Qatar has always been a hotbed for radicals

  • Doha

For a half-century, Qatar has been a tiny, desert oasis for the Muslim Brotherhood and many of the world’s most virulent Islamists.

Writing for The Washington Times, David Reaboi, senior vice president for strategic operations at the Security Studies Group added that in the 1960s, as Egypt’s Gamel Abdel Nasser once again banned and cracked-down on the Brotherhood, thousands of the group’s agitators, clerics, and community organizers were forced to retreat elsewhere into the Middle East, Europe, and North America.

Since then, Qatar has been the Brotherhood’s most hospitable base of operations. In time, Brotherhood Islamism would soon emerge as Qatar’s de-facto state ideology, as the ruling al-Thani family welcomed the Islamists with lavish funding, the highest state honors, and the establishment of new Islamist institutions that would seek to indoctrinate thousands.

Since Qatar’s most prominent export—the state-owned television network Al-Jazeera—was founded in 1996, the Brotherhood has played a crucial role in programming and setting the editorial line, providing the network’s strong ideologically Islamist backing.

After the Brotherhood’s regional re-emergence in the Arab Spring — with Qatar’s explicit backing—the nation’s promotion of the Islamist group became a pressing issue for neighboring Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to contend with. For these US-allied Gulf countries, Qatar’s sponsorship of the Brotherhood wasn’t merely incubating violent terrorism in the Americas and Europe; it was instigating revolution inside their countries as well.

When Qatar’s neighbors issued the emirate a list of demands in 2017 in order to resume regular relations, halting broadcasts of Al-Jazeera was at the top of their list of grievances.

American elites and policymakers have long been soft targets for Qatari influence and information operations. Even Hillary Clinton gave the state-run Islamist network the highest praise. “Like it or hate it, [Al Jazeera] is really effective,” the then-Secretary of State told lawmakers on Capitol Hill in 2011. “In fact, viewership of Al-Jazeera is going up in the United States because it is real news.” And, as if to underline the cluelessness of the elite ruling class, shockingly, Ms. Clinton told Congress at the same hearing that, “we are in an information war and we are losing that war.”

In fact, Al Jazeera is the world’s most successful, sophisticated and influential state-directed information operation.

It is remarkably aggressive in service of Qatar’s foreign policy interests, which include four key elements: (1) undermining the stability of its neighbors, especially Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates; (2) promoting Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood in vulnerable, Western open societies; (3) financially and diplomatically supporting violent terrorist groups like Hamas, al Qaeda and the Taliban; and (4) assisting the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism, Iran, in evading US sanctions as it seeks to develop nuclear weapons.

Al Jazeera’s sophistication as an information operation 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.

Read More
Qatar's Defense Minister promotes lies of military superiority

Qatar's Defense Minister promotes lies of military superiority

The Qatari Minister of Defense explained that his country is seeking to achieve self-sufficiency in all fields, and he still promotes Tamim's illusions, while neglecting the economic problems.

Tunisian politicians: Marzouki seeks to serve Qatar's malicious agendas

Tunisian politicians: Marzouki seeks to serve Qatar's malicious agendas

After taking office as interim president of Tunisia, Moncef Marzouki took a hostile stance against Algeria in pursuance to implement Qatar-Turkey plots, and also aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood.