Al Jazeera became an influential actor in the Middle East after its first broadcast on Nov. 1, 1996. In its news dispatches and talk shows, the satellite channel was harshly critical of U.S. foreign policy in the region—especially after the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan and the 2003 war on Iraq.
Over the past several years, however, the network, which is funded by the government of Qatar, first moderated and then dropped its critical stance.
As the “Arab spring” spread to Libya and Syria, countries with governments the Western imperialist powers wanted to replace, Al Jazeera cheered on foreign intervention. It elevated NATO-backed Libyan rebels to the status of revolutionaries, while at the same time targeting Syria, posting “The people want the downfall of the regime” prominently at the top of its website.
What brought about the change? Part of the answer is found in the Aug. 30 release of cables from the U.S. Embassy in Doha, Qatar, by WikiLeaks.
In particular, one cable dated Sept. 18, 2005, may have led to the resignation of Al Jazeera’s director, Wadah Khanfar, three weeks later. This cable reports conversations Khanfar had with the embassy in which he alluded to an “agreement” with the United States to abide by demands regarding “negative news coverage,” “provocative interviews” and the airing of “insurgent-provided videos.”
Under pressure from the embassy, Khanfar removed photos and testimony from the website of civilian casualties from a recent attack the United States had carried out in Tal Afar, Iraq.
Khanfar was promoted to managing director of Al Jazeera in October 2003, but the embassy profiled the director after a meeting with him on Sept. 17, 2005. In the meeting, a U.S. official interviewed him about his political views and presented a list of complaints from the Defense Intelligence Agency, which evidently monitors broadcasts and web content and compiles a monthly report. This report was then forwarded to the director through Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
At the time of the meeting, the satellite TV company was in the process of expanding operations globally, and established Al Jazeera Network, “a legal entity that will oversee the growing number of Al Jazeera offshoots.” As it expanded, the need to enter new markets, including the United States, required it to undergo a process of “professionalization”—code language for conforming its content to the needs of U.S. imperialism and its client regimes.
In this same 2005 cable (05DOHA1593), Khanfar informed the embassy about the quality assurance unit, which was set up by Jaafar Abbas Ahmed in 2004. Khanfar told the embassy that the unit met daily and was coming down hard on the news team. “That meeting is very tight, tighter even than your list,” he reportedly said.
A cable dated Oct. 26, 2005, identifies Abbas as a key force in changing Al Jazeera’s political orientation:
“Abbas spoke frankly of the difficulties the unit faces in encouraging the professionalization of Al Jazeera, including resistance and hostility from AJ’s older generation of journalists.”
The cable recounts Abbas told U.S. diplomats that some Al Jazeera staff treat the quality assurance team with suspicion, “known informally among AJ staff as the KGB, the CIA, the FBI.…”
“According to Abbas, the effort to professionalize Al Jazeera is an uphill one,” the cable reads, indicating the biggest problem he faced was that “old habits die hard.”
This is but one confirmation that Al Jazeera’s transformation into an Arabic CNN, while facilitated by Khanfar, was not to be reversed with his resignation. His successor is Sheik Ahmad bin Jasem bin Muhammad Al-Thani, a Qatari businessman and member of the royal family.
As it expanded its operations globally, Al Jazeera hired numerous managers, editors and reporters recruited and recommended by the vast “democracy promotion” network of the State Department and the CIA.
A case in point was the hiring of William Stebbins to head Al Jazeera English, which accelerated the process of making Al Jazeera an acceptable player among the global capitalist media. Stebbins wrote about his hiring of pro-Western journalists in the Columbia Journalism Review.
“Almost the entire staff were imported, with few of them having any real experience of the Middle East, and fewer still speaking any Arabic. There was a barely concealed discomfort with the sister Arabic channel amongst many of the new arrivals, coupled with the widespread belief that the path to success for Al Jazeera International, as the English service was initially called, was to emphasize the distance between the two.”
Stebbins also revealed how he relayed offers from the State Department: “This tension between the channels did not go unnoticed by outsiders, and soon there were attempts to exploit it. On a visit to the State Department to promote Al Jazeera English, it was suggested to me that any pressure I could exert on my Arabic colleagues to tone down their reporting would be rewarded with increased access.”
U.S. imperialism is driven to dominate in every sphere. Even though the fledgling network maintained considerable independence for several years, Qatar’s status in the global capitalist system has turned the network into just another tool used by the United States to defend its domination and spread its propaganda.
