Israel pushes ahead with barring Al Jazeera

ISRAELI authorities are planning to pursue their threat to crack down on the Al Jazeera television network after accusing it of being anti-Israel and inciting violence despite warnings from the Israeli Foreign Ministry that such a move would harm the country’s image abroad.

The foreign ministry gave warning that closing down Al Jazeera and ejecting its correspondents, as threatened by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, would put Israel in the same league as countries such as Venezuela, Cuba, Turkey, and regional dictatorships

and undermine a free media, an essential part of democracy.

Israel’s Government Press Office is seeking to withdraw the press credentials of Al Jazeera reporter Elias Karram, an Israeli citizen living in Nazareth, accusing him of backing the Palestinian resistance.

Karram recently appeared on a television network linked to the Muslim Brotherhood saying that, as a Palestinian, he believed reporting on the Israeli occupation and its abuses was his responsibility as a journalist and helped the resistance.

Karram, accredited since 2011, will attend a hearing to challenge the removal of credentials.

Failure to overturn the decision would bode ill for Al Jazeera’s other correspondents, many of them foreigners based in Israel.

The Government Press Office issues press cards required to travel to Gaza and attend government meetings, and enables journalists to gain the necessary residence and work permits.

Both Netanyahu and Communications Minister Ayoub Kara have publicly been pushing for sanctions against Al Jazeera.

A number of Arab governments in the region have closed Al Jazeera offices and ejected its journalists.

These include Egypt and Gulf States that fear the network’s coverage of human rights abuses and news critical of their regimes could undermine their power.