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

Nothing says, "we've done nothing wrong," quite like banning journalists who disagree with you.

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 Four days later, Abbas rescinded the ban and allowed Al Jazeera to resume operations ...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.