Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera was established as an Arabic channel by the Government of Qatar in 1996 and started an English language channel in 2006. It headquarters are in Doha, Qatar.

The impetus for founding it was the closure of the BBC Arabic TV service because of its editorial conflict with its then Saudi partner.

As a side note, BBC Arabic TV is currently operational. The BBC ended its Arabic radio broadcasts in January 2023 to cut costs, but the television service continues to broadcast.

Al Jazeera became important because it could interview factions that others could not, such as the Taliban and Al-Qaida. That brought it into conflict with the US who saw it as having an anti-US bias. And the channel became internationally important with its broadcasts during the Arab Spring, covering protests and uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa.

The Gulf States, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt have all accused Qatar of sponsoring terrorism, and by extension the accusations cover Al Jazeera.

The Palestinian Authority closed Al Jazeera’s offices in the West Bank temporarily in 2009 after the network alleged that PA President Mahmoud Abbas and others planned to assassinate former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

In the following years the PA has often accused Al Jazeera of being sympathetic to Hamas, the PA’s main political rival.

Then in December 2024, the PA began operations against Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants in the Jenin refugee camp, trying to get back control in the West Bank. Al Jazeera reported on this and the PA accused it of disseminating misinformation. As a result, on January 1, 2025, the PA suspended of Al Jazeera’s operations in the West Bank.