Qatar in Egypt: The politics of Al Jazeera

This article argues that, although Al Jazeera may have been founded with the idea of giving Qatar influence in the Arab world and beyond, it was through a form of slow Islamist takeover within Al Jazeera Network that first the new Al Jazeera Mubasher Misr (Al Jazeera Live from Egypt) and second the classic Al Jazeera Arabic were ideologically transformed. This transformation led both of these Al Jazeera subsidiaries to damage Qatar’s political relations with its neighboring states of Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Analysis reveals that Al Jazeera and Qatar’s foreign policies are not identical. Rather, each institution manifests its own internal logic and enforces external ties. Moreover, there are many Al Jazeera(s): Al Jazeera Arabic (AJA), Al Jazeera English (AJE), Al Jazeera Mubasher Misr (AJMM), Al Jazeera Documentary etc. Each one is different. The article also examines the case of the three Al Jazeera English journalists who were jailed, tried, and eventually pardoned, in Egypt, as an example of the worsening political relations that developed between Qatar and Egypt as a result of confusing AJE’s professional work with the ultimately shut down AlJazeera Mubasher Misr’s Islamist editorial policy and unprofessional journalistic practices. Methods include: examining primary documents, qualitative content analysis of officials’ media interviews, fieldwork research in Egypt, and anthropological research in Qatar, interviewing journalists, public officials, and academics on various research trips between 2007 and 2017.