Al-Jazeera has suspended two journalists after they published a video that suggested Jews had exploited their supposed control of media, financial and academic institutions to exaggerate the extent of the Holocaust.

The clip, posted by the Qatari broadcaster’s AJ+ social media service, described the deaths of 6 million Jews at the hands of the Nazis as a “narrative” that was “adopted by the Zionist movement” and emphasised that Adolf Hitler also persecuted many other groups.

The video was uploaded with the caption: “The gas chambers killed millions of Jews … So the story says. How true is the #Holocaust and how did the Zionists benefit from it?”

Images of the persecution of European Jews living under Nazi rule, as well as photographs of those killed, were overlaid with narration asking: “Why is there a focus only on them?”

Al-Jazeera said it had removed the clip: “The video content and accompanying posts were swiftly deleted by AJ+ senior management from all AJ+ pages and accounts on social media, as it contravened the network’s editorial standards.”

The broadcaster is funded by the Qatari government as part of the Gulf country’s soft power campaign around the world. The row will focus attention on the differences between al-Jazeera’s English-language service aimed at audiences around the world and the Arabic-language channel, which often adopts a substantially different tone.

The clip, which attracted hundreds of thousands of views before it was deleted, was posted by the youth-focused AJ+, which creates video explainers designed to go viral on social media. Its English-language videos often adopt a liberal stance on issues such as LGBT rights, racial inequality and religious freedom but there has been less scrutiny of the output of the Arabic-language videos created by AJ+.

The video said that “along with others, the Jews faced a policy of systematic persecution which culminated in the Final Solution”.

But it went on to suggest that because of the Jewish community’s access to “financial resources [and] media institutions”, it was able to “put a special spotlight” on the suffering of the Jews, suggesting the ideology of the Israeli state was influenced by the Nazis.

“Al-Jazeera completely disowns the offensive content in question and reiterated that al-Jazeera would not tolerate such material,” said Yaser Bishr, the executive director of the digital division. He also called for staff to be given “mandatory bias training”.

Al-Jazeera is at the heart of the Middle Eastern proxy war between Qatar and its regional Gulf neighbours. The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have been blockading their smaller neighbour since 2017, cutting off key air and land routes.

Among other issues, Saudi Arabia has demanded Qatar cease funding al-Jazeera, which they believe is responsible for fomenting dissent in other Arab countries by promoting challenges to established leaders. Al-Jazeera has previously been accused of promoting antisemitic tropes in its coverage.