This study focusses on the role of the Al Jazeera Media Network that produces a corrupt Arab culture so as to serves the enemy purposes by clarifying the editorial policy of the network as it adopts a propaganda of overstating. It works on stirring passions of the public and the network’s relationship with international and national projects through the following headlines:
Introduction
It is not useful to define Al Jazeera Network from the perspective of its owners and advocates because the reality of Al Jazeera is different from what its owners usually claim while marketing it.
Accordingly, Al Jazeera Media Network is a complex media system that adopts the principle of intensified broadcast publications to create a state of cumulative values, trends and cultures in order to fulfill serious political objectives that works to create facts on the ground serving goals beyond the nation’s borders.
Al Jazeera Satellite Channel is a part of this system; however not the most important part according to the above-mentioned definition. Anyway, the most important part of the Al Jazeera Media Network is the “Realms of Social Media”, the social network through which Al Jazeera Network has created special technologies that have succeeded in delivering the “corrupt ideas” to a very large social slice, adopting a policy: of “our versions will be delivered wherever you are”.
Research Components
- Al Jazeera Media Group has shaped the aspects of Arab culture;
- Al Jazeera’s support to political Islam, terrorism and extremism, through the gate of Caliphate’s project;
- Al Jazeera support provided to combating and resistance axis through the gate of the Palestinian question;
- Both national and international impact of Al Jazeera;
- The formally declared aspect of Al Jazeera Network;
- The concealed aspect of Al Jazeera network.
First of all, Al Jazeera Media Network has clearly shaped the aspects of Arab culture during the last two decades after it had established its “media empire” on the ruins of British Broadcasting Company BBC, Arabic, and later it established Al-Hiwar Satellite Channel. It created a culture based on “conspiracy theory” and “conflict of civilizations”, and moved from “culture of defeat” to the culture of “delusions of victory”, using the method of overstating in some recurrences and dwarfing in others due to message it intends to convey. It also did that through collection of subsidiary news and snatching false analysis. Al Jazeera Media Group extra-enthusiastically adopted two major issues: Islamic Caliphate and the Palestinian Question.
Al Jazeera’s support to political Islam, through the gate Caliphate project
Al Jazeera, according to its guests, deems the establishment of caliphate as an obligatory dictation that will dignify both Islam and Muslims. Islamic Caliphate, for Al Jazeera, represents the heart that incubates Muslims, and adopts their issues wherever they are. Accordingly, it advocates these issues as a matter of history and nation. Thus, it adopts two major Islamic wings: “political Islam” and “military Islam”.
Political Islam is represented by Muslim Brothers who are occupying the largest coverage of “Al Jazeera Media Network”, and the appearance of Yusuf Al-Qaradawy on “Life and Legislation” program, known in Arabic as “Al-Sharia and Al-Hayat” for many years is an obvious indication of the dominance of Muslim Brothers, though there have been many recurrent objection messages delivered by Al Jazeera audience.
Moreover, Al Jazeera remarkably supported Muslim Brothers in Egypt until they came to power. It also showed a notable support after Muslim Brothers’ total collapse. One of the outstanding examples of coordination between Al Jazeera and Muslim Brothers in Egypt is the well-known “Raba’a sit-in” which was staged by Muslim Brothers and other people sympathizing with the group in the summer of 2013 after Muhamad Morsi was toppled down. Obviously, Al Jazeera continued planning to reproduce this group after their popularity dropped down to the least rate since decades.
Furthermore, it is observed that Al Jazeera is supporting Al-Qaida, since it is deemed, according to Al Jazeera, as striking force, and Jihadi-defendant power for Muslims. Al Jazeera group is keen on presenting Al-Qaida as a highly dignified historical phenomenon in an ulterior way, and its theorists and thinkers are occupying highly ranked positions in Al Jazeera. It is constantly rationalizing that the emergence of Al-Qaida as a normal phenomenon and a consequence of “the conflict of civilizations”. It is also looked upon as if it were the nation’s vanguard that is advancing forward, whereas the other entities are going backward.
When Al-Qaeda’s publicity goes down, Al Jazeera describes that as a reaction to the acts of the West against Muslims, and the acts of rulers against their subjects promoting the theory of “grievance”, which states that the entire world is targeting Islam and Muslims. When Al-Qaeda perpetrates a brutal offensive, that is hard to justify, Al Jazeera soon uses the “theory of conspiracy”, trying to depict Al-Qaeda as an American product, or at least alluding to the brutal offensive perpetrated by Al-Qaeda, as if it was managed and carried out by the West.
