Al Jazeera Plants Undercover Reporter In Pro-Israel Groups

Al Jazeera’s New York studio. Image by Getty Images

By JTA October 10, 2017

(JTA) — An Al Jazeera editor acknowledged planting an undercover reporter inside pro-Israel organizations last year in Washington, D.C.

Clayton Swisher, the international news network’s head of investigative reporting, made the revelation Monday in an interview on Al Jazeera’s main Arabic channel. He said a documentary will be aired based on the reporter’s work.

Earlier in the day, the United Kingdom official media watchdog rejected complaints against an earlier Al Jazeera documentary that exposed an Israeli embassy official attempting to influence British lawmakers.

Following the announcement, Swisher said that at the same time Al Jazeera had an undercover reporter in Britain, it also had one in the Washington, D.C. He said the network held off on broadcasting its reporting from the U.S. capital until hearing Ofcom’s verdict.

“With this U.K. verdict and vindication past us, we can soon reveal how the Israel lobby in America works through the eyes of an undercover reporter,” he told The Intercept.

Since Al Jazeera began airing its U.K. investigation, a number of pro-Israel organizations have voiced suspicions that they were infiltrated by an undercover reporter from the network. In January, a Tablet article named the reporter as James Anthony Kleinfeld, a British citizen active in British pro-Palestinian groups.

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