Earlier this week, another top Al Jazeera commentator was responsible for spewing toxic antisemitism on his social media. This time, it was Jamal Rayyan, one of the channel’s most-known faces, who has served as an anchor and commentator at the Qatari mouthpiece for decades.
In a post that reached over 1 million views, almost 7,000 likes, and 1,500 reposts, and which has been deleted since, Rayyan uploaded a picture of Arab leaders convening in a past Arab League summit, adding: “What is this weakness and disgrace? What has gotten into you, Muslims, that you are so quiet? Are there Jews among you who rule?”
For many patriotic users, this last line seems to have crossed all red lines. A Saudi user named Abdallah commented: “Jamal Rayyan, you are the biggest Jew of all! You want the Arabs to fight for your masters in Tehran… where are your masters and their arms in the region, you Jew??”
“They are all Jews, Jamal,” commented a Palestinian Lebanese writer named Ibrahim. Another one named Ali also added similarly: “There aren’t Jews among them – they are the Jews, and they are the Zionists.”
Other users referred to Rayyan’s Palestinian roots, accusing his family of selling land to Jews. One user named Hdlan wrote: “What does this have to do with you and the shameless likes of you? You are not an Arab, and you don’t speak for Arabs. Wasn’t it your father who sold the land of Palestinians to Jews? Your father was a broker of lands, and you are a broker of blood.”
A Saudi user named Mohammad decried Rayyan, adding: “you traitor, your father sold land to Jews and now you come to condescend to the Arabs and Muslims??”
Notedly, the picture uploaded by Rayyan, which featured Arab leaders from all over the Arab world, did not include the Qatari leader, Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamed Al Thani. This fact has not escaped the eyes of his critics, who pointed out this hypocrisy. One user named Amjad replied, “I wish health and safety to the great media figure Jamal Rayyan after the health problem that befell him as a result of staying up late between Google and Wikipedia to find a picture that doesn’t show his benefactor, the Emir of Qatar.”
Another user from Kuwait replied cursed at Rayyan, adding that Qatar is the one which allows him to curse at leaders of the Gulf and calling on Qatar to get rid of him.
A user named Fawaz criticized Rayyan for “demanding others to act, while you are a prisoner of the country in which you live, to the extent that you put an old picture where your patron and benefactor doesn't appear.”
A Saudi user named Khalid added: “Jamal Rayyan posted on his account an old picture showing Arab leaders dating back to 2018, during the boycott on Qatar. Of course (Sheikh) Tamim was absent from the picture. Wouldn’t it be more professionally apt to publish a new picture with all Arab leaders? Surely he fears he would be kicked out of Al Jazeera,” he posted, adding a curse at the Muslim Brotherhood.
Qatari Al-Jazeera: a history of antisemitism
Rayyan has been made famous for other scandals in the past. In 2020, following the signing of the Abraham Accords, the Al-Jazeera anchor allowed himself to think out loud whether his followers would be in favor of forming Palestinian militias to “deal with Arab figures” and “deter their countries”.
This was not the first time that Al Jazeera provided a platform for open antisemitism, which is allowed to go unchecked, especially on its non-Western facing Arabic outlets. As published by the Jerusalem Post (link), over the years, the Qatari mouthpiece platformed several instances of holocaust denial and propagated the views of Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Sheikh Yusuf Al Qaradawi, who endorsed suicide bombings and glorified the suffering of Jews under Nazi rule. Likewise, back in May, a popular analyst at Al Jazeera Fayez Al-Dwairi tweeted about a “hidden hatred that fills the Jewish heart… against the members of the human race throughout history, fueled by the forged books of the Old Testament and… the Talmud.”
Also in May, Qatari member of parliament Essa al-Nassr expressed antisemitic and violent views, regarding Jews as “killers of prophets” and promising that the October 7 massacre was “just a prelude,” implying a supposed Godly promise to bring in Jews to the Holy Land so that Muslims can more easily defeat them.
Qatar is perceived as a patron of the Muslim Brotherhood axis through sporting and promoting a wide array of religious institutions, political parties, and even Western-based NGOs, which promote what is known as political Islam or Islamism around the globe. The Muslim Brotherhood is regarded as a key player in importing classical European antisemitic discourse into the Arab and Muslim spheres, with one of its main thinkers, founder of Salafi Jihadism, Syed Qutb, even writing a well-known pamphlet named “Our Battle with the Jews.”