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Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

theguardian.com

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Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#591
post #15

I’m not sure about “dark day for the media” but it does feel like a dark day for Israel. Once you’ve established that the government can unilaterally ban a voice for reasons of “national security” you’ve essentially given them a free pass. As Americans living post-9/11 will know, “national security” is a deliberately elastic term that can cover anything required in the moment.

> As Americans living post-9/11 will know, “national security” is a deliberately elastic term that can cover anything required in the moment. One of the genuine cultural differences between the US and Israel is that while Americans prefer greater liberty (even if it means less security), Israelis prefer greater security (even if it means less liberty). Which is to say, both cultures appreciate both values, but they h…

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Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a standard behaviour in theocracies. Being against the Al-Sauds means being against Islam (according to the Saudi government), other governments do that too. Being against Trump is being against Christianism (according to Republican fundamentalists, hopefully those won’t end up in the cabinet again). The State props up the religion by normalising it and undermining its competition, and the religion props up the…

> Being against the Al-Sauds means being against Islam (according to the Saudi government) Pretty much every of the hundreds of millions of muslims who live outside Saudi Arabia (and probably a large number of those who live inside it) laugh at that, and despise the Saudi regime. If you do not believe me, try talking to some and asking them.

I know. The Iranians and the talibans do the same, the 3 are more or less incompatible and yet all pretend to be Islam in their country. It’s mostly for their captive audience. Islam in itself does not have to imply brutal dictatorship (this should not need saying).

Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe has done the same with Russia. Also, I think a few other Arab countries like Egypt have blocked/banned Al Jazeera.

The main difference would be that Al Jazeera is from Qatar and not Gaza, this would be the equivalent of the EU banning Armenia because they are friendly with Russia.

Banning Armenia isn't really an apt comparison since Israel isn't banning all media from Qatar, just one particular news organization which has very deep ties to the enemy they're at war with.

Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The U.S. Constitution provides rights for citizens to have free speech — not non-citizens. And in fact, the U.S. does not allow broadcast companies (along with various others, e.g. common carrier and aeronautical radio companies) to be more than 25% owned by foreign entities unless the FCC specifically approves them: https://www.fcc.gov/general/foreign-ownership-rules-and-poli... And for 60+ years the cap was 20%, an…

Free speech in the US is not limited to citizens. The first amendment reads “Congress shall make no law”. It doesn’t say anything about citizens. That’s a complete misunderstanding of the first amendment.

I believe you are incorrect. While non-citizens are granted freedom of speech while physically present in America, they are not granted freedom of speech outside of America. If they were, legal restrictions on foreign ownership of broadcast media companies would be difficult to enforce, since corporate expenditures are considered speech under Citizens United.

https://www.freedomforum.org/non-citizens-protected-first-am...

Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#595
post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think lots of people don't really have a "side", other than the side of just not wanting to see people suffer. I don't think that closing your eyes to that is neutral. Sometimes "do nothing" is an act of evil. In Northern Ireland and the Balkans international intervention almost certainly saved lives and helped bring about peace and relative stability. How long had they been fighting? There's probably some more exa…

That's kind of what I'm getting at. I don't support either side because both are wrong. Stopping the suffering means compromise and concessions on both sides. The best the world can do is make that clear and not get caught up protesting for one side or the other - again, both are wrong. Their current path will only lead to another 100 years of suffering.

> I don't support either side because both are wrong.

That's only true if you view the "Israeli government" and "Hamas" as the only sides that exist. That is not the case; you don't need to choose either of them.

Now, of course it's true that everyone has legitimate grievances here for all sorts of reasons, an it's also true that forever banging on about every little thing anyone has ever done wrong will lead to another 100 years of suffering. But that doesn't mean we (broad international community) can't and shouldn't try. Even if it fails, I think it was worth the effort to try.

Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you provide specifics? I'm looking at the Google Translate version of their Arabic site right now: https://www-aljazeera-net.translate.goog/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_t... It's all looking like pretty standard news stuff to me. And I don't know about you, but I see "controversial, disputed, or downright false claims that were reported uncritically as facts" all the time even in mainstream US publications. So I'd need to s…

It’s not worse at all. Actually probably the opposite, I learn some crazy stuff watching Al Jazeera and sometimes don’t believe it and go off researching it … and wow it’s very concerning. It seems almost certain to me there has to be some conspiracy amongst US publications to conceal certain information around Israeli-Palestinian conflict and history. As one example, read up on Ben Gvir, current National Security Mi…

Unfortunately, whenever anything is being posted on this topic, we get to see so many comments such as this.

> It seems almost certain to me there has to be some conspiracy amongst US publications to conceal certain information around Israeli-Palestinian conflict and history

No evidence was provided, just another unfounded conspiracy theory. What can we take away from this?

Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#598
post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See for yourself: https://www.memri.org/search-results?country_id_report%5B0%5...

fyi, MEMRI is a media outlet literally founded and run by Israeli intelligence officers.

That seems a bit misleading. According to Wikipedia, there were two founders, one of whom worked in the Intelligence Corps until 1988.

Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The U.S. Constitution provides rights for citizens to have free speech — not non-citizens. And in fact, the U.S. does not allow broadcast companies (along with various others, e.g. common carrier and aeronautical radio companies) to be more than 25% owned by foreign entities unless the FCC specifically approves them: https://www.fcc.gov/general/foreign-ownership-rules-and-poli... And for 60+ years the cap was 20%, an…

> The U.S. Constitution provides rights for citizens to have free speech — not non-citizens. This is basically untrue. At times, the court has applied different standards to speech by residents, but this does not mean that they would allow the government to apply any kind of limit on their speech, or indeed, more than very narrow ones. In addition, the first amendment also covers the right to receive information. For…

I believe RT actually is blocked from operating broadcast or radio services in America (although not cable services, since those are exempt — only free-to-air broadcast coverage is included in the legal restrictions), which is why it never operated free-to-air broadcast or radio services in the U.S., unlike in other countries.

Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do these numbers distinguish between journalists killed while doing journalism vs journalists killed as collateral damage not in the capacity of a journalist vs combatants who were journalists prior to picking up a gun and joining the war? I feel like its very hard to draw any conclusions from these numbers without distinguishing between those cases (other than of course that war is a tragedy and innocents generally…

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I did not read the whole thing, I read far enough to realize the methodology was garbage. The article basically says anyone ever associated with Hamas or resisting the IDF is a legitimate military target. Let's try switching that around. Anyone who served in the IDF or spoke positively of a successful attack of Israel against Palestine is a legitimate military target and not a journalist? No, this is obviously nonsense. I'm pretty sure at this point, there's almost nobody left in Gaza that hasn't said a few epithets towards Israel... that doesn't make them military targets.

Al Jazeera getting banned tracks with the current Israel government not being a huge fan of journalism.

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