Al-Quds Al-Arabi
Al-Quds al-Arabi is an independent pan-Arab daily newspaper, published in London since 1989 and owned by Palestinian expatriates. According to news reports in 2013, it is now owned by Qatar media interests, through intermediaries. The paper's motto is, "daily, political, independent". Its circulation is estimated to be somewhere between 15,000 and 50,000. From the start until his resignation in July 2013, its editor-in-chief was Abdel Bari Atwan, who was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in the Gaza Strip in 1950. After his resignation in July 2013, Atwan was followed by Sana Aloul, a London-based Palestinian journalist.
The paper publishes many Arab writers. It positions itself as an objective newspaper, covering the latest news and events. Al-Quds al-Arabi states that its "correspondents and writers are biased toward people’s and human rights issues, including women's, children's and refugees' rights. It rejects sectarianism, violence and discrimination". It exposes corruption, violations, racism and practices of oppressive regimes. It advocates for the rights of the Palestinian people and opposes the sanctioned policies of the Israeli occupation. As indicated by its motto, the paper stresses this distinction by emphasizing its independent ownership and viewpoint relative to the other pan-Arab dailies.
History
Al-Quds al-Arabi was founded in April 1989 as the international edition of the Palestinian daily al-Quds and is based in the Hammersmith district of London. While the initial funding was reportedly provided by the Palestine Liberation Organization, the paper then received support from a variety of political circles in the Arab world, including Iraq and Sudan, before the Qatari government began to subsidise it, possibly as early as 1998. The paper first came to global attention after Atwan traveled to Afghanistan in 1996 to interview Osama bin Laden. Like Al-Jazeera, contacts with militia groups such as al-Qaeda have consistently stirred attention and controversy in the West toward Atwan and the paper, particularly in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.The fatāwā of Osama bin Laden in 1996 were first published by the paper. On the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Atwan wrote: "The events of 11 September will be remembered as the end of the US empire. This is because all empires collapse when they pursue the arrogance of power." However, Atwan explicitly condemned terrorist attacks on innocent Western civilians, as he wrote in one of his two books, The Secret History of al Qa'ida: "I do not endorse or in any way support al-Qaeda's agenda" and "I utterly condemn the attacks on innocent citizens in the West". The paper later published and vouched for the credibility of letters from the alleged successor group to al-Qaeda, the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, active until 2005.
Atwan unexpectedly left the paper as its chairman and editor-in-chief on 10 July 2013 and Sana Aloul became the editor-in-chief. The exact reason for Atwan's sudden departure isn't publicly known, but he stated: "We had on-going and never-ending financial problems whose resolution, ultimately, required political compromises that I was not able to make. Sacrificing professional integrity, our independent editorial line and the space we allowed for free comment were red lines I could not cross."