Israel-Palestine war: Israel set to ban Al Jazeera after attorney general approval

zephyreks@lemmy.ml to World News@lemmy.world – 183 points –
Israel set to ban Al Jazeera after attorney general approval
middleeasteye.net
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Nothing says, "we've done nothing wrong," quite like banning journalists who disagree with you.

In the article, it also says that at some point not too long ago, Israel killed one of their journalists.

They're the propaganda arm of Doha, the same government that protects Hamas leadership. They've repeatedly printed Hamas lies without fact checking. Why would Israel not ban their propaganda outlet? Calling them journalists when they don't adhere to basic journalistic standards is ludicrous. This isn't new either. They've been acting this way forever. Lying about the hospital bombing was just the last straw.

Lies like the 40 beheaded babies that the entire western media spread?

Israel literally kills journalists.

Lies like the 40 beheaded babies that the entire western media spread?

"Lies" in this case means "reported on claims made by actual Israeli soldiers without sufficient cross-checking, but explicitly walked back pretty much immediately", plus there are non-Israeli sources (at least one french journalist-editor and czech ambassador) who specifically say that they were shown the actual photos of beheaded babies and cross-checked them (the number 40 seems to be bullshit, but iirc most media did not report that and these people did not claim that either).

Next to that is Al Jazeera whose purpose for existing is to spread Qatari world of view by reporting relatively objectively on most things to gain trust and spreading pure propaganda on issues like most things related to Israel.

It really isn't all that similar.

So random rumors spread by soldiers should be treated as truth (because its pro-team Israel ) but reporting on what the ministry of health of gaza, officials in israel, and random israel soldiers all confirm is spreading baseless lies (because it is anti-team Israel)?

No denying AJ doesn't spread propaganda. But if Israel wants to stop propganda, maybe they should start by getting rid of their officials and soldiers, who are spreading the rumors in the first place?

So random rumors spread by soldiers should be treated as truth (because its pro-team Israel )

I thought that my quote on what happened in that case pretty clearly implied that it was a screw-up. Nevertheless, it was a relatively short-lived screw up which, unlike the claims of 500 killed by a supposed Israeli strike on a hospital, didn't seem to do any damage apart from slightly lessening the trustworthiness of media or Israel for some people.

reporting on what the ministry of health of gaza, officials in israel, and random israel soldiers all confirm

If you're talking about the hospital strike, I haven't seen anyone but the ministry of health of Gaza say what they said, and the ministry of health of Gaza is de facto Hamas. I do see Hamas, a terrorist organization, as implicitly less trustworthy than IDF, even though I don't trust everything IDF says, yes.

Yeah man, nothing happened except succeeding in dehumanizing Palestinians and Muslims, which resulted in a man in the US to stab a Palestinian woman, and kill her 6 year old son by stabbing him 26 times with a 7 inch knife while screaming "ALL MUSLIMS MUST DIE".

Nothing important really.

So you didn't even bother looking at the sources for the claim you make fun of?

Given members of the IDF have supported the idea that it was an intentional attract to get Hamas hiding in the hospital from the moment it happened, why don't you believe the IDF members and Hamas when they agree that it was an Israeli attack? I don't even believe it was an Israeli attack* and this incident just further demonstrates the IDF members and Israeli officials will just make up stuff to bolster their side even when they have no actual information. There's no reason to believe either side imo.

*The worst case is Israel defended themselves against a missile and the payload from the middle happened to fall on a hospital because a terrorist group was too incompetent to make sure that a hospital wasn't directly under the trajectory. I don't think someone having an incoming missile has any obligation to first check what happens to be under the missile at the time before destroying said missile, so it's still doesn't make Israel look bad imo like some people are claiming.

What's more likely?

That a news outlet appears totally committed to the most objective possible view on any issue ever except for exactly this.

Or

Maybe you might be wrong sometimes as humans are not infallible.

Both are entirely possible, even at once. Also it's not just "exactly this", it's generally a broader range of topics. And, to nitpick a bit, "relatively objectively" is not the same as "totally committed to the most objective possible view".

For another example of the former, as the guy below you says, years ago this was the exact modus operandi of (the english version of) Russia Today, until it reoriented and started targeting straight up pro-russian conspiracy nuts. Sputnik I think was always a bit out there, but I'm honestly not sure.

Yeah man, nothing happened except succeeding in dehumanizing Palestinians and Muslims, which resulted in a man in the US to stab a Palestinian woman, and kill her 6 year old son by stabbing him 26 times with a 7 inch knife while screaming "ALL MUSLIMS MUST DIE".

Nothing important really.

As criminal as that is, I'm pretty sure burned babies and slaughtered and likely tortured civilians were enough for that.

So, you acknowledge that Israel lied about beheaded babies, what makes you think they didn't lie about burned babies?

As far as I know, they released some of those photos publicly. I rely on word of others because I have no interest in seeing it, you can google it yourself.

