Cabinet minister working on bill to close the Qatari media giant’s Jerusalem office
The Israeli government has initiated a process to close the Jerusalem bureau of Qatari-owned Al Jazeera, days after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu slammed the network’s coverage of the Temple Mount/Al-Aqsa crisis, accusing it of contributing to Palestinian terrorist attacks and rioting in the Old City of Jerusalem.
A tense two week religious stand-off has been largely defused following Netanyahu’s decision to remove all security measures—primarily metal detectors— that were installed at the holy site in the wake of the July 14 killing of two police officers by three Palestinian Israeli citizens. The Islamic community within Israel and the West Bank vehemently opposed Israel’s response to that attack—boycotting the complex and organizing mass protests—while accusing the Jewish state of trying to assert sovereignty over al-Aqsa and change the “status quo” mediating relations between the three monotheistic faiths at the site the Jews call the Temple Mount and Muslims call Haram al-Sharif.
Israeli Communications Minister Ayoob Kara revealed that “professional discussions” were taking place with legal authorities with the aim of drafting a bill that would shutter Al Jazeera’s local bureau. But any such law is unlikely to apply to the network’s Ramallah bureau, whose journalists are accredited by the Palestinian Authority.
Speaking to The Media Line, Kara highlighted that the move coincides with efforts by regional Sunni countries led by Saudi Arabia to pressure Qatar, Al Jazeera’s owner, to close the cable media giant, which has been accused of promoting Doha’s interests; primarily since the Arab Spring uprising led to the replacement of multiple Arab regimes by the Qatari-backed Muslim Brotherhood.
“We are fighting extremism every day,” Kara affirmed, “and Al Jazeera promotes messages against Israel like ‘apartheid’ and ‘Israel is killing children’. They are not telling the truth, so if we have to legislate to stop the propaganda we will do it.” More generally, Kara contended to The Media Line that “if we allow Al Aljazeera to broadcast then it will enhance terrorism. We are doing our best to uphold liberal democratic values, but there is a border and Al Jazeera has crossed the red line.”
Finally, the minister concluded, “the Israeli government wants the media to be free and gives support to almost everyone to write what they want. But when it comes down to this or the security of the citizens of Israel, I side with security.”
Reinforcing the government’s apparent consistency on the matter, Israeli coalition chairman David Bitan—a member of Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party— is working on a separate draft bill that would likewise shut down Al Jazeera’s Jerusalem operation in the event that Kara does not advance his own proposal.
On the other end of the spectrum are press freedom advocates who consider the move against Al Jazeera as the latest evidence of an ongoing crackdown by Israeli leaders on civil society, especially as regards dissenting views that align with the Palestinian narrative. The Foreign Press Association’s Israel chapter, in which Al Jazeera journalists are accredited members, was hesitant to comment due to the matter’s sensitivity, yet expressed to The Media Line that, “changing the law to bring down a news organization is not a credit to a liberal democracy.”
For its part, Al Jazeera headquarters in Doha released a statement denouncing Netanyahu’s “arbitrary accusations and hostile statements” and stressing the media company “would take all necessary legal measures in case [Israeli officials] act on their threat.” And on Tuesday, Jerusalem bureau chief Walid Omary opined in a scathing article in the left-wing Haaretz newspaper that, “It may be easier for regimes to silence and eradicate independent free media in the short term for the sake of political expediency. But in the long run everyone pays a heavy price. A world without a diversity of opinions and views is a world of authoritarian rule.”
Omary also noted that Al Jazeera regularly hosts Israelis, including Netanyahu’s foreign media spokesman David Keyes, who has appeared on the network’s English station, whereas the prime minister’s Arabic spokesman, Ofir Gendelman, is a frequent guest on the main channel.
When contacted by The Media Line, the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office declined to comment.
Critics further argue that Netanyahu is using the July 14 Temple Mount attack as pretext to fast-track a pre-existing plan. In this respect, the daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported that Netanyahu convened a meeting on July 10—attended by members of the foreign and defense ministries along with security and press officials—to discuss preliminary steps for shutting the bureau down. Just days later, during a parliamentary meeting on Israel’s strategies towards Hamas, which is backed by Qatar, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman labelled Al Jazeera an “incitement machine.”
Since its debut in 1996, it is a charge often levied against one of the most controversial and, arguably most influential broadcast networks in the Middle East.