Muhammad Madbuli, the Cairo publisher of antisemitic books who explained that Jews are "people of money, prostitution, banks, gold, and petrol" who do all this to suck the blood of peoples.[44]
Other topics that would seem to be totally unrelated to Israel or Palestinians on Al-Jazeera often seemed to find a Jewish dimension – and almost always, like with the Danish cartoons, a bizarre or outlandish one. In 2009 an Al-Jazeera report on Egypt's Siwa oasis featured commentary on Jews, on how they are not wanted by local people interested in promoting tourism because they "are hated more than anyone else in the world" and local people can detect them by their smell.[45] A 2010 interview with a former detainee at Guantanamo featured the charge that inmates were subjected to witchcraft at the hands of Jews in the American military prison.[46]
Mahmoud Al-Zahhar
This type of narrative is not something from the early days of Al-Jazeera – it is poison that continues to this day. A 2016 Al-Jazeera interview with Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Zahhar included the charge that President-Elect Trump was possibly a Jew, but that even if he was not, "he loves the Jewish religion and even more, Jewish money."[47] A May 2019 Al-Jazeera Plus (AJ+) piece questioned the Holocaust and the number of Jews killed. In a surprising reversal, given its years broadcasting antisemitic content of different sorts, the resulting uproar caused the network to remove the offending piece.[48] Although most Al-Jazeera content is produced at headquarters in Doha, at least some of the online work of AJ+ was done in California, with plans to later move the operation to Washington, D.C.[49]
From the AJ+ video
The worldview among Al-Jazeera's senior staff that has led to the propagation of antisemitic content over two decades seems alive and well to this day. Only recently, Ahmad Mansour – the same soft-ball interviewer of Al-Qaeda's Nusra Front leader Al-Joulani in 2015) mocked the 2020 visit to Auschwitz by the Saudi Muhammad Al-Issa, Secretary General of the Muslim World League, "congratulating" Al-Issa on "the warmth he has received from the Zionists."[50]
And while manifestations of antisemitism are widespread across the spectrum through the years on Al-Jazeera, the network also gave ample opportunity for hate speech targeting other minority groups, such as Middle East Christians[51] and homosexuals.[52] Criticism of such groups often segued into a broader criticism of what was seen as "satanic Arab liberalism," which was often tarred with the disqualifying description as "Zionist."[53]
V. Coverage Supportive Of Anti-Israel Terrorist Groups
Lebanese terrorist Samir Kuntar
Al-Jazeera is not unique in its sympathetic coverage of Palestinian terror groups dedicated to the destruction of Israel. That coverage can be seen elsewhere, particularly in Iranian, Syrian, and Turkish media, but even among states allied with the U.S., such as Jordan. Since Hamas is essentially an armed version of the Muslim Brotherhood among Palestinians, it is no surprise that the relationship between the heavily pro-Muslim Brotherhood Al-Jazeera and the Gaza-based group is particularly close. This type of content is ubiquitous on the network, and not much of a surprise, but there are a couple of interesting points here.
Khalid Mash'al
We can see how different strands of the overall Al-Jazeera narrative combine in a 2007 clip featuring Hamas leader Khalid Mash'al praising Al-Qaradawi for his support. Mash'al takes this opportunity to minimize the Holocaust. It is all here in one tight package: Hamas-Qaradawi-Support for Suicide Operations-Holocaust Denial-Al-Jazeera.[54]
Kuntar's birthday party
Al-Jazeera's enthusiastic support for released Lebanese terrorist Samir Kuntar in 2008 brought the network some unexpected heat. After the influential Al-Jazeera Beirut bureau chief Ghassan Bin Jidou organized an on-air celebration and birthday party for Kuntar, who had brutally killed an Israeli family, including a two-year-old girl, Israel threatened to ban the network.[55] Al-Jazeera was forced to admit that the celebration, which featured cake, a band, and fireworks, had violated the channel's code of ethics, and apologized. Bin Jidou, known for his close ties to Iran and Hizbullah, would eventually resign in 2011 from the network over disagreements on the Syrian Civil War. In 2012, he launched the "pro-resistance" Al-Mayadeen channel.
