# Al Jazeera **Al Jazeera** is a news network based in Doha and funded by the government of [[Qatar]]. It began as an Arabic satellite channel on November 1, 1996, and now includes Al Jazeera English and the social-video brand AJ+. It is one of the most widely watched Arabic news channels and a constant source of friction with Arab governments. In 2017 four of Qatar's neighbors made closing it a condition for ending their blockade. ## Origins Qatar's then-emir, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, launched the channel with a start-up grant of roughly $140 million. Many of its first journalists came from a BBC Arabic television service that had just shut down. Al Jazeera aired debates and dissident voices that state broadcasters in the region did not carry, which made it popular with viewers and unpopular with governments. ## Collisions with the United States Al Jazeera had a bureau in Kabul when the [[Afghanistan War]] began, and it aired statements by [[Osama bin Laden]]. Secretary of State Colin Powell raised its coverage with Qatar's emir, according to a Pew Research Center timeline of the [[George W. Bush]] years. - **November 13, 2001.** A U.S. missile destroyed the network's Kabul office. - **April 8, 2003.** A U.S. strike hit its Baghdad office during the invasion that began the [[Iraq War]], killing correspondent Tareq Ayyoub. The network ran a U.S. cable channel, Al Jazeera America, from 2013 to 2016. ## The 2017 demand When [[Saudi Arabia]], the [[United Arab Emirates]], [[Bahrain]] and [[Egypt]] cut ties with Qatar in June 2017, their list of 13 demands called for shutting Al Jazeera and all its affiliates. They accused it of promoting the [[Muslim Brotherhood]] and stirring unrest in their countries. The network called the demand an attempt to silence free expression. Qatar refused, and the blockade ended in 2021 with Al Jazeera still on the air. See [[Qatar Diplomatic Crisis]]. ## The foreign-agent order On September 14, 2020, the U.S. [[Department of Justice]] ordered AJ+, the network's U.S.-based social-video unit, to register under [[FARA]], the foreign-agent disclosure law. The department said AJ+ acts at the direction and control of Qatar's government. Al Jazeera disputed that. It said the order followed Emirati lobbying and noted that it arrived in the same week the Emirates signed the [[Abraham Accords]] at the White House. Critics of the network, including the [[Foundation for Defense of Democracies]], said in 2025 that AJ+ had still not registered. ## Israel and Gaza - **2022.** Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian American, was shot and killed while covering an Israeli military raid in the West Bank city of Jenin. - **May 2024.** Israel's cabinet voted unanimously to shut down Al Jazeera's operations in the country under a new law allowing bans on foreign broadcasters judged a security threat. Police raided its Jerusalem offices the same day. - **August 10, 2025.** An Israeli strike in Gaza killed correspondent Anas al-Sharif and four colleagues. Israel's military said it had targeted al-Sharif and called him a [[Hamas]] operative. Israel has repeatedly accused Al Jazeera journalists of working with Hamas. The network denies it and says its staff have been deliberately targeted during the [[Gaza War]]. ## How to read it Al Jazeera's reporting is widely cited, including on this wiki. Two things are true at once. It does original reporting from places few other outlets reach. It is also paid for by a government with interests in the stories it covers, and critics say its Arabic channel in particular tracks Qatar's foreign policy. Its coverage of Qatar's rivals, and their coverage of Qatar, are best read with the funding in mind. ## See Also - [[Qatar]] · [[Qatari Influence]] · [[Qatar Diplomatic Crisis]] · [[Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani]] - [[FARA]] · [[RT]] · [[Propaganda]] - [[Gaza War]] · [[Hamas]] · [[Muslim Brotherhood]]