Furthermore, documents of “Apot Abad”, uncovered late in 2017 revealed serious details about the nature of relationship between the Al Jazeera’s journalist in Pakistan, Ahmad Zaydan and some leaders of Al-Qaeda. In one of Usama Ben Laden’s correspondences, he described Ahmad Zaydan who was nick-named “Mawlawi Othman” Al Jazeera correspondent, as an advocate of Al Qaeda organization in his speech on coordination for a video tape that would expectedly be transmitted to Al Jazeera Channel. Furthermore, Al Jazeera supported “resistance and combatant axis” from the gate of the Palestinian question.
Al Jazeera presents the Palestinian question as the essential Arab issue, and it presents Israel as the prioritized enemy of Arab nation. It also presents the Palestinian struggle as priority, and probably the only struggle against despots. It presents the Palestinian suffering as if it were an open wound that should draw the attention before any other catastrophe. Al Jazeera was very keen on promoting “combatant and resistance axis” under the leadership of “the Islamic Republic of Iran”, through mitigation and camouflage of its criminal acts although these cruel and severe acts are unprecedented. It presents the strength points of the alleged axis, and it takes the least opportunity to rationalize these strength points. It is also keen on presenting it too hard to defeat or overcome amongst the international or at least the regional power equation. When this axis goes too far with perpetration of brutal crimes in frequency and intensity, it conceals these brutal crimes by presenting the “theory of conspiracy” that enemies of resistance axis, the West, definitely supported and managed these brutal crimes.
In the meantime, Al Jazeera was exploiting situations to incite public opinion against Arab countries, it started to jam “the Voice of Iranian People” who got down to the streets for demonstrations against the brutal violations perpetrated by the Iranian corrupt regime. Instead, Al Jazeera acclaimed that there were pro-Iranian government demonstrations in Tehran and several cities in Iran in a fact-reversing coverage that reflected an extra-ordinary media scandal.
Al Jazeera Advocates both nationalistic and patriotic dimensions
After this thorough monitoring of the most outstanding interests of Al Jazeera, we can say that the strategy of Al Jazeera Channel is adopting both patriotic and nationalistic issues, and it is supporting the individuals – whether they present themselves or presented by Al Jazeera – who support these two issues like Muslim Brothers and Al-Qaida advocates and other affiliated elites and scholars.
Going into details, we can figure out bold contradictions lying within details, that are usually slipped by Al Jazeera. These contradictions were obviously manifested during the Syrian revolution.
At the beginning, there was a kind of real conflict between the nationalistic project and the patriotic one. That kind of collision began after the fall of the “Ottoman Caliphate” at the time the West began to replace Islamic nationalism by Arabic nationalism. At that time, nationalists looked upon patriotism as an “ignorance concept” where the social tie is based on the concept of unifying factor or what it is called Arabism rather than the tie of the Islamic nation, whereas nativists look upon nationalists as backward reactionists and extremists.
With the process of time, the battle between the two sides calmed down, and there was some kind of rapprochement. There was also a kind of rapprochement between the two rivals, nationalists and Islamists for two reasons:
First, the fulfilment of caliphate dream proved to be unattainable after major changes took place in the world. Second, the Palestinian Question combines both nativist and nationalist dimensions together since Palestine is an Arab country where “Al-Aqsa Mosque” is located. When the Palestinian struggle got most ferocious in the 1970s, trends and movements soon supported the Palestinian struggle, so there was a kind of rapprochement between them.
This rapprochement was manifested in the birth of “Islamic Nativist Conference” in Beirut in the year 1994, and Doha received the sixth session of the conference accompanied by a warm coverage by “Al Jazeera channel”. The conference, according to conferees, presented several controversial files, and the file of development of cooperation between the nativists and the Islamists was given priority. Despite disputes confessed by conferees between the two trends, conferees affirmed that the two entities agreed on principal issues and headlines, that aimed to figure out an Islamic civilized Arab project.
Al Jazeera Network was born in the womb of London BBC, and it inherited a lot of documentaries from BBC, that tended to promote nativist vision on interpreting events. Al Jazeera worked on the incubation of the two trends, and it genuinely gathered the two, affirming the importance of the attendance of all parties: “combatant and resistance axis”, that includes “Syria, Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Qatar”. This axis which raised the motto of the liberation of Palestine, and the axis of “political Islam” represented, to a great extent, by Muslim Brothers, and Al Tahreer Party (Liberation Party) which adopts the establishment of caliphate, and the axis of “military Islam” represented by Al-Qaeda. All these entities rhetorically adopted principally chaotic goals that lead to the establishment of Caliphate in order to strike despots, and to target the Western interests.
The nationalistic project holds the West responsible for “conspiracy against caliphate”, and the West is the archenemy of the nation’s issues. The nativist project deems the West responsible for the occupation of Palestine. As it adopts these two projects, Al Jazeera is antagonist towards the West, and it adopts a propaganda on this basis that leads it to adopt a policy of snatching and overstating both false and fake news in a way that serves its agenda. This created an absorbed media items to establish a harmful culture. In a word, it creates a victory out of delusions, and a glory out of imagination. It adopts an approach of urging passions and instincts and stimulation of aggressive sentiments toward the West.
