Financial Times gives three cheers for Al Jazeera

Last week we posted about a Financial Times (FT) article by their Middle East editor so one-sided and driven by anti-Israel bias that it could have been published at the Guardian.  The piece in question uncritically promoted a resolution by the ‘International Genocide Scholars Association’ (IGSA) accusing Israel of genocide that was widely mocked for the error-ridden, decidedly unscholarly resolution text, the absence of transparency about those who voted in favor, and for the IGSA’s non-existent standards for registration.

The latest example of the ‘prestigious’ London-based outlet’s slouch towards anti-Israel advocacy – a trend which became especially pronounced soon after the Oct. 7th massacre – can be seen in an article written by Mehul Srivastava in London and Heba Saleh in Cairo, “The Palestinian journalists risking death to report on Israel’s offensive“, Sept. 6.

The agenda of Srivastava and Saleh is clear in the opening sentence:

Shortly after Israel assassinated Anas al-Sharif, one of Al Jazeera’s best-known Gaza correspondents, his newly-appointed successor Nour Khaled had to make a grim choice.

It’s not until the 16th paragraph when the FT reporters even note Israel’s ‘accusation’ that Anas al-Sharif was a terrorist.  But, even then, it’s dismissed as an unsupported accusation, despite the fact that, as our colleague David Litman noted, even CNN and the BBC acknowledged that Al-Sharif previously worked “for a Hamas media team in the [Gaza] Strip”, a role which makes him a terror promoter, not an independent reporter.

Further, as another colleague, Tamar Sternthal, demonstrated, Al-Sharif also repeatedly glorified Hamas and expressed support for extremism.

On October 7, for instance, while the massacre was still unfolding, he posted praise to God for the ongoing murder and kidnapping of civilians. According to research from CAMERA Arabic, on no less than 17 occasions, from November 2021 until October 2023, Al-Sharif celebrated and justified Palestinian attacks which targeted and killed Israeli civilians, calling the perpetrators “heroes” and “martyrs,” and the attacks “heroic operations.”

The FT not only dismisses evidence that Al-Sharif was on Hamas’s payroll, as the reported head of a Hamas terrorist cell and advanced rocket attacks on Israeli civilians and IDF troops, but entirely omits his glorification of deadly terror attacks on Jewish civilians.

The article also dismisses Israeli ‘claims’ that another Al-Jazeera “journalist” killed by the IDF, Ismail al Ghoul, was a terrorist, ignoring the fact that the IDF shared a file collected from a Hamas computer showing that he was an engineer in Hamas’s Gaza City Brigade.

Further into the article, the FT’s propaganda continues to be evident, when introducing Al-Sharif’s Al Jazeera successor, Nour Khaled:

“I prefer to remain,” said [Nour] Khaled, a 27-year-old so malnourished that her press vest — one of the few the channel still has in Gaza — hangs loose over her slight frame. She told the Financial Times: “If I stay, it does not mean I seek death, but that I am committed to covering the story.”

However, only two weeks ago, the Al Jazeera journalist certainly looked quite healthy, with her press vest fitting quite well.  In fact, Khaled’s photo appears at the top of the FT article, again calling into question the journalists’ characterisation of her as suffering from malnutrition.

The FT’s egregious bias continues:

The peril is clear. Israel has killed at least 189 Palestinian journalists and media workers in Gaza since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack that triggered the war, according to data from the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

However, as we noted last week in a post about the self-conscription by several UK outlets to a political campaign launched to libel Israel with the charge of murdering journalists in Gaza, nearly half of those on the CPJ’s list worked for media outlets owned by or affiliated with terror organisations, while others on the list were reportedly active terrorists.

The FT’s agenda-driven reporting continues in the following sentence.

Dozens of others were killed while doing their job, with the rest among what local officials say are the 63,000 Palestinians who have been killed in the war.

The FT journalist failed to inform readers that by “local officials” they mean the Hamas-controlled health ministry, and that the ministry’s figures don’t distinguish between civilians and combatants.

Next, readers are told that “The pace of killings [of journalists] is unparalleled“, a claim belied both by the large number of Palestinians on the CPJ list who, we noted, were affiliated with terror organisations, and the fact that the Syrian Civil War has reportedly claimed the lives of 717 journalists and media workers.

The article also falsely describes Al-Jazeera as merely a “Qatar-funded news outlet”, when it’s in fact a Qatari state-controlled, pro–terror outlet that threw a birthday party for a released terrorist who murdered Israeli children, promoted Holocaust denial and revisionism, hosted antisemitic content from the late Muslim Brotherhood leader Qaradawi, and accepted an award from Hamas for ‘exemplary coverage’.   Yet, despite Al Jazeera’s long and well-documented record of being a mouthpiece for the Qatari monarchy, and a purveyor of Islamist extremism, the FT says it’s merely an Israeli claim that it’s a media vehicle for Hamas’s terror agenda.

Additionally, according to Gazan journalists and activists that journalists at The Free Press spoke to, in partnership with the Center for Peace Communications (CPC), Al Jazeera staff have been complicit in the repression of truly independent journalists in Gaza who criticise the terror group, and, more broadly, playing a key role in enforcing Hamas’s line and silencing its critics.

Yet, tellingly, not only doesn’t the FT piece include any criticism of Al Jazeera in the reporters’ own voice, but the last few paragraphs read as a tribute to the alleged hard work, dedication and professionalism of their staff, who, we’re told, are on a mission to tell the truth about what’s happening in Gaza, and who will stay in the territory “despite the danger”.

It’s a mystery why any professional journalist for a putatively serious Western news outlet would make common cause with such a blatantly anti-Western, antisemitic, pro-terror propaganda organ.