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Al Jazeera Center for Studies: Academic Veneer Normalizing Terrorism
The Al Jazeera Media Network logo is seen on its headquarters building in Doha, Qatar, June 8, 2017. Photo: REUTERS/Naseem Zeitoon
Is Al Jazeera using its “academic” arm, the Al Jazeera Center for Studies (AJCS), to normalize Hamas’s atrocities, while hiding behind the veneer of a purportedly rigorous research institution? From Feb. 7 to 9, an AJCS-sponsored forum in Doha, Qatar, gave pride of place to figures such as Hamas leader Khaled Meshal under the banner of academic discourse.
AJCS is one of at least a dozen parts of the Al Jazeera Media Network’s ecosystem, funded and run by the Qatari ruling family, and used as soft power tools to amplify anti-Western and pro-Islamist narratives. Established to provide research support to Al Jazeera’s news channels, AJCS also serves to integrate the network into academic spheres. Those connections allow AJCS to enjoy a patina of academic credibility to launder and legitimize the violent ideas espoused by figures like Meshal and Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.
When Meshal spoke in Doha, he justified Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre in Israel by calling it legitimate “resistance.” Hamas has ruled Gaza since 2007. The US Justice Department announced terrorism and murder conspiracy charges against Meshal for his central role in the Oct. 7 atrocities in 2024.
Araghchi had a different agenda: deflecting attention away from the thousands of Iranians slaughtered by his regime in recent weeks in the deadliest massacre since the country’s 1979 revolution. Araghchi used his remarks to call “Palestine … a test of whether international law has meaning, whether human rights have universal value.” There was no pushback from the moderator about this ironic call for justice.
Past speakers at the conference include Hamas officials Osama Hamdan and Basem Naim. Hamdan was placed on the Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) list by the US Treasury after a Hamas suicide attack in Jerusalem killed 23 people and injured 130 others in 2003. Hamdan facilitated training for a key planner of the 1996 Jaffa Road bus suicide bombings that killed 45 commuters.
Naim’s Treasury designation noted that he “holds a leadership role on Hamas’s Council on International Relations.”
The Doha forum also gave voice to some of Al Jazeera’s co-opted correspondents, including Gaza-based Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent Ismail Abu Omar. Besides being a reporter for Al Jazeera, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), based on documents found in Gaza, identified him as a company commander in the East Khan Younis Battalion. If true, this raises additional concerns about its reporters serving as Hamas operatives while on Al Jazeera’s payroll. Not surprisingly, the network denied the allegations.
Abu Omar filmed himself with Hamas operatives breaching Israeli kibbutzim on Oct. 7. His published accounts on Al Jazeera expressed joy at the atrocities unfolding against Israelis, telling the network that he “was filled with tears” and “experiencing the scenes that we have always heard about, live and directly.”
Abu Omar amplified Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif’s words that “everyone who has a gun should take it out, because today is the day.”
Abu Omar is a former reporter for Al-Aqsa TV, which is sanctioned by the US Treasury Department as “a television station financed and controlled by Hamas” that airs content “designed to recruit children to become Hamas suicide bombers.” When AJCS chooses its speakers, it signals what it values.
AJCS is about more than sketchy forums, of course. Its partnerships deserve scrutiny too. In May 2025, AJCS co-hosted a conference with the obscure but influential Strategic Council on Foreign Relations in Iran (SCFR). SCFR is the advisory board to the supreme leader of Iran, helping to shape the ayatollah’s policies around the world.
It should raise eyebrows that an ostensibly independent research arm of a media entity partners with a murderous office of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. By partnering with the SCFR, AJCS signals solidarity with Iran’s oppressors, not its victims.
Technically, Araghchi is a diplomat. But he gave the lie to that title at the 2024 Al Jazeera Forum when, as secretary general of SCFR, he cautioned Arab nations against diplomacy with Israel and normalizing relations with the Jewish state.
At the 2024 forum, Araghchi also said nuclear weapons “have no place” in Iran’s religious doctrine but proclaimed that Iran has the right to enrich uranium for civilian purposes. In fact, the regime has stymied international monitoring of its enrichment, sought to expand its nuclear program, and has no civilian use for its production of 60 percent enriched uranium. But there was no refutation or questioning of Araghchi’s statement when he appeared at the Al Jazeera Forum.