Obviously, the editorial policy of Al Jazeera gives priority to what is nationalistic rather than it does to what is Nativist when there is a clash between them. Amid the Arab spring, a hot zealousness was remarkably observed by Al Jazeera on supporting the Arab revolutions, in which Muslim Brothers had the best chance. That obviously occurred in Tunisia and Egypt, and Al Jazeera supported anti-moderate regime revolutions, that were traditionally opposing “resistance axis”.
As for the Syrian revolution, Al Jazeera was reluctant to support it, since it broke out against a “resistance-axis regime”, but when Muslim Brothers got the upper hand, Al Jazeera got involved in the Syrian Revolution. Instead, when the situation turned against Muslim Brothers in favor of liberalists and democratic trends, Al Jazeera retreated in favor of “resistance-axis regime”. Furthermore, when Islamic groups affiliated to Al-Qaida appear to have a crucial role, Al Jazeera soon focusses this role, and when a sectarian terrorist militia affiliated to “resistance-axis” like Hezbollah invasion of Syria, Al Jazeera takes neither care nor concern for fear the “resistance axis” image will be distorted.
In a word, the Syrian Revolution turned over the calculations of Al Jazeera, and rebuked it, so disregarding the Syrian question will be the best alternative. Al Jazeera embarrassedly had no way to be proud of “resistance axis”, as this axis perpetrated so many brutal atrocities, and Al Jazeera had no way to glorify Al-Qaeda because it perpetrated offensives that resulted in consequences and spillovers Al Jazeera could not justify, especially “the Islamic State in Iraq and Sham” ” or what it is called “Daesh”, represented the stereotyped faction of Al-Qaida that targeted Syrian rebels.
Accordingly, we can interpret Al Jazeera’s silence towards the Syrian case although it is the richest and most dramatic file in the history of peoples ever. However, the media machine, that is out of service, will operate if the “resistance axis” makes a victory against Israel even it was unreal. Besides, if al-Qaeda could launch a minor offensive against the West whatsoever, even against civilians, or if Muslim Brothers took the first rank in a revolutionary scene, Al-Jazeera will cover such scenes by all means and abilities.
Anyway, an observer can spot two aspects of Al Jazeera Media Network. which are as follows:
- Al Jazeera explicit aspect perceived by people that is represented by its T.V. channel. An observer will find it, to some extent, abiding with the least rules of editing and publishing for fear of inspection;
- It is related to the secret interrelated maze of corridors of Al Jazeera.
In a word, Al Jazeera media network is practicing a strange kind secretiveness. This metaphoric description, so to speak, is used to clarify the Al Jazeera Aspects, and to make it easier to comprehend its concealed aspect. Al Jazeera can be resembled to a bookshop, that it is thought small on the market, and this bookshop has many bookshelves allowed to be published or sold, but if you ask for a book that not allowed to publish, the fraud owner will deviate your attention in a cunning way, and you will find yourself trapped in a huge bookstore including thousands of outdated and decayed books with rotten ideologies and very ancient-styled thoughts, and any book you buy will make you under a severe judicial verdict.
The explicit aspect of Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera Channel originally started broadcasting on November 1st 1996 after the BBC Arabic, that was established in partnership with Saudi Arabia, had been closed in April of the same year. Two years later, it was established. Staff members of Al Jazeera joined Al Jazeera for inspection purposes claimed by Saudi Arabia. Personnel in charge of the network adopted an oriental logo, represented by an ornamented name written in Diwani old-fashioned Arabic calligraphy in an analogously embellished manner.
Here are some of the main aspects of Al Jazeera channel announced for the public:
Al Jazeera popularity aspect: personnel in charge of the channel were keen on the popularity aspect, to an extent there was a sort of exaggerated popularity, that is obviously manifested in documentary programs that shed light on the sufferings of popular slices in several places in the Islamic World, and the customs and cultures of these slices like the documentary on miserable acclimatized people who adapted their lives to AIDS in Djibouti.
Through such documentaries, Al Jazeera Network tends to make people absorb it rather than they absorb the event by dealing with social slice as broad as possible, to the extent that viewers will feel as if they were celebrated guests, and there will be a media item viewed by millions one day. viewers will cling to the channel in a way the channel will easily implant its vision and agenda in their minds, so it assumed the motto of the so-called “Al Jazeera is a forum for those who have no forum”.
