RUTHFULLY YOURS

Qatar and its vast media network, Al Jazeera, have a long history, which, according to a report by the Middle East Research Institute (MEMRI), promote terrorism worldwide. The report notes:

“Al-Jazeera, therefore, should not be discussed as a means of telecommunications, but instead as an unyielding and forceful political tool of Qatari foreign policy under the guise of a mass media network.”

It was this communications powerhouse, the report continues, that basically drove Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak from power and in 2012 replaced him with the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi, who was also driven from power a year later.

Al Jazeera was also the vehicle that provided a platform for Osama bin Laden among other terrorists, as well as allowing a pledge of allegiance, to ISIS leader’s Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, to be broadcast live on air.

On October 7, 2023, Al Jazeera provided the “exclusive broadcast” for the declaration of war on Israel by Hamas’s military leader, Mohammed Deif, who, in a recorded announcement, declared that “Operation Al Aqsa Flood” was “just the first strike,” and urged all Palestinians “to join the war, using, all means in their possession including guns, knives and vehicles.”

Qatar has funded and nurtured Hamas from its beginnings and helped it to grow. Hamas is its client, and Qatar does not wish to see its protégé defeated. The Biden administration just invited Qatar to be in charge of the new “temporary” pier in Gaza the US is building. Apparently Qatar agreed to pay for it. The long-term agenda looks as if the US and Qatar intend to try to elbow Israel out of any say in what “humanitarian aid” is eventually be brought into Gaza.

The US seems to believe that Qatar is aligned with it; the US has its major Middle Eastern airbase there, without which Qatar would be a vulnerable target. However, the report reveals Qatar as aligned with countries such as Iran, Russia, and China, and groups such as Al Qaeda and the Taliban, which seek to replace the West. Qatar supported the Taliban until Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani fled in his plane. Then Qatar offered to mediate.

It is the same act — “first the arsonist then the firefighter” — that Qatar is putting over on the Biden administration with Hamas. First, Qatar funds Hamas to the gills, hosts Hamas’s billionaire leaders in its capital, Doha, and allows Deif to declare war on Qatar’s megaphone, Al Jazeera. Then, the Qataris pretend to be impartial mediators, and the Biden administration pretends to buy their act.

Most recently, on March 18, Al-Jazeera Arabic, along with some media watchdogs, condemned Israel for arresting Ismail al-Ghoul at al-Shifa Hospital in the Gaza Strip. Al-Ghoul, who was described as a “journalist” with Al-Jazeera, was apprehended during a raid by the Israeli army on the hospital, where scores of Hamas terrorists were holed up. The Israeli army said that during the military operation, more than 90 Hamas gunmen were killed and another 300 captured. Twelve hours after al-Ghoul was taken into custody together with the Hamas terrorists, the Israel Defense Forces released him.

Those who rushed to denounce Israel for arresting the Al-Jazeera journalist did not brother to mention his close ties to Hamas. They also did not say what al-Ghoul was doing inside the hospital at 3.00 am, when the Israeli army arrived there.

Eitan Fischberger, a communications expert and analyst, conducted his own research about al-Ghoul, and concluded that al-Ghoul had previously worked as a journalist at the Hamas-run news outlets Felesteen and al-Resalah. Fischberger also discovered that al-Ghoul had recently deleted some of his old social media posts and accounts to conceal his links to Hamas. Fischberger wrote:

“Given the multiple instances since October 7th of Al Jazeera journalists moonlighting as Hamas operatives (or vice versa), I figured I’d take a look into al-Ghoul as well. What I found was a highly sophisticated, concerted effort to – for lack of a better word – manufacture a ‘legitimate journalist’ out of whole cloth.”

Fischberger presented some of al-Ghoul’s official journal social media accounts on Telegram, X, and Facebook; all those accounts had been created between November 2023 and February 2024 — after Hamas’s October 7 massacre of Israelis, and noted:

“In other words, unlike many of the Al Jazeera journalists who have been exposed as terrorists or terror supporters since October 7th due to their social media activity, much of this guy’s social media activity was inaccessible. Or so I initially thought.

“Turns out he has a personal Facebook, on which he loves to post his love for Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.

“He also glorifies terrorism, like in the cases of Basel al-Arraj, the head of a PFLP cell who was killed in a gun battle in the West Bank in 2017, and Diya’a al-Sabarini, an al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terrorist who was killed in a gunfight with the IDF”

Fischberger pointed out that, although al-Ghoul’s old X account was disabled:

“I did some more internet sleuthing stuff and managed to find some of his old posts in which he demonstrates his antisemitism and support for terror.