Al-Jazeera's extensive and positive coverage of senior Hamas officials is understandable given the close ideological affinity. But the channel has not neglected the opportunity to give lesser voices a platform, such as covering the heartfelt recitation of a young Palestinian girl speaking of Jewish "sons of apes and pigs" at a 2018 Gaza conference for the International Day of Solidarity for the Palestinian People.[56]
Al-Jazeera's overall framing of the Arab-Israeli struggle, and in particular Hamas in Gaza, has been a powerful voice in the service of that group. This is not just through a choice of guests, or a news slant, but in launching conscious and elaborate information operations efforts in favor of this specific group, most graphically seen in 2014 during conflict between Hamas and the Israeli Defense Forces.[57]
Conclusion
Al-Jazeera Arabic channel's promotion of a very tangible and identifiable editorial line is patently obvious to anyone who has watched it over time. Being pro-Islamist (particularly in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood) and anti-West have been benchmarks of its programming and its news coverage from the beginning. That is not to say that these are the only causes the network has trumpeted through the years, but these have been the building blocks for everything else. Both Islamism and anti-West sentiment featured on the channel are often rife with antisemitism. Many strands of this Islamism embrace openly hostile attitudes regarding "the Other," a category that can include all sorts of people, from non-Muslims, to Middle East secularists to gays.
Al-Jazeera's basic affinity for Islamist groups spills over repeatedly over time into giving other groups along the Islamist spectrum, up to and including Al-Qaeda and ISIS – a sympathetic hearing beyond what its regional rivals at Al-Arabiyya and Sky News Arabia would ever do.
While Qatar has at times gone on the record to try to distance itself a bit from the network it created, over secondary issues such as the hiring of Qatari citizens,[58] it has demonstrated its constant support by spending hundreds of millions of dollars over more than two decades faithfully bankrolling a media outlet that has been remarkably consistent in its editorial line. This is eminently logical, given the channel's dogged support in hammering daily Qatari foreign policy points, from North Africa to Pakistan.
The fact that Al-Jazeera became, not surprisingly, one of the points of contention in the ongoing struggle between Qatar and its rivals in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, that exploded in 2017, means that the network is here to stay. Al-Jazeera will remain what it has always been, even though it has lost some of its luster over the past three years. The network that has been so influential for so long has become a bit predictable, not just on Islamism but because of the relentless focus on the ongoing blood feud with Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, and Cairo.
Without radically transforming Al-Jazeera or its editorial line, Qatar has tried to hedge its bets by funding and creating Al-Araby Television out of London since 2015.[59] Al-Araby seeks to propagate a more secular, pan-Arab voice than Al-Jazeera, still nationalist and broadly aligned with overall Qatari foreign policy goals but without the well-worn Islamist baggage. The idea is akin to the creation of leftist/secular Palestinian liberation groups in addition to Islamist ones. If Al-Jazeera is in a way a vision of Hamas on TV, then Al-Araby is Qatar's version of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Different approach, same ultimate goal.
But historically, on issues that Qatar seems to care the most about – political Islam across the world, support for Hamas, for Erdogan's Turkey, and most importantly, for not criticizing Qatar, its rulers, and its policies – there is no daylight between Al-Jazeera and the government in Doha. That is the surest way of gauging the steadfast and enduring official connection between the goals of the network and the goals of the state of Qatar. The convergence of a documented state funding stream and a broad policy direction between the state and the broadcaster is indisputable.
*Alberto M. Fernandez is Vice President of MEMRI; Yotam Feldner is Director of MEMRI TV.
Appendix
The following Appendix lists titles and links to 136 MEMRI TV clips from Al-Jazeera, out of the 722 Al-Jazeera clips in the MEMRI archives, as well as 88 translations and seven analysis papers about Al-Jazeera from the MEMRI archives.
