Print This Post
The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs has issued a report
titled “Al Jazeera and Qatar: The Muslim Brothers’ Dark Empire?”
discussing the Al Jazeera satellite channel and its relationship to the
Muslim Brotherhood. According to the
report synopsis:
- There has been a significant presence of the Muslim Brothers (also
known as the Muslim Brotherhood) in Qatar since the second half of the
twentieth century. The first wave came from Egypt in 1954 after Nasser
had smashed their organization. The next wave came from Syria in 1982
after Hafez el-Assad bombed their stronghold in Hama. The last group
arrived after September 11, 2001 – from Saudi Arabia.
- In 1995, the present Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa
Al-Thani, deposed his father in a bloodless palace coup. One of his
first steps was to establish the Al Jazeera satellite channel in 1996,
which is the most viewed station in the Arab world with an estimated
audience of some 60 million.
- There was never any doubt about the network’s political orientation.
Al Jazeera immediately launched scathing attacks on Israel during the
Second Intifada and went on to incendiary broadcasts against the United
States at the time of the Afghanistan conflict and over Iraq. It was
later revealed to be in contact with bin Laden, and was the medium of
choice for the video and audio cassettes of bin Laden and his men.
- During the U.S. war in Iraq, the Americans accused the station of
being pro-Saddam, and after the war, of presenting the terrorist groups
active in the country in a positive light. One of its reporters
stationed in Baghdad always seemed to arrive suspiciously quickly, with
his camera, at the site of terror attacks. During the Second Lebanon War
in 2006, Al Jazeera behaved as a Hizbullah spokesman. During the Gaza
war, a senior Al Jazeera reporter stationed himself at Shifa Hospital,
from where he broadcast a stream of carefully selected horror pictures.
- The Egyptian Maamun Fendi wrote in Asharq Alawsat that some 50
percent of the network’s personnel belong to the Muslim Brothers. He
believes that Qatar, by embracing the Brothers while hosting American
bases, has found the perfect formula against retaliation by Arab leaders
and attacks by Islamic extremists. Al Jazeera has become a weapon in
the hands of an ambitious emir who may be driven by the Muslim Brothers
and who is threatening the stability of the Middle East.
- With the Muslim Brothers increasingly aligned in recent years with
Iran, by repeatedly attacking the Sunni Arab regimes and inciting
against them, Al Jazeera is serving as an important instrument for
Tehran and its effort to undermine their internal stability.
A previous
post
discussed the Muslim Brotherhood and possible Hamas background of Wadah
Khanfar (aka Waddah Khanfar), the General Manager of Al Jazeera.
No comments:
Post a Comment