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“National security” cited as reason Al Jazeera nixed Israel lobby film | The Electronic Intifada
▻https://electronicintifada.net/content/national-security-cited-reason-al-jazeera-nixed-israel-lobby-film/24566

Al Jazeera’s investigative documentary into the US Israel lobby was censored by Qatar over “national security” fears, The Electronic Intifada has learned.

These include that broadcast of the film could add to pressure for the US to pull its massive Al Udeid air base out of the Gulf state, or make a Saudi military invasion more likely.

A source has confirmed that broadcast of The Lobby – USA was indefinitely delayed as “a matter of national security” for Qatar. The source has been briefed by a high-level individual in Doha.

One of the Israel lobby groups whose activities are revealed in the film has been mounting a campaign to convince the US to withdraw its military forces from Qatar – which leaders in the emirate would see as a major blow to their security.

The tiny gas-rich monarchy houses and funds satellite channel Al Jazeera.

In April, managers at the channel were forced to deny a claim by a right-wing American Zionist group that the program has been canceled altogether.

In October 2017, the head of Al Jazeera’s investigative unit promised that the film would be aired “very soon.”

Yet eight months later, it has yet to see the light of day.

In March, The Electronic Intifada exclusively published the first concrete details of what is in the film.

The film reportedly identifies a number of lobby groups as working directly with Israel to spy on American citizens using sophisticated data gathering techniques. The documentary is also said to cast light on covert efforts to smear and intimidate Americans seen as too critical of Israel.

Some of the activity revealed in the film could include US organizations acting as front operations for Israel without registering as agents of a foreign state as required by US law.

The latest revelation over the censored film shows how seriously Qatar’s leadership is taking threats of repercussions should it air.

Threats
The Israel lobby groups reported on in the film could be expected to take legal action against Al Jazeera if it is broadcast.

However, such threats alone would be unlikely to deter Al Jazeera from broadcasting the film.

The network has a history of vigorously defending its work and it was completely vindicated over complaints about a documentary aired in January 2017 that revealed how Israel lobby groups in Britain collude with the Israeli embassy, and how the embassy interfered in British politics.

Israel’s supporters are also pushing for the US Congress to force the network, which has a large US operation, to register as a “foreign agent” in a similar fashion to Russian channel RT.

But the high-level individual in Doha’s claim that the film is being censored as “a matter of national security” ties the affair to even more serious threats to Qatar and bolsters the conclusion that the censorship is being ordered at the highest level of the state.

A year ago, with the support of US President Donald Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates cut off diplomatic relations with Qatar and imposed a transport and economic blockade on the country.

Saudi rulers and their allies see Qatar as too independent of their influence and too open to relations with their regional rival Iran, and the blockade was an attempt to force it to heel.

The Saudis and Israel accused Qatar of funding “terrorism,” and have taken measures to restrict Al Jazeera or demanded it be shut down altogether over what they perceive as the channel’s anti-Israel and anti-Saudi-monarchy biases.

The blockade and the diplomatic assault sparked existential fears in Qatar that Saudi-led forces could go as far as to invade and install a more pliant regime in Doha.

French newspaper Le Monde reported on Friday that the Saudi king has threatened “military action” against Qatar should it go ahead with a planned purchase of a Russian air defense missile system.

In 2011, Saudi and Emirati forces intervened in Bahrain, another small Gulf nation, at the request of its ruling Khalifa monarchy in order to quell a popular uprising demanding democratic reforms.

For three years, US and British-backed Saudi and Emirati forces have been waging a bloody and devastating war on Yemen to reimpose a Saudi-backed leadership on the country, clear evidence of their unprecedented readiness to directly use military force to impose their will.

And no one in the region will have forgotten how quickly Iraqi forces were able to sweep in and take over Kuwait in August 1990.

Air base
The lesson of the Kuwait invasion for other small Gulf countries is that only the protection of the United States could guarantee their security from bigger neighbors.

Qatar implemented that lesson by hosting the largest US military facility in the region, the massive Al Udeid air base.

The Saudi-led bloc has pushed for the US to withdraw from the base and the Saudi foreign minister predicted that should the Americans pull out of Al Udeid, the regime in Doha would fall “in less than a week.”

US warplanes operate from the Al Udeid air base near Doha, Qatar, October 2017. US Air Force Photo
It would be a disaster from the perspective of Doha if the Israel lobby was to put its full weight behind a campaign to pull US forces out of Qatar.

Earlier this year, an influential member of Congress and a former US defense secretary publicly discussed moving the US base out of Qatar at a conference hosted by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD).

FDD is a neoconservative Israel lobby group that happens to be one of the subjects of the undercover Al Jazeera film.

As The Electronic Intifada revealed in March, FDD is one of the groups acting as an agent of the Israeli government even though it is not registered to do so.

