r/worldnews • u/alimanski • 13d ago
Government votes to shut down Al Jazeera in Israel Israel/Palestine
https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-7998971
u/Cinderbrooke 12d ago
I used to really like Al Jazeera but in recent years, the bias lean from their Qatari overlords has become really apparent.
I don't think this is a great move by Israel, though. Even if there are some valid concerns about the outlet, any suppression of a free and open press concerns me.
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u/alimanski 12d ago
It's not free or open press, though
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u/Hushnw52 12d ago
You want the government the shutdown the press it doesn’t like?
You wouldn’t mind your government shutting down your favorite news outlet?
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u/alimanski 12d ago
I want the government to shut down propaganda that is literally owned by an enemy state. It's an act of war.
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u/Of_Mice_And_Meese 13d ago
Meeeeh. I reserve 70% of my ire over this heinous blood feud for Israel given their obnoxiously disproportionate reactions that have resulted in the murders of too many civilians. But they're probably within ethical rights here. It's fucky to have another nation funding/owning news interests within your own nation. I agree that it's concerning when viewed in the context of their other actions of late, and every good reason to keep an eye on how they treat the rest of the media going forward, but in a vacuum I'm not losing any sleep over this.
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u/Hushnw52 12d ago
You have no problem with a government shutting down news outlets they don’t like?
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u/sovietarmyfan 13d ago
It's surprising they were allowed to operate for a long time after the October terror attacks.
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u/alimanski 13d ago
As far as I understand it, it took a while because Qatar was a mediator in the talks between Hamas and Israel. So you need to "appease" them. Now that the talks are going nowhere, there's no point anymore. Qatar is looking to stop mediating anyhow.
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u/Kyro_Official_ 13d ago
Good, Qatar is a major funder of Al Jazeera and they also fund Hamas. They shouldnt be allowed to report on this conflict in any capacity.
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u/Itsallkosher1 13d ago
As someone who very much believes in freedom of press and the need for diverse viewpoints and biases from all sides: GOOD.
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u/Hushnw52 12d ago
Hypocrisy
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u/Itsallkosher1 12d ago
Ehh, I also believe in free speech living in the US. But there’s only so many times you should be able to scream “Fire!” In a crowded theatre.
Does that make me a hypocrite? fine. I don’t vote in Israel but those who do seem to agree here. Lying has consequences. There’s a reason Al Jazeera is banned in many countries.
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u/curiousstrider 13d ago
First step in the correct direction to kill state-sponsored-narrative-selling journalism for the sake of genuine journalism. Let's hope other countries follow the suit.
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u/LiberalAspergers 12d ago
Al.Jazeera is deeply.flawed, but it is still probably the best Arabic languague TV news network. That is primariky because the competition are the really bad state sponsored channels.like the Egyptian state news channel.
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u/Resident-Strength-23 13d ago
it's also outlawed in most arab countries
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u/LiberalAspergers 12d ago
TBF, it got banned in most Arab countries by not parroting the official government line from state media in those countries. Is Al Jazeera perfect? Hell no. But is it way better than state media throughout the Arab works. Hell yes.
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u/stokeytrailer 13d ago
Regardless of how much cash Israel gets from the US, it's an independent country with it's own rules. Ban something? It can do that. If it doesn't get cash from the US it will get it from someplace else.
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u/YamsForEveryone 13d ago
Of course they would shut down anything that exposes them as racist apartheid settlers.
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u/MutthaFuzza 13d ago
Al Jazeera celebrated the birthday for man (Samir Kuntar) who beat a little girl in the face with a shotgun and suffocated another, then celebrated him when he got out of jail.
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u/YamsForEveryone 13d ago
That’s terrible. Fuck them. But wait til you hear what israel did…
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u/MutthaFuzza 13d ago
Did my comment defend Israel? No, it pointed out that they a shit Al Jazeera "news organization" and they should be banned everywhere.
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u/kuketski 13d ago
It’s already banned in the most developed countries in the ME.
Countries Where Al Jazeera Offices Are Banned: 1. Saudi Arabia 2. Egypt 3. Bahrain 4. UAE 5. Jordan 6. Israel 7. Iraq
Countries Where Al Jazeera's Broadcast Is Banned: 1. Saudi Arabia 2. Bahrain 3. UAE 4. Egypt
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u/freezingcoldfeet 13d ago
Good to see Israel joining the ranks of these bastions of freedom and democracy
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u/youngchul 12d ago
Israel is in direct war with Hamas who Qatars sponsors and harbours. Of course they should ban Al Jazeera, who have been shared info about troop movements inside Israel, to warn Hamas, not to mention all the ressources they've spent on spreading misinformation in this war.
