 In late 2011, Blumenthal joined Lebanon's "Al Akhbar" newspaper primarily to write about Israel-Palestine issues and foreign-policy debates in Washington, DC.When he left the publication in June 2012 in protest of its coverage of the Syrian Civil War, he considered the newspaper to have a pro-Assad editorial line followed by such individuals as Amal Saad-Ghorayeb.He wrote that it "gave me more latitude than any paper in the United States to write about ... Israel and Palestine", but in the end he had tired of "jousting with Assad apologists".