Riyaad Minty

Overview

Riyaad Minty has spread incitement, demonized Israel and promoted the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.  

Minty is the founder and leading strategist of AJ+, the Al Jazeera network’s first digital-only channel. AJ+ is a Qatari-funded propaganda media channel notorious for spreading misinformation and lies about Israel.

As of August 2018, Minty’s LinkedIn page said he served as New Media Senior Analyst at Al Jazeera in Qatar from June 2006-January 2009. From January 2009 - December 2013, he was the Head of Social Media at Al Jazeera.

He is also the Acting Director of Digital at the Istanbul-based news channel TRT World, since 2016.

As of the same date, Minty’s blog said that he dropped out of college to co-found Future Technologies (FT), a mobile content production technology business.

Defending Hamas

On November 20, 2012, Minty tweeted: “I'm saying the human shield argument is false. Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on earth. they could be more careful.”

Hamas’ deployment of women, children and the elderly as human shields in order to frustrate Israeli efforts to avoid civilian casualties was documented as early as 2008. In 2012, Hamas fired rockets from civilian areas and used children as human shields.

Minty’s tweet was written during Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense.

Israel launched OPD to stop Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli civilians from Gaza. Over the course of eight days in November 2012, Palestinian terrorist groups fired more than 1,500 rockets at Israel. The majority struck Israel, damaging homes, schools and other civilian areas. Human Rights Watch noted: “Palestinian armed groups made clear in their statements that harming civilians was their aim.”


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Spreading Incitement

On October 5, 2009, Minty tweeted: “RT @AymanM: Local palestinian media reporting israeli police give 1 hour deadline to ppl inside Aqsa mosque to vacate b4 they raid holy site.”

On September 27, 2009, Palestinian riots erupted after a group of tourists visited the Temple Mount, several of whom were injured by stone-throwers. On October 4, 2009, Israel restricted access to the Temple Mount following violent riots that spread throughout Jerusalem and the West Bank.

The allegation that Jews “threaten” to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque has been a traditional pretext for Arab attacks on Jews long before the existence of the modern Jewish state.

Spreading Propaganda

On May 14, 2016, Minty shared an AJ+ video on Facebook titled: “Where did the Palestinians Go?” The video distorted the history of the Israeli-Arab conflict and implied that Israel is practicing apartheid and carrying out ethnic cleansing.

Minty also retweeted an October 16, 2015 tweet that said: “MSNBC airs maps showing how much Palestinian land has been lost to Israel from 1946 to present. Important context.”

The maps claim that lands once controlled by Britain, Egypt and Jordan as autonomous “Palestinian land” were purportedly stolen by Israel. In February 2016, publisher McGraw-Hill Education recalled copies of a college textbook containing the fraudulent maps. In October 2015, American cable news network MSNBC apologized for airing a similar series of maps and retracted them.


On July 27, 2014, during Israel’s Operation Protective Edge (OPE), Minty tweeted: “gaza is not a country. It's the worlds largest open air prison, worse than apartheid oppression in some ways.”

Israel commenced Operation Protective Edge (OPE) in July 2014, to stop rocket fire targeting Israeli civilians and to destroy Hamas attack tunnels.  


On July 20, 2014, Minty posted on Facebook: “The US and Israel have a very close relationship. How close? Follow the money. (via AJ+ Labs)”. His post linked to an AJ+ video that demonized U.S. aid to Israel. The video went on to accuse [00:00:41] Israel’s military of war crimes.

On June 7, 2010, Minty tweeted: “Kidnapped by Israel, forsaken by Britain - @AJEnglish's Jamal Elshayyal speaks about his experience on #flotilla.”

Minty’s tweet referred to an article by Al Jazeera’s journalist, Jamal Elshayyal who reported from the Mavi Marmara, a ship in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in 2010.

The Mavi Marmara was the lead ship in the “Freedom Flotilla” that attempted to sail to Gaza in May 2010. Activists aboard the ship agitated for violent confrontation and chanted a slogan glorifying the killing of Jews. When Israeli security forces boarded the Marmara, protesters attacked them with iron bars, metal chairs, knives, stun grenades and firearms, rocks and bottles. A United Nations report found that the flotilla agitators initiated an organized, violent confrontation with Israeli forces, and that the Marmara was carrying no humanitarian aid, only weaponry.

Promoting BDS

On August 6, 2014, Minty tweeted: “BD-What? @franifio with a breakdown on calls to boycott Israeli products in this weeks hashtag: #BDS.”

Minty’s tweet linked to an AJ+ video titled “Israel, Gaza and the BDS Movement.” On the same day, he shared the video on Facebook.  

BDS

The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement was founded by Omar Barghouti in 2005 to challenge “international support for Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.” BDS is an allegedly “Palestinian-led movement,” although leading BDS activists have admitted [00:01:01] this is not true. 

One of the demands of BDS includes [point 3] what is generally known as the “right of return,” a demand discredited as a way to eliminate Israel. Barghouti said the “right of return” is a means to “end Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.”  

Barghouti has said that BDS “aims to turn Israel into a pariah state, as South Africa once was.”

In his activism, Barghouti has also said [00:05:55] regarding Israel: “Definitely, most definitely, we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. No…rational Palestinian, not a sellout Palestinian, will ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine.”

The movement has been linked to numerous terrorist organizations and received a public endorsement from Hamas in 2017.

BDS initiatives include calling on institutions and individuals to divest from Israeli-affiliated companies, promoting academic and cultural boycotts of Israel, and organizing anti-Israel rallies, protests and campaigns.

The movement’s most notable achievement has been the infiltration of university campuses through lobbying for “BDS resolutions.” In these cases, student governments and student groups, backed by their own anti-Israel members and affiliates, have proposed resolutions on some form of boycott of, or divestment from, Israel and Israeli-affiliated entities.

Boycott resolutions, although non-binding, have been passed by student governments on numerous North American campuses.


BDS activity is often aggressive and disruptive. It has been noted that universities that pass BDS resolutions see a marked increase in anti-Semitic incidents on campus. On one campus, when the student government debated a BDS resolution, reports emerged of violent threats against those opposing it.


Social Media and Weblinks

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/859390166

Twitter: https://twitter.com/riy

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/riyaad

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/riyaadm/

Website: https://riyaadm.com/

Flickr:https://www.flickr.com/photos/riym
Riyaad Minty
Status:
Professional
University:
Al Jazeera
Organizations:
BDS

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Last Modified:
05/04/2026

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