In 2025, AJCS co-organized a conference with Qatar’s Hamad Bin Khalifa University in order to “deconstruct Western narratives.” Reflecting Qatar’s foreign policy, Al Jazeera’s organizers charged Western media with “justifying” Israel’s right to self-defense in the face of Hamas’s atrocities. Moreover, they attacked media outlets for “false reports” about Hamas terrorists raping Israeli women, notwithstanding the evidence to the contrary.
Arafat Madi Shoukri, a senior researcher at AJCS, organized the conference. Israel designated Shoukri as a Hamas operative for his work with the Hamas-aligned Council for European Palestinian Relations (CEPR).
Shoukri has been photographed with Ismail Haniyeh, an architect of the Oct. 7 massacre. He also directed the London-based Palestinian Return Center (PRC), which former Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak declared an illegal Hamas-affiliated organization that engages in terror-affiliated activities.
That conference featured as its keynote speaker Wadah Khanfar, a former director general of Al Jazeera. According to the Palestinian outlet Raya Media Network, Khanfar was “active in the Hamas movement” and a “leader in the movement’s office in Sudan.”
In May 2024, Khanfar praised Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack, proclaiming it “came at the ideal moment for a radical and real shift in the path of struggle and liberation.”
Mutaz al-Khatib, from Hamad Bin Khalifa University’s College of Islamic Studies, spoke at the conference on “professional ethics” in war coverage. On October 7, 2023, he posted on Facebook that “what happened was merely a rehearsal that shows that liberating Jerusalem is possible.”
Fatima Alsmadi, a researcher at the Al Jazeera Center for Studies, lectured that Israel has somehow “benefited” from Nazism in the aftermath of its extermination of European Jewry. She praised Al Qassam Brigade spokesperson Abu Obaida’s propaganda techniques that had “a specific goal to link Israel to the Nazis” and were “not arbitrary,” “done in stages,” and “well thought out.” Weaponizing Nazi imagery against Israel legitimizes Hamas terrorism and inverts historical truth.
AJCS’s Journal for Communication and Media Studies adheres to the same editorial approach as its conferences. A January 2026 journal article relies on quotes from the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS), a discredited group that requires no expertise to have voting rights, as evidenced by Emperor Palpatine, the villain of the Star Wars franchise, and similar non-experts joining as members. This is important because IAGS touted a resolution it represented as “a definitive statement from experts in the field of genocide studies” that what is happening on the ground in Gaza is genocide.
Al Jazeera and AJCS have two personas. One is radical and platforms Hamas and Islamists like the late Yusuf Qaradawi, the most influential cleric aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood, whose show “Shariah and Life” was on the news channel for 17 years. The other is slick and partners with big tech to leverage modern technology throughout the newsroom, in the field, and online that, in turn, amplifies Islamists and Qatari foreign policy.
AJCS operates under strict Qatari media laws that prohibit criticism of the tiny Persian Gulf nation’s emir and Doha’s policies. Freedom House has rated Qatar “Not Free” for 27 years. Al Jazeera as a whole seeks to appeal to Western sensibilities by crafting a public-facing image of an independent institution that it says “aims to present a balanced understanding” of the Middle East and the Arab world. AJCS has not lived up to any standard of scholarship.
The glitz of Al Jazeera’s flashy conference and global reach should not distract from the perils of treating the Al Jazeera ecosystem like a neutral entity, untethered to a foreign authoritarian state’s policies.
US government agencies should investigate whether Al Jazeera or its center, or others on its behalf, have paid any expenses or provided material support associated with Hamas officials’ participation in any of its programming. If investigators discover such connections, appropriate sanctions, fines, or other measures should be taken.
Likewise, the US Department of Education should assess whether any American educational institutions have partnerships with AJCS.
Congress and the Justice Department should assess if the center’s actions should be disclosed under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The Justice Department has already determined that other parts of AJMN must register as Qatari foreign agents.
Until Doha stops using any part of the Al Jazeera Media Network to whitewash terrorism, American institutions and companies need to reconsider their relationship with all platforms in its vast ecosystem. Continued collaboration from Western organizations only emboldens the next denials and justifications for violence.
