Benyamin Netanyahu no longer wants to hear about Al Jazeera in Israel. The Prime Minister announced on Monday that he wanted to “act immediately” to ban the broadcast of the Qatari channel Al Jazeera in the Jewish state, shortly after Parliament voted for a law authorizing it to do so.
“The terrorist channel Al Jazeera will no longer broadcast from Israel. I intend to act immediately in accordance with the new law to stop the activities of the channel,” Benjamin Netanyahu said on the social network X.
The Knesset largely behind Netanyahu
The Prime Minister spoke shortly after the vote on Monday in the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) of a law to prohibit the broadcast in Israel of foreign media that undermine state security, a text targeting the Qatari channel . This law approved by a very large majority by the deputies (70 for, 10 against) gives the Prime Minister the possibility of prohibiting the broadcast of content from the targeted channel but also of closing its offices in Israel.
Al Jazeera denounced its possible broadcast ban on Monday, calling the Prime Minister’s comments a “dangerous and ridiculous lie.” The Qatari television channel castigated a “frantic campaign” against him launched by Benjamin Netanyahu who accuses him of “harming the security of Israel” and of having “actively participated in the October 7 attack”.
The Israeli army, for its part, has repeatedly asserted that Al Jazeera journalists were “terrorist agents” affiliated with Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad in Gaza.
Washington considers the decision “worrying”
The channel fiercely denies Israel’s accusations and accuses Israel of systematically targeting its employees in the Gaza Strip. The head of the Al Jazeera bureau in the Palestinian territory, Wael al-Dahdouh, was injured by an Israeli strike in December which killed the cameraman of the channel whose headquarters is in Qatar. This country is also the place of residence of Hamas leader Ismaïl Haniyeh.
The United States, Israel’s close ally, does not look favorably on the banning of Al Jazeera in Israel. “I will refer you to Israel on what they plan to do but (…) if it is true, such a decision would be worrying,” declared the spokesperson for the American executive Karine Jean-Pierre, adding: “We believe in freedom of the press.”