In Israel, Parliament ratified a law on Monday aimed at banning the broadcast of “foreign programs that undermine state security.” Immediately, the Prime Minister announced that he wanted to “act immediately” to stop the retransmission of the Qatari channel Al Jazeera.
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While the Qatari television channel claims to be the victim of “frantic campaign”Benjamin Netanyahu also accuses Al Jazeera of “harm Israel’s security”having “actively participated” to the attacks of October 7. The Qatari channel only sees in its statements “lies, dangerous and ridiculous”.
It is important to remember here that apart from the Gazan correspondents working for local media, Al Jazeera journalists are the only ones working on site, inside the Gaza Strip. For everyone else, English, American, French, etc., access is only through “press tours”, short incursions supervised by the Israeli army. Which, in itself, poses a problem. Banning the broadcast of Al Jazeera therefore means banning the only journalistic field work carried out in the Gaza Strip. The spokesperson for the White House, Karine Jean-Pierre, immediately distanced herself, Monday April 1, from the initiative of the Israeli parliament: “These kinds of decisions concern us. Press freedom is crucial. The United States supports this crucial work around the world, including that of those reporting on the conflict in Gaza.”
The arguments of the Israeli government
On the ground, certain teams of the channel in question have certainly made errors, such as the broadcast last week of the false testimony of a Gazan woman accusing Israeli soldiers of rape inside the al-Chifa hospital. After investigation, Al Jazeera management deleted this testimony and acknowledged this journalistic misconduct, but this incident may have finally convinced the Knesset to vote for this ban.
However, the removal of the Al Jazeera channel has been under study for several months already and tensions between Israel and Al Jazeera have even lasted for years. In 2017, the Knesset was already looking for a way to deprive the channel’s journalists of accreditation. In 2022, the star of the antenna, Shireen Abou Aqli, was killed in the West Bank by fire from Israeli positions. And last January, a strike targeted the car of two Al Jazeera journalists, “two terrorist agents”, Tel Aviv said to justify this missile attack.
Benjamin Netanyahu accuses the channel of being a Hamas propaganda organ. Al Jazeera is financed by a private fund linked to Qatar, where Hamas political leaders are hosted. Since its creation, Al Jazeera’s Arabic editorial team has been criticized for its divisive editorial line, including in countries like Egypt and Bangladesh, and in its coverage of the conflict in Gaza, its bias is evident. But banning its broadcast would be unprecedented, and it would be a new signal of withdrawal from a country that has always presented itself as the only democratic state in the region.