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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

#831
post #814

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering what happened in Germany the last time it held mass gatherings to protest against Jews, better to err on the side of caution.

This type of conflation is extremely dangerous. Criticism of the actions of the government of Israel is not the same thing as anti-semitism (a real and very bad thing). To make this claim essentially gives the government of Israel the go ahead to do absolutely anything without any possibility of criticism, because that criticism is never engaged with on the basis of its content but dismissed as anti-semitism.

Germany isn't banning criticisms against Israel. They're banning antisemitic symbolism (whatever that means) that gets used in the protests. They have been like that for a long time with Nazi symbolism that isn't explicitly antisemitic.

Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#832

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iannucci's Death of Stalin has the advantage that it's all history - it can't become more ridiculous after he made the movie because it's in the past. But of course the reality is more or less as absurd as the movie, although different in important ways. (Lots of the timing is completely wrong, events are re-arranged, people are shuffled about so that fewer actors play more important roles) but it does have the advan…

I really appreciate works like Death of Stalin that are more than happy to move things around in the name of entertainment. It isn't a documentary so it has the freedom to get creative and hit the key notes rather than pure accuracy. They also just said "No need to have Russian accents, the audience is smart enough to just go with what you have."

Using an accent without also speaking the right language seems needless.

I do like that Hunt for Red October has the Russians all speak Russian until one of them says a crucial word that's the same in English, and from there it's all English. "Armageddon". This submarine is capable of ICBM launch, starting World War III, and in the resulting ashes English or Russian would not matter.

Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#833
post #682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After rt.com et al were blocked in the EU they also kept working for a few more week/months before I had to use a mirror/VPN to read the new paper of "the enemy". Side note: I though being able to read the news of the enemy was testimony to the moral high ground of a "modern free and democratic society". No more moral high ground if you are trying to shape the perception of the public with censorship.

I personally don't support blocking Al Jazeera. It's not that I'm a fan of them or any news station operated under a dictatorship without free press. It's clear that Al Jazeera acts as the propaganda wing of the Qatari government, and Qatar, being one of the main sponsors of Hamas, uses it to effectively spread Hamas propaganda. However, the real question is what does blocking them achieve. Does it stop their influen…

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Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#835
post #761

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would likely be arrested if I wore my UK-created anti-fascist Football Fans Against Apartheid/Free Palestine pin, so it’s going into a drawer. Zionism has drowned all voices, my Jewish friends are being harassed for dissent too.

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/10/ha... Really, objectively, I am wondering what on Earth any country X would do faced with a statement from an enemy Y as in :- The complete and utter destruction of X as an essential condition for the liberation of Y and the establishment of a religious state based on [ Y's religious theocratic laws ] Any form of coexistence is clearly not on the table. For th…

In this case it's akin to the bullied child crying 'I'll kill you', from his puddle of blood on the ground. Israel's own conduct in Gaza and the West Bank is the primary threat to the existence of the state. Not two million impoverished people who've been crushed under an imperial boot since the theft of their land almost eighty years ago. Israel is a wealthy, post industrial US backed, nuclear power. Hamas are a convenient boogyman allowing them to further consolidate their control over land that international law recognises as occupied [1].

[1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up...

Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#836

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is a genocide...It’s ICJ’s No, it is not. The ICJ said Israel must "take action to prevent acts of genocide" [1][2]. [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/key-takeaways-worl... [2] https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192...

That was nearly 5 months ago. Did Israel take any of those measures? Or did you stop following the news since? Again. Reality check.

Yes! Yes it did! Israel is risking its soldiers’ lives and gives up home land security to reduce harm for civilians.

Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#837
post #776

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're missing is that Israel is banning foreign reporters from Gaza. That's why there are none there. It also number 1 reporter killing country in the world. Killed more than 100 in the last 365 days. Does EU kill reporters? So stop your false comparisons.

How many of those 100 journalists killed were intentionally killed because they were journalists, as opposed to dying as collateral damage? And if foreign journalists want to get into Palestine, they have other options than entering through the Israeli border, they can enter through the Egyptian border.

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Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#838
post #120

How big a share of Palestinian media consumption does Al Jazeera have? As in, do the residents of Gaza treat it as the main news source? The reason for asking is because a poll[0] of Palestinians says “90% believe that Hamas did not commit any atrocities against Israel civilians during its October the 7th offensive. Only one in five Palestinians has seen videos showing atrocities committed by Hamas.” So is it Al Jaze…

Wow, I did not know until now that 90% (!!!) of Palestinians "believe that Hamas did not commit any atrocities against Israel civilians during its October the 7th offensive," and "only one in five Palestinians has seen videos showing atrocities committed by Hamas." Are they really so misinformed?

If that's true, it makes sense to ask whether Al Jazeera has been purposely feeding misinformation to the Palestinian population during the war. And it makes sense to ask if that is in any way related by Al Jazeera's funding by Qatar, where the leaders of Hamas live: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/qatar-hamas-israel-1.699941...

Thank you for sharing this here.

Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#839
i am curious ig there is a valid threat in israelis reading al jazeera. or if they have any proof of any falsehoods being published there and why it would need to be shut down?. any good neutral resource around this for a non-israeli/non-palestinian person to make sense of this? from the surface this looks so grim, but i do not want to jump to conclusions... its so hard to make sense of this more and more.. and it becomes easier to beleive the wrong things.

Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#840
post #792

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The state's enemy isn't my enemy. Consider the case of Edward Snowden. Journalism is still valuable even if you disagree with the person's motives or aims.

No, but Russia is my enemy, and should be the enemy of everyone who cares about a liberal world order based on law, not might. And in the case of RT, they had left even the pretence of journalism a long time ago. But I agree with those that say we should not have banned them. When we try to defend our liberal world order with censorship, we are certainly throwing out the baby with the bath water.

> When we try to defend our liberal world order with censorship, we are certainly throwing out the baby with the bath water.

I agree with that - freedom of speech is one of the few things I think worth fighting for. We cannot fight for it while rejecting it.

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