TV channels may be closed
Israel passes “Al-Jazeera law”
April 1, 2024, 9:54 p.m
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Al-Jazeera has long been a thorn in the side of the Israeli government. Now a new law makes it possible to ban the Qatari television station from Israel. Prime Minister Netanyahu has already announced that he will “act immediately”.
Israel’s parliament has approved the so-called “Al-Jazeera law”. MPs in Jerusalem voted in second and third readings for the law that would allow foreign TV channels to be shut down if they were deemed to pose a risk to state security, parliament said.
The news site ynet reported that a closure could be ordered by Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi. This could result in the closure of a broadcaster’s offices in Israel, the confiscation of its broadcasting equipment, the removal of the broadcaster from cable and satellite television providers, and the blocking of its website.
Shortly after the parliamentary decision, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he would “act immediately”. “The terrorist channel Al-Jazeera will no longer broadcast from Israel,” Netanyahu said on X. He intended to “act immediately in accordance with the new law and stop the channel’s activities.”
Minister: “Incitement against Israel”
Israel accuses the broadcaster of biased reporting. Al-Jazeera’s broadcasts and reports constituted “incitement against Israel,” Karhi said last year after the Hamas massacre in the Israeli border area. The reporting helps terrorist organizations like Hamas.
Since the beginning of the Gaza War, Al Jazeera has reported extensively on the catastrophic situation in the Gaza Strip and has shown images of death and destruction that are rarely seen on Israeli TV channels. The channel also regularly shows videos from Hamas’s military wing, the Qassam Brigades, often of attacks on Israeli soldiers.
In January, the Israeli army described two Al Jazeera journalists killed in an airstrike in the Gaza Strip as “terror fighters.” In February, it described a wounded Al Jazeera employee as a “deputy company commander” of the radical Islamic Palestinian organization Hamas. Al-Jazeera firmly rejects the allegations and accuses Israel of systematically targeting the channel’s employees in the Gaza Strip.