Peloni: Qatar is at an inflection point in its history. It has been fixed in its current situation for the past 5 decades as it stood in the unenviable position of being in the shadow of Iran’s domination. Today that domination has shifted, and this is clear from the reporting from Qatar’s media empire. This fact provides Qatar with choices and possibilities which have never been available to the current regime. Indeed, events surrounding Qatar will have no small part in choosing its path, and the path that it takes will in turn have no small effect on the region at large.
Ahmad Sharawi & Natalie Ecanow | April 2, 2026
Al Jazeera Media Network Logo design. Photo by Isma4l – Own work, CC BY 4.0, Wikipedia
Veteran Al Jazeera analyst Leqaa Makki threw viewers a curveball during a recent news segment. He advocated for an escalation against Iran. A familiar face on the network since 2003, Makki argued that strategic sites, including power plants, electricity infrastructure and assets that would make ordinary Iranians “feel the impact of the war” should be hit, to potentially turn against them against the regime.
This is not language that is expected from Al Jazeera, which is better known for promoting the talking points of its state backer, Qatar. But the Iran war is teaching us to expect the unexpected.
There is no single Al Jazeera line on this war, and no editorial spine through its English opinion pages, Arabic website, and rolling live coverage. Instead, the network has fractured into a platform where competing instincts about Iran, the Persian Gulf, and the costs of war are colliding.
Qatar has long regarded the Islamic Republic a “sisterly” regime, but there are indications that the war with Iran could mark a falling out. Qatar dismantled two Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) cells on March 3 allegedly tasked with “espionage missions” and “sabotage activities.” On March 18, Doha expelled Iran’s military and security attaches. Al Jazeera published an op-ed that week that spoke positively of American and Israeli strategy — a remarkable shift in tone from a state-owned outlet that has historically promoted the terrorist group Hamas.
Al Jazeera presents itself as an independent, professional news organization. In practice, however, its editorial line has consistently aligned with Qatar’s foreign policy priorities. Across regional crises, the network — reaching an audience of roughly 430 million people, rarely departs from Doha’s preferred narrative. And it dares not criticize the Qatari government. Al Jazeera mounted scathing coverage of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates during the four-year blockade that Riyadh and Abu Dhabi imposed on Qatar. After the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, it amplified Hamas’ perspective. In both cases, its coverage tracked closely with Qatari policy positions.
The current war posed a unique test. Qatar itself has come under sustained Iranian drone and missile attacks. In fact, after weathering nearly three weeks of Iranian strikes, Qatar reportedly arrested three Al Jazeera journalists for supporting Iran. At least one denied the rumors and claimed that she is “living safely” in Doha. Nevertheless, whatever their validity, these rumors contribute to a growing uncertainty about Qatar’s position in this war. And that uncertainty translates to Doha’s mouthpiece.
After encouraging escalation against Iran, Makki went further, warning of Iranian expansionism and suggesting that Tehran could move to seize Arab islands in the Gulf. Viewers flooded the comments section below the video with anger, some accusing the network of abandoning its identity altogether. One response read, “as if you’re listening to a Zionist analyst,” another said “who is this Zionist mouthpiece? Al Jazeera is destroying what it built for 30 years.” Another viewer stated that the segment was “a major blunder at a major channel like Al Jazeera.”
Other analysts on the network have begun urging Gulf states to definitively choose a side in this war, a position that cuts directly against both Qatar’s diplomatic posture. The argument, increasingly voiced on air, is that hedging did not shield the Gulf. Even Qatar, the quintessential intermediary, has found itself under fire.
Al Jazeera has also ventured into how the Islamic Republic manages dissent at home. In a short explainer video, the network examined Tehran’s repeated use of internet shutdowns during waves of protest. The segment made a pointed argument that these blackouts are about controlling the narrative and obscuring the regime’s violence against its people from the outside world, as well as its dismantling of the infrastructure of the social movements themselves. In the comments, viewers pushed back sharply, accusing the network of selective scrutiny. One user wrote:
“Al Jazeera — what about Israel? What about the human and material losses there?” another used said “Iran knows the internet is controlled by the United States, and it’s easy to incite unrest through it, so it cut that channel — and that is the rational decision. I’ve become convinced this channel is a tool of American-Zionist psychological warfare against Arab peoples.”
