Israeli Government Orders Al Jazeera to Cease Operations

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet voted unanimously to suspend Al Jazeera’s (Lean Left bias) operations in Israel on Sunday.

The Details: Israel’s Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi also ordered the seizure of broadcasting equipment “used to deliver the channel’s content.”

For Context: The vote came after the Israeli parliament passed a law in April that allows for the temporary closure of foreign broadcasters considered to be a national security threat. Israel has long feuded with Al Jazeera, one of the few international outlets remaining in Gaza since the beginning of the war, which is funded by the Qatari government.

Key Quotes: Netanyahu said, “Al Jazeera correspondents have harmed the security of Israel and incited against IDF soldiers. The time has come to eject Hamas’s mouthpiece from our country.” Al Jazeera reporter Zein Basravi, who reports from the West Bank, said the Palestine-Israel conflict is “one of the main reasons that our network exists.” He added, “To have our journalists, our operations, threatened in this way… Definitely, the worry here in the occupied West Bank is that we will be next.”

How The Media Covered It: Associated Press (Lean Left bias) noted that Al Jazeera’s English and Arabic-language counterparts are quite different, with the Arabic branch “often publish(ing) verbatim video statements from Hamas and other militant groups in the region.” Al Jazeera noted that it has repeatedly rejected Israel’s accusations that it’s collaborated with Hamas and highlighted Qatar as “playing a key role in mediation efforts to halt the war in Gaza.”