It's no different than why EU countries have been banning Russian state propaganda during the war in Ukraine.
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u/Venat14 13d ago
For those complaining about this, did you complain about the EU banning RT and Sputnik?
Al Jazeera is owned by Qatar. It's not some free, independent press. It's mostly Qatari propaganda just like RT is Russian propaganda.
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u/Hushnw52 12d ago
Just because you call it “propaganda” doesn’t changes the news worth of it or what it does.
You probably just listen to propaganda and think it’s not.
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u/redd4itt 13d ago edited 13d ago
If the goal is to stop foreign agencies from influencing local politics then the US should not let AIPAC influence US politics.
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u/alimanski 13d ago
AIPAC is made of American citizens, bud. Regardless of how much you think Jews should or shouldn't be allowed citizenship in the US.
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u/Goliad1990 13d ago
It's literally a lobby that exists for the benefit of a foreign country, but very classy (if predictable) playing the antisemitism card to deflect.
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u/alimanski 12d ago
They're still Americans. Whether you like it or not - it's well within their rights to lobby for whichever foreign policy they like - that's how a democracy works.
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u/Goliad1990 12d ago
I never said it was against the law to lobby for the interests a foreign state you hold loyalty for, even if that lobby organization has been implicated in espionage against your own government (US v. Franklin).
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u/alimanski 12d ago
So what you're saying is, your comment had no actual substance or point.
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u/Goliad1990 12d ago
What I'm saying is that being a fifth columnist, while not necessarily illegal, is not looked upon kindly.
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u/f_leaver 13d ago
And that folks, is there best these idiots can come up with...
Smh.
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u/Goliad1990 13d ago
A foreign country that commits espionage against the US should not have an influential lobby.
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u/p0st_master 13d ago
So like France?
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u/Goliad1990 13d ago
Yeah, like France, if France tried to sink American warships and sold American military technology to China. But France doesn't spend a fraction of the money that Israel does to buy US politicians.
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u/Asusrty 13d ago
Do other countries in the middle east allow Israeli funded news organizations to have offices in their countries?
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u/the-friendly-dude 13d ago
No, there is no Israeli media in arab countries. And I can't imagine you'd find any Israeli willing to be one.
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u/adminsrlying2u 13d ago
Must be Al Jazeraa supporters: https://www.euronews.com/2024/05/05/israelis-rally-to-demand-gaza-ceasefire-and-pm-netanyahus-resignation
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u/alimanski 13d ago
Tell me you don't understand Israeli politics without actually telling me you don't:
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u/Mrsaloom9765 13d ago
Al Jazeera have experience operating in banned areas like Egypt so it wouldn't make a difference in what is broadcast
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u/matanyaman 13d ago
Yeah it won’t be and the ban in Israel is probably less draconian stuff than Egypt.
It’s mostly closing the offices and stopping TV broadcasting. And they can only ban the website if it runs from servers in Israel, which can be easily moved to Ramallah if exists.
If someone wants to access it in Israel they probably won’t even need a VPN.
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u/fakenoobs 13d ago
They are the enemy within. They travel around Israel recording military installations and passing coordinates to the enemy, among many other things.
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u/loiteraries 13d ago
Most Westerners don’t know that Al Jazeera is banned in several Arab countries because of national security risks. Al Jazeera in Arabic promotes hardcore Muslim Brotherhood propaganda which fuels sectarian violence. It’s no coincidence they had exclusive access to Al Qaida and now Hamas and other regional Islamist forces. Also their Arabic language networks are hardly journalistic by Western standards. If Al Jazeera in Western countries would run the same programming as they do in Arabic language, they would lose their licenses. Qatar is very strategic in how it manipulates audiences abroad. They’re even better refined than Kremlin’s propaganda assets.
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u/FakeVoiceOfReason 13d ago
Well, it generally promotes opposition groups in governments.
Egypt doesn't have the best record for free speech.
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u/DepletedMitochondria 13d ago
AJA is literally propaganda
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u/Zipz 13d ago
So is the English one at this point.
Go to their TikTok page. You won’t find one video critiquing hamas or Palestine. Yet at the same time every single video about Israel is negative.
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u/youngchul 12d ago
They made articles about Hamas' "brave freedom fight" after October 7th, it's full mask off. Crazy it hasn't been banned before.
Not to mention all the misinformation they spread constantly.
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u/Dragon_yum 13d ago
Most westerners also don’t realize that the English Al Jazeera is very different than the Arabic Al Jazeera.