Excessive propaganda:
Al Jazeera adopts an excessive media style in a way officers in charge of the channel do not give opportunity for viewers to express their satisfaction with the channel. Instead, these officers dedicate themselves to praise their channel in a banally bare way through over-celebrations regarding the anniversary of the broadcast start of the channel, and by innovation of glittering titles for these celebrations like “renewably originated route” on the twentieth anniversary, and “sun that will never sets” which was innovated on the twenty first anniversary. Many other media storms that were launched on the seventeenth anniversary of establishing its website. On the twentieth anniversary of Al Jazeera establishment, it launched a campaign entitled “We are Al Jazeera” that involved, according to the channel vision, a series of initiatives that aim at encouraging multiple debates, and to enhance respect values towards other different visions.
However, the initiative obviously included TV episodes displaying stories of some personnel who contributed to the popularization of the channel like Muhamad Kreishan, Fieruz Zayyani, Khadija Bin Ganna and Jamal Rayyan and others. Through those TV presenters were neither presenters of the news item nor commentators on guest’s attitudes. Rather, they turned into guests that had to reply all queries and questions aroused in viewers’ minds. Viewers would be assumedly introduced to the other visions of personnel who had starred as prominent figures.
Polishing of certain elites, Al Jazeera Channel has succeeded in displaying certain personnel who were adopting specific thoughts and cultures, and the channel was keen on showing them as if thoughts and knowledge were confined exclusively to them. That was done in a way that so many viewers strongly believed in those guests, who were called permanent or resident guests, were torches of guidance and minarets of the righteous path. Those personnel were members of Muslim Brothers during early 1960s and 1970s, nativists and communists, who were opposing the prevailing regimes. Al Jazeera Network made them the utmost minarets for Arab viewers, especially through the channel debate programs like “opinion and the opposite one” program and “more opinions” program.
Al Jazeera Network went far beyond polishing resident guests who were looked upon a “Al Jazeera household”. It underestimated other figures of intellect and thought, and drowned them with many accusations and suspects. It also attacked many high-ranked political figures who were not accordant with its approach and vision in a way that made those figures become problematic and abhorred by a board slice of viewers. However, as Arab viewers trust Al Jazeera’s household elite, they will deem it as the only credible reference from whom they will absorb ideas, views, relationships and reactive conducts. So, viewers will have a destructive education like “hatred education”, “building up over the ruins of others”, and “violence education”.
Moreover, it is very important to remind that Al Jazeera Network promotes certain personnel, and makes them stars in the Arab World. Those polished figures have been bargained for a strong defense of Qatari policies in exchange for fame they have achieved by ads and advocation propaganda. They had to do favor back. Since Qatar is incubating these personnel, they appear overstatedly more pro-Qatari than Qataris themselves. One example of those personnel is a Mauritanian Brother and a political activist called “Muhamad Al-Mukhtar Al-Shanqiti”. Anyway, the Qatari media campaign that was launched just after the unprecedent political and diplomatic breakout that had increased the isolation of Qatar on both Gulf and Arab levels. That was due to the fact that Al Jazeera and Qatar had been working on undermining the Arab national security, and disseminating chaos and disrupting stability through supporting and funding radical organizations and terrorist groups in the Middle East and North Africa.
Falsehood:
Al Jazeera Network adopts telling lies as a systematic editorial approach. Each news bulletin involves at least one fake news item that supports Al Jazeera policy which is based on stimulation of storms and turmoil. In a word, Al Jazeera is not a news channel because it gives very little concern over conveying events as they really are; it conveys news items with Al Jazeera-spirited frills and additional retouches.
Sometimes, Al Jazeera’s lies are barely scandalized, or they are sometimes concealed in a cheating way which is the most poisonous, since it is hardly revealed even by specialists, and a great deal of its fake news are usually absorbed by the public and by some cultivated people.
One of the concealed styles adopted by Al Jazeera is excessive selectivity, for example, when it tends to provoke an insurgency or chaos in a place, it will display a dispute or fight between two individuals or two groups, and it will also shed light on a very unnoticeable minor gap that attracts no attention of most people, and it overstates to turn it into a highly overwhelming issue. It will make up dimensions and extensions irrelevant to such an issue. When it finds no way to deliver a fake news item, it delivers news or opinions about unreal individuals who are allegedly existing. And it is commonly said in Al Jazeera: “opponents say”, who are very indefinite, and imaginatively false twitters polls that are delivered authentically in a way that show Al Jazeera as a professionally trusted channel, conveying some twitters posted by untrusted people. It benefits from distrusted tweeters.
However, the crafted fabrication of events Al Jazeera intends to convey is the most serious tactic of Al Jazeera’s, as it will soon cover it by enthusiastic journalists to convey the event. Moreover, it is well-known that personnel in charge of Al Jazeera usually set a fire and then they rush to cover. Its lies went beyond imagination, and al Jazeera staff have been able to publish a fake or overstated news item related to one of their well-known opponents under the name of “scandal”, describing this scandal as it shocked the “public opinion”. They usually attach videos and photos accompanied by equivalent soundtrack to news in order to convince the viewers that it is a “grave event”, though it is hollow and nonsense. So, Al Jazeera is described as the channel of lies and opposite lies as it is refigured out from “opinion and the opposite one”.
