Between the Lines: A new kind of Palestinian propaganda tool

Middle East Eye is a propaganda rag of a kind that has become increasingly common. Let us dissect this publication to expose its searing dishonesty.

This edition of Between the Lines is not my usual analysis of mainstream media’s anti-Israeli bias. Rather, it is a look at the publication Middle East Eye, which is an increasingly common form of anti-Israel propaganda and fiction.

Whereas the likes of CNN, The New York Times, The Guardian, and BBC, are mainstream news organizations that have anti-Israel editorial agendas, Middle East Eye is a different hound.

It presents itself as a serious Middle East news website, published in English, in the hope that readers will not realize it peddles as many lies as a porcupine has quills.

Many fair-minded readers know that it is hard to get objective Israel-Palestinian coverage, so they are looking for another perspective, maybe even an Arab one.

This is a reasonable idea. Yet, the anti-Israel propagandists are on to it with publications such as Middle East Eye making sure that truth-seeking readers do not discover the facts.

Readers think Middle East Eye is a real news site and swallow its lies whole, without even chewing.

Worse still, notorious anti-Israel and antisemitic organizations such as Amnesty International, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and Human Rights Watch, routinely quote Middle East Eye as though it featured real news. This gives it an undeserved veneer of respectability.

Middle East Eye may look like a professional news website and feature prominently in internet searches, presumably due to a healthy advertising budget, but there are definite tells for professionals who examine it closely, or for those who know the facts and understand the dispute.

Firstly, the publication's ownership and financing are opaque. It was founded in London. Its Editor-in-Chief David Hearst is a former correspondent for The Guardian, one of the world’s most anti-Israel newspapers, and one that I have featured in this column previously.

After scouring the internet, I can find no meaningful evidence of how the publication funds itself and, having been a specialist financial journalist for 25 years, I am better than most at following money trails.

The word on the street is that Qatari money backs it. That would make sense. Qatar stands tall in a rogue’s gallery of dishonest actors.

The clues to Middle East Eye’s likely Qatari financing are that it employs many Al Jazeera journalists as freelancers, and Al Jazeera is the Qatari Government’s mouthpiece, complete with the bad breath. Middle East Eye also mirrors Al Jazeera’s editorial positions.

While Middle East eye criticizes many Arab states, as well as Israel, it never criticizes Qatar’s actions or its appalling human rights record.

While its articles are written as though they are straight news, they are full of fabrications.

Here is a breakdown of Middle East Eye’s story titled: Israel to take full control of land registry in West Bank's (Judea and Samaria) Area C, cementing annexation. It features one lie after another.