RSS
Al Jazeera Must Register as a Foreign Agent of Qatar
Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and Qatari Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani enter a hall for a joint news conference, in Tehran, Iran, July 6, 2022. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Standing in a Gaza hospital this month, an elderly man with a bandaged arm told an Al Jazeera reporter a simple fact: “As for the resistance [Hamas], they come and hide among the people.” The man added: “They can go to hell and hide there.” The reporter promptly turned his back on the man and changed the subject.
Al Jazeera presents itself as a fully professional news-gathering organization. It says its mission is to provide “accurate, in-depth and compelling content that upholds the value of truth.” In practice, the network toes the line of its patron, the state of Qatar.
Qatar sponsors Hamas politically and financially, so it’s hardly surprising that an Al Jazeera correspondent would shut down an interview when it started to reflect poorly on Hamas. Indeed, Al Jazeera’s reporting after October 7 was incendiary enough that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reportedly told the Qatari prime minister to “turn down the volume on Al Jazeera’s coverage” of the war in Gaza, because he knows the country has the power to do so.
The Qatari royal family established Al Jazeera in 1996. Today, the network operates across the globe in Arabic, English, and other languages. Qatar speaks through the network to audiences worldwide, but Al Jazeera does not dare question the autocratic rule of Qatar’s royal family.
The absence of scrutiny extends to the royal family’s relationships with a range of terrorist organizations. Hamas maintains a political office in Doha and receives over $100 million from Qatar every year. The leaders of Hamas live a life of luxury in Doha, as they rule over an impoverished population in the Gaza Strip.
Qatar also has ties to Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, ISIS, the Muslim Brotherhood, and, reportedly, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
If Doha sponsors the extremists, Al Jazeera amplifies their voices. Notably, the late Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, hosted a popular show on Al Jazeera through which he legitimized suicide bombings against Israelis.
Al Jazeera English pulled an anchor off air in 2013 after she failed to display sufficient sympathy for the Muslim Brotherhood.
As Hamas slaughtered Israeli civilians on October 7, the group’s Doha-based political chief, Ismail Haniyeh, appeared on Al Jazeera to publicly congratulate the terrorists for their “great triumph,” and recruit fighters “to join this battle in any way they can.”
In October, Israel’s communications minister told Israel’s Army Radio that Al Jazeera is “a propaganda mouthpiece” of Hamas. This was hardly the first time such an assessment has been made. But in an increasingly hostile media environment (one that forces Israel to screen footage of Hamas’ massacre to prove it actually happened), more must be done.
Al Jazeera continues to defy US law by failing to register with the Department of Justice (DOJ) as a foreign agent.
DOJ ordered Al Jazeera+, an arm of Al Jazeera based in the United States, to register as an agent of Qatar in 2020. “Despite assertions of editorial independence and freedom of expression,” DOJ’s Chief of Counterintelligence and Export Control noted, “Al Jazeera Media Network and its affiliates are controlled and funded by the Government of Qatar.”
In 2021, a group of senators sent a letter to US Attorney General Merrick Garland claiming Al Jazeera+ had “willfully ignored DOJ’s mandate” and imploring the DOJ “to explain what, if any, steps it has taken to enforce the law.”
Al Jazeera+ has yet to register as a foreign agent. In February, lawmakers pressed Congressional leadership to suspend the Al Jazeera Media Network’s Capitol Hill press credentials “until the State of Qatar and its propaganda arm agree to adhere to the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and other U.S. laws.”
Al Jazeera’s defiance of the law is even more troubling given its history of clandestine activity in United States. The state-controlled network conducted a months-long spy operation in 2018, recording individuals without their consent, to produce a documentary about pro-Israel organizations in Washington in an attempt to delegitimize them. The series was cancelled under pressure, but was eventually leaked online.
Secretary Blinken told Doha last month that “there can be no more business as usual with Hamas.” If that’s true, then the Biden administration must ensure Al Jazeera fully complies with US law by registering as a foreign agent.
Natalie Ecanow is a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a non-partisan research institute in Washington, D.C., focusing on national security and foreign policy. Follow FDD on X @FDD.
The post Al Jazeera Must Register as a Foreign Agent of Qatar first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Security Warning to Israelis Vacationing Abroad Ahead of holidays
A passenger arrives to a terminal at Ben Gurion international airport before Israel bans international flights, January 25, 2021. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – Ahead of the Jewish High Holidays, Israel’s National Security Council (NSC) published the latest threat assessment to Israelis abroad from terrorist groups to the public on Sunday, in order to increase the Israeli public’s awareness of the existing terrorist threats around the world and encourage individuals to take preventive action accordingly.
The NSC specified that the warning is an up-to-date reflection of the main trends in the activities of terrorist groups around the world and their impact on the level of threat posed to Israelis abroad during these times, but the travel warnings and restrictions themselves are not new.
“As the Gaza war continues and in parallel with the increasing threat of terrorism, the National Security Headquarters stated it has recognized a trend of worsening and increasing violent antisemitic incidents and escalating steps by anti-Israel groups, to the point of physically harming Israelis and Jews abroad. This is in light of, among other things, the anti-Israel narrative and the negative media campaign by pro-Palestinian elements — a trend that may encourage and motivate extremist elements to carry out terrorist activities against Israelis or Jews abroad,” the statement read.
