Where can one look to find the ultimate hypocrisy today?
One would think we could look to current politicians, among whom there is plenty of hypocrisy to go around.
Or we could look to Al Gore, who preaches “green,” but makes more than $100 million from the “black gold” of Qatar. In selling Current TV, Gore’s failed television network, to Al Jazeera, he merely confirmed what nearly everyone knew about him: that the only green he believes in is the color of money.
But to find the ultimate hypocrisy, we need only look a little further—for if you guessed it is closely connected with Al Jazeera, Qatar, and Al Gore, you would be very close.
On Monday, January 21, the beefy Emir of Qatar opened the Doha Third Forum to combat human trafficking. His royal highness played host to the annual conference, which takes place in Doha, the capital of Qatar.
Readers who are unfamiliar with Middle East politics would be excused for criticizing me for even mentioning this worthy cause in a negative light. The tragedy of human trafficking is a global catastrophe and needs all the exposure it can get. But it is the ultimate in hypocrisy for the Emir of Qatar to play host to such a worthy effort to stop that tragedy. It is like Osama bin Laden having hosted a Middle East conference on peace.
Qatar, and its billionaire Emir, have been funding and supporting Islamist radicals around the world for years. And in addition to dolling out money to those groups, they have spread an Islamist message by using their global megaphone, called Al Jazeera—an operation that was even shunned by some Arab countries because of its support for radicals.
It was said that when former President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt visited Qatar, he wanted to see Al Jazeera’s headquarters. When he saw the small size of the building, he reportedly said, “Is this the matchbox which is igniting all this fire?”
Al Jazeera has indeed created havoc. The Emir of Qatar and his Al Jazeera megaphone have a reputation for, as they say in the Middle East, “killing a person and weeping at his funeral.” In other words, they sow trouble and support radicals, and yet they try to appear as clean as Mother Teresa.
Having said all that, I need to clarify something for Western readers who may have watched the English-language division of Al Jazeera. For those viewers, the English version often seems “no more radical than CNN or BBC.” In fact, many of the personnel for the English division came from those two organizations.
But when it comes to the mother ship—the Arabic channel of Al Jazeera—it’s a whole different ballgame. On the Arabic version, reporter after reporter often creates a narrative that fits their anti-Christian, anti-Israel, and anti-Semitic milieu.
Qatar and its rulers trying to cover themselves with the golden robe of a popular cause—such as their supposed support of the fight against human trafficking—is to cover what may not be savory intentions.
When it comes to hypocrisy, there is plenty of guilt to go around. But Doha’s hosting of the forum against human trafficking represents a new low in the annals of duplicity.