As for style of artificiality and acting, Al JazeeraNetwork is excessively interested, to a great extent, in both physical and motional look, suit and makeup in order to attract huge numbers of viewers, sine neat look of commentators and presenters is as important as the false content they deliver which contributes to the allurement of viewers. It is manifested in the media presenters’ movements, body language, tuning accent and decorative makeup, accompanied with remarkable overstating, which can shape a lot of program presenters with vanity and pride.
Moreover, if we review a “media body language” course advertised by Al Jazeera, we will find out that it is a futile dramatic acting course which nobody falls for it. The course elaborates on the science and characteristics of media body language. The course also qualifies trainees on dealing with program guests, and on skills of appearing before cameras, distinguished implications of face gestures and eye contact, styles of speaking skills, implications of touch, handshaking and body movements.
Al Jazeera’s Concealed Aspect
Al Jazeera Network is a maze of corridors, pockets and details that is too difficult to navigate its details since it works like a secretly-mannered intelligence agency. It is constantly expanding in all directions, and huge amounts of funds are paid to serve such a purpose, provided that it was obliged to cut down on expenditures related to field media, though it was able to recruit extra staff for free in a way or another.
Here are some elements that could be tracked in Al Jazeera concealed strategy:
As for Al Jazeera network engineers, it is too difficult to define the most effective individuals on the designation of “editorial policy”, but the major role of two engineers, Waddah Khanfer and Azmi Bisharah could be tracked in this domain, though there is an ideologic divergence and a difference in references origins between the two. However, they are on a common ground of aggression toward the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It is not unusual to find out a board common ground between the representatives of “political Islam” and the one of the Arabism national trend as Al Jazeera Network has no identity if hollow logos are dispatched. Instead, Al Jazeera is a mere destructive project of the region in order to curb its advance.
As for Waddah Khanfar, he was born in 1968 in a village called Al-Rama near the city of Jenin in Palestine. He graduated from the faculty of Engineering at the Jordanian University in 1990. He joined department of philosophy at the Faculty of Arts where he was the head of the “preparational committee of Jordan Student Union”. After he had completed his studies on international relationships in the Republic of South Africa, he studied in Sudan where he was granted M.A. degree at the International University of Africa. However, he grew up in an outright environment of Muslim Brothers, and he has been a political activist since he was a student. He was a member of Jordan Students Union, reflecting Muslim Brotherhood vision and activities.
In 1997, Waddah Khanfar was a “Human Resources Manager” of “International Islamic Federation of Student Organizations” (IFSO), which is an intercorrelated organization with the international organization of Muslim Brotherhood. He later joined the Al Jazeera as soon as it started broadcasting, and he was a journalist in the Republic of South Africa, then he moved to India after 11 September attack in 2002 to cover the consequences and spillovers of Afghanistan war. After the fall of Taliban and the bombardment of Al Jazeera office in Kabul, he moved to Afghanistan to cover events in several areas in Afghanistan for five years. After that, he moved to Iraq where he covered a sequence of events before the United States of America waged a war against Iraq. He covered the war while he was based in North Iraq. After Baghdad had fallen, he moved there, and he was the head of Al Jazeera office in Iraq. He renovated the office after it had been bombarded by the American warplanes, that resulted in the death of the journalist Tareq Ayyub.
Waddah Khanfar presented “Iraqi Scene” program that was lively broadcasted from Baghdad. His work continued until he was appointed as the manager of Al Jazeera on October 26th 2003 descendant to the former manager, Muhamad Jasem Al Ali, then he moved to Doha. In February 2006 he was appointed as General Director of Al Jazeera Network which includes several branches and departments related to Al Jazeera Network as a whole corporation.
Waddah Kkanfar’s experience throughout war areas, where Al-Qaeda Organization was one of its mainstays, made him the foremost man of Al Jazeera Network because he polished the image of radical Islamic groups in which he occupied a high-ranked position in Muslim Brotherhood Group. As a result, he became a reference of the group in its new aspect which incubated and supported terrorist organizations.
At that stage, Al Jazeera Network, through its journalists and mediators, could conduct interviews and hold documented meetings and with some Al-Qaeda leaders that was managed and supervised by Waddah Khanfar.
A report, published in “Nation” Magazine, revealed support of Al Jazeera T.V. channel to the Islamic movements collaborated by Waddah Khanfar. According to a report of “Nation”, Al Jazeera coverage dramatically changed into much more “Islam-Public Approach” after Waddah Khanfar was appointed as General Director in March 2003.
