Fake News:
Al Jazeera Network adopts telling lies as a systematic editorial approach. Each news bulletin involves at least one fake news supporting 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, 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”.
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 Secret World
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.
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 editors, 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 broad common ground between the representatives of “political Islam” and the one of the Arabism national trend. Instead, Al Jazeera is a mere destructive project of the region in order to curb its advance.
As for Waddah Khanfar, born 1968 in a village called Al-Rama near the city of Jenin in Palestine. After he had completed his studies on international relationships in the Republic of South Africa, he studied in Sudan, where he was granted an 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 the “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, Afghanistan and Iraq.
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, in 2006 he was appointed General Director of Al Jazeera Network.
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 TV 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.
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 US 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’s total staff, and Muslim Brotherhood dominance grew dramatically in Qatari Al Jazeera, and 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 editor-in-chief of “Al Jazeera Network”. However, he was forced to resign 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 handling of the internal Palestinian conflict.
Wikileaks documents were revealed to embarrass 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 20, 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 US Administration.
As for Azmi Bishara, he is a thinker, an academic figure and a Palestinian author. Born in 1956, he obtained a Ph.D. in philosophy and founded the “National Democratic Assembly” in Israel. He was a member representing the assembly in the “Israeli Knesset”. He occupied the position of general manager of the “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 head of the “Arab Center for Research and Political Studies” which he founded in 2010, and he is the head of the “Board of Trustees of Doha Institute for Higher Studies”.
The role of Bishara is totally different from that of Khanfar, seeing himself as an ideologic and intellectual mastermind.
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. 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 USD 14. 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 have direct access to the Prince. He also made a rapprochement with the Crown Prince and tried to meet him separately, especially after Bishara heard of the Prince father’s intention to step down.
Bishara succeeded in becoming the private consultant of young Tamim. The ambitions of the proud consultant began to resuscitate, so that his ambitions of dominating Qatar and making its foreign policies were fulfilled. But the Al Jazeera Network was the archenemy of Bishara’s project, representing 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 promote himself as an intellectual 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.
The resignation of the former Prince “Hamad Bin Khalifa” represented a breakthrough that could help Bishara achieve his project completely, and annihilate Al Jazeera Network. He doubled his efforts to eliminate Al Jazeera’s role, and to incite the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Khaled Al-Atiyya against the head of administration board. At the same time, he founded “the Newspaper of New Arabia” 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 Qatar.
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, transforming it into a government TV Channel. The idea was to make it an official spokeschannel 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, 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 General Director of the Channel, being finally successful in 2014, after he had persuaded Prince Tamim.
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” TV 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 TV 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 mail sent to his colleagues, succeeded by Ahmad Al Saktari Al Yafi’I.
The channel’s ideology 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 Staff 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, but rather representing 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 Al Jazeera media personnel represent ordinary employees, but they earn additional wages, incentives and allowances because they are interacting with board audience 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 staffers of Al Jazeera appear to be extremist members of a radical party or group. They don’t 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 US 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 tweeted: “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?“
The „Electronic Army“ represents the concealed face of Al Jazeera Channel. A research revealed that 23,000 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’t 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 tweets were issued revealed, that 32% of them were issued from Qatar, 28% from Lebanon, 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 for an erosion of the nation from within.
Moreover, the similarity between published items by the „Electronic Army“ and tweets is very clear to have been incorporated by active „operation rooms” revolving around Al Jazeera „orbit”, so to speak. This branch 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 female car driving. It 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 a 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”, „Brothers by Doctrine and Believe”, „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.
