Hamas's worldwide network and Al Jazeera 'Media Jihad' role in global media manipulation

Yahoo

a day ago

A leading Israeli expert on Islamic popular movement noted that in order to understand Hamas, researchers must look behind Gaza's borders.
Understanding Hamas requires looking beyond Gaza's borders, according to Dr. Nesya Shemer, a leading expert on Islamic studies and political Islam movements from the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at Bar Ilan University. In a recent interview, Dr. Shemer explained how Hamas operates as part of a much larger, globally coordinated information warfare campaign that extends far beyond the confines of the Gaza Strip.
"Hamas is not just an organization of a few thousand fighters remaining in Gaza," Shemer emphasized. "Hamas is part of a global Muslim Brotherhood movement, which has branches worldwide and is particularly well-organized in the West."
Central to Hamas's global influence, Shemer argued, is the Al Jazeera network, owned by Qatar, one of the major patrons of the Muslim Brotherhood. Shemer described the Qatari outlet as having become "a central factor in shaping Arab public opinion."
She noted that Al Jazeera broadcasts in multiple languages, including Arabic, English, French, Spanish, Chinese, and Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian, and maintains a comprehensive digital presence across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok, including a special youth-oriented channel, AJ+.
Shemer explained that Hamas also receives religious backing from international organizations of Muslim scholars, most notably the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS), founded by the renowned Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the same Qatari based cleric who endorsed and espoused Hamas's suicide bombings. "Hundreds of thousands of Muslim religious figures from around the world are members of this organization," she said, adding that these religious leaders are also active on social media platforms with millions of followers.
The core narrative that Hamas promotes, according to Shemer, centers on two demonizing claims: that Israel is committing 'genocide' in Gaza and forcing the survivors into exile. She pointed out that this narrative building has also harnessed statements from both President Trump regarding the establishment of a "Riviera" in Gaza and haphazard declarations by Israeli officials about establishing settlements in Gaza or committing war crimes.
'Many don't understand that in democracies, declarations are more like rhetorical battles and have no real effect on the polices on the ground,' Shemer continued. 'In practice, neither decision-makers nor the majority of the Israeli public are fighting for these goals or are willing to use practices that violate international law - but are interested in defeating Hamas and removing it from any position of power in the Gaza Strip and returning the hostages.'
"These two messages—destruction and displacement—are the worst possible messages from the perspective of Muslim and international ears," Shemer commented. She described how Al Jazeera floods the Muslim and international world with both carefully chosen negative 'buzzwords' and difficult images of affected civilians in Gaza, particularly mothers and small children, creating a deeply emotional impact on Muslims worldwide.
However, Shemer noted a critical information gap: "Al Jazeera does not provide the broader context of the fight against Hamas, which uses civilians as human shields while hiding in underground tunnels, or the fact that Hamas itself attacked civilians on October 7 and still holds them as hostages."
Shemer revealed the extent of ignorance about basic facts regarding Israel's situation among global Muslim populations. "According to research, Muslims around the world barely know basic facts about the situation in Israel," she said. "Information reaches consciousness at the headline level, and sometimes not even that."
To illustrate this point, she shared an example from her conversations with Muslims worldwide: "I asked if they knew who the Bibas family was. The answer was no; and the Bibas family was the most famous event regarding Israel in the world." She added that even regarding October 7 itself, there isn't sufficient information, compounded by the fact that Hamas and Al Jazeera have vehemently denied harming civilians, knowing such actions are perceived as illegitimate by Muslims and the international community.
Shemer emphasized that Hamas's success in propagating this narrative stems from its appeal to human and Muslim emotions. However, she characterized this as manipulation, explaining that "Hamas's political and religious leadership doesn't focus at all on the human suffering in Gaza. This is suffering they caused, but they justify it with the religious ideology of jihad warfare for the 'liberation of Palestine,' which essentially means the elimination of Israel."
The Israeli scholar continued: 'this is in full contrast with the reality that Hamas's military leadership hides in underground tunnels while the political and religious leadership resides in five-star hotels around the world.' These images, she explained, are the tactic Hamas uses to create strong political pressure on Israel, an endeavor termed "Al-Jihad Al-I'lami" or 'media jihad.'
Despite the dominance of Hamas and its backers in Qatar over the narrative, Shemer noted that voices from Gaza are emerging expressing disgust with Hamas's corrupt rule, which she said 'uses Islam as a tool while only caring about control.' She referenced a fatwa issued several months ago by a Gaza religious figure named Salman al-Diya, who argued that Hamas made a mistake in launching the October 7 attack because they failed to foresee the consequences and not only failed to liberate a centimeter of Palestine but brought destruction upon the Palestinians. 'It should be noted that the signs of resistance to Hamas do not necessarily mean a decline in support for the armed struggle against Israel as a central tool for achieving Palestinian goals,' Shemer clarified. 'This view is still consensual.'
Shemer explained that when Israel took control of aid distribution from Hamas, it effectively removed Hamas's control over the population, which Hamas had been using and exploiting as victims. She described how aid previously went to Hamas, who would take it from the population, store it in their warehouses, and sell it at exorbitant prices that poor Gazans couldn't afford—citing an example of a 25-kilogram bag of flour costing 3,000 shekels.
"We hear more and more voices of Gazans on social media whose fear barrier from Hamas has been broken and they are speaking out openly against it," she observed.
Regarding Israel's current global narrative position, Shemer was candid: "Israel's situation right now is not good in terms of narrative in the Arab world." She called for Israel to create a well-organized information body capable of responding in real-time to accusations in global media, and emphasized the importance of not forgetting the Arab world, including peace treaty partners Egypt and Jordan, as well as Abraham Accords countries.
"Public pressure is being created toward the regimes in these countries, when the public comes to them with complaints about how they normalized relations with Israel while Israel is portrayed as a criminal," she concluded, warning that a decade of diplomatic efforts to achieve the Abraham Accords could be lost.
However, Shemer claimed that not everything is lost. She advocated for Israel to continue and expand aid distribution, noting that aid distribution areas are safe zones where Israel doesn't fight. She proposed creating a protected, separate compound supervised by international or Israeli authorities where the entire civilian population could relocate, providing food, medical care, and everything the population needs while ensuring positive images of Israel caring for the civilian population emerge.
"Take care of the population and ensure that positive pictures come out of a civilian population that Israel cares for,' Shemer suggested. 'At the end of the day, it is Israel that is making tremendous efforts to untie the Gordian knot that Hamas has created between its terrorist activity and the civilian population and to separate, to the best of its ability, those involved in the fighting and those not involved, within an incredibly complex arena.