Silencing America’s Arabic voice: A gift to Hamas, Hezbollah, and Houthis

Israel’s new ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter recently spoke directly to millions of Arabs in an exclusive television interview. Leiter was interviewed by professional journalists who asked him fair questions. His responses were robust. His words were translated into Arabic and heard by millions across the Middle East. That interview was conducted and broadcast by America’s 24/7 Arabic-language television and digital platform, Alhurra, a channel of the Middle East Broadcasting Networks.

When Hamas releases Israeli hostages, we are the only Arabic-language news channel that reports the story with all its details live and on the scene.

And one station consistently airs hard-hitting investigative pieces about Iran’s unyielding efforts to destabilise the Middle East through its well-funded proxies, and courageously covers the malign efforts of China and other hostile actors: MBN’s Alhurra.

For two decades, MBN has been a rare source of objective, accurate and relevant news and information for the millions of people in the Arab world whose other media sources supply a barrage of invective sponsored by hostile states and terror groups. From lavishly-resourced Iranian outlets to Hezbollah-sponsored TV, the message is as uniform as it is relentless. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has just denounced recent US military strikes on Yemen, calling them a “crime that must be stopped.” America remains the big Satan; Israel, our close ally, a partner in atrocity at every turn.

Screenshot from a news bulletin on Al-Manar TV, the Hezbollah-run Lebanese satellite television station. March 30, 2025 (Used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)

Bewilderingly, Elon Musk is about to kill this valuable Trump Administration asset, having targeted Alhurra for elimination. On March 15, mere hours after the US Congress voted to continue funding Alhurra, MBN was ordered shut. Musk’s Department of Government Efficacy had just concluded its review without visiting MBN or speaking to us or anybody in the company. MBN headquarters are located outside Washington in Springfield, VA, with a network of correspondents across the Middle East and North Africa.

Is the US government’s only Arabic-language news and information outlet on the chopping block simply because it is a grantee of the federal government? We’re fighting to have this ill-informed decision reversed. If our appeal to our parent agency, United States Agency for Global Media, fails, we plan to challenge the decision to shutter MBN in court.

MBN is lean, efficient, and impactful. In the past 11 months, the company has reduced bureaus, cut payroll by 25 percent, upped its tech and artificial-intelligence game, and already saved its funder, the American taxpayer, $20 million. With its pro-American message, MBN reaches 30 million people across the Middle East and North Africa every week.

And it does so as Iran is boosting its efforts, having just increased its information operations budget by 50 percent. MBN costs less than two Apache helicopters.

While the reasons for discarding this key arrow in the quiver of American soft power overseas are shrouded in mystery, the beneficiaries of this abrupt action are no mystery at all. The enemies of America (and Israel) are ecstatic. Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthis are crowing. Iranian-backed militia in Iraq and Lebanese Hezbollah proclaim that American soft power has failed.

Iranian-backed militia in Iraq, denouncing MBN journalists as “lapdogs of the Americans,” cheer their abandonment by the US government – and that government’s sudden fecklessness as a coherent, strategic leader in the region.

It’s not always easy to tell what’s happening in today’s Washington. The tempo of change is fierce. The role of DOGE is murky. The strategic consequences of radical and indiscriminate cost reductions will, in instances, be considerable.

This is clearly one such instance. Unilateral disarmament in the ideas and information space will not bode well for America and its allies in the Greater Middle East. We need to strengthen alliances of the like-minded – and stay in the soft power game in each and every way possible.