The clips, translations, and analysis papers are arranged into the following categories: Support And A Platform for Global Jihad Leaders And Supporters; Anti-U.S. and Anti-West Views; A Platform for Iranian Anti-U.S. Incitement; Extremist Views Expressed By The Channel And By Program Hosts; A Platform For Islamist Views On Homosexuals, Women, Democracy, And Liberals; A Leading Platform For Sheikh Yousuf Al-Qaradawi; A Platform for Antisemitism And Holocaust Denial; Support And A Platform For Terrorism Against Israel; and MEMRI Reports On Criticism Of Al-Jazeera And The Qatari Regime.
Support And A Platform for Global Jihad Leaders And Supporters
JTTM Report - Al-Jazeera Broadcasts Al-Zawahiri Eulogy for ISI Commanders - 05/20/10
Clip No. 850 - American Al-Qaeda Operative Adam Gadahn's 9/11 Message - 09/12/05
Clip No. 799 - Al-Qaeda Leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri Calls to Get Rid of Islamic Regimes - 08/04/05
Clip No. 681 - Al-Zarqawi Footage Shown in an Al-Jazeera TV Profile - 05/24/05
Special Alerts No. 14 - Osama Bin Laden Tape Threatens U.S. States - 10/31/04
Clip No. 250 - Ayman Al-Zawahiri's Message For The Third Anniversary of 9/11 - 09/09/04
Clip No. 28 - Al-Jazeera TV: Jessica Lynch Received Humane Treatment in Captivity - 04/04/04
Special Dispatch No. 476 - Bin Laden's Sermon for the Feast of the Sacrifice - 03/06/03
Special Dispatch No. 246, The Prophet Muhammad as a Jihad Model, July 26, 2001
Anti-U.S. and Anti-West Views
Special Dispatch No. 4940 - Palestinian Columnist: 9/11 – An American-Israeli Plot - 09/10/12
Clip No. 1549 - Sudanese Islamic Leaders Threaten the U.S. Not to Send Forces to Darfur - 07/03/07
Inquiry & Analysis Series No. 313 - A Retrospective Study of the Unfolding of the Muhammad Cartoons Crisis and its Implications - 01/04/07 (Includes information on Al-Jazeera's role in the Muhammad cartoons affair)
Clip No. 587 - Saudi Cleric Salman Al-Odeh Explains Why He Supports Jihad in Iraq - 03/02/05
A Platform for Iranian Anti-U.S. Incitement
Clip No. 212 - Iranian Minister of Defense on Possible Iranian Preemptive Strike - 08/20/04
Extremist Views Expressed By The Channel And By Program Hosts
Clip No. 873 - Al-Jazeera TV Special: The Israeli Mossad Was Involved in the 9/11 Attacks - 09/30/05
Special Dispatch No. 966 - Al-Jazeera Special on Female Suicide Bomber Hanadi Jaradat - 08/22/05
Special Dispatch No. 759, An Arab Nationalist Attack on the Arab Progressives, August 6, 2004
Clip No. 113 - Americans Apologize on Al-Jazeera TV - 06/15/04
A Platform For Islamist Views On Homosexuals, Women, Democracy, And Liberals
Clip No. 392 –"Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi on Homosexuality and Western Culture"
Special Reports No. 27 - Muslim Clerics on the Religious Rulings Regarding Wife-Beating - 03/22/04
A Leading Platform For Sheikh Yousuf Al-Qaradawi
Clip No. 82 – "Sheikh Dr. Yousef Al-Qaradhawi about the Murder of American Citizen Nick Berg,"- 03/15/07
Inquiry & Analysis Series No. 291 - Pleasure Marriages in Sunni and Shi'ite Islam - 09/01/06
Clip No. 392 - Sheik Al-Qaradhawi on Homosexuality and Western Culture - 11/28/04
Clip No. 96 - Sheikh Qaradhawi: American Culture And Judaism Spread Violence In The World - 05/30/04
Clip No. 45 – "Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi in Favor of Suicide Operations" – 04/25/04
A Platform for Antisemitism And Holocaust Denial
Support And A Platform For Terrorism Against Israel
Clip No. 5354 - Hamas Showcases Terrorist Skills in a Rafah Rally - 02/26/16
Clip No. 4478 - Palestinian Islamic Jihad Digs New Tunnels in Gaza - 09/04/14
Clip No. 4404 - Al-Jazeera Report on Hamas Militants in Gaza Tunnel - 08/05/14
Clip No. 4357 - Footage of Tunnels Used by Hamas for Terror Attacks - 07/01/14
Special Dispatch No. 673, Umm Nidal: 'The Mother of The Shahids', March 3, 2004
MEMRI Reports On Criticism Of Al-Jazeera And The Qatari Regime
Daily Brief No. 146 - Qatar, The Emirate That Fools Them All, And Its Enablers - 01/18/18
Special Dispatch No. 922 - Reformist Egyptian Writer Critiques Islamist Education and Propaganda - 06/13/05 (Includes comments about Qaradawi on Al-Jazeera)
[1] Huffpost.com/entry/beauty-and-the-beast-how-al-jazeera-english-and_b_595fe19de4b085e766b5128f, July 7, 2017.
