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Video Highlights Anti-Semitic Tweets from Al Jazeera Staff

[additional-authors]
May 23, 2019
Workers at the Al Jazeera offices in Jerusalem on June 13. Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90

A new video from anti-Semitic watchdog site Canary Mission highlights various anti-Semitic tweets from Al Jazeera’s AJ+ channel staff members.

The May 22 video includes a December 2010 tweet from AJ+ Managing Director Dima Khatib that states, “There is no JEWISH PEOPLE. Have you ever heard of a Christian people or Muslim people or Buddhist people?” Canary Mission also highlighted another tweet from Khatib on their site from December 2010 that states, “Behind U.S. support for Israel there is a huge Zionist lobby with economic and media power.”

AJ+ Host and Senior Producer Sana Saeed is also featured in the video with a January 2015 tweet that reads, “Israel & Al Qaeda are likely coordinating with one another. Yeah. Imma pull a white girl and just can’t even.” Saeed also “has expressed support for Hamas, promoted terrorists, spread anti-Israel conspiracy theories and defended violent anti-Israel agitators” as well as “demonized Zionism and undermined Muslim interfaith dialogue with Jews.”

Additionally, the Canary video points out that AJ+ Executive Producer Sakhr Al-Makhadi tweeted in December 2011, “One day, when the Palestinians are in charge of the land we call Israel, I hope they don’t humiliate the Jews in the way Jews humil the Palis.”

The Canary video comes after Al Jazeera AT+ Arabic tweeted out a video of Host Muna Hawwa saying there are people “who accuse the Zionist movement of blowing [the Holocaust] out of proportion in the service of the plan to establish Israel” and that “Israel is the biggest winner from the Holocaust.” Al Jazeera Digital Division Executive Director Dr. Yaser Bishr said in a May 19 statement that “Al Jazeera completely disowns the offensive content in question” and the network suspended two of their journalists.

Canary Mission states on their website that their video compilation raises the following question: “Was [Al Jazeera’s] Holocaust-denying video an isolated incident or is anti-Semitism a systemic issue?”

Al Jazeera did not respond to the Journal’s request for comment.

Security Studies Group Senior Vice President David Reaboi wrote in the cover story of the May 24 edition of the Journal that the Qatari government, which funds terror groups like Hamas, finances Al Jazeera. Reaboi explains that Al Jazeera’s Arabic channels promulgate “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.”

Reaboi also adds that Al Jazeera is part of “Qatar’s media empire” that consists of “38 sports television channels in 36 countries, exclusive broadcasting rights to Turner-owned channels in the Middle East and North Africa, a Qatar Airways-sponsored monthly travel series on CNN and more” in an attempt to curry favor with the West while hiding the fact that they support and finance Islamic terrorism.

“The extent of Qatar’s influence and information operations remains one of the least-covered and least-scrutinized stories of the past few years — including its campaign to curry favor within the Jewish community,” Reaboi wrote. “That slowly is changing. Because of Qatar’s promotion of the Muslim Brotherhood and its alliance with Iran, more Americans are coming to understand Qatar is a malign force, not just in the Middle East but in this country.”

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