Toby Dershowitz is a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), on whose website this article first appeared. Eitan Fischberger is an independent OSINT investigator. Follow Toby on X @tobydersh. Follow Eitan on X @EFischberger. Follow FDD on X @FDD. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
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Trump Wants Say on Iran’s Next Leader, Claims Tehran Calling US About a Deal
US President Donald Trump speaks on the day he honors reigning Major League Soccer (MLS) champion Inter Miami CF players and team officials with an event in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, US, March 5, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
US President Donald Trump claimed the right to join Iran in deciding its next leader as the war escalated on Thursday, with US and Israeli jets hitting areas across the country and Gulf cities coming under renewed bombardment.
In a phone interview with Reuters, Trump said Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei – a hardliner who has been considered a favorite to succeed his father – was an unlikely choice.
“We want to be involved in the process of choosing the person who is going to lead Iran into the future,” he said.
Trump also encouraged Iranian Kurdish forces to go on the offensive.
“I’d be all for it,” said Trump, whose administration has had contact with Iranian Kurdish groups since the US-Israeli strikes began. He would not say whether the United States would provide air cover for any Kurdish offensive.
The attack is a major political gamble for the Republican president, with opinion polls showing little public support and Americans concerned about the rise in gasoline prices caused by disruption to energy supplies. Trump dismissed that concern.
He said later in the day that Tehran was reaching out to the United States about making a deal amid US and Israeli strikes on Iran, adding that further action to reduce pressure on oil was imminent.
“They’re calling, they’re saying ‘how do we make a deal?’ I said you’re being a little bit late,” said Trump, speaking at an event with the Inter Miami soccer team at the White House.
Trump touted the US military actions in Iran, saying they were destroying Tehran’s missile and drone capability and that “their navy is gone – 24 ships in three days,” as he called on Iranian diplomats to request asylum and help shape a better country.
“We also urge Iranian diplomats around the world to request asylum and to help us shape a new and better Iran,” he said.
ISRAELIS WARN TEHRAN RESIDENTS
On the war’s sixth day, Iran launched a series of attacks on Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. Fire crews in Bahrain extinguished a blaze at a refinery following a missile strike.
Two drone attacks targeted an Iranian opposition camp in Iraqi Kurdistan, as well as an oil field operated by an American firm, security sources said.
The Israeli military warned residents to evacuate areas including eastern Tehran, while Iranian media reported blasts were heard in various parts of the capital. An air attack killed 17 people in a guest house on a road northwest of the capital, Iranian state television said.
MANY MUNITIONS, IRAN‘S ATTACKS DROPPED
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Admiral Brad Cooper, who leads US forces in the Middle East, said that the US has enough munitions to continue its bombardment indefinitely.
“Iran is hoping that we cannot sustain this, which is a really bad miscalculation,” Hegseth told reporters at Central Command headquarters in Florida. “Our munitions are full up and our will is ironclad.”
Cooper said the US had now hit at least 30 Iranian ships, including a large drone carrier that he said was the size of a World War Two aircraft carrier. He added that B-2 bombers had in the past few hours dropped dozens of 2,000 penetrator bombs targeting deeply buried ballistic missile launchers, and that bombings were also targeting Iran‘s missile production facilities.
Iran‘s ballistic missile attacks had decreased by 90% since the first day of the war, while drone attacks had decreased by 83% in that time frame, he said.
WARNING SIRENS BLARE IN MULTIPLE NATIONS
Azerbaijan on Thursday became the latest country drawn in, as it accused Iran of firing drones at its territory and ordered its southern airspace closed for 12 hours. Iran, which has a significant Azeri minority, denied it had targeted its neighbor, but the episode underlined how rapidly the war has spread since the surprise US and Israeli airstrikes that killed Khamenei on Saturday.
Along with the gleaming cities of the Gulf, in easy range of Iranian drones and missiles, Cyprus and Turkey have both been targeted. European nations have pledged to deploy ships to the eastern Mediterranean and hostilities have been seen as far afield as waters off Sri Lanka, where a US submarine sank an Iranian warship on Tuesday, killing 80 crew members.
In Iran, at least 1,230 people have been killed, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society, including 175 schoolgirls and staff killed at a primary school in Minab in the country’s south on the first day of the war. Another 77 have been killed in Lebanon, its Health Ministry says. Thousands fled southern Beirut on Thursday after Israel warned residents to leave.
NETANYAHU SAYS ‘MUCH WORK STILL LIES AHEAD’
Shares on Wall Street fell on Thursday, weighed by surging oil prices, as the economic impact of the campaign intensified, with countries around the world cut off from a fifth of global supplies of oil and liquefied natural gas and air transport still facing chaos and global logistics increasingly snarled.
