Israeli government moves to ban Al Jazeera network

ISRAEL’S Communication Minister Ayoob Kara has demanded that Al Jazeera’s journalists’ press cards be revoked, that cable news providers throughout the country block Al Jazeera’s transmissions and that the pan-Arab news broadcaster be shut down altogether in Israel.

Speaking at a press conference, from which Al Jazeera was prohibited, Kara, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, alleged the news station produced material used by militant groups to incite violence.

“Regimes that want to control power will almost always go after two targets – the media and foreigners. Everybody goes after the media,” said Rami Khouri of the American University in Beirut.

Aidan White, the director of the Ethical Journalism Network in London, said that Kara’s remarks on Sunday presented “a full-frontal attack” on press freedom.

“It is a shocking statement, and it completely undermines Israel’s claims to be the only democracy in the region, because it gets to the heart of one of the most important institutions of democracy,” White said, adding that the attack on Al Jazeera was “an attack on all critical independent journalism”.

Kara justified the attack by citing the fact that Jordan and Saudi Arabia had imposed a ban on the news network.

“We have based our decision on the move by Sunni Arab states to close the Al Jazeera offices and prohibit their work,” he said.

Local offices of Al Jazeera have been closed in Jordan and Saudi Arabia and the news broadcaster’s transmission has been blocked in the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia.