The political advocary Freedom House organization, based in Washington D.C., recently released a press release claiming that “Israel cannot remain a democracy without protecting press freedom.” In the press release, Freedom House claims “ CPJ ranked Israel as one of the world’s top jailers of journalists in the aftermath of the October 7 attack. As of October 23, 2024, the organization had documented 69 arrests of journalists in the 'West Bank' and Gaza. Of these, Israeli forces arrested 66, while Palestinian authorities arrested three.”
Freedom House also condemned Israel for passing legislation that grants “senior ministers the ability to shut down foreign media outlets if they are determined to be a security risk,” which led to Al Jazeera offices being shut down.
Interestingly, the report did not relate to the fact that the journalists arrested by Israel were not arrested for their writings, but because they moonlight for terror organizations nor did it report how Al Jazeera (based in Qatar where freedom is an untried concept) has served as a mouthpiece for terror organizations. The IDF reported that “6 Al-Jazeera journalists have been exposed as Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists. The IDF uncovered documents that reveal personnel tables, lists of terrorist training courses, phone directories and salary documents for terrorists that confirm military affiliation of six Al-Jazeera journalists in Gaza with Hamas and the Islamic Jihad terrorist organizations.”
That's for starters. In fact, Abdullah Al-Jamal, an Al Jazeera freelance journalist, who also wrote for the Palestine Chronicle, and his physician father, held Israeli hostage Noa Argamani captive in their home. Notably, Abdullah Al-Jamal also worked as a spokesperson for the Palestinian Ministry of Labor which functions under Hamas. Noa was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists along with her boyfriend during the terrorist attack on the Nova Music Festival on the 7th of October 2023. Last June, Noa was rescued by the IDF.
The fact that she was held in the home of a journalist who wrote for Al Jazeera and the Palestine Chronicle shows that there are Palestinian Arab journalists who write for Al Jazeera moonlight for terror organizations.
It's not just Israel. Since the September 11 terror attacks in the USA, many commentators in the West and the Gulf states have accused Al Jazeera of being the “mouthpiece of terror organizations.” In fact, “the General Secretariat of the Council of Senior Scholars has warned of TV Channels that spread misguidance and sedition and have become a mouthpiece of terrorist groups, especially Qatar's Al Jazeera TV channel that provides viewers with false data regarding the nation's causes and problems, and keeps on making and telling lies as well as hosting people with no allegiance where they promote what serves the policy of their funders so as to tear down Arab countries, tamper, divide its unity and spread sedition.”
The Saudi General Secretariat of the Council of Senior Scholars continued, adding that “history will not forget that Qatari Al Jazeera was and is still a platform for leaders of terrorism, as it used exclusively to broadcast speeches of Osama bin Laden, the leader of the terrorist Al-Qaeda and his successors in addition to the speeches of terrorists who have taken up arms in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia before, and it is now practicing the same role in spreading the speeches of the leader of Al-Houthi terrorist militias in coordination with him in a clear targeting of the security of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Muslims' sacred sites, as this terrorist group has targeted the holy Makkah before.”
Yemeni journalist and political activist Ahmed Al-Amad wrote on his X account: "Qatari Al Jazeera has become a bankrupt mouthpiece for spreading Houthi lies. This is where this unprecedented Qatari support for the Houthis, past and present, is revealed, which far exceeded Iranian support for them. What is Qatar's goal in supporting and promoting the extremist terrorist organizations that are destroying the region and killing the peoples[?] Qatar lives in security and peace and lives a comfortable life while supporting those who are destroying our country and killing our people? [Qatar's] goal is for Yemenis to have no stability and prosperity in their country."
Al Jazeera has not just supported Al Qaeda and the Houthis. They also support Iran and its proxies, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Islamic Jihad. Throughout the Second Intifada, whenever a terror attack happened in Israel, Al Jazeera referred to it as an “alleged attack.”
Not much has changed since then. To reinforce this picture, MEMRI reported that “Businessman and network activist Monther Al Sheikh Mubarak, from Saudi Arabia, shared a video on his account on X showing an Al Jazeera correspondent in Gaza interrupting an interview with a wounded Palestinian in one of Gaza's hospitals, who complained that Hamas operatives were hiding among civilians instead of in their tunnels.”