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If whatabautism about the other side propaganda is your best response to defend their journalistic integrity I don’t think you have an argument

Israel didn't just ban Al Jazeera, they also killed their reporter, Shireen Abu Akleh.

Have you condemned them for killing her?

Israel is out there killing reporters (which is a war crime), and you guys here are talking about biased media?

since you double down on not having any way to defend their integrity and derail by asking if i condemned I'll do the same.

Have you apologized for condemning israel for the "hospital bombing"?

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This is sad. I know Al Jazeera is owned by Qatar and has a POV but Al Jazeera English, at least, has had excellent, on-the-ground reporting. In the U.S., all the cable news channels were just having pundits speculate based on no reporting or doing useless interviews with politicians trying to be the most pro-Israel.

I basically put on every channel at some point during the crisis and the best English-language reporting was Al Jazeera English along with the BBC for some stuff. They weren’t getting facts wrong and they have bureaus all over the Middle East (including Gaza) so they were breaking stories while other outlets were still trying to get reporters briefed and to the region.

Hmm sounds suspiciously similar to another country that bans any media that isn't state-controlled...

Middle-East Eye:

MEE has been accused of being backed by Qatar. The governments of Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt and Bahrain accuse MEE of pro-Muslim Brotherhood bias and receiving Qatari funding. As a consequence, they demanded MEE to be shut down following the Saudi-led blockade of Qatar. ... On 20 October 2022, MEE cut ties with Palestinian journalist Shatha Hammad after it was discovered that she made a Facebook post in 2014 which praised Adolf Hitler for "sharing the same ideology"

Al Jazeera:

... Officials of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party ... accused Al-Jazeera of bias toward Hamas (with which it is at political loggerheads), and Fatah official Mohammed Dahlan sued the broadcaster. ... On 15 July of that year [2009], the Palestinian National Authority (PA) closed down Al Jazeera's offices in the West Bank in an apparent response to claims made on the channel by Farouk Kaddoumi that PA president Mahmoud Abbas had been involved in the death of Yasser Arafat. The Palestinian Information Ministry called the organization's coverage "unbalanced" and accused it of incitement against the PLO and the PA. Four days later, Abbas rescinded the ban and allowed Al Jazeera to resume operations ... Al Jazeera reporters and anchors in London, Paris, Moscow, Beirut and Cairo have resigned. Ali Hashem, the organization's Shia Beirut correspondent, resigned after leaked emails publicized his discontent with Al Jazeera's "unprofessional" and biased coverage of the Syrian civil war at the expense of the 2011 Bahraini uprising. Since the Bahrain government was supported by the Gulf Cooperation Council (of which Qatar is a member), the protests were given less prominence than the Syrian conflict on the network. Longtime Berlin correspondent Aktham Suliman left in late 2012, saying that he felt he was no longer allowed to work as an independent journalist ... Al Jazeera faced criticism from Bangladeshi human rights activists ...accused of downplaying the 1971 Bangladesh genocide, in which Islamist militias assisted the Pakistan Army in targeting Bengalis ... demanded a ban on Al Jazeera transmission within Bangladesh citing similar bans in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan and the UAE.

... Critics say in past years, Al-Jazeera — particularly its flagship Arabic channel — has reflected Qatari policy by promoting Islamist movements. Many of the region’s Arab rulers, particularly in Egypt and the UAE, see the Muslim Brotherhood group and its offshoots as a top threat. ... Al-Jazeera’s English and Arabic channels, as well as its news websites and its popular online AJ+ videos, do not mirror one another in style and target different audiences.

Qatar:

Qatar is Hamas' most important financial backer and foreign ally. Qatari Emir Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani was the first state leader to visit the Hamas government in 2012. So far, the emirate has transferred €1.5 billion ($1.8 billion) to Hamas

And:

While ordinary Palestinians suffer and die in Gaza, Hamas leaders live in comfort 2,000 km away ... as Hamas gunmen rampaged across southern Israel .... Hamas leaders ... recorded themselves showing surprise about the attacks from the news on a large-screen television, and then kneeling to give thanks to Allah for the success of the operation. ... "To be clear, the Qatari government has genuine and real sympathy for the Palestinian cause,"

And:

Qatar’s dalliance with Islamist groups has long been the primary means for Doha to project influence in the Arab world, particularly through state support for Al Jazeera Arabic. After 2011, Qatar came to believe, and Al Jazeera Arabic confidently predicted, that a wave of Islamist governance would sweep in with new Arab democracies. Instead, the elected Brotherhood government in Egypt proved even more unpopular than the Hosni Mubarak dictatorship ... With the Brotherhood’s decline in prestige and power, Qatar’s bet has yielded precious few returns. And now Hamas’s disastrous rebranding in Western eyes could well force a reckoning with Doha’s irresponsible strategy.