Ever since Waddah Khanfar was appointed as the General Director of Al Jazeera network, the channel has been concentrating on opposing the Arab regimes, and it has been clinging to an extremist Arab nativist attitude against the United States of America and Israel. Al Jazeera has also been presenting the values of both conservative and extremist trends. Anyway, it did not take long to find out the reason that led to the re-evolution of Muslim Brotherhood. The impact of Waddah Khanfar has not only shaped Al Jazeera Network with the ideological and cultural aspect of Muslim Brotherhood, but his impact also went beyond as he succeeded in recruiting staff affiliated with Muslim Brotherhood within the network, which constituted %50 of the network total staff, and Muslim Brotherhood dominance grew dramatically in Qatari Al Jazeera, and in government departments and offices.
Thus, the vision of Waddah Khanfar has clearly shaped Al Jazeera Network with a vindicatory and aggressive aspect. All that aroused criticism within the concealed corridors regarding Al Jazeera editorial approach. Consequently, Waddah Khanfar was confronted by opponents within the channel administration board like Abdul Aziz Al Mahmoud who was the Head of Edition of “Al Jazeera Network”. However, he was resigned by Waddah Khanfar because of a clash between the two men regarding editorial policy. Abdul Aziz Al Mahmoud was not satisfied with the dominance of Islamists and Muslim Brotherhood vision on the policy of the channel, especially the dealing with the internal Palestinian conflict.
Wikileaks documents were revealed to embarrassed Waddah Khanfar, the “strongest man” in Al Jazeera, and he was confronted by a scandal that could not be wriggled out by his well-known diplomacy. Those documents came to reveal one factor of Khanfar’s success and his dramatic promotion in Al Jazeera. The released documents were dated back to October 20th 2005. It revealed a sort of cooperation and coordination between C.I.A. Officials and the Al Jazeera General Director. Through meeting held by the two sides, Khanfar pledged to amend news that could disturb the American Administration, or to delete any news items if needed.
As for Azmi Bishara, he is a thinker, an academic figure and a Palestinian author. He is from 1948 Arab nationals in Israel, and he was born in the city of Al-Nasira on July 22nd 1956. He obtained Ph.D. in philosophy. He founded the “National Democratic Assembly” in Israel, and he was the head of NDA. He was a member representing the assembly in the “Israeli Knesset”. He occupied the position of general manager of “Arab Center for Research and Political Studies”, and he was the most outstanding Arab member representing Palestinian citizens in Israel. In 2006, he was convicted of providing help to the enemy in time of war in a reference to Lebanese resistance during Lebanon war in 2006.
Azmi Bishara has been living in Qatar since he left Palestine in 2007, and he has visited many Arab countries. He is now the head of “Arab Center for Research and Political Studies” which he founded in 2010, and he is the head of “Board of Trustees of Doha Institute for Higher Studies”.
The role of Dr. Azmi Bishara is totally different from that of Khanfar’s because the former does not regard himself honored by Al Jazeera, because he regards himself of a higher rank than Al Jazeera’s, due to his higher education and abundant writings. In a word, we can say that when Dr. Azmi Bishara compares his “study Center” with a media channel like Al Jazeera Network, he will find the latter very limited according to the thoughtful content presented by advocates of “Arab Center for Research and Political Studies”.
As soon as he arrived in Qatar, he searched for mediators to meet the former prince of Qatar “Hamad Bin Khalifa” and his wife “Princess Mouza”, as he was planning to achieve long-termed purposes. Actually, he succeeded, and he met the prince. He persuaded the prince to found a research center that would be – as he put it – serving the Prince’s state and its political project like the “Zayed Center for Coordination and Follow up”. The former prince of Qatar founded a center with a budget valued at 14 million dollars, and Bishara started to achieve his purpose. In the meantime, he was the best companion of the inexperienced crown prince at that time, and the current prince Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani.
The “Arab Center for Research and Political Studies” played an essential role in the rapprochement of Bishara (the head of the center) with decision-makers in Qatar, and Bishara was granted the Qatari citizenship, so that he could visit the prince and the palace of the Prince’s father. He also made a rapprochement with the crown prince, and tried to meet him separately, especially after Bishara knew the prince father’s intention to step down. Bishara succeeded in becoming the private consultant of young Tamim. The ambitions of the proud consultant’s began to resuscitate, so that his ambitions of dominating Qatar and making its foreign policies were fulfilled. But Al Jazeera Network was the archenemy of Bishara’s project because the former represents totally different trends and vision from Bishara’s, and from what he wants for Qatar to be like.