[2] BBC TV (U.K.) August 16, 2017. Souag refused to reveal the size of Al-Jazeera budget in an interview with University of Missouri School of Journalism’s Global Journalist Online from September 4, 2015. In that interview he also acknowledged that "the money comes from the Qatari government. It’s true."
[3] Souag at the National Press Club, October 2, 2018. In his speech, Souag described the process within Jazeera in which the budget is planned, before being referred for approval by the Qatari Finance Minister.
[4] Al-Jazeera Network (Qatar), May 11, 2020.
[5] Al-Jazeera Network (Qatar), March 23, 2016.
[6] Al-Jazeera Network (Qatar), February 29, 2012; MEMRI TV Clip No. 3385, Qatari Attorney General Ali bin Fatis Al-Muri on the Justice System in Qatar: "If Fatima, Daughter of the Prophet, Had Stolen, I'd Have Chopped Off Her Hand," February 29, 2012.
[7] MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 319, Terror in America (30) Retrospective: A bin Laden Special on Al-Jazeera Two Months Before September 11, December 24, 2001.
[8] MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 319, Terror in America (30) Retrospective: A bin Laden Special on Al-Jazeera Two Months Before September 11, December 24, 2001..
[9] MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 313, Terror in America (29) Al-Jazeera Interview With Top Al-Qa'ida Leader Abu Hafs 'The Mauritanian', December 14, 2001.
[10] MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 343, Saudi Government Official on Bin Laden as a Hero: He Did Not Present a Distorted Picture of Islam to the West' American Jews are 'Brothers of Apes and Pigs', February 8, 2002.
[11] MEMRI Inquiry and Analysis No. 677, American-Yemeni Al-Qaeda Cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki Highlights the Role and Importance of Media Jihad, Praises Al-Jazeera TV Journalists and WikiLeaks, March 15, 2011.
[12] MEMRI TV Clip No. 388, Al-Qa'ida Leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri: "There is no solution with America but to forcefully make it submit to justice," November 29, 2004.
[13] MEMRI TV Clip No. 1181, Spokesman for Iraqi Communist Party Nuri Al-Moradi Eulogizes Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi on Al-Jazeera TV, June 6, 2006.
[14] MEMRI TV Clip No. 4963, Al-Jazeera TV Poll Finds that Over 80% of Viewers Support ISIS Victories; Swedish-Based Iraqi Politician Hails ISIS as "Divine Destiny," May 26, 2015.
[15] MEMRI TV Clip No. 4585, Islamic Scholar Pledges Allegiance to ISIS Emir Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi Live on Al-Jazeera TV, November 4, 2014.
[16] Icct.nl/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Jaocb-Ware-Terrorist-Manifestos2.pdf, March 2020.
[17] Youtube.com/watch?v=-hwQT43vFZA, May 27, 2015.