“For example:

“‘The greatest epidemic is the Israeli entity and every Arab trying to normalize it as a reality to coexist with them… 72 years of continuous crime and abuse against Palestinians, the most recent being exposing Palestinian prisoners to the global pandemic. #Covid48′”

Noting that the Al-Jazeera journalist had also deleted his old TikTok, X, and Instagram accounts, Fischberger commented:

“It’s no small feat to erase much of someone’s social media presence, create new profiles, and then amass hundreds of thousands of followers in just a few months, as seen with al-Ghoul.

“The orchestrator of this psy-op invested considerable effort to conceal al-Ghoul’s connections to Hamas and his malevolent beliefs. They recognized the importance of meticulously shaping an image that aligns with the standards of “respected” news sources like Al Jazeera. ”

Ultimately, they transformed a Hamas operative into an ostensibly “legitimate” journalist, yet whose primary goal is to disseminate Hamas propaganda and demonize the State of Israel, whether through his reporting or now, by elevating his status to that of a martyr following his arrest.

“Judging by the public response to al-Ghoul’s arrest, it’s evident that their strategy was wildly successful.”

In February, another Al-Jazeera “journalist” in the Gaza Strip, Esmaeel Omer, was also exposed as a supporter of terrorism. Omer was one of several Palestinian journalists who accompanied the Hamas terrorists during their invasion of Israeli communities near the border with the Gaza Strip. In some of the videos he posted on social media during the Hamas atrocities, Omer was literally crying tears of joy. In another post, he wrote: “Our children will play with their (Israelis’) heads.”

The IDF discovered in February that Mohammed Washah, another Al-Jazeera “journalist” in the Gaza Strip, was similarly moonlighting as a Hamas terrorist.

“In the morning, he’s a journalist on the Al-Jazeera channel, and in the evening, a terrorist in Hamas,” wrote Lt. Col. Avichay Adraee, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman. Adraee revealed that Israeli soldiers found a laptop in a Hamas base in northern Gaza that belonged to Washah. Documents recovered from the laptop revealed that Washah, 37, is a prominent commander in Hamas’s anti-tank missile unit, and in late 2022, he began to work in research and development for the terror group’s air unit. Intelligence gleaned from the computer included images linking Washah to activities within Hamas, including training in the use of anti-tank weapons, as well as working with other weapons and a drone.

It is no secret that Qatar and its news organization Al-Jazeera have long been serving as champions, protectors and lifelines for Hamas and other terrorist groups, such as Al Qaeda affiliates and the Taliban. In 2021, a Hamas delegation paid a visit to the Al-Jazeera bureau in Gaza to express gratitude to the television station for its coverage of the conflict between Israel and terror groups. The delegation presented the Al-Jazeera team with a certificate marking their appreciation for its coverage. “We saw a high level of nationalism and a national tone in Al-Jazeera’s coverage,” said senior Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya.

Qatar still continues to host several Hamas leaders, including Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Mashaal. The Hamas leaders enjoy the full backing of Qatar’s rulers as well as of Al-Jazeera. Qatar’s former Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim has admitted that the Doha-based Al-Jazeera network is controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood organization, considered by some Arab states a terrorist group and a threat to their regimes and to security and stability in the Middle East. A leaked audio recording reportedly captured a conversation between him and Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi:

“Al-Jazeera is controlled, members of the Muslim Brotherhood are controlling the programs on Al-Jazeera,” Gaddafi is heard saying. “I agree with you, I am telling you this is true,” the former Qatari prime minister replied.

In 2014, Mohammed Fahmy, the former Cairo bureau chief of Al-Jazeera, began a 438-day sentence in an Egyptian prison on charges of terrorism and practicing unlicensed journalism. Fahmy has admitted that the Egyptian government was correct when it said that Al-Jazeera is an arm of Qatari foreign policy and really a propaganda channel for Islamists. “There are many channels who are biased, but this is past bias. Now Al-Jazeera is a voice for terrorists,” Fahmy said.

In 2017, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain imposed a political and diplomatic blockade on Qatar. As part of that blockade, Al-Jazeera was expelled from those Arab countries.

Remarkably, one of the places Al-Jazeera is still free to operate is Israel. The television station has a big bureau in Jerusalem, and its correspondents feel free to incite violence against Israel from within Israel. The correspondents know that Israel is a democracy that allows journalists from all around the world to enter the country and work freely. In light of the new damning evidence of Al-Jazeera’s employing terrorists and its close connections to Hamas and other terrorist organizations, perhaps it is time for Israel and Western countries to learn from the Arabs, who understood many years ago that Qatar and its Al-Jazeera are not platforms for peace or news, but rather perpetuators of terrorism.

Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East.