To download the PDF file, click here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\nAn analysis conducted by researchers at JPPI (the Jewish People Policy Institute) examines the media conduct of one of the key players in the Middle East, Qatar \u2014 home to the largest American military base in the region, Al-Udeid Air Base, which the United States uses in its military operations against Iran.<\/p>\n
While Qatar publicly presents itself as cooperating with the United States, the English-language network Al Jazeera, which is affiliated with the Qatari regime, together with its digital arm AJ+, which reaches millions of viewers worldwide, has broadcast strongly anti-war messages and has directly and indirectly attacked U.S. President Donald Trump and the U.S. administration. The analysis examined dozens of opinion columns, articles, and videos in English, published both before and after the outbreak of the war, between January 28 and March 8, 2026. The findings reveal a clear and consistent pattern: criticism of the war is extremely harsh and largely ignores the role played by Gulf states \u2014 including Qatar itself \u2014 in hosting and defending American military bases.<\/p>\n
Some content even argued that the war serves as a distraction from domestic political controversies in the United States, such as the Jeffrey Epstein affair, while others framed the military campaign as illegitimate, illegal, or even linked to broader structures of \u201cwhite supremacy and capitalism.\u201d The study analyzed Al Jazeera\u2019s English-language opinion columns and articles using advanced artificial intelligence tools and sentiment analysis. Researchers compared two periods: before the war, when commentary focused on the possibility of conflict, and after the war had begun.<\/p>\n
During the pre-war period (approximately one month), 77.8% of publications were classified as very negative and 5.6% as negative. In total, 89% of the publications expressed negative sentiment toward the war. After the war began, the trend intensified. 85.3% of publications were classified as very negative and 5.9% as negative. Overall, 91.2% of the publications were negative, the vast majority of them strongly so.<\/p>\n
The findings were even more pronounced on AJ+, the network\u2019s digital platform. 95.2% of the content analyzed was classified as \u201cvery negative\u201d toward the war, including direct personal criticism of President Trump. Among the sampled videos, not a single one presented the war in a positive light or attempted to justify it, and only marginal references were made to Iranian attacks on Gulf states.<\/p>\n
Lt. Col. (res.) Or Hurwitz, a Senior Fellow at JPPI, and a former senior officer in Israeli Military Intelligence stated: \u201cQatar has experienced firsthand the Iranian threat during the current war. Its longstanding strategy of attempting to \u2018live alongside tigers\u2019\u2014pursuing reconciliation while maintaining strategic relationships with terrorist organizations and extremist actors\u2014has not protected it. At the moment of truth, this approach failed to prevent Iran from harming Qatar itself and directly threatening its sovereignty. This development joins the Israeli strike in Doha several months ago, which also demonstrated the limits of Qatar\u2019s attempt to \u2018dance at two weddings.\u2019<\/p>\n
“Qatar is an actor driven primarily by survival in a complex regional environment rather than by ideology. The current war may therefore create a unique window of opportunity for a strategic shift in Qatari policy after the conflict. Such a shift could include a harder stance toward Iran and Sunni terrorist organizations, a reassessment of Al Jazeera\u2019s editorial guidelines, and perhaps even gradual changes in Qatar\u2019s posture toward Israel. The path forward is uncertain and complex, but the possibility for change now exists\u2014particularly if it is supported by American engagement and strategic assistance.\u201d<\/p>\n
The full study here.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sorry, this entry is only available in \u05e2\u05d1\u05e8\u05d9\u05ea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29733,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","topics-geopolitics","library-158","library-op-ed","library-publications"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29732"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29855,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29732\/revisions\/29855"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}