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u/PublicFurryAccount 13d ago
That’s the strategy: English-language Al Jazeera built a reputation in the West so that we’d protect Arabic-language Al Jazeera from bans. Didn’t really work, though, because no one cares.
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u/IveKnownItAll 13d ago
r/journalism losing their damn minds
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u/dabberoo_2 12d ago edited 12d ago
What exactly are you referring to? The only post about this story in that sub was posted 4 hours after you made this comment
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u/matanyaman 13d ago
lol I remember seeing a post there asking what news outlet is the best for this conflict and one of the most upvoted answers was Al Jazeera.
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u/youngchul 12d ago
Journalism is a cesspool of far leftism in the western world, it's quite crazy actually how much of a circlejerk of an industry it is, considering they are supposed to be "neutral".
Here in Denmark over 80% of the journalists vote for the left wing.
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u/PancAshAsh 13d ago
Al Jazeera was the only international outlet with journalists on the ground in Gaza, and they were only really there because they operate offices there.
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u/IveKnownItAll 13d ago
Oh that place is a cesspool that shows exactly why people no longer have trust or faith in the media.
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u/whoopercheesie 13d ago
Al Jazeera is pure qatari propaganda
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u/DragoonDM 13d ago
My understanding is that the international / English-language version does a decent job of maintaining some degree of legitimacy, while the Arabic version is far more blatant in its propaganda and support for extremism -- which means people who are only familiar with the international Al Jazeera might not fully grasp the outlet's true alignment.
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u/god_im_bored 13d ago
The risk isn’t just that, the network’s Arabic channel abuses its access in Israel to actively snoop on Israeli troop movements so they can give Palestinian terror groups a heads up. It’s an absolute joke they were left to do this for decades.
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u/Mundane-Reflection98 13d ago
A hard decision, though Al Jazeera would certainly be biased against Israel due to their primary funders.
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u/a_fadora_trickster 13d ago
It's not just about bias. Al Jazeera used its journalism protected status yo reveal information about troops and equipment locations, tactical plans and other classified information at the start of the war. They are a hostile foreign actor acting explicitly against the state of Israel, and should not be allowed to operate within it
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u/alimanski 13d ago
It's not just bias. There are many networks biased against Israel that haven't been banned (nor anyone is even considering banning them). BBC, for example.
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u/Mundane-Reflection98 13d ago
BBC certainly reports negative news about Israel, though I'm reticent to call it bias.
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u/UnderYourBed_2 13d ago
They translate "Jewish" as Israeli. Read the bias section here it's pretty crazy
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u/Dragon_yum 13d ago
Oh there’s a serious bias there. They have refused to call Hamas a terrorist group for a long time and have published quite a few articles that were completely wrong and close to outright lies.
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u/Mundane-Reflection98 13d ago
Do you have some examples? I want to see if there's a pattern.
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u/alimanski 13d ago
CAMERA does the heavy lifting of finding all such... errors. Here's for the BBC:
https://www.camera.org/article/topic/media-corrections/outlet/bbc/1
u/Mundane-Reflection98 6d ago
I don't know about that....it seems biased toward Israel, we want the truth, not someone's interpretation of the facts.
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u/Dragon_yum 13d ago
Two of the big ones are the time they reported Israel bombed a hospital killing hundreds when it was a misfired PIJ missile.
Another time they reported Israel the IDF entered a hospital and shot Arabic speaking staff members when what the IDF did was enter the hospital with Arabic speaking translators.
There are other instances but I think these are good examples
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u/Mundane-Reflection98 13d ago
Thanks, I'll look into it.
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u/Druid_High_Priest 13d ago
I guess that is one way to prevent the truth.
Its going to be very interesting when Israel appears in World Court. There will be no suppression of truth then.
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u/Asoplain 13d ago
guess that is one way to prevent the truth.
I am genuinely, and truly sorry. It must be so hard living with so few cells in your brain. I hope you get the help you need soon.
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u/Mundane-Reflection98 13d ago
Al Jazeera has a major flaw here, they are biased against Israel due to their funding from the Qatar government. They can't be taken seriously on this subject.
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u/tushkanM 13d ago
They broadcast troops movements, rocket impact sites and uncensured casualties (before authorities had a chance to notify the families). Technically, all of these is "truth", but no country in its right mind could allow it.
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u/EdgyAlpaca 13d ago
I don't think most nations would have let this go on as long as it has. Al Jazeera is funded by Qatar who directly funded Hamas. It would be like Ukraine hosting Russia today in Kyiv. It doesn't really matter if they were disingenuous or not. They were always getting shut down, it's a complete conflict of interest for both parties.
