Israel, which has blocked Qatar’s Al Jazeera from broadcasting on its territory, claims to be the only true liberal democracy in the Middle East. Someone should remind Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that liberal democracies which generally value media freedom don’t shut down media organisations for unsupportive reporting.
With western reporters not able to enter and report from Gaza, the Al Jazeera satellite news network has maintained 24/7 coverage of the conflict, with reporters inside the Occupied Territory where an estimated 30,000 Palestinians have been killed. Along with critical reporting of Israeli military actions and tactics in Gaza, what has upset Netanyahu’s government is that Al Jazeera’s Arabic arm has often put to air video statements from Hamas along with those from other regional militant groups and it broadcasts these to Gaza and the West Bank as well as Israel.
Last weekend, the hardline Netanyahu government ordered the network to be shut down for 45 days, stopping its broadcasts on Israel’s main cable and satellite providers, and blocking its websites. It also confiscated Al Jazeera broadcasting equipment in raids of hotel rooms from which Al Jazeera reporters had been broadcasting. The ban can be extended and it’s hard to see that it won’t be.
Al Jazeera intends to fight back. It’s considering taking Israel’s decision to the international court of justice to both protect its journalists and its right to broadcast inside Israel. Of course, the public’s right to know what is happening on the ground inside Gaza is also at stake, given the Israeli government’s refusal to give western reporters access. Few governments would be happy to have a media network openly opposed to its actions, reporting inside its territory. But few, especially those which claim to be liberal democracies, would close them down.
This isn’t the first time the Netanyahu government has acted against news media. Whilst it is very tolerant of western news media, including those which are critical of its offensive against Hamas, it blocked the Beirut-based, Hezbollah-affiliated Al Mayadeen News channel from broadcasting inside Israel at the start of this war. The Al Jazeera ban likely stems from its shaky relationship with Qatar, which Netanyahu has accused of funding Hamas and doing too little to force it to accept Israeli terms for a truce.
Now that Israel has despatched mediators to Doha to move forward on an accord to suspend or even end the war, perhaps media freedom will become a negotiating tool, another victim of war.
Monica Attard, CMT Co-Director