Khashoggi was Journalist AND Brotherhood Supporter
by Tom Harb
The Daily Beast attacked Professor Walid Phares because he told FoxNews that “the late Jamal Khajokji” was supportive of the Muslim Brotherhood. The man can be two things at once: a journalist and Muslim Brotherhood supporter. Phares had simply read about the writer’s positions on his Twitter account and watched an interview he gave to al Jazeera, all sources still available online. It didn’t matter that Phares was stating facts. He is opposed to political violence at any time in any place and he wanted to see justice in the killing of Jamal Khashokji, particularly because years ago the Beirut-born advisor had been a target as well.
But in the case of the Daily Beast and its militant sisters, we’re not dealing with humanitarian media, we’re dealing with a media that also targets individuals with different opinions, and is not above launching acerbic smears at the service of foreign powers, from Iran to Qatar.
This is nothing new to Phares. Along with a hit team of web sites and publications, the Daily Beast had smeared him in 2011, 2012 and in 2016, following his appointment as a Presidential candidate advisor by Romney and then Trump. The Beast has been supportive of the Iran Deal and a rabid attacker of the critics of the “150 billion dollars deal” between President Obama and the Ayatollahs.
The “Beast” tasked an ignorant half time blogger, #AndrewKirell, who used Hezbollah smear material published in 2011 to attack Phares and other Fox News personalities such as @HARRISFAULKNER , @LisaMarieBoothe @edhenry #JudithMiller & @WalidPhares.
The pro Iran deal web site is part of the Iran-Ikhwan lobby in America. Part of the war on America and the free world. A failed war
Fox News contributor Walid Phares, a right-wing anti-Islamic pundit and former Trump adviser added in the same segment: “I read the Twitter feed of Mr. Khashoggi, I saw him on TV for many years, he’s well-known. His position has been always for the Muslim Brotherhood, against the regime, and especially against this leadership. Even he sided with the Brotherhood, and at some time, he was criticizing the policy of the United States—which is okay, people can do that, so that’s reality.”
This is presented as an example of Islamophobia and a desire to smear Khashokji, but it’s just a simple fact. Walid Phares is backed in his opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood by a majority of Egyptians, the largest Arab Sunni country, by the Iranian opposition, the largest Shia civil society, and by Muslim communities, NGOs, activists across the world. How can he be described as an “anti-Islamic” pundit. He is surely a critic of Islamism and Jihadism, like thousands of Muslim liberals and moderates. The old canards of the Beast, Mother Jones and the Washington Post against have evaporated a while ago.
The far left media are using the sad episode of the death of a Saudi political activist, to strike at US policies of rapprochement with the members of the Arab Coalition, including Saudi, UAE, Egypt, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan and other anti-terrorist forces in the Arab world. They are doing so as supporters of the fascist axis of Iran, Assad, Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood. They wanted to crumble Donald Trump’s alliance with the Arab Coalition, but they failed. Saudi Arabia is coming forward with a probe on the Khajokji’s death and thousands of Arab social media users and bloggers have smashed the multi million dollars offensive by Ikhwan and Iran lobbies.
Walid Phares struggled all his life for freedom and democracy in the Middle East, for women, minorities, youth and individual dissidents like Jamal Khajokji to be able to be free.
The Beast remains a beast at the service of the regional Jihadists, and the American public needs to know that.