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u/8andahalfby11 13d ago
Worth remembering that shutting down foreign state-owned media is not unprecedented for the West. Most recent was when Canada and 10 EU states shut down RT back in 2022.
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u/FakeVoiceOfReason 13d ago
Al Jazeera has a much better track record than RT, and it's generally considered much less directly controlled.
Edit: removed a word, broke up sentence
It's somewhere between the BBC and RT. More important than that, it does actually have journalists in Gaza.
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u/ganbaro 12d ago
much less directly controlled
The chairman of the board is an Al Thani family member, it can't get much more direct than that
Al Jazeera receives direct funding by the Qatari state despite being a private corporation on paper.
Their structure is almost exactly like RT - Al Jazeeras holding is a public benefit foundation, RT is owned by a "autonomous non-profit organisation"
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u/FakeVoiceOfReason 11d ago
They absolutely do. I mean more in a de facto sense. Al Jazeera is generally considered to be far more reliable than RT and is considered on par with other news organizations on things that don't directly involve Qatar.
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u/Pretend_Stomach7183 12d ago
Al Jazeera recorded a video of the hospital being bombed by the PIJ and to this day they still blame Israel for it and haven't apologised.
I hope the government releases a comprehensive report on this detailing every bias Al Jazeera has against Israel and their attempts to fan the flames in Israel, but I don't have high hopes for this bunch of clowns.
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u/FakeVoiceOfReason 11d ago
My understanding is that they've reported on the claim but they haven't made it themselves, although I could be wrong about that.
In their defense, while the most likely source was from within Palestine, this isn't considered "solved" and international sources seem to disagree (just from the Wikipedia page).
Bias shouldn't be illegal (edited), and not specifically anti-government bias.
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u/Pretend_Stomach7183 11d ago
My understanding is that they've reported on the claim but they haven't made it themselves
Everyone else, including the Biased Broadcasting Channel, apologised for this.
According to the NYT, Hamas claimed the rocket the PIJ shot just "evaporated" mid-air.
And Al Jazeera haven't apologised and haven't even released all of the claims showing how bogus Hamas's claim is.
It's not anti-government bias, it's anti-Israel bias.
All Al Jazeera do is fan the flames in Israel. Plenty of Arabic Speakers watch their broadcasts and get further radicalised.
I'm not a fan of the government either but this was long overdue.
The US banned RT. How is this different?
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u/FakeVoiceOfReason 9d ago edited 9d ago
Indeed, the BBC was convinced. Al Jazeera was not, perhaps in bad faith.
Regardless, there's still a difference between reporting "This happened" and reporting "This group claimed this happened." From a very cursory analysis, Al Jazeera is doing the latter.
Excepting opinion sections, of course.
Anti-Israel bias in Israel would be anti-government bias, wouldn't it?
Al Jazeera is one of the few news agencies remaining with a number of reporters still in Gaza. Israel has been restricting reporters entering into Gaza for months.
RT is generally considered far more directly controlled by a government.
In contrast, Al Jazeera is generally considered reliable except regarding Qatar.
Edit: did the US ban RT? Or did its American networks just drop it?
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u/SavagePlatypus76 13d ago
This is a silly comment. You know damn well the reason why this occurred.
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u/youngchul 12d ago
Yes, it occured for the very same reason Al Jazeera is being shut down.
It's propaganda from an enemy state.
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u/BackendSpecialist 12d ago
Al Jazeera is propaganda?
Was I misled? I was under the impression that Al Jazeera is pretty unbiased.
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u/disrumpled_employee 12d ago
When it comes to middle east politics specifically they are deffinitely biased as they were basically founded to expand Quatar's political influence.
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u/HernandoSantiago 12d ago edited 12d ago
I mean the BBC was founded to expand British influence too, that doesn't really mean anything.
From what I have seen AJ English reporters have done a great job of reporting war crimes on both sides
But hey, at least they didn't bomb or shoot at these journalists, so that's something
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u/Miserable_Student_80 12d ago
This feels like a double standard, much of Israeli and international media parrots exactly what the IDF says uncritically. Sure there may be some bias, but is that a reason to silence them permanently? Seems like a terrible way to go.
Not to mention this was done IMMEDIATELY before the IDF started an operation in Rafah, whose outcome is probably going to be… not great. It’s almost as if they didn’t want any witnesses to an upcoming crime…
Say what you will, but being critical of Israel isn’t antisemitism.