On Thursday, Iran‘s Revolutionary Guards said they had hit a US tanker in the northern part of the Gulf and the vessel was on fire, the latest of numerous reports of such attacks.
Visiting an air force base in the south of the country, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel’s achievements so far in Iran had been “great” but that “much work still lies ahead.”
Iran‘s foreign minister said Washington would “bitterly regret” the precedent it had set by sinking a ship in international waters without warning. A commander of the Revolutionary Guards, General Kioumars Heydari, told state TV: “We have decided to fight Americans wherever they are.”
The body of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, killed in the first hours of the US-Israeli air campaign in the first assassination of a country’s top ruler by an airstrike, had been due to lie in state in a Tehran prayer hall from Wednesday evening to launch three days of mourning.
But the memorial, expected to draw many thousands of mourners to the streets, was abruptly postponed.
Two sources familiar with Israel’s battle plans said that Israel, having killed many Iranian leaders, was now planning to enter a second phase when it would target underground bunkers where Iran stores its missiles.
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Israel Decided to Kill Khamenei in November, Defense Minister Says
Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz and his Greek counterpart Nikos Dendias make statements to the press, at the Ministry of Defense in Athens Greece, Jan. 20, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Louisa Gouliamaki
Israel took the decision to kill Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in November and was planning to carry out the operation around six months later, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Thursday.
Khamenei was killed in the first hours of the US-Israeli air campaign that began on Saturday in the first assassination of a country’s top ruler by an airstrike.
The joint air assault is nearing the end of its first week after opening salvos killed the country’s leaders and set off a regional war, with Iranian attacks in Israel, the Gulf and Iraq, and Israeli attacks against Iran’s ally Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“Already in November we were convened with the prime minister in a very tight forum and the prime minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] set the goal of eliminating Khamenei,” Katz told Israel‘s N12 TV news. The timing was set for mid-2026, he said.
The plan was eventually shared with the Washington and brought forward around January after protests broke out Iran, when Israel was concerned its pressured clerical rulers might launch an attack against Israel and US assets in the Middle East, Katz said.
Israel has said its aim is to eliminate the existential threat it sees in Iran’s nuclear program and ballistic missile project, and to bring about regime change. Iran’s rulers have so far shown no sign of relinquishing power.
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China in Talks With Iran to Allow Safe Oil and Gas Passage Through Hormuz, Sources Say
An oil tanker unloads crude oil at a crude oil terminal in Zhoushan, Zhejiang province, China, July 4, 2018. Picture taken July 4, 2018. Photo: REUTERS/Stringer
China is in talks with Iran to allow crude oil and Qatari liquefied natural gas vessels safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz as the US-Israeli war on Tehran intensifies, three diplomatic sources told Reuters.
The war, which entered its sixth day on Thursday, has left the critical shipping passageway all-but shut, with countries around the world cut off from a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies.
China, which has friendly relations with Iran and relies heavily on Middle Eastern supplies, is unhappy about the Islamic Republic’s move to paralyze shipping through the Strait and is pressing Tehran to allow safe passage for the vessels, according to the sources.
The world’s second-largest economy gets about 45% of its oil from the Strait.
Ship tracking data showed a vessel called the Iron Maiden passed through the Strait overnight after changing its signaling to “China-owner,” but far more sailings will be needed to calm global markets.
Crude oil prices are up more than 15% since the conflict began amid production stoppages as Tehran attacks energy facilities in the Gulf as well as ships crossing the Strait.
Its missiles have also reached as far afield as Cyprus, Azerbaijan, and Turkey, destabilizing global markets and prompting major economies to warn about inflation risks.
Crude tanker transits through the strait fell to four vessels on March 1, the day after hostilities broke out, versus an average of 24 a day since January, Vortexa vessel-tracking data showed.
Around 300 oil tankers remain inside the Strait, according to Vortexa and ship tracker Kpler.
Sugar industry veteran Mike McDougall told Reuters that Middle East sugar executives say there are some ships transiting the Strait at the moment, all of which are either Chinese or Iranian-owned.
Jamal Al-Ghurair, the managing director of Dubai-based Al Khaleej Sugar, told Reuters some ships carrying sugar are currently allowed to pass through the Strait while others are not, without giving further details.
Iran‘s government said earlier in the week that no vessels belonging to the United States, Israel, European countries or their allies would be allowed to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, but the statement made no mention of China.