''Middle East Eye'' (MEE) is a United Kingdom-based media website and channel that primarily focuses on news related to the

Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

North Africa North Africa (sometimes Northern Africa) is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region. However, it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of t ...

, and the broader

Muslim world The terms Islamic world and Muslim world commonly refer to the Islamic community, which is also known as the Ummah. This consists of all those who adhere to the religious beliefs, politics, and laws of Islam or to societies in which Islam is ...

. The ownership of the organisation is undisclosed. Some sources have alleged that the organisation is funded by the government of

Qatar Qatar, officially the State of Qatar, is a country in West Asia. It occupies the Geography of Qatar, Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it shares Qatar–Saudi Arabia border, its sole land b ...

, though the organisation itself denies this.

Organisation

MEE was launched in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

, in April 2014. It is formally owned by a company called M.E.E. Limited with a single director named Jamal Bessasso. Its editor-in-chief is David Hearst, a former foreign lead writer for ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

''. It employs about 20 full-time staff in London as of 2017. According to its critics, MEE began forming in London in 2013, several Al Jazeera journalists subsequently joined the project. Jonathan Powell, a senior executive at Al Jazeera, was a consultant ahead of its launch and registered the website's domain names. Bassasso, a

Kuwait Kuwait, officially the State of Kuwait, is a country in West Asia and the geopolitical region known as the Middle East. It is situated in the northern edge of the Arabian Peninsula at the head of the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq to Iraq–Kuwait ...

-born Palestinian living in London, who lists his nationality as Dutch at

Companies House Companies House is the executive agency of the British Government that maintains the Company register, register of companies, employs the company registrars and is responsible for Incorporation (business), incorporating all forms of Company, co ...

, was the sole director of MEE's parent company M.E.E. Limited, as well as company secretary for a few weeks in 2018. Bassasso was also a former director for the

Hamas The Islamic Resistance Movement, abbreviated Hamas (the Arabic acronym from ), is a Palestinian nationalist Sunni Islam, Sunni Islamism, Islamist political organisation with a military wing, the Qassam Brigades. It has Gaza Strip under Hama ...

-controlled Al-Quds TV, which halted its operations in the

Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip, also known simply as Gaza, is a small territory located on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea; it is the smaller of the two Palestinian territories, the other being the West Bank, that make up the State of Palestine. I ...

and

Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...

due to financial difficulties in 2019. Bessasso is listed as owning more than 75% of the shares and voting rights and has the right to appoint or remove directors. Hearst has denied that Bessasso is the owner of the news site, but refrained from divulging the real owner's identity. According to American lawyer and policy analyst Ilan Berman and Emirati columnist Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi, MEE is backed by

. The governments of

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...

, the

United Arab Emirates The United Arab Emirates (UAE), or simply the Emirates, is a country in West Asia, in the Middle East, at the eastern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is a Federal monarchy, federal elective monarchy made up of Emirates of the United Arab E ...

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

, and

Bahrain Bahrain, officially the Kingdom of Bahrain, is an island country in West Asia. Situated on the Persian Gulf, it comprises a small archipelago of 50 natural islands and an additional 33 artificial islands, centered on Bahrain Island, which mak ...

have accused MEE of pro– Muslim Brotherhood bias and of receiving Qatari funding. During the Qatar diplomatic crisis with the

Arab League The Arab League (, ' ), officially the League of Arab States (, '), is a regional organization in the Arab world. The Arab League was formed in Cairo on 22 March 1945, initially with seven members: Kingdom of Egypt, Egypt, Kingdom of Iraq, ...

, among the demands made to Qatar were that it halts its funding of Al Jazeera and of MEE and that both organisations be shut down. MEE later released a statement denying the accusations and saying that it is an independent organisation that does not receive funding from any country or movement.

Coverage

Middle East Eye covers a range of topics across the

. According to its website, it reports on events in 22 different countries. Content is separated into different categories on its website including news, opinion and essays. Since the foundation of the media outlet, it has provided exclusives on a number of major events in the

, which have often been picked up by other media outlets globally. In early June 2017, an anonymous hacker group began distributing emails to multiple news outlets that they had hacked from the inbox of Yousef Otaiba, the Emirati ambassador in Washington D.C. This included providing details from leaked emails of Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman and American officials. This revelation on 14 August 2017, led to other media outlets printing other material from the leaked emails. According to ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', the hacked emails appeared to benefit

and be the work of hackers working for Qatar, a common subject of the distributed emails. On 29 July 2016, MEE published a story alleging that the government of the

, aided by Palestinian exile Mohammed Dahlan, had funnelled significant sums of money to conspirators of the

2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt In the evening of 15 July 2016, a faction within the Turkish Armed Forces, organized as the Peace at Home Council, attempted a coup d'état against state institutions, including the government and president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. They attempted ...

two weeks earlier. In 2017, Dahlan brought a lawsuit of libel against the MEE in a London court seeking damages of up to £250,000. However, Dahlan abandoned the suit shortly before the case was to begin. In a statement, Dahlan maintained that the story was "fully fabricated" but claimed that he has "achieved his goals in the English courts," and was now planning to sue

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

where the article was "widely published". However, according to MEE and their lawyers, by dropping the claim, Dahlan would be forced to pay all the legal costs, of both parties, estimated to be in excess of £500,000. In November 2019, the Turkish government officially accused Dahlan of involvement in the

and is offering $700,000 for information leading to his capture.

