Pressure on Qatar to Reduce Its Funding of Extremist Groups
On Dec. 29, 2014, the Wall Street Journal published an analysis piece by Yaroslav Trofimov, “Qatar Scales Back Intervention in Middle East Conflicts,” describing the pressure brought to bear on Qatar to reduce its support for radical Muslim groups like the Muslim Brotherhood. The article delves into the important topic of Qatar’s role in fomenting instability and radicalism and the reaction it has generated among the most important Arab states.
Qatar has a tiny population, but it enjoys outsized influence due to its enormous wealth derived from vast natural-gas deposits. In recent decades, it has increasingly used this wealth to promote the Muslim Brotherhood. Qatar’s ruler, Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thant, controls the Qatari-based international news channel, Al Jazeera.
Since the overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated Egyptian government and accession of General Abdel Fattah Al Sisi to the presidency of Egypt, Egypt and Qatar have been sharply at odds. As Egypt contends with chronic terrorism in the Sinai peninsula, Qatar’s role as a main donor to Hamas in Gaza has become a major point of contention. It’s not just Egypt that has a problem with the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood has antagonized Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and other Gulf emirates.
Saudi Arabia and the Gulf emirates recently took the unusual step of withdrawing their ambassadors to Qatar. Isolation from its fellow Sunni Arab states appears to have prompted the Qatari ruling clique to reconsider its stance in the region.
Trofimov recounts that after a visit by a senior Qatari envoy to Egypt, Qatar shut down its Egyptian channel of Al Jazeera. This decision came despite Al Jazeera’s public campaign to shame the Egyptian government into releasing two of its correspondents who were arrested and convicted of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and falsely reporting events.
Trofimov’s piece is the type of reporting that major news organizations should encourage. Such analysis draws readers away from an excessive focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and provides insight into events unfolding in the Middle East.
More from SNAPSHOTS
Professor John Quigley Falsely Condemns Israel and U.S. Support in His Syndicated Column
April 30, 2019
John B. Quigley In his widely distributed April syndicated opinion piece mainly about ISIS, the Islamist terrorist entity, John B. Quigley, an Ohio State University law professor, argues that claims of an imminent ISIS resurgence [...]
The New York Times’ Slow Reaction to Hamas Crackdown on Palestinian Protesters
April 4, 2019
The New York Times took a slight jab at Hamas, the terrorist organization that rules the Gaza Strip, in a recent story about Hamas's crackdown on Palestinian protesters who spoke out against its policies in [...]
CNN’s Zakaria Deals With U.S. Proclamation Recognizing Golan As Part Of Israel
April 3, 2019
Fareed Zakaria hosted an eight-minute discussion of the Golan matter at the end of his weekly (weekend) program, “Global Public Square “ (GPS) hour-long Cable News Network (CNN) broadcast. The broadcast, on both CNN and [...]
NY Times Reporter David Halbfinger Editorializes Israel as “Brutal”
March 6, 2019
New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief David Halbfinger Israel, according to the New York Times, is a brute. A March 3 news analysis piece—not an opinion piece—by the newspaper's Jerusalem bureau chief David Halbfinger uses [...]
Palestinian Malevolent Indoctrination Exposed; Mainstream Media Are Indifferent
February 26, 2019
Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), an Israel-based non-governmental organization, analyzes and presents in English to the world the ongoing inflammatory indoctrination of Palestinians in Arabic particularly via Palestinian Authority (PA) television (West Bank). PMW is a [...]
Did WCC Activists Attend A Birthday Party Promoted by Palestinian Extremist Organization?
February 4, 2019
The video is a bit fuzzy and grainy. But the footage of birthday party for Shadi Farar, a 12-year-old Palestinian boy who spent three years in an Israeli jail on charges of intent to murder, [...]