Qatari-owned state propaganda network Al Jazeera has recently found itself in some hot water. Specifically, as The Daily Wire reported, the network recently engaged in outrageous Holocaust denialism and claimed that “Zionists” were complicit with the Third Reich:
“The narrative that six million Jews were killed by the Nazi movement was adopted by the Zionist movement, and it is being reiterated every year on the so-called ‘Holocaust Memorial Day,'” the video begins, according to a translation provided by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). “After the Holocaust, the Zionist movement claimed that 2 out of every 3 Jews were killed.”
The video states that the Jews were just “part” of who Hitler targeted, and that they are the only group that is remembered because “the Jewish groups had financial resources, media institutions, research centers, and academic voices that managed to put a special spotlight on the Jewish victims of the Nazis.”
The video states that the number of those killed in the Holocaust “remains one of the most prominent historical debates to this day.”
At the time, I argued for The Daily Wire that the video was merely emblematic of broader Qatari evil:
[E]ven Qatar’s non-Islamist, Western-aligned regional Arab foes despise the disruptive, jihadist incitement that routinely blares from Al Jazeera’s airwaves. When Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Bahrain instituted an embargo of Qatar in June 2017, one of the Western-aligned Arab nations’ leading demands was that Al Jazeera be shuttered once and for all. As but one small example, Al Jazeera gives Yusuf Al Qaradawi — the Egyptian-born, Doha-based spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood — a prominent platform. Qaradawi has engaged in on-air Holocaust denialism and incitement of suicide bombings against U.S. troops in the Middle East on Al Jazeera television.
But Qatar routinely tries to beguile Western viewers by obfuscating its North American Al Jazeera channel, “AJ+,” as a hotbed of progressivism — in contradistinction to the overt Islamist incitement that is emitted from its Arabic channel. In a terrific recent cover story for the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, David Reaboi shined a spotlight on such Qatari duplicity:
Al Jazeera is the world’s most successful and influential state-directed information operation. Its sophistication is evident in its ability to promote two very different messages to two audiences simultaneously. In Arabic, Al Jazeera pushes a stream of vile, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, and attempts to rile up religious and extremist Muslims against attempts at positive, human rights reforms in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other Arab states. In English, however, Al-Jazeera presents itself as progressive and left wing, attacking these same nations efforts at reform as fake and inadequate. A rebranding in English as “AJ+” was further meant to obscure the Islamist-run network and to appeal to younger people in the West, with social media material in English, Arabic, French and Spanish.
Now, Seth Frantzman of The Jerusalem Post has pinpointed a perfect example of strident Qatari hypocrisy. “AJ+,” as it turns out, has been celebrating June as LGBT “Pride” month:
But in reality, Frantzman says, Qatar — which is a sharia-run hardline Sunni Islamist emirate — criminalizes homosexual conduct:
The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) – which is dedicated to achieving equal rights for LGBT people worldwide – documents Qatar’s laws against gay rights. According to ILGA, article 258 of Qatar’s legal code condemns any man who “copulates with a male,” imposing a term of seven years in prison. Article 296 condemns to prison anyone who is engaged in “leading, instigating or seducing a male in any way to commit sodomy.” …
Online AJ+’s embrace of gay rights while Qatar cracks down was spotlighted. Journalist Oz Katerji tweeted that “homosexuality is illegal in Qatar, with gay sex punishable by between 1 and 3 years in prison.”
Hypocrisy indeed.