[18] MEMRI TV Clip No. 4943, Jabhat Al-Nusra Commander Abu Muhammad Al-Joulani: The Muslim Brotherhood Should Bear Arms and Wage Jihad, June 3, 2015.
[19] Youtube.com/watch?v=LK3QCWTPz_4, June 3, 2015.
[20] Brookings.edu/blog/markaz/2015/05/31/an-internal-struggle-al-qaedas-syrian-affiliate-is-grappling-with-its-identity/, May 31, 2015.
[21] MEMRI TV Clip No. 8160, Islamists Involved In The Murder Of Egyptian Intellectual Farag Foda In 1992 Appear In Al-Jazeera Documentary; Abu Al-Ela Abd Rabbo Who Was Involved In The Assassination: I Acted In Accordance With Shari'a Law; I Believe Allah Will Reward My Actions, June 15, 2020.
[22] MEMRI TV Clip No. 101, Terrorist Anis Al-Naqqash Calls on Al-Jazeera TV for Strikes against US Oil Facilities, June 6, 2004.
[23] Washingtonpost.com/world/as-trump-tries-to-end-endless-wars-americas-biggest-mideast-
base-is-getting-bigger/2019/08/20/47ac5854-bab4-11e9-8e83-4e6687e99814_story.html, August 20, 2019.
[24] MEMRI TV Clip No. 870, Participants in Damascus Symposium on Terrorism Agree: The U.S. Is Responsible for Global Terrorism, September 14, 2005.
[25] Web.archive.org/web/20081112171741/http://usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive_Index/Life_of_Mohammed_
Book_NOT_Authored_by_Grandfather_or_Ancestor_of_President_Bush.html, December 20, 2004.
[26] MEMRI TV Clip No. 1522, Muslim Brotherhood Leader in Sudan Sheik Sadeq Abdallah bin Al-Majed Prohibits Vaccination of Children and Declares: Darfur Crisis Is a Conspiracy by Jews and Freemasons, July 28, 2007.
[27] MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 1685, Al-Jazeera Interviews - Muslim Brotherhood Leader in Sudan: The U.S. is Behind All Tragedies in Darfur; Sudanese Minister for Humanitarian Affairs: U.S. Civilization Feeds on Human Blood, August 31, 2007.
[28] Youtube.com/watch?v=xSOsT5wrfBk, April 20, 2020.
[29] MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 2247, On Al-Jazeera TV, Kuwaiti Prof Suggests a Biological Attack on White House, Prays for Bombing of Nuclear Plant on Lake Michigan, February 16, 2009.
[30] MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 2247, On Al-Jazeera TV, Kuwaiti Prof Suggests a Biological Attack on White House, Prays for Bombing of Nuclear Plant on Lake Michigan, February 16, 2009.
[31] MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 4940, Palestinian Columnist: 9/11 – An American-Israeli Plot, September 10, 2012.
[32] MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 4940, Palestinian Columnist: 9/11 – An American-Israeli Plot, September 10, 2012.
[33] Aijac.org.au/update/blood-libel-surfaces-at-hanan-ashrawi-s-miftah-o,
April 4, 2013.
[34] MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 5364, Dr. Mohammed Malkawi, U.S. Professor And Founder of Hizb Al-Tahrir in Chicago: 'Let Britain, America, And The Entire West Go To Hell, Because The Caliphate Is Coming, Allah Willing', July 16, 2013.
[35] https://network.aljazeera.net/about-us/timeline
[36] Kingfaisalprize.org/professor-yousef-a-al-qaradawi.
[37] MEMRI TV Clip No. 82, Sheikh Dr. Yousuf Al-Qaradhawi about the Murder of American Citizen Nick Berg, May 16, 2004.
[38] MEMRI TV Clip No. 2005, Sheik Yousuf Al-Qaradhawi: Allah Imposed Hitler upon the Jews to Punish Them – "Allah Willing, the Next Time Will Be at the Hand of the Believers," January 28, 2009.
