When Al Jazeera first opened its bureau in Jerusalem’s technological park 18 years ago, I enjoyed the novelty of getting interviewed on the Qatari network.
Their interviewers were never particularly fair, but that made it more of a challenge and more gratifying than a typical interview with Fox News or a speech to AIPAC or the Jewish National Fund.
I hoped that by presenting Israel’s side to the Arab and Muslim world, I was making a difference. If the rest of the panel, the host, and the callers were all Arabs – as often happened – proving them all wrong made me feel like an underdog boxer who had won against all odds.
Full disclosure: Al Jazeera, unlike CNN and most news networks, provides a stipend for interviews, and before I joined HonestReporting, I was paid by the same Qatari government that funds the Hamas terrorists who are trying to kill me and my loved ones right now. I never turned the money down, but I swear I would have done it for free.
When Israeli governments chose to boycott Al Jazeera, I still kept interviewing there more than any other network and connecting the network’s Jerusalem- and Doha-based producers to Israelis from across the political spectrum who presented different sides within Israeli democracy.
I insisted on explaining news developments in Israel without taking any side in internal Israeli political debates or taking a side on the Israeli government’s policies.
No matter how many times my words were twisted or my time to speak on a panel was limited unjustly, I never felt particularly guilty about my years of cooperation with Al Jazeera.
Until this war.
How Al Jazeera helps Hamas
SINCE OCT. 7, Al Jazeera has been an active participant in Hamas’s efforts to defeat Israel on both the military and media battlefields. Viewers around the world need to know this if they care about being educated news consumers.
Your typical American news consumer would not watch the state TV channels of Russia (RT), China (CGTN), or Iran (Press TV), yet they watch Al Jazeera and AJ+, the state-run propaganda channels of the Qatari government.
In 2022, the media watchdog HonestReporting uncovered that Al Jazeera had been cited by 16 “top-tier news outlets” 116 times in Israel-related news stories, with most never mentioning the Qatari media organization’s inherent bias. Al Jazeera incredibly claims a global audience of more than 430 million.
They watched Al Jazeera spread a malicious libel about Israeli soldiers raping Palestinian women in Shifa Hospital during last month’s IDF campaign against entrenched Hamas forces, before quietly removing the story and trying to silently bury it.
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Al Jazeera Arabic’s principal news presenter, Elsy Abi Assi, interviewed on live TV a Gazan woman by the name of Jamila Al-Hessi, who claimed that Israeli soldiers operating in Shifa Hospital were raping Palestinian women and brutally murdering other Palestinians sheltering in the medical complex.
These allegations soon spread like wildfire on social media, with popular anti-Israel accounts picking up the story and disseminating it to their large English-speaking audiences.
Then, that night, Yasser Abuhilalah, an Al Jazeera columnist and former director, tweeted that a Hamas investigation into the allegations had concluded they were untrue and that Al-Hessi had justified her on-air deception by saying she had exaggerated her claims in order to “arouse the nation’s fervor and brotherhood.”
At least Abuhilalah revealed the truth. Too many Al Jazeera journalists have been drafted into Hamas.
Two months ago, the IDF discovered that one of the network’s journalists was a Hamas commander. Evidence obtained from a laptop found in Gaza revealed that reporter Mohammed Wishah held a senior role in Hamas’s anti-tank unit and taught young jihadis how to fire anti-tank missiles and make incendiary devices.
Another Al Jazeera journalist, Ismail Abu Omar, accompanied Hamas terrorists into Israel on Oct. 7. In footage he posted from inside Kibbutz Nir Oz, he praised the Hamas terrorists carrying out the atrocities, saying: “The friends have progressed, may God bless.”
Analyst Eitan Fischberger revealed last week that yet another Al Jazeera journalist, Khalil Dweeb, self-identified as part of Hamas. He was arrested by the Palestinian Authority for weapons possession.
First time I've found an Al Jazeera journalist who openly identifies as Hamas.Earlier this week, the Palestinian Authority arrested Khalil Dweeb for possession of an illegal weapon (first time the PA has done something right). So I took a brief look at Khalil's Facebook and… pic.twitter.com/7l85Rn3bOA
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) April 19, 2024
Viewers who get their news from Al Jazeera need to know they are regularly being fed blatant lies. The night of Iran’s April 14 attack on Israel, Al Jazeera reported erroneously that rockets were hitting Tel Aviv.
Al Jazeera just shared a 100% lie report about rockets hitting Tel Aviv. Al Jazeera is sharing fake news about what is happening in Israel, aligning with Hamas and Iran then they question why are they being banned from the country. pic.twitter.com/eud3SOQEOL
— Jonathan Elkhoury- جوناثان الخوري (@Jonathan_Elk) April 13, 2024
THERE HAVE also been interviews that have been utterly disgraceful. The Hostage Forum decided to boycott the Qatari network after Merav Leshem Gonen, whose daughter Romi is being held captive in Gaza, was questioned alongside Zaher Jabareen, the Hamas official in charge of the hostages.
“Apparently, Al Jazeera’s take on ‘journalism’ – or being a decent human, for that matter – is to invite a mother of an Israeli civilian who was abducted from the Supernova music festival, then add a Hamas official to the interview without her consent, then try to turn the interview into a heated debate about politics, and eventually – when she refuses to bite – to proudly post that she hung up the phone,” journalist Elad Simchayoff wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “Great job, guys! You won a made-up argument with a mum who doesn’t know whether her daughter is dead or alive.”
Utterly disgraceful.Apparently, Al Jazeera’s take on ‘journalism’ - or being a decent human for that matter - is to invite a mother of an Israeli civilian who was abducted from the Nova music festival, then add a Hamas official to the interview without her consent, then try to… https://t.co/dLpnAhbhKR
— Elad Simchayoff (@Elad_Si) November 16, 2023
An Al Jazeera documentary feature about the war included maliciously false claims that Israel killed numerous Israeli civilians and hostages on Oct. 7 and disputed whether Hamas terrorists raped Israeli victims.
According to Al Jazeera, its so-called “Investigative Unit” carried out a forensic analysis of the day of the massacre – including “examining seven hours of footage from CCTV, dashcams, personal phones, and headcams of dead Hamas fighters” – and concluded that “many of the worst stories that came out in the days following the attack were false.”
It is no wonder the Knesset approved the so-called Al Jazeera Law, which gives the government temporary powers to prevent a foreign news network from operating in Israel if deemed by security agencies to be harming national security.
The law comes with several caveats that render it almost toothless. Such a decision would have to be approved by the prime minister, the security cabinet, and the president of a district court. The order would only be valid for 45 days, and since the law was passed as a temporary measure it will automatically expire in July or even earlier if the declaration of an emergency situation is lifted by the government.
Israel was slammed by the White House and international human rights groups for passing the law, but its justification can be readily understood.
Al Jazeera’s offices in Jerusalem aren’t going anywhere any time soon. But discerning viewers should go elsewhere if they want honest reporting about Israel and the Middle East.
The writer is the executive director and executive editor of HonestReporting. He served as chief political correspondent and analyst of The Jerusalem Post for 24 years.