In response to the video, Mubarak wrote: "An elderly man from Gaza wondered, 'Why is the resistance hiding among the people[?]' The Al Jazeera reporter interrupted the interview and distanced himself [from the interviewee] because that is not what he is required [to say] in the interview…" Saudi journalist Faisal Ibrahim Al-Shammeri also shared the footage on his account, writing: "Al Jazeera is trading in the blood of the residents of Gaza. When the Palestinian man criticized Hamas, the reporter didn't like it [and that's why he interrupted the interview]."
Saudi journalist and former editor of Al Arabiya website, Matar Al-Ahmadi, posted a photo on his account of former Al Jazeera CEO Yasser Abu Hilala carrying weapons. According to Al-Ahmadi, Al Jazeera "is the channel of [Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan] Nasrallah, Iran's spiritual leader Ali] Khamenei, and [former Al-Qaeda leader Osama] bin Laden. … Al Jazeera has superiority over Al Arabiya among the common people by invective, whining and creating mayhem. Over time, his audience will switch to TikTok videos, [while] Al-Arabiya creates consciousness. Al Jazeera is just a tool for creating mayhem and chaos. The lesson is in the results. [Al Jazeera] lost all its ideological and media systems when it marketed Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda, and the Spring of Chaos [i.e., the Arab Spring]."
When Freedom House condemns Israel for arresting journalists without taking their terror activities in the security context under consideration, they are demonstrating consistent bias against the Jewish state. However, Israel is not the only place where Freedom House has demonstrated bias. In a new Freedom House report, the international organization claims that the “Azerbaijani Regime Ethnically Cleansed Nagorno-Karabakh According to International Fact-Finding Mission.” The problem with this claim is that it is only supported by Andranik Shirinyan with editorial oversight by Vice President Annie Boyadjian, who, coincidentally, is also linked to the Armenian diaspora. For Freedom House to rely upon only these two individuals for a report on human rights in Karabakh would be like relying solely upon Rashid Khalidi and Noura Erakat for a Freedom House report on Israel. That is unfortunately what Freedom House did, yet some still consider them to be an objective organization.
If one visits the war-torn Karabakh region, there is plenty of evidence of ethnic cleansing, but it is of Armenia ethnically cleansing Azerbaijanis during their thirty year control of the area. The Armenians who lived there during those thirty years voluntarily left when they lost that control. Azerbaijan never forced Armenians to leave. To the contrary, they offered them Azerbaijani citizenship and equal rights, but they chose to leave anyway, very much like many of the Palestinian Arabs of 1948.
Azerbaijan has made much effort to rebuild Armenian churches that were destroyed during the war for the benefit of everyone, an important fact that the Freedom House report neglects.
The Freedom House report does not mention how Armenia ethnically cleansed one fifth of Azerbaijan of Azerbaijanis during those thirty years, nor do they mention the Armenian use of phosphorous gas and their ballistic missile attacks upon major Azerbaijani population centers like Ganja, Barda, and Tartar. Instead, they only go after Azerbaijan for allegedly “ethnically cleansing the area of Armenians.”
Unfortunately, it is hard to ignore reports coming out of Freedom House, as they get 80 percent of their budget from the US government. Reports from Freedom House are utilized as America’s soft power in order to pressure other countries. It’s no secret that many politicians in America regularly use such rights organizations as levers of pressure on countries whose foreign policy or positions on the international stage do not always align with Washington’s interests. Both Israel and Azerbaijan have become a convenient target for such reports.
However, when Trump enters the White House, it is hoped that Freedom House will move in a more balanced direction, away from applying pressure on traditional US allies and thus will focus more on attacking America’s enemies, such as Iran and its proxies.
Rachel Avrahamis the CEO of the Dona Gracia Center for Diplomacy and an Israel-based journalist. She is the author of "Women and Jihad: Debating Palestinian Female Suicide Bombings in the American, Israeli and Arab Media."