[39] MEMRI TV Clip No. 3841, Leading Sunni Scholar Al-Qaradhawi in Visit to Gaza Calls for Jihad, Prays to Become Martyr, May 8, 2013.
[40] MEMRI TV Clip No. 82, Sheikh Dr. Yousuf Al-Qaradhawi about the Murder of American Citizen Nick Berg, May 16, 2004.
[41] MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 4614, Based on MEMRI TV Clip Exposing Sheikh Yousuf Al-Qaradhawi's Genocidal Speech, French President Sarkozy Bans Qaradhawi from Entering France, March 29, 2012.
[42] MEMRI TV Clip No. 8000, Wife Beating Guidance by Qatari Official Dr. Ahmad Al-Farjabi on Jazeera TV: Some Women Must be Subdued by Muscles; Women Almost Unanimously Agree That Beating Is Better Than Letting the Wives Ruin Their Families, May 6, 2020.
[43] MEMRI TV Clip No. 1030, Qatari University Lecturer Ali Muhi Al-Din Al-Qardaghi: Muhammad Cartoon Is a Jewish Attempt to Divert European Hatred from Jews to Muslims, February 3, 2006.
[44] MEMRI TV Clip No. 1189, Muhammad Madbuli, Egyptian Publisher Who Specializes in Anti-Semitic Books: The Jews Strip Us of Everything We Have, June 24, 2006.
[45] MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 3408, On Al-Jazeera TV, Egyptian Berbers Defend Themselves against Accusations of Accepting Jews: 'We Can Smell if Someone is a Jew', December 1, 2010.
[46] https://www.memri.org/reports/former-inmate-jews-used-witchcraft-guantanamo-prisoners-made-me-
feel-cat-was-trying
[47] MEMRI TV Clip No. 5758, Hamas Leader Mahmoud Al-Zahhar: Trump Possibly a Jew; Money Is the Jewish Religion, Key to U.S. Decision-Making, November 8, 2016.
[48] https://www.memri.org/tv/al-jazeera-holocaust-denial-israel-biggest-winner-same-justification-annihilate-palestinians
[49] Sfchronicle.com/business/article/Al-Jazeera-to-shut-down-San-Francisco-office-12970463.php,
June 6, 2018.
[50] Twitter.com/amansouraja/status/1274381409801474049, June 20, 2020.
[51] MEMRI TV Clip No. 3115, Egyptian Cleric Wagdi Ghoneim: Democracy Is Founded on Principles of Heresy; Don't Tell Me Christians in Egypt Should Have Equal Rights, August 5, 2011.
[52] MEMRI TV Clip No. 1170, Sheikh Yousuf Al-Qaradhawi: Homosexuals Should Be Punished Like Fornicators But Their Harm Is Less When Not Done in Public, June 5, 2006.
[53] MEMRI TV Clip No. 658, Egyptian Intellectual Tal'at Rmeih: Arab Liberals "Have a Satanic Way of Thinking," April 27, 2005.
[54] MEMRI TV Clip No. 1515, Hamas Leader Khaled Mash'al Praises Sheik Yousef Al-Qaradhawi for His Support of Suicide Operations and States: The Holocaust Was Exaggerated and Is Used to Extort Germany. Zionist Holocaust against Arabs Much Worse, July 16, 2007.
[55] MEMRI TV Clip No. 1818, Al-Jazeera TV Throws a Birthday Party for Released Lebanese Terrorist Samir Al-Quntar, July 18, 2008.
[56] MEMRI TV Clip No. 6883, Poem Recited by Palestinian Girl at Gaza Conference: The Wild Apes and Miserable Pigs (Jews) Are Destined for Humiliation, Jerusalem Spits Out Their Filth, November 29, 2018.
[57] Nationalinterest.org/feature/the-problem-al-jazeera-11239, September 10, 2014.
[58] MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 1560, For the First Time in Qatar: Criticism of the Administration of Al-Jazeera, May 1, 2007.
[59] Nationalinterest.org/feature/the-problem-al-jazeera-11239, September 10, 2014.
