Israel Temporarily Shuttering Al Jazeera Offices, Citing National Security

May 7, 2024

by: Kate Norman

Tuesday, 7 May 2024 | Israel on Sunday temporarily shut down the Al Jazeera news network in Israel, making good on a law the government in Jerusalem passed last month.

The news network—well known as a largely anti-Israel, pro-Hamas outlet—is owned by the government of Qatar, the home of Hamas’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, as well as other Hamas leaders.

The Israeli Security Cabinet voted unanimously on Sunday to allow Israeli Communications Minister Shlomo Kharhi to shutter the Al Jazeera offices for 45 days.

The wheels were set in motion last October, just a few short weeks after the devastating massacre on October 7.

“Israel is at war,” Karhi said in a statement at the time. “On land, in the air, at sea, and in the mind. We will in no way allow broadcasts that harm the security of the state.”

“Al Jazeera’s broadcasts and reports constitute incitement against Israel, serving Hamas–Daesh [ISIS] in propaganda and encouraging violence against Israel, thereby actually harming the security of the state,” the communications minister added.

Following the Security Cabinet approval on Sunday, Karhi signed orders to close Al Jazeera’s two offices in Jerusalem, block access to the network’s site in Israel and confiscate its broadcasting equipment, the Times of Israel reported. Karhi also issued orders for Israeli TV stations to halt broadcasting of Al Jazeera’s channel.

The actions required approval from Karhi as well as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The prime minister on Sunday said in a statement: “Al Jazeera correspondents have harmed the security of Israel and incited against IDF [Israel Defense Forces] soldiers. The time has come to eject Hamas’s mouthpiece from our country.”

Israel’s closure of the Al Jazeera offices, in addition to being approved by the communications minister and prime minister and the Security Cabinet, was also enacted after Karhi and Netanyahu were presented by Israeli security services with “factual foundations” that the network was harming Israel’s national security, the Times of Israel reported.

The closure is only in place for 45 days, after which it would have to be legally renewed for an extension.

Israel’s closure of Al Jazeera’s offices has been compared to many European bodies shuttering Russia’s RT news channel following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022.

The chief Europe correspondent for POLITICO, Matthew Karhitschnig, tweeted in April: “Just as many countries have banned Moscow’s RT, Israel has every justification for kicking out Al Jazeera, the propaganda arm of the Qatari regime and Hamas.”

Al Jazeera has come under fire several times for its reporting of the war between Hamas and Israel after the former’s brutal massacre on October 7, in which Hamas terrorists murdered some 1,200 people in Israel and took an estimated 240 hostages.

In March, Al Jazeera published a false story accusing Israeli soldiers of raping Gazan women in the enclave’s main hospital. The next day, the network removed the story and issued a statement, but the story had already spread like wildfire and the damage had been done.

“It was revealed through Hamas investigations that the story of the rape of women in the Al Shifa Hospital was fabricated,” former Al Jazeera director Yasser Abuhilalah tweeted. “The woman who spoke about rape justified her exaggeration and incorrect talk by saying that the goal was to arouse the nation’s fervor and brotherhood.”

The IDF also outed an Al Jazeera journalist who was wounded in an Israeli air strike on Gaza in February as a Hamas fighter. The IDF’s Arabic language spokesperson, Avichaey Adraee, identified the journalist/fighter as Ismail Abu Omar, a deputy commander in Hamas’s Eastern Battalion in Khan Younis who filmed and published footage of himself participating in the October 7 massacre in Kibbutz Nir Oz.

Al Jazeera called Israel’s closure of its operations in Israel “ongoing suppression of the free press,” but these false stories and Hamas-affiliated journalists do not appear to be the hands and feet of free, independent and unbiased media.

Posted on May 7, 2024

Source: (Bridges for Peace, May 7, 2024)

Photo Credit: Flickr/Al Jazeera English/Wikimedia.org

Photo License: Wikimedia