In July 2017, FDD’s Jonathan Schanzer testified to Congress that it would be an “insane arrangement” to keep US forces at the Al Udeid air base while Qatar continued to support “terror.”

It will concentrate minds in Doha that FDD was one of the lobby groups most dedicated to destroying the international deal with Iran over its nuclear energy program, a goal effectively achieved when the Trump administration pulled out of it last month.

In a sign of how vulnerable Qatar feels over the issue, Doha has announced plans to upgrade the Al Udeid base in the hope, as the US military newspaper Stars and Stripes put it, “that the strategic military hub will be counted as one of the Pentagon’s permanent overseas installations.”

The final straw?
The cornerstone of Qatar’s effort to win back favor in Washington has been to aggressively compete with its Gulf rivals for the affections of Israel and its Washington lobby.

Their belief appears to be that this lobby is so influential that winning its support can result in favorable changes to US policy.

Qatar’s charm offensive has included junkets to Doha for such high-profile Israel supporters as Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz and Morton Klein, the head of the Zionist Organization of America who publicly took credit for convincing Qatar’s ruler Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani to veto broadcast of the documentary.

While an all-out Saudi invasion of Qatar over a film series may seem far fetched, the thinking in Doha seems to be that broadcast of The Lobby – USA could be the final straw that antagonizes Qatar’s enemies and exposes it to further danger – especially over Al Udeid.

With an administration in Washington that is seen as impulsive and unpredictable – it has just launched a trade war against its biggest partners Canada and the European Union – leaders in Doha may see it as foolhardy to take any chances.

If that is the reason Al Jazeera’s film has been suppressed it is not so much a measure of any real and imminent threat Qatar faces, but rather of how successfully the lobby has convinced Arab rulers, including in Doha, that their well-being and longevity rests on cooperating with, or at least not crossing, Israel and its backers.

Asa Winstanley is associate editor and Ali Abunimah is executive director of The Electronic Intifada.

Qatar Al Jazeera The Lobby—USA Al Udeid air base Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani Donald Trump Jared Kushner Saudi Arabia United Arab Emirates Bahrain Iran Kuwait Foundation for the Defense of Democracies Jonathan Schanzer Morton Klein Alan Dershowitz Zionist Organization of America

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The sinister reason behind Qatar’s wooing of the Jews

Doha wants to influence D.C. elites. But rather than targeting Congress or the media, they’re lavishly, and disproportionately, focusing on right-wing, pro-Israel Jews

Jonathan S. Tobin Feb 08, 2018 2:20 PM

A debate over the good name of Qatar has become a burning issue in Washington. The Emirate has been waging an all out charm offensive aimed at convincing Americans not to back Saudi Arabia’s efforts to isolate it. 
But while efforts seeking to influence D.C. elites are commonplace, the most prominent targets of Qatar’s public relations push aren’t the usual suspects in Congress or the media.
Instead, Qatar’s PR team has focused on winning the hearts and minds of a very specific niche of opinion leader that is not generally given much attention, let alone love, by Arab states: the pro-Israel community in general and right-wing Jews in particular.

Women walk past artwork on the corniche waterside looking towards the city skyline in Doha, Qatar. Nov. 22, 2012Bloomberg
This has not only reaped some benefits for the Qataris but also set off something of a civil war on the right between those who buy the Emirate’s arguments and those who dismiss them as propaganda intended to cover up its support for terrorism.
But as interesting as this nasty intramural quarrel might be, it’s worth pondering if there’s something more to Qatar’s efforts than a generic Washington influence operation. It is, after all, logical for them to seek out those who may have Trump’s ear.
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Yet the disproportionate attention given the Jews may have a more sinister origin that should be familiar to students of Jewish and Zionist history.
The obvious explanation for Qatar’s strategy is the increased importance of pro-Israel opinion in the Trump administration, especially when compared to its predecessor. With supporters of the settlement movement appointed to posts like the U.S. ambassador to Israel and an Orthodox Jews like presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner at Trump’s side, the Jewish right’s stock is at an all-time high.
That elevates the importance of pro-Israel organizations and lobbyists who might otherwise be assumed to be hostile to any Gulf nation, especially one that is host and sponsor of the rabidly anti-Israel Al Jazeera network and is believed to have played a major role in funding Hamas.

Alan Dershowitz addresses an audience at Brandeis University, in Waltham, Mass. Jan. 23, 2007ASSOCIATED PRESS
That has led to a stream of invitations for pro-Israel figures to visit Qatar and to hear its leaders make the case that it has gotten a bum rap from critics. Some, like the Zionist Organization of America’s Mort Klein, insist they were only there to insist that the emirate cease funding terrorism. Others returned from a tour of Qatar singing its praises or at least, willing to give its assertion that it no longer has ties with Hamas the benefit of the doubt.