Controversies

Blocking in Middle Eastern countries

In 2016, the

blocked the MEE countrywide. MEE says it contacted the UAE embassy in

for an explanation, but received no response. Following protests against the President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in September and October 2019, Egypt also blocked the website. In May 2025,

Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

blocked access to the website after they published an investigation alleging that the country had charged NGOs very high fees to send humanitarian aid to Gaza.

2017–2018 Qatar diplomatic crisis

Saudi Arabia accused MEE of being a news outlet funded by Qatar (both directly and indirectly). On 22 June 2017, during the Qatar diplomatic crisis, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt, and Bahrain, as part of a list of 13 demands, demanded that Qatar close Middle East Eye, which they saw as sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood and a Qatari-funded and aligned outlet.

Accusations of Qatari backing

MEE denies receiving funds from them stating that the demand was an attempt to "extinguish any free voice which dares to question what they are doing." In a statement responding to the demand, the publication's editor-in-chief said "MEE covers the area without fear or favour, and we have carried reports critical of the Qatari authorities, for instance how workers from the subcontinent are treated on building projects for the 2022 World Cup." Commentator Ibrahim Alkhamis, writing for the Saudi Arabian newspaper Arab News, accused the MEE of propagating rumours and fabrications regarding Qatar's state enemies such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Egypt, while simultaneously remaining silent on the misdeeds of Qatar's own members of its royal family, and said that MEE functions as an "extension to ''Al Jazeera''" without being accused of being a state-owned news outlet yet hosting a rotation of columnists and Al Jazeera employees.

2020 cyberattack

In April 2020, MEE was one of 20 websites targeted by hackers that cybersecurity experts, ESET, have linked to an Israeli surveillance company called Candiru. The website was impacted using a Watering hole attack which serves malicious code to certain visitors, allowing the attackers to compromise their PCs.

2022 antisemitism Controversy

In October 2022, MEE faced scrutiny when it was revealed that Shatha Hammad, a Palestinian Arab journalist associated with the outlet, had made antisemitic remarks on social media in 2014, including praising Adolf Hitler. Following these revelations, MEE terminated its association with Hammad.

Notable contributors

* Alistair Burt – British MP * Ian Cobain – Senior Reporter for MEE * Jonathan Cook – Journalist,

Nazareth Nazareth is the largest Cities in Israel, city in the Northern District (Israel), Northern District of Israel. In its population was . Known as "the Arab capital of Israel", Nazareth serves as a cultural, political, religious, economic and ...

* Ahmet Davutoglu – Former Prime Minister of

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

* Richard A. Falk – Professor Emeritus of International Law at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

* Daniel Kawczynski – British MP * Faisal Kutty – Canadian lawyer, law professor at Barry University and Osgoode Hall Law School and human rights activist * Ali Lmrabet – Moroccan journalist, El Mundo * Daniel Levy, former Israeli negotiator with the Palestinians * Gideon Levy – ''Haaretz'' columnist * Moncef Marzouki – former president of

Tunisia Tunisia, officially the Republic of Tunisia, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Tunisia also shares m ...

* Joseph Massad – professor,

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

Peter Oborne Peter Alan Oborne (; born 11 July 1957) is a British journalist and broadcaster. He is the former chief political commentator of ''The Daily Telegraph'', from which he resigned in early 2015. He is author of ''The Rise of Political Lying'' (2005 ...

– former ''Daily Mail'' and ''Daily Telegraph'' columnist * Madawi al-Rasheed – visiting professor at the Middle East Institute of the

London School of Economics The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), established in 1895, is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the University of London. The school specialises in the social sciences. Founded ...

* Sarah Leah Whitson –

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Headquartered in New York City, the group investigates and reports on issues including War crime, war crimes, crim ...

Jamal Khashoggi

Jamal Khashoggi Jamal Ahmad Hamza Khashoggi (13 October 1958 – 2 October 2018) was a Saudi journalist, Saudi dissidents, dissident, author, columnist for ''Middle East Eye'' and ''The Washington Post'', and a general manager and editor-in-chief of Al-Arab New ...

wrote for MEE prior to joining ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

''. According to a post on the MEE website, Khashoggi wrote for them over a period of two years. According to MEE, his op-eds were not credited to him at the time due to concerns for his safety because many of his articles for MEE are critical of Saudi Arabia and its policies, and Saudi Arabia's rift with Qatar. Khashoggi, a ''Washington Post'' columnist, was assassinated when he entered the Saudi consulate in

on 2 October 2018. After initial denials,

stated that he was killed by rogue assassins inside the consulate building with "premeditated intention".

References

External links

Official website
{{Authority control 2014 establishments in England Anti-Israeli sentiment in Europe Newspapers established in 2014 Mass media in London Mass media in the Middle East Muslim Brotherhood Media funded by Qatar