A Love-Hate Relationship With Al-Jazeera

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The New York Sun

In Arabic, Al-Jazeera means “The Island,” and the television network by that name is indeed a world unto itself, floating in a sea of money supplied by its sponsors, the Qatari royal family.

Al-Jazeera is the most reviled and most watched television network in the world, both in terms of audience size on any given night and the number of countries that have banned, or killed, its reporters. It is also proof that small is beautiful – not to mention powerful, irritating, influential, often vile, a thorn in everyone’s side, and a brand name that has placed the country funding it in a highly prominent spot.

Love it or hate it, Al-Jazeera is an orgy of free expression in a muzzled Arab world. If buying influence and spreading it can be monetized, then Qatar’s investment ranks on par with buying Microsoft stock back in 1986.

Among other things, Al-Jazeera has put the strange Qatari royal family and its twisted politico-social agenda on the world stage.

The Qataris are Wahhabi Muslims; thus, the Muslim fundamentalist tendencies that run deep in the Al-Jazeera staff and broadcasts have been encouraged. But the royal family also wants to play the Arab nationalist card, which has empowered its numerous Palestinian Arab Al-Jazeera employees to flaunt their entrenched anti-American, anti-Israeli, and pro-Palestinian Arab bias.

Israel has adopted a “if you can’t beat them, join them” strategy, making sure it has an Arabic speaker available whenever Al-Jazeera issues an invitation, which is very often indeed.

Qatar itself keeps an Israeli diplomatic office open in Doha under a commercial designation. The last time I had dinner with a Mossad agent who was fluent in Arabic, it was a most pleasant occasion hosted by the Qatari foreign minister about a year ago.

Arabs like to make fun of tiny Qatar, which has a native population of 250,000 largely unemployed rich folks and 640,000 expatriates who do all the work. Qatar is so small, they joke, there’s no need for an army to invade it. A fax will do.

Why the hard feelings? Well, part of it is jealousy. Qatar snatched up Al-Jazeera after the Saudis dropped what was then a joint venture with the BBC in 1996, when the marriage between freewheeling journalism and Wahhabi puritanism predictably failed. It was a colossal error.

The emir of Qatar, Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, a smart fellow who overthrew his father in 1996, immediately offered handsome salaries to the 250 newly available and highly experienced BBC Arabic staff. He moved them into plush housing in Doha and Al-Jazeera was launched, giving Qatar a powerful voice to insult, criticize, and in many ways energize the Arab world.

Except for Qatar – where Al-Jazeera eats – everyone is fair game. Today, Al-Jazeera has a hand in setting the world’s news agenda, along with CNN, Fox, and MSNBC.

Since Qatar’s ruling family members depend on America to protect their country from its behemoth neighbors Saudi Arabia and Iran, Al-Jazeera has a contingent of pro-American anchors, including Hafez Al-Mirazi in Washington and Sami Haddad in London, who frequently host European officials and American politicians.

To appeal to its sizable fundamentalist audience, the network runs several talk shows, one a weekly diatribe by Sheik Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, an octogenarian Muslim Brotherhood religious leader with a huge following in the Muslim world who is famous for his fatwas sanctioning wife beating, the killing of American soldiers, and suicide bombers.

Donations from the Qatari royal family have made Sheik Qaradawi’s institutes and Web sites multimillion-dollar enterprises.

The same people send their children to American universities and gave America the huge Al-Udeid Air Base, from which U.S. Central Command planned the Iraq invasion. The air base cost $1 billion but was given free of charge to America in perpetuity. Al-Jazeera attacks the American “occupation” of Iraq daily.

The Qataris, who have their own set of insults, refer to their next-door neighbor as a huge animal with a small brain. Saudi Arabia’s decision to shut its BBC joint venture back in 1996, which spawned Al-Jazeera, certainly attests to that qualification.

So, Al-Jazeera – yes or no? I say two thumbs up to Al-Jazeera.


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