“Therefore, the National Security Bureau is reinforcing its recommendation to the Israeli public to act with responsibility during this time when traveling abroad, to check the status of the National Security Bureau’s travel warnings (before purchasing tickets to the destination,) and to act in accordance with the travel warning recommendations and the level of risk in the country they are visiting,” it listed, adding that, as illustrated in the past year, these warnings are well-founded and reflect a tangible and valid threat potential.
The statement also emphasized the risk of sharing content on social media networks indicating current or past service in the Israeli security forces, as these posts increase the risk of being marked by various parties as a target. “Therefore, the National Security Council recommends that you do not upload to social networks, in any way, content that indicates service in the security forces, operational activity, or similar content, as well as real-time locations.”
RSS
Israel Intensifies Gaza City Bombing as Rubio Arrives
Displaced Palestinians, fleeing northern Gaza due to an Israeli military operation, move southward after Israeli forces ordered residents of Gaza City to evacuate to the south, in the central Gaza Strip September 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Israeli forces destroyed at least 30 residential buildings in Gaza City and forced thousands of people from their homes, Palestinian officials said, as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived on Sunday to discuss the future of the conflict.
Israel has said it plans to seize the city, where about a million Palestinians have been sheltering, as part of its declared aim of eliminating the terrorist group Hamas, and has intensified attacks on what it has called Hamas’ last bastion.
The group’s political leadership, which has engaged in on-and-off negotiations on a possible ceasefire and hostage release deal, was targeted by Israel in an airstrike in Doha on Tuesday in an attack that drew widespread condemnation.
Qatar will host an emergency Arab-Islamic summit on Monday to discuss the next moves. Rubio said Washington wanted to talk about how to free the 48 hostages – of whom 20 are believed to be still alive – still held by Hamas in Gaza and rebuild the coastal strip.
“What’s happened, has happened,” he said. “We’re gonna meet with them (the Israeli leadership). We’re gonna talk about what the future holds,” Rubio said before heading to Israel where he will stay until Tuesday.
ABRAHAM ACCORDS AT RISK
He was expected to visit the Western Wall Jewish prayer site in Jerusalem on Sunday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and hold talks with him during the visit.
US officials described Tuesday’s strike on the territory of a close US ally as a unilateral escalation that did not serve American or Israeli interests. Rubio and US President Donald Trump both met Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani on Friday.
Netanyahu signed an agreement on Thursday to push ahead with a settlement expansion plan that would cut across West Bank land that the Palestinians seek for a state – a move the United Arab Emirates warned would undermine the US-brokered Abraham accords that normalized UAE relations with Israel.
Israel, which blocked all food from entering Gaza for 11 weeks earlier this year, has been allowing more aid into the enclave since late July to prevent further food shortages, though the United Nations says far more is needed.
It says it wants civilians to leave Gaza City before it sends more ground forces in. Tens of thousands of people are estimated to have left but hundreds of thousands remain in the area. Hamas has called on people not to leave.
Israeli army forces have been operating inside at least four eastern suburbs for weeks, turning most of at least three of them into wastelands. It is closing in on the center and the western areas of the territory, where most of the displaced people are taking shelter.
Many are reluctant to leave, saying there is not enough space or safety in the south, where Israel has told them to go to what it has designated as a humanitarian zone.
Some say they cannot afford to leave while others say they were hoping the Arab leaders meeting on Monday in Qatar would pressure Israel to scrap its planned offensive.
“The bombardment intensified everywhere and we took down the tents, more than twenty families, we do not know where to go,” said Musbah Al-Kafarna, displaced in Gaza City.
Israel said it had completed five waves of air strikes on Gaza City over the past week, targeting more than 500 sites, including Hamas reconnaissance and sniper sites, buildings containing tunnel openings and weapons depots.
Local officials, who do not distinguish between militant and civilian casualties, say at least 40 people were killed by Israeli fire across the enclave, a least 28 in Gaza City alone.
RSS
Turkey Warns of Escalation as Israel Expands Strikes Beyond Gaza
Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a press conference with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis (not seen) at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Turkey, May 13, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas
i24 News – An Israeli strike targeting Hamas officials in Qatar has sparked unease among several Middle Eastern countries that host leaders of the group, with Turkey among the most alarmed.
Officials in Ankara are increasingly worried about how far Israel might go in pursuing those it holds responsible for the October 7 attacks.
Israel’s prime minister effectively acknowledged that the Qatar operation failed to eliminate the Hamas leadership, while stressing the broader point the strike was meant to make: “They enjoy no immunity,” the government said.
On X, Prime Minister Netanyahu went further, writing that “the elimination of Hamas leaders would put an end to the war.”
A senior Turkish official, speaking on condition of anonymity, summed up Ankara’s reaction: “The attack in Qatar showed that the Israeli government is ready to do anything.”
Legally and diplomatically, Turkey occupies a delicate position. As a NATO member, any military operation or targeted killing on its soil could inflame tensions within the alliance and challenge mutual security commitments.
Analysts caution, however, that Israel could opt for covert measures, operations carried out without public acknowledgement, a prospect that has increased anxiety in governments across the region.
Israeli officials remain defiant. In an interview with Ynet, Minister Ze’ev Elkin said: “As long as we have not stopped them, we will pursue them everywhere in the world and settle our accounts with them.” The episode underscores growing fears that efforts to hunt Hamas figures beyond Gaza could widen regional friction and complicate diplomatic relationships.