The War on Al Jazeera (2017)

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

There are three states that, if they condemn a party, a person, or a state, the opposite is actually true, and if they praise a party, a person, or a state, the opposite is true as well: the Zionist entity, the United States, and Saudi Arabia. If these three say we are doing well, we are certainly doing badly, and if they say we are doing badly, we are certainly on the right path. The Zionist entity and Saudi Arabia are hostile to Al Jazeera, and the Zionist entity, Saudi Arabia, and America condemn Hezbollah. The recurring irony on the Arab stage is that Al Jazeera and Hezbollah never meet. We recall Saddam Hussein and Hafez al-Assad, who faced the same enemy yet were feuding.

There is a war on Al Jazeera now, and it did not begin with the hallucinations of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt — it began long ago, and many states have previously worked to close Al Jazeera’s offices, arrest its correspondents, and destroy its equipment.

Al Jazeera has committed a great sin that cost it the trust of tens of millions of people. There was a period when Al Jazeera swept the Arab arena and became a media reference for Arab news agencies. It was the one that covered the events of Afghanistan, the events of Iraq, and covered the Zionists’ wars against Hezbollah, against Hamas, and the Palestinian resistance as a whole. Al Jazeera at one point embraced the idea of Arab unity and Arab solidarity, to the point of becoming a source of trust for most intellectual and political currents in the Arab arena. It became the media icon of the nationalist current, the religious current, and various cultural and intellectual currents, turning into the foremost source of knowledge in the Arab arena. But it committed a great sin when it inserted itself into Arab strife, and I wrote to Al Jazeera about this matter, asking them to stay away from strife, and from Saudi policies that often ignite strife, resentment, and grudges. They cared neither for me nor for others, and Qatar did the same. Now things have flipped, and Al Jazeera is neither with “my grandmother” nor with “my grandfather” — it has turned hostile toward the Syria-Iran axis, and now the axis that once stayed silent about it, in exchange for its hostility toward the other side — the Saudi-Zionist axis — has turned hostile toward it in return. It sided with Saudi Arabia and its allies during the Arab uprisings, largely turning its back on media objectivity. The moment of truth has now arrived, and what I said to Al Jazeera more than once has proven true, honest, and correct.

I call on the honorable and sincere sons of the Arab nation not to be stubborn in the positions Al Jazeera helped build. We hope voices will gather demanding Al Jazeera return to what it once was, which would benefit both Al Jazeera and the Arab nation as a whole. But we want the initiative to fix the situation to come from Al Jazeera itself.

There are states putting their weight, with great stupidity, against Al Jazeera — the Gulf blockade states and Egypt. Now the Zionist entity has joined them too, closing its office in Jerusalem while claiming to be the pioneer of democracy in the Arab region. It is always better for an Arab media outlet not to obtain a work permit from the Zionist entity, and it is always more appropriate to rely on freelancers and on professional journalists operating outside offices. So what will Al Jazeera do to restore the trust that once prevailed? Al Jazeera has lost millions of its viewers, and it now needs great efforts to regain trust.

It is among the Arab calamities that Arab states stand against a media outlet, whatever its orientation, within the Arab world. It is understandable to close channels promoting the Zionists and Americans, but it is not understandable to pursue a media outlet that adopts a point of view certain states or parties dislike. We must break free of the yoke of racism, narrow-mindedness, and intellectual dullness. What the blockading states are doing against Al Jazeera is unjustified, just as their actions against any other media outlet are unjustified. It is a shame and disgrace that states removed Al-Manar channel from Arabsat and Nilesat. These disgraces, unfortunately, continue in the Arab arena. And as long as Arabs are ruled by leaders of such shallow, backward intellectual caliber, the flood of disgraces will not stop.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “الحرب على الجزيرة” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.