Besides, Bishara’s ambition was to be the first influential figure in the Arab World amongst thinkers, elites and politicians. After he employed Al Jazeera Network to promotr himself as a thinker and Arabism struggler, Al Jazeera, according to him, has been invalidated means, and he regarded it as a rival in prominence and impact on the Arab world, especially for the decision-makers in Qatar.
Although he made many endeavors, he could neither control nor take the leadership of it, so he began to incite against it in private councils of the royal family in Qatar, and he also tried to urge the young Crown Prince to resign its General Director, and to topple down the Qatari head of its administrative board “Hamad Bin Tamer” who is affiliated with his father, but all his endeavors failed.
The resignation of the former prince “Hamad Bin Khalifa” represented a breakthrough that will help Bishara achieve his project completely, and annihilate Al Jazeera Network. He doubled his efforts to eliminate Al Jazeera’s role, and to incite Minister of Foreign Affairs “Khaled Al-Atiyya” against the head of administration board. At the same time, he founded “the Newspaper of New Arab” and “the Arab Station” satellite channel in London, but none of the two projects obtained expected media importance. So, he proposed the foundation of a specific committee to identify media policies of Qatari. The committee would be consisted – as proposed by Bishara – of prince Tamim, Hamad Bin Tamer as the head of administration board of Al Jazeera, young “Abdul-Rahman Al Thani” and Azmi Bishara.
The committee created a chance for Bishara to backbite “Hamad Bin Tamer”. He described him in front of the prince as strict and ignorant. He succeeded in cutting down the budget of Al Jazeera, and transformed it into a government T.V Channel. The idea was to make it an official spokesman of the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Hamad Bin Tamer’s endeavors failed to contain Bishara’s paranoia by assigning him a presenter of a weekly program on Al Jazeera called “in the Depth” which was presented by “Ali Al-Zufeiri” who was supporting Bishara at that time.
As soon as Bishara found the right person, a Muslim Brotherhood journalist of Al Jazeera office in Amman called “Yasser Abu Hilala”, Bishara started to impose pressure in order to assign Abu Hilala as a General Director of the Channel, and it was done in June of the year 2014 after he had persuaded Prince Tamim. However, the head of Administration Board, Hamad Bin Tamer, could not disrupt Abu Hilala’s assignment decision. Anyway, after Hamad Bin Tamer had been excluded from the closest circle of the prince. Imposing Abu Hilala was the reason for Hamad’s resignation from all positions that he used to occupy.
After that, Bishara and Abu Hilala worked on undermining all strong personnel from news administration in order to create a sort of truce with some Arab capitals, and to deviate Al Jazeera from its Islamic approach. this helped Bishara’s newspaper and “New Arabian” T.V. to pop out on the scene. By those tactics, Bishara could cause a little change to Al Jazeera for a short period of time, but he did not succeed in making an overwhelming victory, though his media projects represented by “New Arabian T.V. and Newspaper” were very strong to be a new sedition trumpet throughout Qatar and amongst its Princes.
As a result, the General Director of Al Jazeera, Yasser Abu Hilala resigned on May 10th 2018 via E-mail sent to his colleagues. Journalist “Ahmad Al Saktari Al Yafi’I” was assigned as a new General Director. The channel got worse after the Arab boycott against Qatar. It started to incite seditions and chaos, but the partnership between Bishara and Al Jazeera is steadily continuing, as the latter represents the nativist current through the gate of demeaning of Arabs rather than supporting them.
Media Personnel of Al Jazeera
It should be noted that any media person is not mere ordinary employee, performing an assigned role against paid wages and incentives, rather he represents a unique obligation. He should be a fanatic twitter activist and partisan member when he is outside Al Jazeera studios. It is not overstated to say that not only do Al Jazeera media personnel represent ordinary employees, but they earn additional wages, incentives and allowances because they are interacted with board audiences and viewers on social media, and they make several dialogues with people, wherever possible. In some situations, they get supported and in other situations they get attacked.
Media persons of Al Jazeera appear to be extremist members of a radical party or group. They don not hide their anger and reactions, and sometimes their hatred towards any opposing opinion that goes against Al Jazeera’s ideology although “opinion and opposite one” is the motto of Al Jazeera. There are so many attitudes and situations that are too difficult to count. Presenter Khadija Bin Gannah, for example, attacked Mecca prince, “Khaled Al Faisal” when he issued declarations about the number of pilgrims who were performing pilgrimage rituals. She described him as a man of bad memory and concentration, and very old to an extent he was unable to comprehend ordinary talks, as she put it. However, she received severe attacks on twitter for her impudence.
As for the presenter Ghada Oueis, she launched a severe attack on Saudi Arabia and Saudi Foreign Minister, Adel Al-Jubeir, as soon as he declared that if the United States of America lifted protection for Qatar, the Qatari regime would fall within a week. In one of her twitters, she wrote: “instead of bullying against your little neighbor, Jubeir, unite against the biggest milkman Donald Trump”. What a shame you did! she added.