Criticism of Iran has not been confined to Al Jazeera’s live coverage. Across both its English and Arabic opinion pages, a steady stream of op-eds has sharpened the case against Tehran. Some authors argue bluntly that “Iran is serving Israel’s interests by attacking Arab countries,” while others warn that a premature end to the war would risk “creating a strategic vacuum in an already volatile region,” one that would allow Iran to rebuild its capabilities and refine new forms of indirect pressure.
At the same time, Al Jazeera has not abandoned its long-standing critique of Israel or the United States. If anything, its Arabic opinion pages have doubled down — offering a steady stream of commentary that places Israel at the center of the conflict’s origin and consequences.
On Al Jazeera’s Arabic news website, the war in Iran doesn’t dominate the homepage. Instead, the front page feels crowded with other urgent matters — dispatches from Gaza, updates on tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and reporting on Lebanon’s humanitarian crisis. Surprisingly, there are fewer reports about Iran’s attacks against the Arab states.
Yet, when the network turns its focus into Iran, there’s a shift in the tone. One report, built around voices gathered from Tehran, offers a rare window into public sentiment inside a country where few international outlets maintain a consistent presence. In it, Al Jazeera captures a society recalibrating under pressure.
An academic interviewed by the network says that only months earlier, many of her students had been in the streets protesting the regime. But now, she says, the U.S.–Israeli strikes have stirred something deeper — national sentiment. “Many of my students were protesting just months ago,” she explains, “but the attack awakened their sense of patriotism.”
In the same report, a conversation with a couple unfolded a microcosm of Iran’s internal debate. “This system cannot continue,” the man says. “It is hostile to the world and even to its own people. We are waiting for the Shah’s son to restore what we have lost over five decades.”
His wife warned that regime change, especially in the Middle East, rarely unfolds cleanly. More often, it leaves countries shattered. “We do not want our country to become scorched earth,” she says.
The inconsistency continues. One op-ed by Columbia University professor Hamid Dabashi, a pro-regime scholar, lays outthe argument that the ultimate responsibility for strikes on Iranian civilians is Washington’s, and more pointedly, Israel’s. The author contends that “the roots of this renewed war against Iran do not lie in the United States; rather, they lie in Israel,’ which the author describes as having evolved into “a forward military outpost for a faltering American empire.”
It is clear is that neither Al Jazeera nor Qatar is ready to place their bets. The tiny Gulf nation’s former prime minister indicated as much when he told “the Iranian leadership” on March 18 that the Qataris “have never been your enemies.”
Qatar opposed the first Trump administration’s maximum pressure campaign and decision to designate the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization, and twice welcomed the IRGC to the biennial Doha International Maritime Defense Exhibition, where the Guard Corps flaunted technologies used against American and Israeli targets. Nonetheless, successive U.S. administrations have tapped Qatar to mediate with Iran — including a 2023 deal that saw the U.S. unfreeze and deposit $6 billion of Iranian oil revenue into accounts in Qatar.
Lobbying to prematurely deescalate and keep the Islamic Republic alive, in other words, would be more consistent with Qatar’s record.
Analysts have long understood that Qatar plays both arsonist and firefighter. Qatar certainly did not ignite this conflict, but hedging remains Doha’s preferred strategy. Al Jazeera’s tonal shift is notable and should earn Qatar some credit, but what’s clearest from this shift is that Qatar’s own positions remain muddied at best.
Ahmad Sharawi and Natalie Ecanow are senior research analysts at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow Ahmad on X @AhmadA_Sharawi. Follow Natalie on X @NatalieEcanow. Follow FDD on X @FDD.
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