One prominent convert to the pro-Qatar side is attorney and author Alan Dershowitz, a longtime liberal Democrat who is also a pillar of the pro-Israel community. Dershowitz was impressed by Qatar’s efforts to put its best face forward to the Jews noting that Israeli athletes were welcomed to compete in Doha while Saudi Arabia - which has established strong under-the-table ties with Israel and is a Trump administration favorite - continued its discriminatory attitude towards Israelis. Dershowitz even went so far as to call Qatar “the Israel of the Gulf States.” 
That in turn generated some fierce pushback from other pro-Israel figures with scholar Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies pointing out there is proof that Qatar’s alibis about Hamas and terror ring false and urging Dershowitz to stick to topics he knows something about. More extreme was the reaction from the always-incendiary Rabbi Shmuley Boteach who branded Dershowitz a sellout.
Who is right in this dispute?

Members of Qatar’s armed forces during national day celebrations in Doha. Qatar is using its extraordinary wealth to fund a massive push in defense spending. December 17, 2017 STRINGER/AFP
Until proven otherwise, the skeptics about Qatar have the better arguments. Qatar’s involvement in Gaza can’t be written off as mere philanthropy.
But as even Schanzer pointed out, there’s no harm in Jews going there to learn more about the place. Nor, despite the close ties it is establishing with Israel, is there any reason for pro-Israel figures to get involved in the politics of the Arabian Peninsula, let alone take the side of the Saudis in their feud with Qatar. The Gulf emirate has always had an ambivalent relationship with the West, with Doha being a U.S. Navy base while also serving as a beachhead for Iranian influence. Drawing firm conclusions about its behavior is probably unwarranted.
But there’s another factor here that needs to also be examined.
While their Washington PR representative — a former aide to Senator Ted Cruz - may have told his client that winning over supporters of Israel is the path to success, the attention given the American Jewish community is still disproportionate. Conservative Jewish groups may have loud voices and some influential backers but their ability to influence events, let alone national opinion is limited. That’s why most lobbyists don’t squander that much attention on them.

The newsroom at the headquarters of the Qatar-based and funded Al Jazeera English-language channel in Doha. February 7, 2011REUTERS
Another plausible explanation for all this attention stems from the traditional anti-Semitic belief that Jews and Zionists can exert mysterious control over major powers like the United States. Just like the well-meaning British statesmen who really thought the Balfour Declaration would boost the Allied war effort because of the unique and sinister ability of Jews to influence the United States and Russia, others have similarly bought into unfounded notions about Jewish power.
The contemporary Arab and Muslim world has become a place where anti-Semitic texts like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion freely circulate. Those who demonize Israel and its supporters are prone to attribute exaggerated powers to Jews in this way. If the Qataris are that focused on American Jews and right-wingers at that, it’s just as likely to be as much the product of this sort of distorted thinking as anything else.
Seen in that light, the dustup on the Jewish right about Qatar is even sillier that it seems. Reports about Qatar dangling the prospect of spiking an Al Jazeera documentary about pro-Israel lobbyists is particularly absurd because few in the U.S. take the network seriously.
Rather than argue about the virtues of the Emirate, supporters of Israel need to wonder about the reasons they are being wooed and conclude they’d be better off staying out of this dispute altogether.
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNS.org and a contributing writer for National Review. Twitter: @jonathans_tobin

#ISRAËL : L’ONU ADOPTE UNE RÉSOLUTION RÉCLAMANT L’ARRÊT DE LA #COLONISATION DES #TERRITOIRES_PALESTINIENS
▻http://www.lci.fr/international/israel-l-onu-adopte-une-resolution-demandant-l-arret-de-la-colonisation-des-terr

La décision des #Etats-Unis de ne pas utiliser leur droit de #veto, contrairement à un précédent projet de texte, a permis l’adoption par le Conseil de sécurité de l’#ONU d’une résolution condamnant les colonies israéliennes vendredi 23 décembre.

Status Update - By Jonathan Schanzer | Foreign Policy
►http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/05/21/status_update?page=0,0

With the stroke of a pen, a new bill in Congress could slash the number of Palestinian refugees — and open a world of controversy.

The aim of this proposed legislation, Kirk’s office explains, is not to deprive Palestinians who live in poverty of essential services, but to tackle one of the thorniest issues of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict: the “right of return.” The dominant Palestinian narrative is that all of the refugees of the Israeli-Palestinian wars have a right to go back, and that this right is not negotiable. But here’s the rub: By UNRWA’s own count, the number of Palestinians who describe themselves as refugees has skyrocketed from 750,000 in 1950 to 5 million today. As a result, the refugee issue has been an immovable obstacle in round after round of negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians.

#réfugiés #droit_au_retour #palestiniens