it was likely Saudi Arabia and the UAE were behind the operation (1) . Researchers from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto said they had discovered what appeared to be a massive espionage campaign against one of the world’s largest media organisations. The attack on Al Jazeera journalists’ phones was discovered when Tamer Almisshal, presenter of “The Hidden is More Immense” investigative programme, felt worried his phone had been hacked and asked Citizen Lab for help. Upon monitoring his phone, the Lab found it was indeed hacked. After that, Al Jazeera reported more than 30 phones of its journalists had been hacked. Canada’s Citizen Lab said it had identified 36 phones within the Network that had been compromised. According to the Citizen Lab investigation, 18 phones were hacked by an operator on behalf of the Saudi government while another operator spied on 15 phones on behalf of the UAE (2) . 8. Constructing Discourse and Defending it Ahmed Sheikh, a veteran media professional, who joined Al Ja- zeera at an early stage and became one of its Editors-In-Chief, recalls that the Network was accused of terrorism since its inception, as it came up with an unfamiliar media discourse that was not easily accepted by some Arab and Western politicians (3) . According to Sheikh, Al Jazeera emerged in its Arab environment as “a phenomenon of consciousness, knowledge, participation, in complete contrast to its predecessors” (4) . It distinguished itself from the existing media organisations by “creating a discourse that challenged the Western perception and way of think- ing about the Arab region. We used to ask the Western media why you rebroadcast Bin Laden and Al Qaeda footage after being aired by Al (1) “Dozens of Al Jazeera Journalists Allegedly Hacked Using Israeli Firm’s Spy- ware, The Guardian, (20 Dec 2020): https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/dec/20/citi- zen-lab-nso-dozens-of-aljazeera-journalists-allegedly-hacked-using-israeli-firm-spyware/ (ac- cessed 22 November 2020). (2) “ The Hidden is More Immense ” investigative programme, “ The Spying Partners”, 20 De- cember 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fP-7jNJd5nA/ (accessed 7 March 2021).
(3) Ahmed Sheikh, personal interview, 11 November 2020.
(4) Ibid .
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