Qatar has made a lot of enemies in the Arab world by hosting al Jazeera, none more so than in Saudi Arabia and its vast media holdings. When Qatar was hit by a terrorist attack the other day, it seems to have enjoyed little of the spontaneous support and concern which most countries enjoy when hit by al Qaeda or other terrorists. As Asa'd AbuKhalil noted, the Saudi owned al Arabiya could scarcely contain its glee. In the Saudi owned al Sharq al Awsat today, al Arabiya's boss Abd al Rahman al Rashed writes a pretty odorous piece making fun of Qataris for "suddenly changing their minds" about terrorism (they used to be in favor of it apparently). What Rashed carefully hints at, another SA columnist, Mishari al Zaydi, shouts to the rooftops, practically laughing with delight at the Qataris supposedly being hoist on their own petard, and repeatedly claiming that al Jazeera had been "allied" with bin Laden. This is fairly typical stuff for the Saudi media, which has long published such accusations against their only serious rival, and for certain Arab officials and journalists who have long peddled the "al Jazeera/bin Laden" line to credulous Western audiences (believe me, conspiracy theories about al Jazeera are just as widespread in certain circles of the Arab world as they are over here). Both al Arabiya and al Sharq al Awsat really come out of this episode smelling bad. I hope that scoring points some cheap points against Qatar and against al Jazeera felt really good to them.
I think the right-wing blogosphere has been gloating on this too. No surprise, many were calling for bombing Al Jazeera during the Iraq war.
Which shows that despite their so-called desire for democracy, they really only want a free press as long as its pro-American.
On the other side, I can't help wondering if Al Qaeada has made another major mistake, as they did in their attacks in Saudi Arabia. Those attacks led the Saudis to crack down and cost it popular support in Saudi Arabia, these may do likewise in the Gulf States.
Posted by: Josh | March 22, 2005 at 10:15 AM