Jamal Rayyan wondered about the role of king “Salman Bin Abdul-Aziz” in supporting the Palestinians, who surged in large demonstrations advancing the occupied lands of Gaza borders. He twitted: “What is king Salman’s attitude, who is supposed to be the leader of the Islamic World towards the Palestinian Muslim martyrs and injured people, while they are defending the nation’s honor?
Actually, media personnel of Al Jazeera have never proven professional. They have not had politeness respectable media figures should enjoy.
It is not possible to know the date of establishing the Electronic Army that is affiliated with Qatar. But is clear that it is working parallelly with Al Jazeera channel.
The Electronic Army represents the concealed face of Al Jazeera Channel. A research revealed that 23000 accounts have been recruited. These accounts were created to provoke public opinion against Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates using idioms like “Saudianists”, “how much do you earn?” “you are slaves” and other insulting messages and expressions, that were recurrently used by fabricated accounts like “Glorious Tamim” account. Sometimes, users don not show their real profile photos, instead they show fake photos snatched from other websites, using accounts with nicknames.
Surprisingly, a survey study conducted throughout areas from which twitters were issued revealed that %32 of twitters were issued from Qatar, %28 from Lebanon and %24 from Turkey and %12 from Iraq. In a word, an alliance between “Al Jazeera Group” on the one hand and other sectarian bodies affiliated with Iran and Muslim Brotherhood on the other hand have been proven to be working in harmony. These groups have been aiming at erosion of the nation from within.
Moreover, the similarity between published items by the Electronic Army and twitters is very clear to have been incorporated by active “operation rooms” revolving around Al Jazeera “orbit”, so to speak. This Electronic Team works hard to modify the verbatim of the news, jumble some sentences and reorder them before sending the messages to members of that Electronic Army
Personnel in charge of the electronic team exploit any event to innovate an abusive media content like news coming from Palestine, the World cup news and woman car driving. The electronic army usually shows that all disasters and defeats, even “Mass China Famine” and “9.5 Richter Chili Earthquake” have been directly or indirectly caused by Saudi Arabia.
Social Media Rooms:
Personnel of Al Jazeera staff didn’t only stimulate hatred and sedition through several displayed programs on Facebook and Twitter. These messages have been sent through these social media means although they are not necessarily followed by all people, so it worked effectively on forcing followers pursue ideologies, and presenting poisonous information to be easily accessed by the receiver in a way he won’t turn blind eye on this information, or he has only one alternative to pursue presented items, and he will be face to face with fake news in the end.
As for WhatsApp rooms, they are distributed on Arab Islamic groups all over the World by network organization in a way all people are contained through rooms carrying several titles and names that match moods and visions. For instance, there are rooms carrying religious names like “Biography of the Best of Mankind”, “Whiffs from Quran” and other social titles like “Blessed by God” and “Brothers by Doctrine and Believe” and “Muslims Community in France” and others, in addition to other political and intellectual news rooms. Anyway, the common goal of these rooms is to convey endemic messages, and destructive news to distort communal awareness of the nation, in order to make audiences addict taking dosages of hatred and resentment, and addict feeding on compound lies and fakeness in a way minds are blown down by a lie as soon as they are awakened from the shock resulted from earlier falsehood they received. In this way, the receiver will have no chance to verify the truthfulness of posts and messages, and he will surrender to the source of published information that will help him have irreversible certainty-like images.
In short, stimulation of hatred and incitement is a clear-cut aspect of Al Jazeera Channel. It has been the principal goal of the channel since it has been founded. It has been inciting violence and stimulating turbulence in a systematic manner even if it needed allying with the nation’s enemies. It has been adopting such approaches to distort the capabilities of peoples. It has had no aspects of development projects because it has been keen on confining Arab people mobilized in a misguided-instinctive case, and in a state of “nervous urge”, so to speak, in order to enthusiastically respond to fabricated titles and expressions regardless of their psycho-social consequences and spillovers that could result from incitement.
Al Jazeera went beyond media thoughtful incitement. It has been offering all sorts of support to terrorist organizations through polishing these organizations leaders, and overstating of their strengths. It also used to rationalize their indecent acts. Al Jazeera has been convicted of supporting all sorts of terrorism in the Middle East and all over the world by the “United Nations Human Rights Council” in Geneva. Convictions were angrily presented through a harsh argument during sub-sessions, that were organized by the “Arab Federation for Human Rights” at the council center on September 19th 2017 on the sideline of the 36th session of the council. These sub-sessions were held to discuss “Media and terrorism in the Middle East and the role of Qatar and its Media in Dissemination of Hatred and Violence in the Region”.
Copyright © 2018 The Middle East and North Africa Media Monitor.
